I grew up around white people my whole life. So much so, people called me “white”, but being called that I was able to hear genuine “white grievances”. I was also the black kid to always respond with “what’s that supposed to mean?”. I know white people, especially their frustration around what they feel is being silenced or canceled. Most white people I think are decent people but I will be talking about white supremacy and I know that term triggers people but bare with me. If anything, I think white supremacy hurt white people by creating a reality of exceptionalism which often denied their own struggles and pains.
I challenge you to read this. I have experienced legitimate racism though I don’t “play the race card” which is a concept that many white people feel that black people use our advantage. But, I am going to “go hard” here.
Not all of the criticisms of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey are about race. For example, I don’t really see Matt Damon as Odysseus. Criticisms may not be about race but simply not liking a specific actor or not liking the costume choices. But…. I hate to go here but interstingly the Right Wing culture warriors leave me no choice but to assume race is a factor. Looking at our world there is a backlash against diversity and migration. The word globalism, once a key tenet of capitalism, is a taboo word which Right Wingers of the West equate with “white genocide”.
I am writing this in landscape of Nick Fuentes, Nick Shirley, Benny Johnson, Alex Jones, The Blaze, Chud the Builder, Lily Gaddis, Sydney Watson, etc. The world is in a Right Wing era despite allegations of “liberal decay” because liberal decay as I say isn’t merely ideological (i.e., woke ideology) as what a conservative would think but is the reality of capitalism catching up. By that I mean Resource Wars displacing people, technology replacing people’s jobs, the over saturation of information causing depression, etc.
But….
So… if “the West is the Best”…. then why are Right Wing reactionaries not flattered by non-European actors participating and honoring foundational Western works? It is almost as if minorities are expected to assimilate but only up to a point which still maintains white dominance and protect white egos, i.e., secondary and support roles and characters, i.e., “the help”. Or, simply be invisible.
Christopher Nolan has every right to make the casting choices he made for his up and coming film, The Odyssey.
Art is supposed to expand consciousness and not always reaffirm or spoon-feed our desires.
Seeing the backlash has me thinking we should start a hash-tag called #SupportLupita or something to that effect. I may go buy a few tickets just to help out.
The Odyssey has been done plenty of times already. According to Microsoft Copilot Search, I looked up “How many times has The Odyssey been made?”, there are at least 287 adaptations.
The majority of the backlash I see online, either from social media comments or YouTube videos, is that people are angry Nolan cast black actors as Ancient Greeks. In addition, people are angry about Elliot Page being in the film, since he transitioned from female to male, so you of course get a “chud” or “bro” reaction. [Note: a Chud is a term used to describe someone who is socially unpleasant, unintelligent, or reactionary, often with political or online connotations.]
However, some of the backlash may be from the fact that the Academy Awards require films to meet diversity and inclusion standards to be eligible for the Best Picture category. To qualify, a film must pass at least two of four specific standards spanning the cast, crew, production company, and marketing.
Standard A (On-Screen Representation): Focuses on diversity in casting or the film’s subject matter. It requires having at least one lead or significant supporting actor from an underrepresented group, a diverse 30% ensemble cast, or a storyline centered on underrepresented groups.
Standard B (Creative Leadership and Crew): Requires diversity behind the camera. This can be met by having underrepresented groups in department heads (like the director or cinematographer), having a diverse general crew, or having at least 30% of the crew come from underrepresented groups.
Standard C (Industry Access): Requires the production, distribution, or financing company to offer paid apprenticeships, internships, or training opportunities to underrepresented groups.
Standard D (Audience Development): Focuses on in-house diversity. It requires the studio to have diverse teams working on the development, marketing, publicity, or distribution of the film.
But, there’s no proof that Nolan made his casting decisions based on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. But even if he did, what if Nolan is supportive of such initiatives? By reading the Academy Award standards, one can see that you can have all white cast but the crew may need to reach out to an underrepresented groups for crew support or an internship. Considering the history of Hollywood, I don’t see this as bad. And, I truly think that most people when thinking about DEI they subconsciously think black. But underrepresented could be something such as disabled veterans, first generation of something, or could be income based as defined by area code economic statistics, etc.
Conservatives seem to be insinuating that either Nolan was forced to diversity because of the “woke mob”, or, they are insinuating that Nolan is chasing (pandering) to diversity. Both are disingenuous takes potentially.
Me defending Nolan is interesting because way back, after Nolan blew up with the Dark Knight series and Inception (though I knew about him from Memento and Following), I did feel that Nolan did have a slight sense Anglophilia to his films.
Christopher Bale played Bruce Wayne where Wayne is culturally associated with WASPy characters such as Patrick Bateman from American Psycho) where Bale played Bateman.
Bruce Wayne being a wealthy white guy wasn’t my issue, but more so I saw “bros” feeding off Bruce Wayne’s energy, similarly to how people think Patrick Bateman was cool despite being a serial killer and cannibal. I noticed in the years leading up the victory of Trump was that many conservative men were seeing themselves in Bruce Wayne by Nolan. An “alpha” and “capitalist” who saves he world.
Yet, Nolan’s Dark Knight series with characters such as Heath Ledger’s Joker did become appropriated by twenty-teens early Alt Right culture, which now over a decade later has morphed into the Red Pill community, Men’s Rights personalities such Andrew Tate, crypto bros of WallStreet Bets reddit pages, but also “bro astrology” with Alphas versus Betas verus Sigma males, but also, Make America Great Again frat boys, Looks-maxxing figures such as Clavicular, etc.
That WASPY Anglophilia I suspected in Nolan’s films, I believe to his surprise, may have served as a mold for what we consider to be the Alt Right, i.e., young men who flirt with fascism (nationalism, strong men leaders, patriarchy, hierarchy, Darwinism, etc.) who absorbed Jordan B. Peterson. They espouse a Julius Evola “reject modernity and embrace tradition” sensibility by dressing up like yuppies or London 1980s nostalgic “posh boys” or as if they are Great Gatsby characters. Don’t forget the Peaky Blinders hipster haircuts and Billy the Butcher from Gangs of New York mustaches. The “hipster Right”.
Basically, people vicariously live through characters they see in film. If Tom Hardy were killing people butt naked most of these reactionary men would not care but if they see a black person….
That is what the backlash to The Odyssey is about.
Instead of transcending race and focusing on the moral and power of the story, in 2026, due to the normalization of white supremacy with figures such as Nick Fuentes, etc., you have younger people notably not even thinking that racism is bad.
Since the election of one-half Black president and clik bait articles or talking points about how white people may be minorities, a good segment of the “white West” has been slowly losing their minds, yet also for many finally finding something to rally around.
A lot Zoomers don’t remember the attempt at post-MLK 1970 thru early 2000s attempt at racial harmony. The only know riots, Trump, memes, and 8chan racism. Society largely failed young people by not realizing stories about harmony are vital in teaching morals and ethics.
Regardless, and back on track, the film Troy, the 2024 movie adaption of The Iliad by Wolfgang Peterson, has Helen of Troy played by Diane Kruger who is German, Brad Pitt who is Scots-Irish mostly, and the rest of cast is heavily British, with Eric Bana playing Hector being half-Croatian meaning he was the “closest” to Mediterranean heritage.
And guess what? White people were not freaking out then because Right Wing reactionaries only care about race, not art, but race. Or, rather art that solidifies, enforces, and affirms their racial identity.
Having grown up my entire life in predominately white areas and spaces, I can attest that many white Americans either fully embrace their American heritage and don’t care much about “the Old World”, but there are many who are constantly looking for connection to Europe. This isn’t a bad thing, but it does show a need, and needs can veil insecurity.
By focusing on racial authenticity in art, what people really want is long-term insurance of continued racial segregation because in theory you need races to exists in order to maintain artistic authenticity. Many people who claim to want to preserve “Western Civilization” aren’t talking about language, philosophy, art, architecture, but they talking about a territorial “insider versus outsider” group mentality. A cult of purity.
The interesting things about being “white” is simply what you look like. Most racists aren’t doing DNA tests, but only care for the optics of skin, hair, etc.
Further, race is such as ambiguous concept because one could argue that European has many indigenous races with certain genetic traits (e.g., North Europeans versus Slavic versus Mediterranean versus Finnic, etc.).
So white supremacists don’t seem to care about one white group overwhelming another white group, just as long as they “appear white”. A white supremacists may try to rebuff by saying “at some level we (Europeans) share a common ancestry”, but the when does history begin and end? When humans left Africa? When humans from Anatolia spread into late Ice Age Europe for fertile land and mixed with old World Europeans (Hunter Gatherers), who may have previously mated with Neandtherals? Before Yamnaya Indo-Europeans from the Steppes moved into Europe?
If I have 6% European DNA, am I included? if my child has 56% does that mean he’s included?
Racists are…just stupid. They bitch about the “Woke Left” but who is always moaning?
You can literally breed for “race”, even in isolation by simply singling out and breeding for characteristics.
Racists are sort short sighted as well. If a person is half black and half white for example, and that person is surrounded by white people, that person will likely marry and bear child with another white person, meaning their child is 1/4th, then eventually 1/8th, and eventually 1/16th, 1/32th,1/64th,1/128th. You can take my example for a person in an all black community, which was often the case for mixed race children during America’s barbaric colonial and Antebellum time periods. That’s why I likely have 6% Northern European DNA!
The more racists talk, the more they disprove their own beliefs, but they don’t care about logic, beliefs, etc., but only optics and aesthetics, but also they need separation because they fear competition in a larger pool of people. Segregation thus increases their odds for survival so they think.
The Odyssey as a film has been done with white actors…forever, so does it really matter that Nolan cast the way he did?
I say no.
A lot of the backlash is from the smorgasbord of Right Wing online culture which is a pool of angry gamers and fantasy nerds (typically while male), Boomers with microphones, and trolls which is your standard “anti-woke” crowd.
They are only angry that black people are in the film, which to me interesting considering….Western Civilization fell on black people. How is a society going to forcibly absorb a people (forcing language, religion, nomenclature, economic systems, philosophy, etc.) and then say….you can’t participate in the foundational texts, myths, etc.?
For example, people of African descent, who were forced to be Christian mostly, are expected to believe in Jesus and The Bible without question, but cannot participate in the myths, stories, etc., of Western Civilization which fell upon us?
Part of me believes that no one really believes in anything, not even God, and yes, I direct this at many Christians, because really they just worship identity.
Or, for example, nobody told Europeans to sail to Japan and threaten them with cannons to open up their country. Chinese people did not ask Europeans to flood their country with opium from British Controlled India just so English people could trade for tea. No one asked Spaniards to show up to Latin America and genocide Native Americans. The list goes on.
You don’t get to force your culture on everyone, say that your culture is better and then get angry when people participate in your culture.
Western Civilization fell on people, more than others (i.e., as in the case of African Americans or Black Diaspora peoples), so I see no issue with “race swapping”, just as long as there are some rules, but the rules have nothing to do with white people’s feelings but more so being true to authenticity for authenticity’s sake.
Those rules being (1) If a work has never been done before, then a film should strive for historical accuracy which includes casting actors who looked like those historical figures. This should tried to be done as much as possible for follow-on creations but with every creation done, the more ability to cast non traditional actors is more acceptable. Chatacters should also try to be sourced from the nations those stories arise, though economic concerns such as profit should be weighed (2) If a story is based on mythology, fable, etc., then artists have latitude to adapt works to different situations, locations, etc., but if the story was never created before for film, then the original release should be true to how the people looked who created those stories, (3) If a real historical storyline has been done enough times to where the original historical story can still be associated with its true origin, then artists have the ability to “swap” characters, (4) Since racism, colonialism, patriarchy, etc., are real things with real consequences, then the stories of minorities are more protected, only because these groups often lacked the institutional power to create art that reflect their lived experiences. For example, a black person being cast as Merlin in a Camelot King Arthur movie is more acceptable, than a white person making a film with all white actors trying to explain Malcolm X’s story. Sure, because of First Amendment free speech, a person can say or make whatever art they want for the most part, but a white person doing such a thing, versus a person of color doing such a thing aren’t entirely the same because you have to factor in actual historical context in relation to institutional power, and minorities often lacked power.
The reaction just goes to show how racist societies can be at their core, despite the notions that it is a “civilizing force”.
Civilizing what? White supremacy won’t even let non-white people fully within their ranks, even if a person fully emulates the expected behavior forced upon them.
However, I do believe that Western Civilization and White Supremacy are two different things, because Western Civilization is really a confluence of various ideas, concepts, etc., which aren’t inherently native to Europe, and even if so, not inherently racists, but just so happened to have flowed over into Europe over time due to migration, trade, etc. A civilization is a series of systems which holds ontological constructs, semiotics, aesthetics, etc..
For example, the West was heavily influenced by Middle Eastern, Egyptian, Central Asian, etc., and yes, Sub-Saharan Africans were not fully alien to “White Europeans” considering cultures such as the Greeks wrote about black Africans.
White supremacy on the other hand is an ideology which stresses that Western Civiliation led by white passing people is innately superior (despite as already stated it being influenced by outsider forces) but most importantly, the optics of “white skin” is more important than anything.
Look at gangs such as the Proud Boys. They say ‘the West is the Best” and even had diversity in their ranks earlier on, but of course, if became more and more of an explicitly white supremacist organization.
My simple response to reactionaries like this is that The Odyssey is a allegorical and moral tale, so you can swap out the characters, settings, time periods, all you want just as long as the moral message remains the same.
This is one of the points of art. Art isn’t just about being the same, otherwise it’s not really “art” but replication.
Art from a conservative framework seems to be art that is always the same, but maybe just done again and again with new technological formats (e.g., Clash of Titans with clay-mation, versus 300 with CGI). But, conservatives want things, notably optics concerning race to always be the same.
But, this misses the point that The Odyssey, similarly to folktales such as Robin Hood, Little Red Riding Hood, the works of William Shakespeare, etc., can be done in different times, formats and with different characters regardless of race, gender, nationality, etc. MacBeth for example has been redone by Japanese people in Throne of Blood (1957). Sons of Anarchy (white people like that right?) was based on MacBeth. Or, Shakespeare has been recasts in films like 10 or Three Things I hate About you (based on a Taming of the Shrew), or the movie “O” set in a prep school based on Othello or Virgin Territory (2007) based on The Dacameron, etc., or even Ethan Hawke playing Hamlet in the backdrop of the Manhattan Upper East Side One-percent.
Throne of Blood
Two or Three Things I Know About Her
Romeo + Juliet injected glam, Afro-Latino, etc.
Further, not only can you play and adapt these old allegorical tales, but if we consider “intellectual property rights”, these stories are so old they are “public domain and property”. You don’t need permission to make an Odyssey or Iliad Film, same as you don’t need permission to make Robin Hood.
So, because A) these stories are public domain and (B) their allegorical nature permits them to change settings, identities, etc., there is no real reason for the backlash to Nolan’s casting decisions besides the very real truth that as of 2026 we are living in a “reactionary, race realist sensibility” which pervades politics, media, etc.
The critiques only care that they aren’t seeing an all-white cast or using a Trans man in a cisgender male role. It is that simple.
They thus use such controversies to point to their concocted narrative that the world is “anti-white” or “trying to erase white identity” which feeds back into their overall agenda of white supremacy, separatism, and trying to create a “Pan-White self-determinism” (even going so far as appropriating Left Wing anti-colonial and deconstructionist arguments to justify their beliefs).
It is that simple. White supremacy, not only needs to dominate fields such as law, policing, military leadership, business, media, etc., also needs to be a victim and to sell the myth that “white honor” is under threat by “hordes” of “ungrateful, uncivilized, and overwhelming” non-white forces.
The controversy is spurred on even further by younger Millennials but mostly Zoomers who were raised in the “Social Justice Rejection Period” of the mid-twenty teens to present. Zoomers for example were just becoming aware of politics as children during the times of the George Floyd and Black Lives Matters protests, but also spend most of their time online, which was bolstered by COVID lockdowns and lack of paternal controls. Parents may filter against adult content which is great, but most could never comprehend the deeper layers of irony found on forums such as 8chan.
Even though what I am saying is a gross oversimplification of a complex issue and demographic, the truth is many young people who now look to figures such as Nick Fuentes, Lily Gaddis, Jake Lang (who is half Jewish), Vrillium, etc., were indoctrinated with an anti-diversity and pro-race realism campaign which arose from the chaos of the Social Justice “Woke” Era.
But, I fully support the Social Justice and “Woke” Era. There is no excuse of racism period, so I will not throw the Social Justice era of the twenty teens under the bus because ultimately that is what the Right wants. They want the Left or Liberals to feel defeated as Right Wing ideology thrives and they want the Left to see this Right Wing reaction as justified because of Left wing mistakes, such as daring to criticize white supremacy and patriarchy. Thus, the reaction to Nolan’s film could be seen as just a tactics in a larger “Right Wing, Pan-White” strategy. If pushing progressive conservations lead to fascists reactions, then instead of cowering away, maybe society should double down on “woke”? If the threat response of the Right is to gerrymander, repeal women’s reproductive rights, try to revoke women’s rights to vote, hate on immigrants despite building no functional immigration system, and be racist toward black people, then…fuck off. The world is almost giving into a conciliatory posture towards actual fascists.
White people want the rights given to traditional minority groups, despite, overwhelmingly still being the majority. Further, the conditions that black people in the USA have wasn’t their choice traditionally, and even with slavery and Jim Crow things of the past, what was once clear institutional bigotry, simply morphed into codes, hiring practices, white flights, etc..
Before the United States, black people were of different tribes and groups, but they were all forcibly merged into the racial distinction of “black” by racist colonialist policy. So, white people wanting minority rights when they are not and when they actually created minorities’, is pure irony. Even if white people are not the majority, such as in places like South Africa, the white population used extreme violence and draconian segregationist policies to maintain their status. So, white supremacy isn’t innately a numbers game but it is a mentality and concerted effort.
What most good intentioned white people believe in equality but they fail to realize that simply believing that equality exists doesn’t mean there can’t be issues such as systemic racism.
I believe most white Americans are good people but they make this simple mistake of treating reality like an “even, transactional playing field at all levels and in all systems”. And despite many white people being good people, when confronted, there seems to be a tendency to isolate out racist incidents as “one offs” rather than a trend, yet, ironically, minorities seems to be labeled more so as a collective operation.
Many white people want to believe that everything is a level playing field, so when minorities speak out and mention words such as “White” there seems to be a natural aversive reaction in many white people, and then they feel offended they are being associated with racism, and, as we saw with the election of Trump, they vote not because they are racists but because they think they are speaking up for themselves. They think falling for a white supremacist psychological trick is rebellion. By trick, I mean being goaded into supporting the actual system that minorities have complained about, just so that “superstructure” can persist with buy-in from the working white masses. If anything white people are too exploited by white supremacy because white supremacy puts white on a pedestal that people end up believing, and this can actually cover up their own hurts, needs, etc.
Even though I am not a Marxist, he did have some “fire” points, such as ““In Marxist theory, the superstructure refers to all the non-economic aspects of a society that are built upon the economic base, which includes the forces of production. It encompasses institutions such as politics, law, culture, and ideology that arise from and serve to maintain the economic base. Marx posited that the superstructure is shaped by the economic base but also plays an active role in influencing it. Essentially, the superstructure reflects the values and beliefs of the ruling class and helps to perpetuate their dominance in society.” (Source: Wikipedia).
As I sum up my post, you often hear Right Wingers try (emphasis on try) to joke about “race swapping in film”. For example, they will see the casting decisions of people like Christopher Nolan, and say “Why can’t we have a white Malcolm X or MLK?”.
This is funny because A) white people don’t really know much about black history so they always default to those two figures, and B) no one is actaully stopping a person from making a film with a white person swapped for a black person.
Go for it. But, people will have a weird reaction and I will explain to you why.
Black history as already stated was on the “wrong end of the stick” already in relation to white dominated society, so race swapping historical black figures, is more like kicking someone who has already been down, considering black people have never owned the means of production over entertainment in the West, only up until recently and it is still very minor.
It’s the exact same reasons why Blackface which comes with the whole package of history relating to the KKK, lynching, slavery, etc., Dave Chappell painting himself with white skin will not be as impactful to that of blackface. Is what Dave or Druski did crude? Sure. I don’t see a point in it, but it is not an apples-to-apples comparison when weighing in historical context and material reality.
In honorable quest we strive to achieve everyday, the truth remains that context, power, history, do matter, and frankly, white people are not oppressed collectively by any other group in the West.
Americans like easy things. When forced to think to much, we struggle sometimes. Even though we want a game with equal rules for everyone, sometimes making minorities feel like everything is equal is actually a struggle. Equal to a white person may feel even, but to a minority might feel like a hill they must still climb as they navigate systems and their identity which were mostly designed to alienate them.
Sure, people can say, “we have black films” or “Latino films”, but power does matter here in the discourse. Black people are a historically oppressed people within the American Experiment and European colonialism. There is no denying that. The history of racism, minstrels, slavery, Jim Crow, plantations, etc., means that Black people are permitted to feel a sense of self-worth in a land that has always tried to undermine black self-worth. Black people hade no choice but to be nationalistic because it wasn’t about swing down on weaker groups, but simply trying to survive. Put it this way, if you don’t like things such as “black nationalism”, well…blame white supremacy for helping to create it.
Even in the modern world, rather than showcasing black success and excellence you are more likely to see white guys with cameras trying to make YouTube videos about Chicago’s O Block or LA’s Compton.
Even when black people achieve and contribute, there is an almost innate need to keep the focus on negative black issues.
But why?
Because black people were intended to be the “antithesis” to white people within the construction of the American project. This is even why non-whites who are not black such as Asian, non-white Hispanics, etc., often “swing down” on black people to differentiate themselves so they can fit in with the “white superstructure”. Even, “white minorities” of old such as Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Polish immigrants engaged this “swinging down within America’s dialectic” as I call it. And, sure, are black people perfect’? Not at all. But, aesthetically, black people are intended to be lower so others feel higher. So, I commend Nolan, even if it wasn’t his intention, for using art to subvert the innate racial preference of Western Civilization, which as stated had fallen on Sub-Saharan African people (i.e., We didn’t land of Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us! as stated by Malcolm X).
Black people were intended to be the Ying to their (white) Yang, so America is obsessed with exacerbating differences as a medium of control. We literally just had a black man circle the moon, but rather people want to see black men committing crimes to reinforce their own beliefs. Yet, a person may say “well, black people only talk about race” and my response is “sure, why not, because race is what this racist society gave us” and by “gave us”, I mean literally every worst aspect of being that could be enforced on people up until recent times (the nineteen seventies at the lates, despite laws being signed in the the sixties, yet even since the 1970s, conservatives have been trying to chip away at the laws which sought equity amongst the racial groups such as voting rights in the South, affirmative action to ensure equal access to employment opportunities, etc.).
White people already have historical privilege in the West. I am sorry if “white privilege” angers you, but….if you read what racist say…they are literally SAYING they should be “privileged before everyone else”.
One could argue that race swapping white with black is actual erasure considering black ancestral culture was largely destroyed, whereas black people in white roles is really about assimilation and inclusion, i.e., being able to finally participate. Until black people are supported in regaining what was lost to them, black people are…here. I am literally a black man speaking an Indo European language, was raised on a King James Bible, and I have a Scottish or English last name.
I AM WESTERN CIVILIZATION.
I AM A CHAMPION OF IT.
AND… if anything, my skin is a testament of endurance within it.
SO…FUCK OFF.
I’m as Western as any German whose ancestors were worshipping trees who eventually got assimilated by Romans and Franks.
Mitchell Research Group 