Greek Man’s Take on The Odyssey Controversy Is A Nonsensical Journey

The Odyssey is doing a number on conservative influencer-types. And, one man is going through it.

On social media, Homer Pavos is up in arms over the beginning of Christopher Nolan’s latest film. He’s posting through some frustration about “Greek History” being misinterpreted by the filmmaker. In particular, he’s taking offense with the idea of having a Black storyteller being the first lens we see the movie’s narrative through.

If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the narrative surrounding this film, you know that a group of posters has decided that the race of the actors would become a discussion. The casting of Lupita Nyong’o and Eliot Page has been debated into oblivion in these corners of the Internet. 

Hysterically, there’s basically been no material effect on The Odyssey’s performance though. Nolan’s latest brought in $51 million yesterday. And, the epic looks to be the director’s biggest box office opening since The Dark Knight Rises. Still, this poster and those like them are going to keep grousing about historical accuracy for a functional myth.

Mad About Historical Accuracy and The Odyssey

“The Odyssey begins by showing an African rapper with rasta in the role of a Greek poet. We Greeks are forced to watch our Greek history and culture being disgraced and mocked across the entire world,” Pavos argues. “What is Nolan’s real role in doing something like this instead of casting a Greek person speaking Greek? What’s the purpose of casting someone with rasta in the Greek world?”   

“I’ll tell you. Nolan and Hollywood are the real racists and enemies of the West. They hate us Greeks,” the writer thinks. “The simplest confirmation comes from the fact that when a film is about African history, they don’t cast white people, only Africans. When it’s about Chinese or Japanese history, they cast only Asians, and they even speak only in their own language.” 

“But now that the time has come for a film based on Greek history with Greeks, not a single Greek is cast, they don’t speak even a bit of Greek, and they don’t even respect Homer,” the poster continues. “So, for films about European cultures, Africans, Asians, and anything else must be cast, but when it comes to African culture, whites are not allowed to play those roles.” 

Some thinly-veiled bigotry on the way out  

“This is the real racism of Hollywood. Hollywood is a cancer that rots your souls and enslaves your minds and spirits. They hate you and they want to destroy you. Never forget the real enemies of the West and of your race. Those who are in universities, the academics, teaching your children how to hate their ancestors instead of honoring them. Don’t do them the favor. Love the Greco-Roman world and fight those who hate you. Never forget the traitors who took everything as a joke and contributed to the plan to destroy Western civilization,” the take mercifully ends.  

So many dogwhistles! And, they’re just sailing into the wind while this movie makes every single cent it can during opening weekend. A lot of the conservative influencers on X have tried their darndest to poison the viewing public against this film because of diversity. And, looking at these box office returns for The Odyssey, they have failed by almost every metric.

(Photo Credit: Universal)

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.