Scholars say the controversy over The Odyssey reflects a centuries-long effort to whitewash the ancient world.
Anyone familiar with Homer’s ancient epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, knows the mythical figure of Helen of Troy is simply a catalyst, with a significant but minor role to play. She is a demi-god—offspring of the rape of her mother Leda by the god Zeus, disguised as a swan—who hatched from an egg and is subsequently billed as “the most beautiful woman in the world.” Her elopement with the Trojan prince Paris (or kidnapping, depending on what one thinks of her agency) triggered the 10-year Trojan War.
The latest actor portraying her on the big screen, Lupita Nyong’o, appears in Christopher Nolan’s grand, near three-hour long epic-sized retelling of this ancient story. Although Nyong’o plays two roles, including Helen’s twin sister Clytemnestra, she is in very few scenes—but she makes the most of them, transcending both objectification and symbolism while grounding her roles in ways that subvert patriarchal limitations and the carnage of war done in Helen’s name (and to her face).
In the lead up to the film’s premiere, however, one would think Nyong’o occupied more screen time, given how her mere presence launched more than 1,000 tweets—just as her literary counterpart “launched a thousand ships” (as said by poet Christopher Marlowe, not Homer).
Incidentally, the “debates” emerged from the typical sources of white supremacy and white nationalism. On X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk “tweeted” his outrage against Nolan’s artistic choices, further echoed by bigots and anti-“woke” commentators who believed The Odyssey is an exclusive legacy heralding Western civilization—which a dark-skinned Black actor like Nyong’o supposedly undermined through her casting as Helen of Troy.
… Homer even wrote that the gods vacationed with the Ethiopians. … There’s ancient precedent for having someone like [Lupita Nyong’o] playing the most beautiful woman in the world.
Rosa Andújar, author of Playing the Chorus in Greek Tragedy
Now that the movie is out, moviegoers can appreciate Homer’s epic storytelling through Nolan’s grand cinematic adaptation of the adventures of war hero Odysseus (played by Matt Damon in an Oscar-worthy turn). The luminous, sprawling IMAX cinematography captures sweeping landscapes and shorelines: from chaotic battle scenes; to the ominous appearance of the Trojan horse half-buried in sand (much like the Statue of Liberty in the original Planet of the Apes, signaling the collapse of civilization—in this case, the Bronze Age); to the barren sand-covered island of the enchanting sea nymph Calypso (played with seductive maturity by Charlize Theron), where Odysseus spends seven years digesting lotus leaves in a state of amnesia and literal blissful ignorance.
The soundscape matches the visual scope of the film, with a score by Ludwig Göransson that pulsates with a haunting vibe, looping throughout the drama like a motif for a trauma-laden war veteran.
The movie is loud—the screams of the injured Cyclops still ring in my ears from memory—but it underscores the impact of an epic tale, expansive enough to critique wars and incivility (such as violations of ancient codes like “Zeus’ Law”) with modern touches that allow for the occasional feminist monologue offered by the few fascinating women in the film. (They would have benefitted with more screen time to expound on their wit and wisdom that Homer captures lyrically.)
These took form in the vengeful warnings of Circe (magnificently portrayed in a cameo by Samantha Morton), in the cynical proclamations of “empty thrones” by Penelope (played by Anne Hathaway as Odysseus’ patiently waiting wife and queen) or even in the heartfelt apology of Helen of Troy for her part in the war, projecting regality while determined to exert her subjecthood in this grand tale.
Nolan’s The Odyssey, far from “undermining” Western civilization, validates the culture even more—especially given its quarter-billion-dollar Hollywood production, best seen and appreciated in movie theaters.
So, why did some react to this latest retelling of The Odyssey as if the mere presence of a Black woman would delegitimize its place in history? And should we ignore them as out-of-touch fringe extremists?
Reclaiming an Ancient Tale
Scholars of antiquity would argue this public discourse is far from “fringe.” In fact, they recognize these conversations as part of a centuries-long cultural battle over our perceived world heritage and over who “owns” the past.
“People tend to say, ‘Oh, these stories are timeless and universal,’” says Rosa Andújar, one of the co-editors of The Cambridge Companion to Classics and Race and author of Playing the Chorus in Greek Tragedy. “But guess what? Whenever you have any controversial racial casting, you find out how truly universal they are.”
Curtis Dozier agrees. As the author of The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate, Dozier says definitions of whiteness have been made synonymous with cultures of antiquity, which is why white nationalists are willing to fight for “ownership” of the classical world.
“The casting of Black actors to play figures from the ancient Greek world always gains traction,” Dozier said. “I’m thinking of casting Black actors to play Cleopatra or Achilles, which are recent examples. There’s an unspoken desire for the ancient Greek world to be racialized as white. In a white supremacist society, you need to justify the belief in the superiority of this made-up identity of whiteness. And one way to do that is to claim that prestigious histories, which are admired and celebrated, are a racially white history.”
The diversity of the ancient world is our collective heritage.
This desire is not only reflected in present-day online conversations but in the history of classical studies itself. Jackie Murray, another co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Classics and Race, argues that antiquity scholarship originated from white supremacy.
“We have to look at the classical world, the Greek and Roman classical world, as racially radioactive,” Murray said. “From the get-go, from the beginning of the discipline, it has always been in bed with white supremacy.
“Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who was the father of classical art history and archeology, was explicitly a white supremacist. He believed the white color itself was superior to other colors, and he really supported this idea of white people”—being German, he’s thinking of Northern European white people—”as superior to all other people. Particularly, the idea that they’re the most beautiful people. Then that informs how the race scientists develop their ideas about the different hierarchies with white people at the top and Black people at the bottom and using the head of the Belvedere Apollo as the ideal white man… [while] using a chimpanzee aligned with a caricature of an African.”
Such ideas amplified through the eugenics movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as with the development of Hollywood cinema.
“Hollywood especially is egregious for this,” Murray continued. “I think of all those sword and sandal movies. If there are Black people in there that are not Blackface, they’re depicted as slaves. You can see over generations of people envisioning the ancient world as this white supremacist space and now being confronted with the reality that the ancient world was in fact a diverse place.”
The Diverse Ancient World
Our understandings of race—specifically concepts of “Black” and “white”—only date back to the 18th and 19th centuries. This means that modern ideas about “race” have no correlation in the ancient world. Indeed, ancient Greek writings reveal a far more diverse Mediterranean world than was previously thought, with different perspectives about the African continent.
Andújar says, “Herodotus, [the father of history], who traveled around, called the Ethiopians, who were dark-skinned, the most beautiful people in the world. … In fact, Homer even wrote that the gods vacationed with the Ethiopians. I would say that there’s ancient precedent for having someone like [Lupita Nyong’o] playing the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Given how some of Nyong’o’s fans already think of her as a demi-goddess, it would not be difficult to imagine her or anyone in her Kenyan lineage (tracing back to the oldest mitochondrial Eve genetic line and most likely commingling with those of the Kemetic and Kushite regions of the African world) as “vacationing with the gods.”
“The discipline [of antiquity] has put whiteness on a pedestal in an effort to invert the actual ancient Greek aesthetic, [which] looked to the south and the east,” Murray stated. “They explicitly say that the most beautiful people are the Ethiopians… The early Greek statuary, the Kouros, which is supposed to be the ideal male body, is based directly on the statues of the Pharaohs. At the time that the Kouros is developed, it’s literally the Black Pharaohs they’re building the statues on.”
… Ancient Greek writings reveal a far more diverse Mediterranean world than previously thought.
“The way people see skin color and attach meanings to it, that changes across different geographical locations [let alone] the pre-modern past,” Andújar said. “Just think about how much has changed in the last handful of years. Something that I’ve enjoyed as a scholar of antiquity is getting to know how alien and how different they were from us.”
Still, so much has taken place across the centuries to diminish Africans in the eyes of the world (the white and Western world specifically), which then drives contemporary controversies about race and beauty.
“There’s been a sustained program since the Renaissance era and onward, especially after the transatlantic slave trade, with co-opting the Greeks and making them white,” Andújar explained.
They know this movie could be a threat to them because it creates the possibility for imagining history in different ways.
Curtis Dozier, author of The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate,
Ancient Stories in Contemporary Times
Such developments remind us how our own present-day debates are less about the ancient world and more about our contemporary values.
“[Right-wing conservatives] know that the way you tell history supports political points of view,” Dozier said. “And they want to control that. It’s not enough to have Congress and the Supreme Court and the White House. They know this movie could be a threat to them because it creates the possibility for imagining history in different ways. They know that it seriously undermines their claims to authority.”
“This is a modern problem,” Murray noted. “There is a coordinated effort by white supremacists with power to promote white supremacy using social media platforms and bots and whatnot. This is not something that normally just appears as a thing.”
The diversity in The Odyssey’s casting – from Nyong’o to rapper Travis Scott reframed as a Greek bard, to biracial actor Zendaya cast as the goddess Athena (whose role takes a surprising turn), to British-Indian actor Himesh Patel as Odysseus’s second-in-command, to trans actor Elliot Page appearing as the soldier Sinon in a brief but haunting moment—can nonetheless push a different vision of multiracial and gender-diverse societies engaging with our world heritage through these retellings. Even so, focusing on the ancient Mediterranean world for classical storytelling poses its own problems of dominance.
“There’s a simple reason why we are focusing on The Odyssey,” Andújar said, “and that has to do with the advantage that these stories have had. Because of the value that colonizing and imperializing nations have given to these visions of antiquity. The Greeks and the Romans have had an unfair advantage across millennia. I would love to see more world mythologies in movies, like the Aztecs and the Mayans.”
Fortunately, other movies exploring other histories and cultures are beginning to surface, especially when directed by filmmakers of color.
Gina Prince-Bythewood comes to mind, who directed The Woman King and the forthcoming fantasy film Children of Blood and Bone.
So does Maggie Kang, who wrote and co-directed last year’s globally celebrated KPop Demon Hunters.
As does Ryan Coogler, who directed the Black Panther blockbuster films, including Wakanda Forever (which expanded beyond African cultures to include Mayan culture) and who also has plans to develop a film about the legendary African king Mansa Musa.
We can even speculate that Nyong’o’s feature in the Black Panther franchise led to consideration for her part in The Odyssey.
While Nolan’s The Odyssey continues to boost the culture of ancient Greece, the multiracial retelling nonetheless invites openings for other interpretations (such as, when will Andromeda’s “Ethiopian beauty” be recognized?), other myths and other histories. This is epic storytelling that belongs to the world—not just the few clinging to outdated racial hierarchies. The diversity of the ancient world is our collective heritage.
