A Few Thoughts On Elon Musk's Campaign Against "The Odyssey"

My, oh my, Elon Musk and his associates are in high racist dudgeon about Christopher Nolan's soon-to-be-released "The Odyssey," particularly with black Kenyan-Mexican actress, Lupita Nyong'o, playing Helen of Troy. My first inclination is to simply dismiss anything Musk says. But then, the point of the racists isn't answered. It's better to try to answer their point. 

Since joining (friend Gabe's) Classics Book Club on Discord two years ago, we've been reading Emily Wilson's translation of Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." So, the material is fresh. 

Lupita Nyong'o herself dismisses any controversy by saying "This is a mythological story." It's tempting to accept that dismissal, but the writings of Homer (or the collection of authors that we now call Homer) are only about 2,800 years old, making them fairly recent by mythological standards. Particularly given the coherence of Greek literature there are reasons to believe Odysseus and many other people in his world actually lived. What gets called myth and what gets called history gets really messy with fairly-recent material like this. 

One unassailable fact is that Greek literature, with Homer at the core, has been the basis of European education since at least the Enlightenment, and for some, as far back as the Renaissance. "The Odyssey" certainly feels real enough to have influenced many generations of readers. For most practical purposes, "The Odyssey" is as real as it gets. 

Translator Emily Wilson makes the point that we moderns have to be very careful about imposing our modern ideas back upon the past. For example, when referring to the ocean, which surrounded them on all sides, the ancient Greeks talked about "the wine-dark sea," mostly because wine and seawater sparkle similarly in the bright sunlight. One thing the Greeks don't mention is the seawater appearing blue in color, because "blue" was a concept they didn't yet have. Wine and seawater both have a dark tone and so, to them, were similar in visual impact. Mindbending! 

So, what did the ancient Greeks think about what we call race? We don't really know, because they really didn't say. There were certainly many differences among the peoples who sailed the ancient Aegean Sea, and they commented about some of those differences, especially what peoples did for a living - herders, horsemen, warriors, farmers, sailors, etc. - and they certainly were aware of cultural differences, but the ancient Greeks didn't say much more than that. The modern concept of race doesn't appear. No extra distinction appears between Africans and other peoples from the Black Sea. 

Since there were so many people in his epic poems Homer frequently-used what are called "epithets" - handles, basically. So there's swift-footed Achilles, warlike Menelaus, old Priam, bright-eyed Athena, etc. In regard to goddesses (e.g., Hera, Aphrodite), demigoddesses (e.g., Helen), or noble women (e.g., Penelope), the most-frequently used epithet is "white armed." It probably means high-status women spent much of their time indoors and weren't sunburnt like everyone else. It doesn't necessarily mean they were what we call white, though. 

Plus, it is the artist's prerogative to take written works from one society and apply them to another society, like how director Akira Kurosawa, took Shakespeare's "King Lear" and applied it to Japanese society. Doing so makes art fun! Christopher Nolan certainly has the right to use the talents of Lupita Nyong'o to bring to life Helen of Troy. I'm certainly anticipating seeing for myself, come release of the movie in July. 

So, go home, Elon. You're drunk on ketamine.