Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’
exemplifies all that’s
wrong with modern Hollywood
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There is
nothing like a good old sword-and-sandals Hollywood epic: Ben-Hur, The Ten
Commandments, Jason and the Argonauts. However, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey
is nothing like a good old Hollywood epic. Costing around 250 million dollars,
it’s typical of modern Hollywood nonsense, more about propaganda than profit,
and Oscars than being faithful to the source material. They are willing to take
a financial hit if the film ticks all the diversity boxes set by the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be eligible for Oscar nominations. Please
click here to see how silly this is:
Representationand Inclusion Standards | Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts andSciences
Therefore, whether you win an Oscar or not is more about inclusion and diversity than about making the best film. Nolan has sold his artistic integrity for a gold statue. For example, Helen of Troy is a black woman, Lupita Nyong’o from sub-Saharan Africa, who also plays her sister, a good actress wasted in the wrong part. Homer has Helen of Troy as white with blond hair and blue eyes. Zendaya, who plays Athena, the goddess of wisdom, etc., is also miscast; her performance in Dune is particularly wooden, but given that I’m not that keen on Dune anyway, finding it quite boring and long, perhaps she is just ordinary.
More typical Hollywood lunacy is the casting of Elliot Page (formerly Ellen Page) as Achilles, a trans woman to play the greatest warrior in Western Literature!
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| Who is the greatest warrior in Western Literature? Clue - its not the one on the right. |
And the narrator is rap singer Travis Scott, cast as the bard – You can’t make this stuff up. Oh yes, you can, because the whole film is based on the faulty translation/reimagining of Homer's Odyssey by progressive feminist classicist Emily Wilson, who is purported to be the first English translator of Homer's epic poem by a woman.
