The Odyssey’s “Empowered Women” Were a PR Myth

[00:00:00]Okay, we're back to talk about the Odyssey. I did see it opening weekend and in my other video I talked about the rewriting of the story and the ending.

[00:00:07]So, if you want to chat more about that and how Nolan really just completely broke down the um the essence and the core, especially the moral core of Homer's text. You can go to that other video. But here, I want to talk about the acting and the casting of course.

[00:00:23]Because before I walked into the theater, I went in with an open mind. I was like, I want to like this film. I'm going to give it a shot. Even though I had fun bashing the PR campaign, you know, Lupita Nyongo running around talking about how, oh, Homer, how are you going to feel about all the women in this movie and the screen time we get, you know, all that. That was all annoying, but I was like, I'm going to go in with an open mind. I want to enjoy it. And I got to say, like I said in my last video, the script was not good. The pacing was not good. The script was boring. I honestly like the first hour of the film probably could have been condensed into five minutes. It was just a lot of talking about Odysius coming back. Is he going to come back? I want Odysius back. When's Odysius going to come back? Just a lot of talking talking. Not not showing, but telling and not in a very compelling way that's going to make you invested. But let's talk about the acting first. I I wanted I really wanted to like Matt Damon as Odysius cuz I am a huge Matt Damon fan.

[00:01:20]hardly hardly really any role that he's played where I'm like that was a horrible you know he's usually great in everything. I don't know if if he was the right pick though. I got to say I I I just don't know if he was the right pick for Odysius. He did the best that he could with the script that he was given because the other thing too is that an actor can honestly be only as good as the script is. Um but there was something about him that quite he he didn't move that well in this movie. He was not a very convincing warrior. Um, especially the very end, like obviously spoiler alerts if you haven't seen it if you really don't want to know what happens. Um, then swipe away. But the very last scene where he's fighting all the suitors and killing off all the suitors and he's like shooting the bow and arrow is so unconvincing. It's very unconvincing. Now, part of me thinks that maybe Nolan was trying to make it appear this way because he was exhausted from this long 20 year journey. Um, 10 years in a war and 10 years coming home.

[00:02:19]So maybe he just wasn't at his best fighting capacity, but still it just it was tough. I I didn't think that Matt Damon was the best for this role. But I was also thinking last night talking to my husband, I was like, I don't know who else could have done it just because the script was not good. But Matt Damon is so great that even but but even he couldn't carry the film because the script was just not great. Now Anne Hathaway, I wanted to like her in this role. She was just very annoying. But I think again it's mostly because the script was bad. And it brings me back to Lupita Nongo running around saying that this was going to be such a great empowering film for women. Girl, you were on screen for like 2 minutes, 3 minutes tops. What did you guys What did you do? Was there anything empowering and exciting and even useful that any of the female characters did in the Odyssey? Penelope just kind of sat around. weaving and crying and whining.

[00:03:19]They didn't show her. She's like, I ruled Ethica for 20 years. Okay, we didn't see any of that. She's just kind of yelling, "I want Odysius back. I want Odysius back." Like crying. And then Helen of Troy, she's just didn't do anything. You know, the only like memorable thing is she turns her head and half her face is scarred and then she hugs um Tmicus Tomaholland at the end. She's like, "Please tell your mom I'm sorry for everything." There was nothing empowering about this movie when it comes to women. So, it's just even more laughable that you spent so much of the PR campaign talking about how if you could say one thing to Homer, you would laugh at him and be like, "Well, what do you think about all the female representation?" Girlfriend, you had none. It was the most underwhelming female storyline I think I've ever seen.

[00:04:08]I mean, Helen of Troy in the movie Troy got more screen time. And I know it wasn't really about Helen of Troy. It was about the journey home, but but the way that you set it up made it seem like it was going to be this big amazing storyline for the women, and it just wasn't. In fact, the best female character was Cersei. She was perfect for that role, and she was turning men into pigs, which by the way, you couldn't have been more on the nose. Men are pigs. get it. We think men are pigs, so we're going to turn them into pigs.

[00:04:41]Men just do horrible things and they grape and pillage and they kill people, so they deserve to be pigs. Yeah, really subtle messaging there, Nolan. Like really tough to figure that one out.

[00:04:51]That was definitely some cunning storytelling in the script there. But you know which character I actually liked, and I I didn't expect to was John Leguzamo, the blind man. I actually liked him. I thought he did really well in that role. His costume design was good. His makeup was good. He was he looked blind. I liked him in that movie.

[00:05:13]I thought he was well cast. And like I said in my last video about my review on the Odyssey, one of the things that I struggled with, and when we left the film, my husband and I were talking about it too. He agreed it was really hard to be invested in this story early on. It was really hard to feel like you were immersed number one into the story and into the characters. Part of that is because there was nothing that culturally tied you to that time. They use modern language. Dad, mom, mommy's boy, you know, and when you use modern language that's casual and it's not dignified and it's not elevated. Yeah.

[00:05:49]You're not going to get you're just not going to have the same immersive experience. And then also, there was really nothing there that was rooting them in Greek culture and rooting you in that time. So it again hard to be immersed in that storyline, but also just the character development and the script made it really hard for me to be invested in something early on. Like I one of the things that I liked about Christopher Nolan sort of sort of older movies like the Dark Knight series and Inception is that early on you're invested. For example, Inception, Leo Leo DiCaprio, you are invested early on.

[00:06:23]You want him to get home. There's something about his story like you want him to get home to his kids. You want him to relieve himself of the guilt of feeding his wife this one singular idea that essentially made her unal alive herself. And from the beginning, you're like, you're invested in his journey home. I did not feel that with Matt Damon's Odysius, not because of Matt Damon, but because of the script until he made his way back disguised as a beggar and he encountered the blind man for the first time. And that's one of the reasons why I liked the blind man because he brought a little bit of soul and heart and for the first time I believed that there was some kind of something connecting Odysius to getting back home, right? Cuz the blind man was talking how obviously didn't know it was actually Odicius. Yeah. Talking about how he was always loyal to his master Odysius. And in that moment I was like, "Okay, I want you to get home." But that was like the end of the movie basically.

[00:07:22]So, it was just again, it's the script's fault. Tom Holland, I thought, well cast.

[00:07:30]I I thought he was great for that role.

[00:07:32]Again, unfortunately, his script was mostly bad, but I thought with what he was given, he did a really good job and I enjoyed him in it. I mean, he he brought the sensitivity and he brought the gravitas and he brought the immaturity, right? I mean, that was was meant to be his character in the beginning. He's sort of like this timid, weak boy that that really sort of comes of age towards the end of the movie. I thought he was I thought he was good for that role. But we can't talk about Nolan's Odyssey without talking about the race swapping because it's not minor. It's not just some random thing that happens. It is intentional and it is one of the things that really takes you out of the story. Someone tweeted, "Nolan's best idea for winning another Oscar. You have an Asian dude like that guy looks Korean. He looks like half of my family members. Okay, you're going to try to convince me that some Korean guy is on the ship with Odysius and his name is like, you know, I don't know, Ukilius, another Greek name. Okay, you have Travis Scott as the bard. Oh, that that was the very first opening scene.

[00:08:36]Like an opening scene says everything about a movie, right? And like the way that uh Christopher Nolan opens up the Dark Knight with the Joker and the bank heist, like that was a very effective way to open up a movie. Well, he opens up the movie with Travis Scott doing like a little song/rap and and even the way like the way that he was saying the words was like basically Ebonics and that's what he opened up the film with. And of course, a black Helen of Troy. And you got a little Elliot Elliot Paige over here who was in the movie for like a whopping five minutes, but horribly, horribly cast. I mean, that run at the beginning.

[00:09:16]Sinnon. Sinnon is the character's name.

[00:09:18]Running down the sand. That was like my toddler runs like that. We're supposed to believe this is some male warrior.

[00:09:25]Okay. All right. Okay, Nolan. You know what? Get that bag. Get that Oscar, dude. Not to mention Hamesh Patel, an Indian guy playing a Greek warrior, Urilicus.

[00:09:38]This is what we're doing.

[00:09:40]This is what we're do. Okay. All right.

[00:09:43]I mean, Greek eraser, Greek eraser is fine, right? That's fine.

[00:09:49]But don't you dare don't you dare think about leaving out the Indians in a Greek epic.

[00:09:55]I I mean, it's just it's it's a joke.

[00:09:58]It's a joke. Homer Pavlo, a Greek guy.

[00:10:00]He tweets, "The Odyssey begins by showing an African rapper with rasta in the role of a Greek poet. We Greeks are forced to watch our Greek history and culture being disgraced and mocked across the entire world. What is Nolan's real role in doing something like this instead of casting a Greek person speaking Greek? What's the purpose of casting someone with Rasta in the Greek world?" And then he talks about how Nolan and Hollywood are the real racists and enemies of the West. They hate Greeks. He's not wrong. simplest confirmation comes from the fact when the film when a film is about African history, they don't cast white people, only Africans. And he goes on giving many examples like this. This is the real racism of Hollywood. He says, "Hollywood is a cancer that rots your souls and enslaves your minds and spirits. They hate you and they want to destroy you." I mean, you read this and you're like, "Oh, that sounds dramatic."

[00:10:44]It's not dramatic. This is a very intentional It's subver intentionally subversive.

[00:10:50]They they want to demoralize you. They want to demoralize so many parts of Western culture. And yeah, a big part of Western culture is the the Greco Roman world. And he says here, "Love the Greco Roman world and fight those who hate you. Never forget the traitors who took everything as a joke and contributed to the plan to destroy Western civilization." And this is the opening scene right here. This that was a very particular intentional message shown by Christopher Nolan. And it's it's silly.

[00:11:22]It's so silly. I silly doesn't even begin it feels silly to even use the word silly because it doesn't even begin to describe h what this feels like. I mean it's an insult to it's an insult of course to Greek people but anyone who is from the west or anyone who's white it's like what are we doing here? And then this side by side of Christopher Nolan and Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson is he's named a racist bigot. Okay. But let's not forget his movie Apocalyptto, which is a great film. He made a film set in pre-colonial Mexico and only hired indigenous actors and he had them all speak Mayan.

[00:12:00]Remember, and this is one of the reasons, one of the many reasons why Apocalyptto was so effective. You were immersed immediately into that time, into the culture, and he hired indigenous people. Like that that in and of itself should make the libs just worship him. And then on the other side, you've got the progressive director, Christopher Nolan. He is the forwardthinking guy, but he doesn't cast a single Greek in a Greek epic. The cast is as diverse as downtown LA. And of course, Zenaia as Athena.

[00:12:32]You know, Zenaia, it's it's tough with Zenaia because she's everywhere. And a lot of people are asking the question about why she's everywhere. Like this tweet says, "Why does Zenaia what does Zenaia have on Hollywood filmmakers that they keep casting her in almost every major upcoming movie? She plays the same character every time." This is exactly what my husband says, too. He's like, "She's the same character every time."

[00:12:52]Remember, he looked at me in the movie and he was like, "This is bas.

[00:12:56]It's like they could have just taken clips. They could have just taken footage of her from Dune and slapped it into the Odyssey would have been the same thing." Despite years in the industry, can anyone name even one scene from any one of her movies where she delivered a truly outstanding performance? So, why do they keep choosing her over other talented actresses? I I have a theory on Zenaia, and overall, I actually like her. I do.

[00:13:18]However, I understand why a lot of people are frustrated with how often she's showing up everywhere. And that's mainly because it's it is a message that Hollywood is choosing. And I think Zenaia because, you know, she was a Disney child star. She was in the the industry very early on. Her parents were always putting her into TV shows and films and stuff. And I honestly think that Hollywood has chosen her. She's like one of the chosen ones to be in everything and anything. She's MJ in the the recent Spider-Man universe, which I think was a obviously was a miscast. I don't think she's a bad actress. I think she's talented. I was telling my husband last night, I think she's talented. I just don't think that she has the acting chops to keep up with somebody like Matt Damon or even her husband Tom Holland. I think Tom Holland's a really talented actor. I don't think that she has the same acting chops as other actresses.

[00:14:11]She doesn't have that the she doesn't have the same natural raw talent, I don't think. But this is what I will say about Zenaia. I do think one thing about her is she's very high fashion and this is why she looks great in all kinds of different dresses and couture on the red carpet.

[00:14:28]She photographs really well. I think she would have been a great high fashion model. All of the shoots that she does are incredible. You know, the thing about high fashion models is they're not think about somebody like Kate Moss, for example. They're not necessarily like traditionally pretty, but there's something magnetic about them and they have the body for it. Like that's what I see about Zenaia. But I understand why so many people are fed up with seeing her everywhere because it is like Hollywood is sending you a message like this is the future.

[00:14:55]Sort of black but sort of ethnically ambiguous. And it it it scores them. It scores the Hollywood producers and directors brownie points. in every project they do because she's just black enough for us to be diverse but still light-skinned and half white for the audience to for her to be more palatable to the audience. It's a very intentional choice and I do believe that she is put in roles. She's shoved into main roles everywhere all the time to perpetuate this constant message of diversity, inclusivity. You got to have more black women, got to have, you know, ethnically ambiguous people, whatever. So I and I she was obviously totally miscast for Athena. Like but but the whole thing of her being Athena, which I talked about in my last video, is that it boils down to Nolan really simplifies it to Odysius feels bad because he brought the Trojan War, the Trojan horse to Troy and then he saw a young black girl being killed that was like representative of Athena.

[00:15:56]So, it boils down to white man is mean to black girl and oppressor versus oppressed. You got another tweet here.

[00:16:03]The latest cope, they only have a little screen time. And it's photos of Elliot Paige and um Helen of Detroit. What is it? Lupita. Lupita Nyongo. Um Mike Kobe says, "I don't care. They profane the film with their presence. They offend me." And I get it. I get it. And I know a lot of haters are like, "Oh, look at you getting all hot and bothered over a literal movie. Look at you getting all worked up. Don't you have anything better to do?" But here's the thing, and this is why I like to talk about movies and TV shows and pop culture. You know, I'm going to say the quote, "Politics is downstream from culture." So what's happening in the movie theaters and the movies that are being pushed and promoted the absolute most, they are perfectly reflective of where we are as a culture and our society. What our values are, the things that we consider to be moral and good, the things that we reject. You can see all of that in culture, which is the movies. See, you can see that in Hollywood. So all of these choices that Nolan made, okay, you could ask the question, how much is he sort of like pressured into making these diverse choices or how much does he do them on his own own accord? And judging by his interviews, he makes these choices on his own accord. You know, uh previous clip I showed in my last video, he's talking about how we got to honor immigrants everywhere. It's all about the Greek um the Greek value of Zenia, which is hospitality and and hospitality to strangers.

[00:17:31]So he's always making some kind of political statement to be very like progressive and forward thinking and you know I'm going to make these great films and rewrite the story to make sure that you see this Marxist idea of oppressor versus oppressed and I'm going to put in a black woman as Helen of Troy because I am very very progressive and Elliot Page.

[00:17:51]So, I understand why people are offended by that because it is it is both a reflection of our culture and where we're at, but also it perpetuates this constant obsession with the DEI and the rewriting of stories, the rewriting of history, the rewriting of um important Western texts. Like, imagine the outrage. There would be literal riots in the street if you redid a Black Panther movie and you had Chris Pratt play Black Panther or Timothy Shalamé.

[00:18:24]Imagine that. Oh, but it's just a fictional character, right? Black Black Panther. It's just a fictional character. So, I don't know why you're so upset. And at the same time, Moana came out, the live action remake of the film, which is shot for shot, frame for frame, the same exact thing as the cartoon that came out 10 years ago. And all the Rock could talk about was the importance of Polynesian and brown people being represented in the film.

[00:18:46]Fake kids story. And all the headlines were talking about how important it is to display Polynesian culture and hire all the Polynesian looking people in this movie that honors Polynesian culture. But when it comes to the Greek epic of the Odyssey, that doesn't matter at all because the Greeks are just too white. And it also matters. I mean, they're never going to say this or articulate it, but it is it is a foundation. One of the reasons why they hate the Greeks is because Greece is a major uh so much major history of Christianity is there. The Greek Orthodox church. I'm I'm an Orthodox Christian. I I attend an Antiochan Orthodox church, but of course, we share the Eucharist with the Greek Orthodox.

[00:19:29]Like, I could go receive communion with the Greek Orthodox Church. There the history, our holy fathers. So much history is in Greece. Do you think it's an accident that they would that that they would profane the Greek epic of the Odyssey? Do you think it's something that's just that just happened to happen? It's a coincidence. No. It's extremely intentional. And then when you dare to have a reaction to it and you dare to push back against it, you are dismissed as somebody who cares too much. Get over it. It's just a movie.

[00:20:02]Don't you have more important things to worry about than the the the demeaning of Western culture? Don't you have anything more important to complain about in front of a microphone? And that's their game.

[00:20:16]That's their game. Little by little, they in they inject all of these things into the culture, all of these things into movies, to TV shows, into social media, everywhere. They inject it. And every time you react, they diminish you and they act like you're the crazy one.

[00:20:31]that it is the actual definition of gaslighting. I don't like the term gaslighting so much because it's so overused and women always use it to say they're being abused or whatever, but it is actual gaslighting. They turn around, they make you feel like you're the crazy one and that you should you should be um you should be involved and interested in more important things. But I do think it's actually a pretty important thing.

[00:20:53]And I can completely understand why people, especially Greeks, I had quite a few Greeks in my DMs when I was talking about the movie on my Instagram because, you know, I follow a lot of Greek Orthodox people and they will follow me and a lot of them they're offended. This is their culture, part of their a very important text from their culture. Is it a is it a story and not a real life thing that happened? Yeah, but it's a very important part of Greek history and Greek literature. It upsets them to see the remaking like this. And I get it. So anyway, let me know if you watched the Odyssey in the comments section. Let me know what you thought. Did you enjoy it?

[00:21:28]Maybe you liked it. There were some parts that I did like. Um there were some parts that I liked. You know, it was some of it was enjoyable, but I said this in my last video, too. The sound mixing was just so bad. But we'll talk all about that in another video. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Thank you for being here, everybody. And we'll see you on the next one. Bye.