Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey has attracted a lot of attention for its DEI casting.
Elon Musk is especially aggrieved and taken to social media to share his thoughts on Helen of Troy being played by Lupita Nyong’o and Elliot Page’s role as Ithacan warrior Sinon.
Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
I must confess, that as a person of Greek heritage and a longstanding devotee of Homer’s works, I was incredulous about the casting choices. However, having seen the film I didn’t really notice it as jarring, nor did it affect my enjoyment of the film, which is very good, if a little too long.
The Odyssey is a work of fiction or mythology, and the story contains monsters, gods and the supernatural, so veracity in casting is not as critical as Elon Musk contends. I’m not sure whether Nolan’s Cyclops or Scylla matched Homer’s imagined vision either, so a black Helen of Troy needs to be considered in this context. I did, however, find it odd that Helen had an identical twin sister in Clytemnestra. While Nyong’o is certainly beautiful, Helen was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world, surely a singular achievement, rather than one to be shared with your twin. Perhaps they launched 500 ships each?
Similarly, Elliot Page’s performance is fine. Page is perhaps a little fine-boned and delicate to be imagined decapitating Trojans, but Nolan gives him a brave vulnerability which works in the film.
Although more physically suitable for the role than some of the other cast members, Matt Damon is not exactly your typical Ithacan either, tending to a more Norse or Celtic flavour. There are also a few South Asian warriors in Odysseus’ troop which you may have noticed. These casting choices were interesting but not as odd to me as the one scene where an old villager spoke Greek, the only Greek spoken in the whole film, and modern Greek at that, or Jon Bernthal playing Spartan king Menelaus with a strange Queens or New Jersey accent which would have been more at home in the Sopranos.
Whether Nolan was ticking DEI boxes, playing to Woke Oscar voters, or just trying to make a modern adaptation of an ancient and enduring tale only he can answer.
Once you move away from complete verisimilitude with Greek-only casting, classical Greek dialogue and analogue sets, all bets are off.
Mel Gibson sought faithfulness to his ancient Mayan subject matter with Apocalypto in casting mostly central American actors, and it was great film as a result, but even Mad Max had to cut a few corners in historical accuracy. The recent casting of black actress Adele James to play Cleopatra, who was known to be a Ptolemy from Northern Greece or Macedonia, is perhaps a little harder to defend and resulted in a serious amount of backlash from Egyptians especially. The charge there was of ‘blackwashing’. However, I’m not sure Elizabeth Taylor was particularly Ptolemaic either, even with that gorgeous eyeliner makeup. Back in 1959, the decidedly gentile Charlton Heston played Judah Ben Hur with admirable semitic gravitas despite there being many Jewish actors in Hollywood at the time available for the role.
Having said all of this, DEI or representative casting has become a bit ridiculous and annoying. The mixed-race casting in say, Hamilton or Bridgerton is part of the directors’ conception, and you watch these shows accepting this. However, I would struggle to watch a movie in which Idris Elba played Julius Caesar (which could well happen) or Robert Downey Junior playing Martin Luther King (which would never ever happen) or where Chris Hemsworth played a Zulu warrior. Race aside, physical suitability also needs to stay within bounds. Joe Pesci wouldn’t play a realistic Thor or Melissa McCarthy a realistic Wonder Woman.
The more cloying development is the now predictable and non-negotiable use of Woke cinematic tropes. These carry a nauseating and censorious morality which infects Hollywood generally: every judge, military leader, agency head, general, or captain must be a female person of colour. 5-foot-3, 50 kg women always seem to be able to deploy their martial skills to subdue lumbering 100 kg, 6-foot-plus white males. All villains must be of some undesignated Eastern European origin. Brutal cops and soldiers are always Caucasian, usually Anglo-Celtic. Idiotic and corrupt bureaucrats and politicians always look like descendants from the Mayflower. The tropes work in only one direction. For example, black actors would never be cast to play Nazis. Of course, this would be ridiculous on many levels but equally ridiculous are some other now stereotypical casting choices.
Advertising is also overrun with DEI to the point of absurdity. Any advertisements which show more than four people in a group must strive to have a representative of every ethno-cultural group in the world. This is not per se objectionable, but when it’s not too subtly rammed down our throat it is annoying and often results in ads completely missing their target audience.
The world may be represented in such artistic and cultural forms as the artist decides. However, when real historical events are portrayed, they should generally be portrayed in a manner that reflects the relevant times by actors that are apt for the role, or there is risk the audience will check out. Audiences are also happy to watch movies about real events or real people as art forms and pure entertainment provided the actors’ performances are convincing, but they also know when they are being patronised and served up a lesson in morality and DEI training and I suspect they won’t keep allowing Hollywood to get away with this.
