Elon Musk, aka the MAGA SpaceNazi, was so triggered by Christopher Nolan’s recent film, The Odyssey (or more accurately the casting in it), that he huffily screamed on Xitter that his shitty, Musk-influenced AI program, Grok, would produce a manlier, AI-generated version by year end that was “historically accurate” and “true to the art of Homer.” Variety Magazine wryly noted that, “Given the presence of cyclops, six-headed monsters and a witch who turns sailors into pigs in “The Odyssey,” a nearly 2,800 year old epic considered to be a work of fiction, how “historically accurate” any retelling — AI generated or otherwise — can be is likely to be called into question.” Insert sarcasm emoji.

Nothing like wasting money and the planet’s resources on a selfish, pointless project to make your manic, racist outrage come true and fulfill your white supremacist ideology. Maybe he’s going to make a historically accurate version of the latest Avatar or Godzilla film, too.

And what, you ask, is Musk’s business in this? He wasn’t the producer, a funder, an actor, or a director; he isn’t a professional reviewer, or involved in the filming or distribution in any way. Answer: nothing. He’s just a rich guy with an opinion and a platform he can make sure everyone sees his comments. But having no vested interest in the topic has never stopped MAGA cultists — or Musk — from inserting themselves into every discussion, event, policy, review, image, decision, or post that triggers their fragile sensitivities, their racism, or might suggest the presence of dreaded woke DEI. Musk just has to chime in with his toxic content to stir them up because manufacturered rage is what he does best. Cue the snarling beasts who howl at his every word.

Make a “historically accurate” film about a 2,800-year-old fantasy tale with witches, gods, ghosts, sirens, and cyclopses? Everyone literate enough to have ever read The Odyssey in any form — even in the Classics Illustrated comic version (no. 81) — did a facepalm over Musk’s egregious racist stupidity. Again.*

And let’s be clear: something “true to the art of Homer” would have to be in ancient Greek, and in verse to meet that criterion. Homer spoke (or sang) his works at public gatherings, as did all bards and poets before writing was invented. To make it in English, it would be based on a translation (i.e. an interpretation and presentation), not Homer’s original.

Meanwhile, online sites (especially on social media and Russian State TV’s rage-baiting American propaganda outlets and influencers like Fox Newz and Newzmax) fan the flames of the testosterone-fuelled racist and sexist umbrage over the film into a tsunami of fragile men ostensibly hurt by the casting in a film they’ve never seen. Or have ever read its source (or are likely to do either). As Variety also added,

Presumably, Musk is referring to the racial element, with him having been the most prominent voice attacking the casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. In March he wrote that “Chris Nolan is an anti-White racist,” claiming that he only cast Nyong’o because “He wants the awards.” While not confirmed, the all-white AI cast of the short film he posted on X would appear to be more in line with what Musk would prefer.

Presumably? Presumably Musk is a MAGA racist and white supremacist? Are you surprised? Me, either. It’s just one of his public faces of intolerance and ignorance. MAGA itself is deeply racist, sexist, and anti-literate. Building the cultists into a cyclone of outrage is easy, given their gullibility (after  all, they did elect the felon grifter-in-chief twice…).

Newsweek added:

The comments helped fuel a wider debate over representation, historical accuracy and creative license in modern adaptations of classical works.

Which is just piffle. The “debate” on the right is a howl of outrage and pretend hurt, not a series of point-counterpoint thrusts over the film’s issues and structure. On other parts of the political spectrum it’s not so much a “debate” as wondering aloud how and why MAGA got so thin-skinned, ignorant, and gullible, while presenting actual facts and details for consideration. MAGA doesn’t debate: it whines.

Since film was invented, it has presented innumerable stories that violate any claim to historical accuracy, including adaptations of classical works or historical events. Have you seen Jason and the Argonauts? Troy? Dunkirk? Pearl Harbor? Pompeii? Or any film based on a biblical myth? Film works within the power and limitations of its medium.

And where’s the outrage over casting white-skinned Matt Damon, an American, as an olive-skinned Mycenenan Greek? Not even over the lack of a Greek accent? Oh, right: Damon’s a white guy. No MAGA outrage when white guys are cast as anything, regardless of appropriateness.

The question arises whether Musk has ever actually watched Nolan’s film. Is he just reacting in his typical knee-jerk reaction, pandering to the many MAGA illiterati on his platform who take offense at anything they consider “woke”  — or anything intellectual, scientific, literate, artisitic, cultural, inclusive, compassionate, empathetic, satirical, or that might in some minor way expand their horizons beyond their myopic racism and pseudoscience? Methinks Musk did not watch it. Or has even read Homer in any translation. Let alone bother to Google it and try to understand what the story is actually about , the mechanisms of Homer’s poetry, or the director’s responses to his choices. Facts (or reality) are not big on any MAGA checklist.

And as noted on Fox Newz: “Many people don’t view their issues with the film as “irrelevant,” nor do they seem to believe one needs to see it before criticizing it.” By “many people” they mean MAGA cultists, of course. Why would MAGA want to see a film or read a book before expressing their views on its content? That would defeat the who purpose of manufactured outrage.

Does this sky-is-falling imbroglio remind you more than somewhat of the brouhaha snowflake MAGA men raised over the film, Barbie? Me, too. MAGA men were scared then that even saying the title, much less watching it, would turn them into purse-carrying feminists. So they raged over it without seeing it, just because. At least the SpaceNazi didn’t promise to make a “historically accurate” version of that one.

On Bored Panda you can read this:

The latest controversy began after conservative commentator Matt Walsh criticized Nyong’o’s casting as Helen of Troy in Nolan’s adaptation on May 12.
Helen is traditionally described in Homer’s stories as “the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Walsh wrote, “Not one person on the planet actually thinks that Lupita Nyong’o is ‘the most beautiful woman in the world.’ But Christopher Nolan knows that he would be called a racist if he gave ‘the most beautiful woman’ role to a white woman.”
Musk replied with a short response, “True.”
…Musk later escalated his criticism further and shifted his focus toward Oscar’s diversity standards.

Creating rage-baiting events about race to snare the MAGA gullibles is a common tactic online and Nolan’s film triggered so many of the white supremacists in the cult over the casting that their outrage has spread across many media platforms. Mostly, it seems, by cultists who have neither read the book nor watched the movie. But even hearing of the casting Helen of Troy as a black woman triggered them into their usual faux rage over culture, wokeness, DEI, and people of colour. After all, how dare someone cast a black woman in a role about a fictitious character they’d never read about? I expect any time now that MAGA will demand the book be banned from school libraries. Just because they can (MAGA is very big on cancel culture)

Homer was, for some, annoyingly vague in his descriptions of Helen because how do mere words faithfully describe a divine (or semi-divine) being hatched from an egg whose alleged beauty ended up causing a ferocious ten-year war? He used only a small number of adjectives: beautiful-haired (kallikomos), fair-faced (kalliparios), white-armed (leukolenos), and richly dressed (tanypeplos). None of these say she was white-skinned.**

And as Dr. Josh Olds pointed out on Facebook,

Homer calls her “leukōlenos.” This word comes from the words leukos meaning white, bright, or shining and Olenē meaning forearm and has been translated “white-armed.” This term is never used of men in ancient Greek, only a few women in the context of denoting their elite status. This is not a reasonable argument for a white Helen.
Poetically, what Homer does in his vague descriptions of Helen as the ultimate beauty is portray her as something beautiful unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. She is, in a word, exotic. Her beauty is considered so great because the people to whom Homer is speaking have never seen anything like it

Helen is more of a symbol of beauty than its poster child; her divine perfection is assumed so further description is not necessary.

On Facebook, Glee Violette snarkily commented:

For those who have Issues with the Historical Accuracy of the Odyssey. First. About Helen of Troy, She wasn’t born. She was hatched. From an egg.
Her father was a swan. And her mother may have been a goose at the time.
But this wasn’t an ORDINARY swan, of course. It was the god Zeus, who was only PRETENDING to be a swan, to fool Leda, the Queen of Sparta, into letting him stay next to her while she slept.
Well, poor Leda ended up laying two eggs. In one egg were two girls, Helen and Clytemnestra, the future Queen (and murderer) of King Agamemnon of Mycenae. In the other egg were two boys, the future great warriors, Castor and Pollux.
There you go. Historical accuracy.

Helen’s the daughter of a god, semi-divine, hatched from an egg her human mother laid after mating with a bird which was actually a god in disguise… But the actual facts about Greek mythology and legend don’t affect MAGA’s righteous indignation when a black woman was cast in the role.***

And let me add that Helen’s role in Homer’s story is relatively minor.  She appears only in book four (of a total of 24), greeting Ulysses’s son, Telemachus, in Sparta where he has come to look for clues to his father’s long absence. She is, by this time, back with her husband Menelaus, and ruling as queen of Sparta, a decade after the Trojan war had ended. She tells Telemachus a story about his father’s guile in sneaking into Troy to scout its defences, and the later Trojan horse. She does not re-appear in the tale of Ulysses or his wandering.

Let me segue a bit into the concept of fiction and theatre. Since plays were first staged, actors have portrayed kings, queens, doctors, gods, demons, warriors, priests, and many other roles. Men have portrayed men, women have portrayed men… actors have portrayed people of different races, cultures, body shapes, genders, and even aliens and animals. The whole point of the theatre is actors being chameleons. Just look into Shakespeare’s productions. Or watch Shakespeare in Love, a historically inaccurate but entertaining fiction about actors playing different gender roles (in Shakespeare’s time, only men — often teens or young boys — were allowed to play women on stage, and the Bard has men playing women playing men in some plays).

Unless I have been wrong in my decades of reading plays, watching and reading about theatre and film, the whole point of acting is to portray someone or something else in a convincing or realistic manner and thus suspend the viewer’s belief (or disbelief). Fiction in all forms is all about imagination. And let’s not forget that the film in question is based on a translation (Emily’s Wilson’s Odyssey) and all translation is a form of interpretation.

Odyssey was not and can never be “historically accurate” regardless of what Musk and the other white supremacists in MAGA claim.

Notes:

* The Iliad was comic book number 77. Even an avid book reader like myself, loved the Classics Illustrated comics in the 1950s and ’60s. They encouraged me to read many of the novels that inspired them. And they got me through a few book reports for school for novels I neglected to read as required. However, I did not read Homer in book form until I bought a prose version in Penguin Classics, in the mid-late 1970s. I’ve read other translations since, including Lattimore, Fagles, and, of course, Emily Wilson’s superb version. I only wish I had kept some of those comics. I expect I’d still enjoy them today, even though I’m not much of a fan of graphic novels. I don’t recall actually reading this one, but I’m sure I did because I was such a fan of the series and collected them for many of my formative years.

** Homer used formulaic, stock phrases throughout his epic poems to describe people and things. These were both a mnemonic device, and crafted to ensure the rhythm and meter of the lines was met. Their repetition helped remind his listeners about the characters in specific ways. They were not necessarily meant as accurate descriptions. Look into Milman Parry’s work on the subject for a proper scholarly explanation. I also recommend Hearing Homer’s Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry, by Robert Kanigel (Knopf, 2021) for a biography of Parry and how he came up with his ideas.

*** As Glee Violete also notes in her post, there is a second myth about Helen: she is the daughter of Zeus and the Goddess Nemesis, hatched, again, from an egg (therefore fully divine). Nemesis turned herself into a goose to escape him, but Zeus turned himself into a swan and raped her. Gods can do shapeshift. A shepherd later found Nemesis’s two eggs and turned them over to Queen Leda, who hatched and raised the divine hatchlings (they apparently hatched as humans, not birds) as her own children. And Nemesis, the fatherless daughter of Nyx (Night), was likely Black, like her sibling Ker (murder), so Helen may have been black, too. I wonder if Musk’s AI will try to blend that myth into its “historically accurate” movie.

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