Tesla founder and X owner Elon Musk blasted filmmaker Christopher Nolan on Tuesday after the director confirmed some diverse casting choices in his adaptation of classical Greek mythological epic “The Odyssey.”
Nolan, famous for films like “Interstellar,” “The Dark Knight” trilogy, “Oppenheimer,” and many other blockbusters, has sparked online backlash for his upcoming adaptation of “The Odyssey.”
While the subject matter deals with ancient western civilization, some critics argue Nolan’s upcoming rendition appears too modern, ranging from informal American English speech to diverse casting choices.
While many unconfirmed rumors have swirled in recent weeks, one controversial casting choice Nolan confirmed in a Time Magazine interview on Tuesday was that Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o, famous for her roles in “Black Panther” and “12 Years a Slave” will play Helen of Troy, known in mythology as the world’s most beautiful woman and for whom the Trojan War was started in Homer’s epic.
Nyong’o will also be playing Helen’s sister Clytemnestra in the same movie.
A user on X noted that the Academy Awards now has extensive diversity requirements. Musk agreed, writing that Nolan “wants the awards.”
Musk previously criticized the casting of Helen of Troy in January before, arguing that “Chris Nolan has lost his integrity.”
Musk agreed with one conservative commentator who suggested Nolan would be called racist if he gave the role to a white woman instead.
The Hollywood Reporter was taken aback by the American accents used in the trailer, writing, “Everybody sounds like they’re from Ohio.”
Nolan also revealed to Time that rapper Travis Scott will be playing a Greek bard. Nolan defended the choice as an acknowledgment of poetic tradition.
“I cast him because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap,” Nolan told Time Magazine.
“When I edge into territory I fear might trigger prickliness, he shrugs, says, ‘Fair enough,’ and delves earnestly into production decisions that have launched a thousand Reddit posts,” the Time journalist said of his time interviewing Nolan.
“‘The Odyssey’ is arguably the biggest film of Nolan’s career,” Time touted. “It may also be the summer blockbuster the struggling entertainment industry needs right now.”
“But the film also feels like a culmination,” the interviewer noted. “Nolan is aware that he makes a lot of movies about brilliant men trying to get home to their families. When I ask whether he worries about fan response to repeating certain tropes, he pauses and sighs.”
“Despite the fact that he doesn’t carry a smartphone, the internet has found him,” the interviewer said, recalling that Nolan said of the internet’s response so far: “’You have to be comfortable with repeating yourself, if it’s right for the project.
“If you’re paying too much attention to what people are pointing out in your work, you’d be paralyzed.”
In the footage released so far, characters in Nolan’s adaptation can be seen using modernized American English terms like “Let’s go” and “Daddy.”
A recent promotion for the film featured NBA player LeBron James and his son, as parallels to Odysseus and his son Telemachus, where LeBron is dribbling a basketball and narrating over imagery from the film.
Some progressives have taken notice and attacked conservative criticism of the film before its release. A Variety writer mocked “literary purists” as having objections to non-white actors in traditionally white roles.
During a segment on “The View” on Thursday about the controversy, Whoopi Goldberg suggested those who had an issue with the casting just not watch the movie.
She also remarked that Musk was “OK with apartheid” growing up in South Africa before hastily saying she didn’t know if he was an “apartheid apologist” and “I take it back.”
Fellow co-host Sunny Hostin said “racism rears its ugly head” often in the US and added historians have explored that Greek mythology was influenced by ancient Egypt and North Africa.
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