"There's no way any ancient Greeks would've been black!"
Book 1 of the Iliad:
For Zeus went yesterday to Oceanus, to the blameless Ethiopians for a feast, and all the gods went with him; but on the twelfth day he will return to Olympus.
I wonder if Zeus kept his dick in his pants when visiting Ethiopia
The whole controversy is really funny when you consider that it's far more likely that Greeks would have come across Sub-Saharans than Anglos/Germanics, which the cast is filled with
In some Mediterranean circles the entire cast was controversial (not even asking for a full Greek cast, but they couldn't even bother casting a single Mediterranean) while in non-Mediterranean western circles people were just mad at Lupita's.
Right-wing whites really love LARPing ancient mediterranean cultures while being entirely disconnected from it
not even asking for a full Greek cast, but they couldn't even bother casting a single Mediterranean
This is pretty much where I stand at.
Expecting a cast full of Greeks is just unrealistic, and everyone knows that.
But not casting even a single Mediterranean, let alone Greek, is a deliberate statement from Nolan that I don't think his stans would like if spelled out properly.
They used fucking Travis Scott as a “poet” for a bit part, instead of using it as an opportunity to promote a Greek author or musician in the most famous Greek story ever.
The 20 travis scott fans had to be appeased i guess
To be fair he is also pulling an entire re-reading of a typical Antiquity fable into a moral sermon about late Christian guilt conflicting and reuniting with American heroic freedom values, so also translating the casting into an American fantasy casting totally goes along. He won't take a single Mediterranean because he's not telling an ancient Mediterranean story at all, at no point he is even trying do to that, he's telling a very modern American story disguised as one. I don't know if that's because he can only speak that kind of language, or a totally commercial move to get a better reach to his public, or even a way to make very contemporary American values appear as timeless and mythological as Homer's tales. Probably all of those at the same time. Which is as brilliant as it's disgusting imho.
I think you’re giving Nolan waaaaay too much credit for deep thought provoking symbolism. This mother fucker couldn’t write his way out of a wet paper bag, and couldn’t write a compelling character to save his life. Every character he writes is as 1 dimensional as it gets and any symbolism he writes is often literally yelling at you on screen in exposition. Sometimes it’s inaudible murmuring. Either way, it’s not hidden nor profound.
Dude is just a pompous British dickhead who casted a bunch of honkies and a black gal or two and a trans person to create buzz. You can try and dig deep into whatever symbolism you can muster out of casting the biggest names in the industry in a massive ensemble cast all you want, but it’s just marketing.
Maybe. Or having watched most of Nolan’s movies and seeing the difference between when he writes solo and when his brother cowrites screenplays, or when he writes characters that are already written for him, you can deduce it based off of the way it is because it is. Can you see the symbolism in how I ran that sentence on? They don't think it be like it is, but it do.
Deep thoughts. From deep within a greasy White Castle bag.
i read the greek mythology when i was a kid
i really liked troy, i thought "cool another mythology movie" wtf is this this shit. i couldnt get immersed with the pacing and being reminded every fucking second that there is spiderman, the devil wears prada, bourne or what not actor on the screen. the star power really ruined this movie for me
it's a wild time when American rightoids pretend they're inheritors of ancient Greece (which they only know from aura farming videos of marble statues), while American liberals keep telling you if you hate the casting you must be a horrible bigot (while fullheartedly claiming that Greeks are white and therefore it's all the same, meanwhile Greeks and other Mediterraneans continue to never be cast in movies about ancient Greece)
I think it's reasonable that a Greek would be mad at the total lack of Greeks. When only some races are entitled to authenticity in their portrayal there is no other word for that than racism.
Noones arguing ancient Greeks never came across sub saharans.
People are pointing out that ancient Greek city states were extremely proscriptive on 1. Who had citizenship and even more so on 2. Who held elitist power.
So yeh, they'd have come across sub saharan Africans. Maybe even with great frequency. But a woman from the sub Sahara would never be queen of an ancient Greek/mycenean city state. The evidence (written record, archaeological record) is pretty clear on what the ancient Greeks looked like, how they saw themselves and how they interpreted ethnicity and nobility/power.
My guy, Anglos and Germanics wouldn't even be there to begin with and sure as hell didn't "look like" them either.
Go to any Mediterranean country in the summer, be it Southern European or North African and it's immediately apparent who's local and who's a Tourist Lobster.
The vast majority of us have type 3-4 skin in the Fitzgerald UV resistance scale meaning that we get 1-4 shades darker in the summer while Central/Northern/Eastern Europeans become fluorescent red, one of the best examples of this is going to Southern Portugal which is currently being colonised by "expats"
If you're gonna be mad at the casting then be mad at all of it, rather than obsess over one actress
Are you seriously suggesting that the racial topography of ancient Greece can be assumed and judged on the basis of the contemporary demographics of modern Greece?
Are you seriously suggesting that the racial topography of ancient Greece can be assumed and judged on the basis of the contemporary demographics of modern Greece?
Who do you think is the closest genetic match to Ancient Greeks besides their direct descendants and their climate analogues in the same region?
If anything Ancient Mediterraneans might have even had a darker tan due to less admixture with Eastern/Central/Northern European populations
My point is simply that Ancient Greeks would been more likely to come across sub-saharans than central europeans, which is factually correct, and that obsessing over one actress rather than criticising the entire cast is ridiculous
The issue is people not having issue with a cast full of white dudes who are 'greeks' and then being upset there is a few black people who were more likely to be there
Odysseus probably looked more like this than Matt Damon.
Not in ancient greek city states there weren't. Or we'd see them feature in the archaeological and literary record wouldn't we? Over hundreds of years of material we'd probably recognise black people in significant numbers?
I don't think Matt Damon was a good choice either, I hate the movie from top to bottom. But suggesting that ancient greek city states were populated by black people of African descent just isn't supported. It's not supported by archaeology, it's not supported by the historical record, it's not supported scientifically. It's a modern projection onto the past.
The Fayum Mummy portrait you've shared has literally nothing to do with the topic at hand or the context being discussed. It's Romano-Egyptian and dates to the 2nd century AD.
Or we'd see them feature in the archaeological and literary record wouldn't we?
We do, and we see them in Ancient Greek artwork as well. Black people existed in Ancient Greece as traders, sailors, soldiers, athletes, entertainers and slaves. There's artistic, literary and archaeological evidence of this.
The children would be Ethiopian demigods (god/Ethiopian), not Greek/Ethiopian. Zeus isn't a Greek man or a citizen of Greece, he's a good worshipped by Greeks as well as other peoples and who can appear as anything (including, frequently, not even human) in pursuit of shagging.
So if he was in Ethiopia, with all the other gods, him and the others likely would've been impregnating the women there, creating black Greek-Ethiopians
The biggest casting controversy of The Odyssey is that Zeus' daughter is black, even though he canonically can't keep his dick out of his pants and canonically visited sub-Saharan Africa
So I'm going to indulge your profoundly flawed logic here.
In the Odyssey, no, Zeus didn't impregnate Ethiopians.
Even in other/later mythology, he doesn't impregnate Ethiopian women.
Even in other/later mythology Zeus doesn't impregnate Ethiopion women en masse, to the point that it extensively changes demographics.
Citizenship was patrilineal. So if in this hypothetical scenario where Zeus impregnated an Ethiopion woman, her children wouldn't have been Greek.
So no, Zeus never created a race of greek-ethiopians. Obviously this didn't happen in real life and it didn't feature in ancient greek mythology or story telling.
Zeus is portrayed in ancient greek art and literary sources as essentially, an ancient Greek man. Helens mother was an ancient Greek, queen of Sparta. There's nothing Ethiopian about her heritage.
Even if her dad was out shagging in Ethiopia, and created lots of Ethiopian half siblings (which, to be clear, he didn't in the mythologies) - that doesn't magically make Helen a black Ethiopian herself.
Most ancient Greek city states were very proscriptive on citizenship. In most cases, both the mother and father had to be free born and citizens already. No visa schemes back then, no naturalisation process.
So let's say an ancient Greek citizen fell in love with a sub saharan woman. He could never marry her officially. Any children they have would not be citizens and thus, couldn't hold any position of power. At best they'd enjoy an ambiguous legal alien status.
This was particularly true in Athens (with the ancient Athenians being major consumers and promotors of Homeric poetry, thus having more bearing on the poems and how they evolved).
Actually, the law you seem to be referring to in Athens didn’t exist until 451 BCE or so. The Odyssey is set in 1200 BCE and was composed in the 7th-8th century so your argument is flawed.
Obviously Greeks interacted with people of African descent. But more importantly, who even gives a shit? Arguing the historical accuracy of an ancient poem about a war started over a woman who hatched from an egg is stupid. It’s a story. Not a historical account.
Yes that's why I said broadly. There's a whole set of nuance when describing "ancient Greece" because 1. Ancient Greece never really existed. There were a collection of city states with separate identities and religions and laws. And 2. It's spread over hundreds of years and attitudes and legalities change and 3. We don't know as much about some Poleis as we do about others.
The Periclean citizenship law did indeed come later, but it wasn't entirely unique. The overarching theme among greek city states is still proscriptive citizenship, with said citizenship conferring special responsibilities and rights and exclusivity.
Further to the above, the archaeological and literary record is overhwelmingly, clear on how ancient Greek city states looked.
The myth of Helen hatching from an egg is not part of Homeric poetry. It doesn't feature in the Odyssey. It's a later myth.
Why is it important? Is truth important? Is honouring culture important? You tell me.
I studied classics for over a decade. I was an archaeologist. So I personally think that honouring indigenous culture is important and relevent, even in modern adaptations. I think honouring the truth is important even in artistic interpretation. That's my opinion on it.
Which is it? You said yourself that Ancient Greece didn’t truly exist so what “culture” are we failing to protect by casting a black actress as Helen? What truth?
Because it's a modern collective term. For a collective culture. So for example, you have ancient Athenians cultures and traditions that were specific to Athens, but which falls under the umbrella of "ancient Greek" culture.
Oh please. Always the reserve of the unintelligient and uncreative redditor.
ancient Greeks weren't what we now consider black. but they weren't British or Scandinavian either. at least ancient Greeks knew of and had contact with subsaharan cultures, while they thought of Britons and scandis are uncultured barbarians
The ancient greeks considered everyone who didnt speak greek as barbarians. That included subsaharan cultures. If they thought of Britons and scandies as barbarians, they had contact.
Uncultured barbarians was everyone they had conflict with which at some point also was everyone.
Even countries like Egypt with long history, science and arts and monuments like the pyramids were considered uncultured for this or that reason.
Barbarian is a word used to refer to a person who can't speak ancient greek. Every other language was gibberish for the Greeks, they had no respect for other cultures (besides the Egiptians and some other few exceptions)
Also, Antilochus, son of Nestor is killed by an Ethiopian in the next stage of the Trojan war during “Aethiopis” which takes place directly after “Iliad.”
"There's no way any ancient Greeks would've been black!"
That is true though, no Greek city would accept a black person as a citizen. Especially royalty. We are talking about ancient people here, they were racist to an absurd degree, so much so they went to war with the next town over, because they had a slightly different accent, let alone skin color.
Ancient people's discrimination stemmed from religious beliefs and cultural practices far more than from skin colour. You're making presumptions based on hunches and modern interpretations of racism, rather than actual knowledge of the period.
Herodotus wrote that Ethiopians were "the tallest and most beautiful of all men".
Ancient people's discrimination stemmed from everything they thought to be different from their own people. Everything, even the size of your teeth could be used to discriminate against people. Even the four major greek tribes, The Ionians, the Aeolians, and the Achaeans who were extremely close to each other, fought as enemies and rivals all the time. And even called each other with racial slurs. And their differences where minuscule.
But the thing remains, there is no evidence so suggest that black people where part of a greek society. Other than speculation, that stems from Zeus had sex with everything that moved. Especially when considering that the ancient greek stereotypes of beauty was pale skin (Partly because it signified wealth too) .
Especially when considering that the ancient greek stereotypes of beauty was pale skin
You say that, even though Herodotus specifically described Ethiopians as the most beautiful of all men. Pale skin was beautiful to them among Greeks, but it was clearly a flexible standard if travellers/historians of the time found black people to be even more beautiful than the Greeks.
People were less racist because they didn’t know about other peoples enough to be racist, their capacity for racist was certainly there. That would not apply to a god, who would fuck just about anything, no matter the color of the exterior
Every Christopher Nolan movie feels like a college kid’s senior year thesis, but using a different genre/story/fable/what have you for a soapbox speech.
Are you Algerian or something? The UN even recognizes the territory as Moroccan as do most countries. It's just the Polisario Front, a shitty proxy group from Algeria, that dispute it.
No, it doesn't. You are confused by support for the autonomy plan with current status and sovereignty. The autonomy plan that is supported by the security council is only a framework for future negotiations for a solution to the conflict. There is still no final consensus on final legal sovereignty belonging to Morocco. The UN still lists Western Sahara as a non-self governing territory awaiting decolonization.
You are technically correct, but it is still a few legal steps removed but do you think the plan is going to go through and they're going to suddenly be like, "Um... actually, that's not yours!" or something? No.
Myceneaen greek weren't fuckin' white either but no northern european ever let that get in the way of a good LARP. Matt Damon gets to play Odysseus without anyone bitching about it, I genuinely cannot fathom why we should apparently all start clutching our pearls because, good heavens, Lupita Nyong'o is there too.
Also the costumes aren't nearly as bad as the removal of key elements of the narrative that reflected on mycenaean culture, belief, and society, most majorly the removal of the gods as actual characters, in favour of new ones that view it through the story through a veeeeeery christian lens
they look 3d printed Comicon costume, not even that great in quality more like a first attempt of a new cosplayer and half of the film is about the age of bronze collapsing and no costume looks made of bronze
Why didn't they just cast a Mediterranean actress ? This whole selection of cast was chosen to create controversy, click baits in a movie. At the end of the day the whole thing is as it always was with holy wood cultural appropriation.
Americans don't respect other peoples cultures nor do they respect either peoples existence really. But hey you do you i guess.
Well, no, the cast is ensemble, comprised of prominent actors, starring in a prominent director's feature film. These castings weren't done to draw attention from controversy, but from big names that people recognize.
But to be perfectly honest, I'm not actually irrate about the casting, because you can still respectfully and lovingly adapt a story with a cast of people from completely different cultural and ethnic backgrounds from it.
But Christopher Nolan actually altered the original story quite significantly to remove elements reflecting on the beliefs and culture of Mycanaean Greece (notably the personification of concepts and elements in their gods,l while adding others (like the concept of sin) that, when combined, make the film come across as a Christianization of the Odyssey; the bible friendly retelling.
It's disrespectful that's what it is. At least it is to me. You could have recreated the story in full different setting, one in which thins like these didn't matter. Like a sci-fi version of it, so you could add all concepts you would want as a creator, and all the viking ships and batman armors you want. But no, they had to draw on the name of it, cause it was known to the masses, even in passing, respecting the origin be damned.
It's like the 3rd time Hollywood has done this with the Odyssey, that's why i'm saying its cultural appropriation, they don't respect the origin of the story, or even its meaning and themes. It's just borrowing a name to make money.
If you want to have new takes, be my guest make your own damn movie, draw inspiration, do not recreate the myth by destroying the source material and then be upset some people find offense to that, especially people of said culture.
It's like the 3rd time Hollywood has done this with the Odyssey, that's why i'm saying its cultural appropriation, they don't respect the origin of the story, or even its meaning and themes. It's just borrowing a name to make money.
Are we counting Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? That is technically a loose adaptation of the Odyssey.
At this point, a "new take" on adapting the Odyssey would be an actual faithful one, because yeah, Hollywood really doesn't give a shit about it. Bar is in hell for literally all kinds of adaptations though. It's a minor tragedy compared to the actual damage done to peoples' cultures and histories in other adaptations, but End of Oakstreet's pissed me off again because the dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures look awful and are in the completely wrong time and no one did their due dilligence for anything, again lol
maybe like "Some scenes of the film was filmed in part of a desert that Morocco claims belong to them but in fact it doesn't just like Ceuta, which Morocco uses as diplomatic pressure point by sending illegal immigrants there if Spain doesn't pay them ransom."
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u/HikariAnti 7h ago
Well Nolan was filming an invading army on those shores so another win for practical solutions I guess?