A Black woman being cast in what Greek myth tells us is the most beautiful woman in the world, as well as still unconfirmed rumors about the possible casting of Elliot Page as Achilles, the Breaker of Men, has set the usual suspects into an uproar on social media. That includes Twitter-acquirer, and Trump Administration washout, Elon Musk.
On the rebranded X, Musk has posted over a dozen times this week about his disdain for Nolan’s The Odyssey, Nyong’o’s casting, and seemingly Page in general, sharing images and clips of Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy, a 2004 adaptation of The Iliad. “Troy is an epic movie,” Musk posted once under a user who promised they would only rewatch the Petersen film in July instead of The Odyssey. “Christopher Nolan [is stomping] on Homer’s grave,” another user wrote in a post Musk shared with millions via X’s manipulated algorithm.
The irony of all this noise—besides the fact that no one has yet seen Nolan’s Odyssey and is able to judge the filmmaker’s approach—is that all these supposed defenders of Western civilization reveal a complete lack of understanding of those foundational Western texts.
Again, we have not seen Nolan’s The Odyssey and therefore cannot judge any choice he’s made, but for anyone who is a student of Homer and the epic poems credited to that name, there is a lot to be intrigued about, not least of which is that, unlike Troy, Nolan seems to actually be turning to the classics for this story of longing, loss, and delayed homecoming.
For those too young to remember, Troy was welcomed with an arched eyebrow if not outright waves of revulsion from every antiquities, literary, and classics professor in the world circa 2004. Sure, Brad Pitt looked strapping in his (also historically inaccurate) armor, and Diane Kruger made a lovely Helen in her Hollywood debut. But they did so in a film where Achilles is not graced with near invulnerability after being dipped by his ankles in the River Styx, nor is Helen cursed by her beauty because of the fickle whims of gods, including Aphrodite, who according to Greek tradition compels Helen to go with the Trojan Prince Paris as a prize for picking Aphrodite in a contest with other immortals.
Frankly, that aspect of Helen being an unwilling Trojan bride never sat well with me, but giving Helen slightly more agency in her choice is the most minute of sacrileges and heresies in Troy, a film that removed the presence of the Greek gods entirely, reduced the infamously epic 10-year Trojan war to a couple of weeks, and committed to baffling decisions like allowing Paris (Orlando Bloom in that movie) to survive the sacking of Troy and his own cowardice; or Achilles awarded some unearned movie star redemption for his awfulness when he comes back to save his one-time slave girl Briseis (Rose Byrne) from fellow Greeks after Troy is put to the torch.
