Tesla founder and X Company owner Elon Musk on Tuesday criticized director Christopher Nolan after he acknowledged diverse casting choices in his film adaptation of the classic Greek mythological epic “The Odyssey.”
Director Nolan, known for his work on Interstellar, The Dark Knight trilogy, Oppenheimer, and many other blockbusters, has sparked an online backlash over his upcoming film adaptation of The Odyssey.
Although the subject matter deals with ancient Western civilization, some critics have argued that Nolan’s upcoming productions seem too modern, from the informal American English speech to the diverse casting choices.
Among the many unconfirmed rumors floating around in recent weeks, one of the controversial casting choices Nolan confirmed in an interview with Time magazine on Tuesday was that Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o, best known for her roles in “Black Panther” and “Night Still Dawn,” will play Helen of Troy, who is known in mythology as the most beautiful woman in the world and where the Trojan War began in Homer’s epic.
Nyong’o also plays Helen’s sister Clytemnestra in the same film.
User X pointed out that the Academy Awards have extensive diversity requirements. Musk agreed, writing that Nolan “hopes for an award.”
Musk previously criticized the casting of Helen of Troy in January, claiming that “Chris Nolan has lost his integrity.”
Musk agreed with one conservative commentator who suggested Nolan would be called a racist if he gave the role to a white woman.
The Hollywood Reporter was surprised by the American accents used in the trailer, writing, “Everyone looks like they’re from Ohio.”
Nolan also revealed to Time that rapper Travis Scott will play a Greek bard. Nolan defended this choice as an acknowledgment of poetic tradition.
“I cast him because I wanted to nod to the idea that this story was passed down as an oral poem, similar to rap,” Nolan told Time magazine.
“When I ventured into territory that I worried would cause a tingle, he shrugged his shoulders, said, ‘Fair enough,’ and seriously dug into the production decisions that were posted thousands of times on Reddit,” a Time magazine reporter said of interviewing Nolan.
“‘The Odyssey’ is perhaps the biggest film of Nolan’s career,” Time advertised. “This could be the summer blockbuster that the struggling entertainment industry needs right now.”
“But this film also feels like a culmination,” the interviewer said. “I know Nolan has made a lot of movies about good guys trying to get back to their families. When I asked him if he was worried about how fans would react to repeating certain tropes, he paused and sighed.”
“Despite the fact that he doesn’t have a smartphone, the internet found him,” the interviewer said, recalling Nolan saying of the internet’s reaction so far:
“If you worry too much about what people are pointing out in your work, you’ll become paralyzed.”
In footage released so far, characters in Nolan’s adaptation can be seen using modernized American English terms such as “let’s go” and “daddy.”
Recent promotions for the film have featured NBA player LeBron James and his son as a counterpoint to Odysseus and his son Telemachus, with LeBron dribbling a basketball and narrating the movie.
Some progressives took notice and attacked conservative criticism of the film before its release. A Variety reporter mocked “literary purists” for opposing non-white actors playing traditionally white roles.
In a segment on “The View” that aired Thursday about the controversy, Whoopi Goldberg suggested that people who have a problem with the casting shouldn’t see the movie.
He also said that Musk “accepted apartheid” when he was growing up in South Africa, then panicked and “backtracked” saying he didn’t know if he was an “apologist for apartheid.”
Fellow co-host Sunny Hostin said that “racism often rears its ugly head” in the United States, adding that historians are investigating the influence of ancient Egypt and North Africa on Greek mythology.
