Posted on 07/16/2026 5:57:29 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Lupita Nyong’o calls Homer’s 'The Odyssey' sexist, but the ancient epic’s women tell a far different story.
Acclaimed British filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s (The Dark Knight, Oppenheimer) newest film, The Odyssey, opens this week in the United States.
But controversy has already surrounded Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s 2,700-year-old epic poem about Odysseus’s 10-year struggle to return home after the Achaian victory in the decade-long Trojan War.
Some of the film’s actresses have suggested that Nolan is offering a more feminist—and long-overdue—take on the ancient poem. Actress Lupita Nyong’o, in particular, has criticized Homer’s purported sexism.
Perhaps her misreading of Homer stems from her admission that, despite receiving degrees from elite Hampshire College and Yale, the 42-year-old actress had never even read the Odyssey until she was cast in the minor dual roles of Helen and her sister Clytemnestra.
The Odyssey was composed orally sometime around 750–700 B.C., contemporaneously with the rise of the Greek city-state. Along with Homer’s other epic, The Iliad, The Odyssey marks the inauguration of Western literature. Over the next three millennia, it came to be recognized as not only the earliest but also one of the most profound works of Western civilization.
Far from being sexist, Homer’s Odyssey offers a timeless and diverse panorama of powerful, independent, and savvy women.
Take Penelope, the wife of Odysseus and queen of Ithaca. Unquestionably loyal to her missing husband, she outsmarts the bloodthirsty suitors who seek to force her into marriage and seize the kingdom through her steadfast courage and cunning.
She confounds them through a series of brilliant ruses, ultimately enabling her husband’s revenge.
Far different, but equally independent and crafty, are the immortal sorceress Circe and the divine nymph Calypso, who both shelter, seduce, and eventually bond with Odysseus. Both ultimately release him to continue his tragic journey
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
I’m not being hateful. If you read my other posts on this movie, I said the criticism of Lupita Nyong’o and Elliot Page was overblown and that personally, I don’t mind race or gender swaps in movies. I defend giving Elliot Page a role in this movie. But Matt Damon has a certain personality and does not disappear into a role. He is not Daniel Day Lewis. I will see Matt Damon as Matt Damon in this movie. Just like I saw Matt Damon as Matt Damon in The Duel. I like him in modern movies. I don’t like him in historic period dramas or epics.
“ Who better than the Greek scholar himself, to comment on The Odyssey? He can read it in the original ancient Greek - something Mr Nolan or Lupita Nyong’o have not demonstrated.”
You know that Nolan doesn’t know the story of the Ofyssey?
Who better than someone who doesn’t know Nolan’s education to criticize his education
Ijut
“ This Homer revisionism”
You saw the movie? You know Homer?
that the actress had never even read Iliad/Odyssey ... shows how deficient our schools are. (Of course, we have some clerics who’ve obviously never read the Bible, or deconstruct it by imposing inappropriate revisionist readings into/onto it). we read the Homeric epics in high school, but quite a bit of water’s flowed past the bridge since.
Since, our society’s been (largely-deliberately imho) deprived of meaningful education, learning, learning how to learn. That void has then be replaced by an entire sewer full of leftist/communist/nazi/”progressive” nihilistic krap, all designed (again, imho) to render the individual as incompetent to function as responsible adult citizens in a working society.
It is in the public schools. It is in the unions. It is in the colleges, universities. It is in the mass media. It is in our public square, political discourse (or what garbage now passes for political discourse). It is in our government of course. And social media, technology has not helped (to put it mildly). Already, youngsters are using AI to write their homework assignments for them. And some teachers are using AI to write their lectures for them. Even some attorneys have been caught using AI to write their court filings, briefs for them. And we have electronic signatures and auto=pens and “click boxes” to so-easily falsely-certify that ideas have been generated or received and read and reviewed and understood by real, compos mentis human beings.
The human being, at least as responsible adult citizen in society, is being rendered redundant. Into “useless eaters,” indeed. The widespread nature of anti-life attitudes (abortion factories, perversion of health care into assisted suicides, applause and support for savage terrorists, all of these things supported by government policies, laws, and taxpayer funding)....
The widespread nature of these sorts of death-promoting attitudes and official policies.... is both an objective, imho, and certainly a predictable consequence of the “progressivist” or “democratic socialist” nihilism that’s being foistered on us.
the severity of what’s been, is being done to us as individual people and as a society ... is readily apparent. We are being inducted into a death cult. (which explains the leftists’ adoration and enabling of the Islamicist terrorist murder gangsters along with the communists and nazis of the world past and present).
The very purposes of life are being “deconstructed” for, taken awa from us.
As Dostoevsky told us over a century ago,
“The mystery of human existence lies not just staying alive, but in finding something to live for...”
“ Nor could a black actor be believable as Abraham Lincoln
We’ll be seeing Will Smith, or maybe Samuel L. Jackson as Abraham Lincoln any day now.”
Sounds bigoted to me
“Denzel Washington has a long, celebrated history with Shakespearean works. Most notably, he starred as Lord Macbeth in Joel Coen’s acclaimed 2021 film The Tragedy of Macbeth. Additionally, he took to the Broadway stage as Othello in a modern-day revival, and previously played Don Pedro in Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 film Much Ado About Nothing.”
“ Whatever. I have no intention of seeing this, whatever anyone wants to call it.”
Then why comment?
Rotten tomatoes needs a Whiney willfully ignorant section for people who must complain in writing but refuse to see the movie
Things I hate in movies and TV..I found it was done on purpose to make you pay closer attention to what is said and happening.
1.The drunk cameraman who is wallowing all over the place.
2.Dialog so soft you cannot understand what is being said.
3.Music so loud it covers up what is being said.
Siskel and Ebert complained about this back in the 1980s.
“ The film’s not even out yet and I’ve already lost interest. Someone watch it and let me know how bad it sucked.”
I read the odyssey as well as Molans background and I can’t wait to see it
People who have done neither are going to persuade you, who’ve done neither?
How whiny does one have to be?
Then you are only hearing what you want to hear.
She was all about “the woman’s point of view.”
How about Helen talk about these thousands of people died because of her?
How about how dedicated Odysseus was to his wife and the absolute crap he had to go through to get home to her.
How about how all of the women giving him grief from the moment he leaves Trot?
I am pretty sure the women’s perspective in this story is not something she really wants to examine. Its not going to make them look good.
And Hampshire college is finally going out of business this fall.
“ Am looking forward to watching so I can make up my own mind.
Read The Odyssey over two semesters including time reading Clark’s translation into Latin. A great story.”
Hey! What’s with the independent thinking?
Very much looking forward to seeing it. You’re the first commenter I’ve read in a months that’s educated on the story
I’ve read it- Fitzgerald. Recently went over Stephen Fry’s version.
“ There are already some paid reviews out which is funny because theyre full…”
Who paid for them?
You’re critiquing it on reading the cast list?
You can’t even spell Nolan’s name
“ Those are Nolan shills.”
How do you think you know this?
Nolan would never use shills
Oh sure. It is my problem. And I have a lot of company, including Victor Davis Hanson whose opinion is more valuable than many of the proponents of this film who think the criticism is all hot air.
“ No. I’m just going off of the casting…”
Ok. Well I’m just going off this sentence. We’re done here
“ The First Perspective is to tell this story from a feminist point of view (indicative simply from the casting and the roles) which…”
Ignorance is bliss
I thought the one that came out recently “The Return” was a bizarre adaptation that portrayed Odysseus as a broken man when he got home, and that was even further from the truth than this one appears to be.
I disliked it.
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