Go Ahead, Watch ‘The Odyssey’
This story raises questions about governance, accountability, and American values.
Let's start with what the movie actually is before anyone wastes more breath on it: a Christopher Nolan adaptation of Homer, with a cast list that includes Elliot Page in a minor male role and Lupita Nyong'o as Helen. That's it. That's the scandal.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Some on the Right have spent the last several months complaining about Christopher Nolan’s “Odyssey.” The controversy has largely centered on two things: transgender-identifying Elliot Page playing a male soldier (but not Achilles, as rumors suggested) and the race-blind casting, particularly the choice to feature black actress Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy.
Elon Musk
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Let's start with what the movie actually is before anyone wastes more breath on it: a Christopher Nolan adaptation of Homer, with a cast list that includes Elliot Page in a minor male role and Lupita Nyong'o as Helen. That's it. That's the scandal. Not a rewrite of the plot, not a message movie, not some woke reimagining where Odysseus comes home and discovers gender is a construct. Just casting choices in a nearly three-thousand-year-old story that has been retold, remixed, and reinterpreted since before anyone in this argument's ancestors could read.
Here's the thing about the Right getting worked up over stuff like this before a single trailer drops: it hands the other side exactly the caricature they want. Cultural conservatives spend a lot of energy, rightly, arguing that art and institutions shouldn't be hijacked to push an agenda on people who just want a good story. Fair fight. But preemptively torching a Homer adaptation because of who's in the cast isn't defending anything. It's just grievance with a movie ticket attached, and it makes serious cultural criticism look like a reflex instead of a principle.
Nobody's forced to watch it. Nobody's forced to like it. If Nolan's Odyssey turns out to be a mess, judge the mess. If Nyong'o's Helen doesn't work, say so after you've seen her play the part, not because of a headline about her being cast. The Odyssey has survived worse adaptations than this. It'll survive Elon Musk's opinion too.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.