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Conservatives are losing their already culturally challenged and tortured minds over Lupita Nyong\u2019o being cast in the upcoming epic fantasy film “The Odyssey.”
Nyong\u2019o has also appeared in “12 Years a Slave,” “Black Panther,” and “Wakanda Forever.” The Academy Award-winner will inhabit two major characters in director Christopher Nolan\u2019s adaptation of Homer\u2019s ancient Greek epic. She portrays Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world, whose abduction ignites the Trojan War, and Clytemnestra, Helen\u2019s sister and Agamemnon\u2019s mysterious spouse.
Helen of Troy is a significant individual in Homer\u2019s “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” She is primarily associated with “The Iliad” due to her role in starting the fictitious Trojan War, but she emerges in “The Odyssey” in a scene with the character Telemachus, played by Tom Holland.
The eagerly anticipated film features a regal A-list cast, including Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, and Zendaya as Athena. Several right-wing commentators have accused Nolan of producing a historically inaccurate depiction of the mythological poem. Additionally, for this rabidly Eurocentric mentally and morally regressive cast of right-wingers, the casting of Nyong\u2019o is a sinisterly engineered left-wing plot to undermine Western society. Yes, you read that correctly.
Mind you, we are talking about a fictional poem. Right-wing conspiracy theories continue to abound, no matter how retrograde or insane.
Understandably, several racially progressive individuals scorned the irascible Elon Musk, right-wing commentator Matt Walsh, and other MAGA members for arrogantly questioning Nyong\u2019o\u2019s casting as Helen of Troy while taking aim at her physical appearance.
Elon Musk took to X (formerly Twitter) to declare in unison with fellow bigoted commentators that Nyong\u2019o was not an appropriate selection to play the \u201cmost beautiful woman in the world,\u201d complaining the casting was an affront to Homer\u2019s original text, which described the fabled character as fair-skinned and blonde. The frequently maniacal Musk further claimed Nolan had \u201clost his integrity,\u201d foolishly charging the director chose the actor to satisfy Hollywood\u2019s diversity rules to \u201cwin awards.\u201d
White supremacist and conservative political pundit Matt Walsh complained itaht f a major studio cast a Sydney Sweeney or another white woman as the most beautiful woman in Africa, folks in Hollywood \u201cwould literally riot in the street.\u201d I guess he has not heard of the film “Cleopatra,” starring Claudette Colbert and Elizabeth Taylor, or of Sir Lawrence Olivier playing the African moor in “Othello.”
The conservative backlash directed at “The Odyssey” has not only been about racism following Nyong\u2019o\u2019s casting as Helen of Troy. Elliot Page, formerly known as Ellen Page, who earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in “Juno,” will play the tragic male hero, Achilles. Thus, for many on the social and cultural right, having a transgender performer portray a supposed heroic character, no matter how fictitious, is tantamount to blasphemy.
There are cases where nonfiction must prioritize truth and accuracy. Should Denzel Washington and Benicio del Toro represent Nazi soldiers in a movie about the Holocaust? Should Julianne Moore or Kathy Bates be given first priority to portray Harriett Tubman or Ida B. Wells on the silver screen? In all probability, no. Nonetheless, when it comes to fiction, the rules of rigidity are suspended. Fiction, by definition, has no obligation to be accurate. The reality is that opportunities for Black actors and actors of color in general are not as abundant as they are for white performers. Despite progress, it has been recent and minimal at best.
Racism impacts Black people in many areas, including the entertainment industry. The racist response to Nolan\u2019s casting of Nyong\u2019o is not about a concern for fealty to Homer\u2019s intent or to the \u201csupposed veracity\u201d of Greek classics. There is nothing new in altering and redefining the Greek classics. Instead, right-wing outrage is about the grand refusal to view Helen as anything other than an Aryan woman to pacify their own psychosexual obsession with whiteness as supreme.
It is indeed a sad, disquieting, and disturbing statement about our present-day society, one that must continue to be ruthlessly challenged.
Elwood\u00a0Watson\u2019s column is distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.<\/em>
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