Comment by Ivaylo Noizi Tsvetkov:
Let's start like this: Elena, although entirely mythological, could theoretically be black - at the end of the Bronze Age, the greatest Egyptian pharaoh, Ramses II (1279-1213 BC), ruled, subjugated Nubia (present-day Sudan) and took slaves from there, and his version of the New Kingdom certainly "interacted" with the Achaean Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean. But the amazing thing about the most discussed film at the moment is something else - that one of Odysseus' crew - Anchial, is played by... Korean actor Will Yun Lee. And here we can joke - the first evidence of domestication of horses in today's Korean lands is from nearly 10 centuries later. Later than the Trojan War, which according to Eritosthenes took place approximately between 1194 and 1184 BC. Ergo, if a Korean participated in it, he would have had to undertake a huge journey of nearly 9000 km on foot to join the Achaean-Trojan quarrels.
Apart from jokes: "Odyssey" by Christopher Nolan is such an amazing, epic and extensive film, although it deviates from Homer and largely "serves" of modern commercialization and relatively ignorant generations that the fierce clashes over woke and diversity should give way. But on the contrary - it turned out that the cultural social media wars over the film are comparable to the real Homeric battles, so spectacularly created by Nolan with the help of artificial intelligence. One wonders how a collection of trade conflicts in the Mediterranean from 3200 years ago, united much later in the Homeric poem based on oral traditions, can turn into a fierce dispute in 2026?
The historical context… insofar as it is historical
And now, one by one. First and foremost: The Trojan War is not historical, but mythological, i.e. everything we know about it is based on the ingenious "generalizer" for its time Homer. Honestly, no one knows whether Homer himself existed in 700 or so BC - around the first serious evidence of Achaean-Dorian organization of life in the Greek lands, which we call "Archaic Greece".
Second and no less important: to distinguish between a rudimentary myth and its creative interpretation, as Nolan did. As Wolfgang Petersen did with David Benioff's script with "Troy" from 2004. Ergo, Nolan can do whatever he wants, even to practice his so-called. color blind casting - i.e. color blindness, regardless of ethnicity and skin color. This type of recruitment of actors is not some ultra-liberal nonsense, but is a very real thing.
Third and seemingly most important: the idea of diversity or the so-called. ethnic diversity, as well as equal access for women, is not a Hollywood idea, but a completely justified turn towards modernity, which also has its philosophical roots. Roughly speaking, it is about resistance against the so-called typecasting, in which for many years in Hollywood, but not only, blacks, Asians and especially Latinos were sewn up as criminals, karatekas and servants of the dominant white race in Western culture as a whole for centuries. And now attention: giving them access does not mean that it loses anything (if it does not lead to the problematic "reverse racism"). It seems to me that it only gains. Of course, Nolan in particular is known as a partial rebel in Hollywood and, in my opinion, he deliberately forced his choice in order to cause the necessary storm of reactions that would contribute to the popularity and profits of the film. I would not be surprised even if his next Bruce Wayne, i.e. Batman is black.
And do you remember Morgan Freeman in "Shawshank"?
Nolan is not the first. But look at the difference between a world with social media, which equals culture wars, and the one before it. In Stephen King's famous novella "The Shawshank Redemption" his main character in prison is a red-haired Irishman, hence his nickname "Red". In the great film debut of history "Red" Morgan Freeman is in perhaps his greatest role. And no one got angry then, because we hadn't yet fallen into the whirlpool of the culture of being offended by the smallest fly, which in a matter of hours can become a cultural elephant.
What is Nolan actually telling us?
Let's talk a little about the film itself, quickly. Nolan has done a super-spectacular thing about the young man who doesn't know about the second plans in "The Odyssey", in the tone of "Game of Thrones" and all those Nordic sagas, without anything ancient Greek. In short, Nolan wants to suggest to us that the great basic myth of nostalgia is actually the elusive neo-myth of the journey to oneself, and not to Penelope and Ithaca. And that Odysseus is not necessarily happy to be returning.
This is a magnificent work of commercial cinematography that will be difficult to surpass. More importantly, we should be rationalists - what lessons can be learned from the myth? After being well entertained during the film, it is right that we do not stop thinking about what Nolan is telling us - about the horror of war, about the post-traumatic syndrome of the soldier, about the confusion and weakness in the soul of the named hero, about the fact that the Olympic gods do not exist, but are a metaphor for something more, and most of all - can a person's psyche recover from the dream hallucinations that haunt him for years? Nolan does it with a big Hollywood brush, no matter how funny it may be to those familiar with classical-cultural layers.
And something even funnier: according to Homer, Odysseus possesses "metis", the ancient Greek word for "intellectual cunning", which is why he is the Trojan Horse. At the end of the Bronze Age, when there is still no second plan for thought, this is astonishing.
Accordingly, Odysseus does not possess and cannot possess a moral precept that would stop him, it is too early in the cultural sense, and to even think about his actions. Are his choices just a matter of Achaean survival? Or a strictly personal one? The film asks these questions as well.
And you, 3200 years later? Do you really not understand that ethnic diversity gives people like you a certain chance? That it creates more jobs, drives the economy forward, and the fertilization between ethnicities and cultures reaffirms the idea of diversity?
P.P. Something like a joke: Today's average Bulgarian would say: Odysseus, great, you want to return to Ithaca to your wife, but why did you sleep for 7 years with the most beautiful daughter of Zeus - Calypso - on her island, even played by Charlize Theron (who was born in South Africa, by the way)? Huh? Don't sell me those.