An 'All-American' Odyssey

Christopher Nolan made his Greeks modern Americans. That’s a reason why it sucks.

The Odyssey is a worldwide success and expected to surpass a billion dollars in box office sales. While film critics and most viewers seem to love the movie, the Internet still vigorously fights over the Christopher Nolan film. Elon Musk, the movie’s most prominent critic, vows to create a film faithful to the Homeric epic, whether with Mel Gibson or Grok.

The film is disliked for many reasons, but the most frequently made criticism (one that Highly Respected shared in its review) is that Nolan’s Odyssey isn’t really the Odyssey. It’s a modern, feminist reinterpretation of the ancient text and lacks the core themes of the original. It’s a critique made even by Emily Wilson, the controversial feminist translator of Homer.

The film’s admirers counter that a faithful adaptation of the Odyssey would horrify modern audiences. The producers naturally wanted to avoid that, so they made the film align with modern values. What we get is an Odyssey not about Bronze Age Greeks but about 21st century Americans. Nolan’s Odyssey stands as an all-American epic, representing our own ideals and values as the original Odyssey expressed the Greek Weltanschauung.

It’s not a woke film, but it is “libtarded,” albeit not so libtarded as to offend the majority of Americans. It reflects the contemporary American consensus. It’s pro-democracy and egalitarian, accepts diversity, sees women as our moral conscience, and considers being a DECENT FUCKING PERSON the highest value. Odysseus isn’t a warrior-aristocrat dominating the world around him; he’s a bourgeois wifeguy haunted by what he’s done and just trying to get home. Matt Damon wasn’t a popular choice, but he makes perfect sense for what Nolan wanted to convey. He’s the uncontroversial American everyman, and that’s Odysseus in this adaptation.

Mainstream America could see itself in the movie. These aren’t ancient “savages,” but ourselves. That’s one of the reasons the movie is underwhelming. Some concessions to modern sentiment are expected. But it shouldn’t come at the expense of completely subverting the Homeric epic and turning it into a lionization of multicultural America.

If you find the new Odyssey subversive, congrats, you’re not a normie. You’re a Dissenting American. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it should make right-wingers pause before they invoke the will of the American people to defend their positions. The people see themselves and their values reflected in the new Odyssey. Do you?

It’s not uncommon for popular historical epics to depict modern Americans in past contexts. For instance, Braveheart had Scottish accents and a cast that looked British, but the heroes were fighting for all-American values. But it still felt like the characters were medieval and not 1990s Americans. Gladiator was similar in that regard for the Romans.

Nolan’s Odyssey dispenses with the accents and a cast that looks like the time period. They speak like modern Americans and look like us, complete with all our diversity. Besides the outfits and the appeals to the Greek pantheon, there’s no difference between the characters and audience. Even the British actors speak like Americans in The Odyssey. This has been criticized by a wide variety of viewers, but it fits Nolan’s goal of delivering an all-American epic.

The characters constantly emphasize Zeus’s law in the film. In Nolan’s telling, this is the basis of Greek society and Greek decline will surely follow the repeated violations of it. Telemachus declares Zeus’s law is basically the Golden Rule: treat others as you wish to be treated. Basically, be a DECENT FUCKING HUMAN. That was obviously not the basis of ancient Greek society, but it’s the universal value of modern American society. This value encourages the characters to welcome strangers, as well places obligations on the strangers.

While it’s not hard to discern a pro-immigration message from this law, the film shows the strangers violating this law more than those offering hospitality. The Greeks’ Trojan horse is seen as a gross violation of this law and is the reason for Odysseus’s divine disfavor. The suitors violate the hospitality laws and deserve punishment. Circe also violates Zeus’s law, but for an understandable reason. She needs to teach these warmongering men that women are DONE with their shenanigans. Her violation is resolved through mutual understanding rather than through punishment.

The Golden Rule replaces honor as the central value of the cinematic Odyssey. All characters obsess over it while honor is completely absent. Fate is also absent. Odysseus, in the poem, is destined to suffer before he can make it back home. It had nothing to do with him not being a DECENT FUCKING HUMAN in Troy. In fact, MANY gods, especially Athena, are pleased with him sacking the city. But in the movie, he’s made to pay for this bad act, as is Agamemnon. Agamemnon’s murder in the poem is an odious deed done at the behest of his wife’s dishonorable lover. In the movie, it’s a righteous act of vengeance by Clytemnestra.

Americans like to believe we make our own destiny and fate has nothing to do with what happens. Nolan’s Odyssey, with the tagline “Defy the Gods,” affirms that view.

Nolan’s Odysseus isn’t particularly clever. In fact, it seems his men are often smarter than him. His real problem is that he doesn’t listen to them and doesn’t trust them. It’s one of his sins that he lies to his men, even if it’s for their own good. Ellen Page’s Sinon castigates Odysseus for not telling “him” the truth about the Trojan horse, despite that it would’ve done nothing to save “his” life. Odysseus needs to be more democratic and trust the people. Modern Americans would nod their heads to this message.

Damon’s Odysseus is at heart a GOOD MAN, but he makes mistakes. He doesn’t listen to his wife about going on an extended vacation to avoid the Trojan War. He instead kowtows to Agamemnon and goes along with the warlord. Bad move! The women in the movie serve as the guardians of morality. Circe reminds the men that they shouldn’t be greedy and rapacious. In the book, she’s only made good by Odysseus dominating her and taking her to bed. In the movie, simple understanding makes her a good person. Calypso is no longer an obsessive nymphomaniac enslaving Odysseus–she’s his therapist! Instead of the gods forcing her to give up Odysseus, she encourages the hero to leave and “give up control” to make it home. Odysseus listens and makes it home. In the poem, Athena is Odysseus’s divine benefactor who helps in difficult situations. In the movie, Zendaya’s Athena does nothing to help the protagonist. All she does is scowl at him and let him know he’s done bad things. She’s the HR manager enforcing good conscience in the Aegean office space. It’s also unclear if she’s a goddess at all as she just might be a hallucination of a woman killed in Troy.

When he gets back home, Odysseus feels unworthy of his wife and feels she should only accept him if she wants to. She, of course, does and Odysseus finally takes her advice and sails off into retirement. In the poem, Odysseus insisted on reclaiming his kingdom. Here, he’s now just about pleasing his wife. This makes him the ideal middle-class American man. He may be flawed, but he listens and learns from his wife, therapist, and HR manager to do better. He won’t be sacking cities any more.

Ellen Page’s Sinon embodies the film’s egalitarian message. Despite being clearly the smallest and weakest warrior among Odysseus’s men, our hero claims Sinon as his bravest warrior. It’s unclear how a five-foot biological woman could claim that, but the film wants us to believe it. Unlike the actual Greeks, we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover. The mighty could be weak and the transmen could be strong. Americans like to think all men are created equal, and so does Nolan’s Odyssey.

There are other small details that make this a modern American epic. Argos, Odysseus’s dog, becomes a main character to appeal to Americans’ canine obsession. We learn how evil the suitors are when they abuse the dog. Mistreating a dog is one of the few justifications for mass murder on film. It’s now a popular trope in numerous action films to justify the hero’s massacres. See John Wick and Sisu. The previews before The Odyssey showcased a number of films where a dog is also a main character, including one film where Brad Pitt is in a buddy adventure with man’s best friend. Nolan knows what an American audience wants to see.

The much-maligned racial diversity was intended to reinforce the idea of the Greeks as Americans. It’s rare to be surrounded entirely by whites today. Many think it’s normal to see an African as the pinnacle of beauty and have an Indian best friend. The film offers American-levels of diversity not so much to subvert the source material (it does that through its themes and character changes) but to make it more 21st century American. An all-white cast would look foreign to many Americans today. The diversity lets them see themselves in the past. (Right-wingers would obviously have a different take on this.)

Like any film or book that aims to be a great American story, it doesn’t glorify the nation. The Greeks have done a lot of bad things, such as invading other places and not following Zeus’s law. That’s just like Americans. But Odysseus shows that we can learn from our mistakes. We just need to listen to women and reaffirm our commitment to respecting strangers to make our country great again. “Serious works” can’t be unapologetic patriotic paeans. They have to be more critical. The Odyssey is certainly that.

It’s expected that a major blockbuster wouldn’t entirely replicate the values and themes of an ancient epic. The Northman tried to do that, and it didn’t break even at the box office. It’s understandable that Nolan would make his characters more appealing to modern audiences. But making the characters and society an exact replica of 21st century America is too much and dilutes the source material. This is no longer The Odyssey. It wears Homer’s story as a skinsuit for a showcase of our values and ideals. Along with Nolan’s typical weaknesses for creating good dialogue and believable characters, The Odyssey is underwhelming.

No one is demanding a modern film celebrate Odysseus’s brutal murder of his disloyal female servants. Critics would just like a film that imagines Odysseus as something more than a hen-pecked suburban man who just wants to retire. There should be something exotic and ancient to these characters. Instead, we get to see modern Americans in Greece with our same concerns and prejudices. It’s lame. It’s also subversive when accounting for the film’s feminism and xenophilia.

Unfortunately, only a minority will have a problem with this film on these grounds. Most Americans don’t read Homer anymore. They would prefer this version of the Odyssey rather than an authentic adaptation. They can relate to it much more as it reaffirms their worldview. Those who find it subversive aren’t normies. They’re Dissenting Americans who have a different worldview from that of the current mainstream.

The Online Right was always going to hate this film, and normies were always going to like it. It’s not only a difference in taste but a difference in values that animates that disagreement.

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