From the team that brought you “Why is Snow White Latina?,” “Why are there Black people in ‘The Rings of Power?,’” and “Star Wars has gone woke,” comes the latest online onslaught against an anticipated Hollywood project that committed the unfathomable sin of having a diverse cast.
In recent days, Twitter trolls have formed a phalanx and pointed their sarissas squarely at “The Odyssey,” Christopher Nolan’s $250 million adaptation of Homer’s epic scheduled to hit cinemas July 17. They have not actually seen the film yet, mind you, but have nevertheless managed to work themselves into a lather over a pair of castings (though Page’s character isn’t even confirmed yet): Elliot Page as Achilles’ Ghost and Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy.
Forget that Achilles and Helen of Troy are both fictional characters navigating a mythological fable replete with a giant Cyclops, six-headed Scylla, and assorted other gods and monsters, or that these are just two actors in a giant cast that includes mostly white folks. In Homer’s telling, these two characters were white and with golden hair, so according to these apparent literary purists, they must be so in each and every adaptation. Why can’t Nolan’s film be more like “Troy,” Wolfgang Petersen’s 2004 big-screen version of “The Iliad,” with its blindingly blond Achilles (played by Brad Pitt) and its Aryan Helen of Troy (Diane Kruger), they argue:
