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All right, so since the prolific filmmaker Christopher Nolan decided to take on the Odyssey with his new adaptation, I have been following all of the drama surrounding this film. I mean, people have had criticisms and thoughts and opinions about the casting and the costumes, literally everything. And for the most part, the majority of the outrage up until recently has been coming from the left. But now, in the last 48 hours or so, conservatives have started to get outraged. They're pointing out their own issues with the film. And so our friends over at Variety published an article about that, which made me literally, lol. Specifically, because this article opens with this. Just listen, guys, you're gonna laugh. The author writes from the team that brought you. Why is Snow White Latina? Why are there black people in the rings of power? And Star wars has gone woke. Comes the latest online onslaught against an anticipated Hollywood project that has committed the unfathomable sin of having a diverse cast. Well, I have a lot to say about this article and about the controversy, but first of all, first of all, we have to ask, how did all that turn out for all of the projects that you just listed, huh? Are they doing well? Is Disney succeeding? Just asking questions now, of course I have thoughts. I have answers. But before we dive into that, I wanna remind you guys that on May 19th next week, I will be at Zany's here in Nashville. So if you wanna catch a live show, hear some stories, learn what's going on in my life, we'll talk about my favorite things that are just going crazy on the Internet. Come to the show May 19th. If you're in the greater Nashville, middle Tennessee area. All right, let's dive in. I'm so excited about this. I kind of made myself laugh when I was like, I have answers and I have thoughts, of course. And something that I think about all is the fact that, I mean, I'm just so lucky. I feel so grateful to be doing this show. I love this show. And it's especially great because, like, as a kid, I was such a know it all. I mean, I'm still kind of a know it all. Like, my mom's major issue with me when I was a kid was she would, like, try to give me direction for something. Like, Brett, I'm gonna explain how to do something to you and be like, I don't wanna hear it. I know how to do it. Like, I know how to do everything. I was extremely overconfident, which, honestly, I get from my mother. I had opinions on everything, and I wanted to tell everybody about it. And I could literally Just like, talk to. You did not have to respond to me. I would literally just talk all day long. One of my favorite phrases as a kid was like, I could have done that better. Like, if that were me, I would have done this differently. So, yeah, I am asking questions about things that are going on online, but obviously I have opinions and I get to sit in an empty room with a camera and talk to you guys about them, which is just so cool. Anyway, that was just a little aside. I'm so happy that you guys are here listening to me rant about things. Anyway, so let's dive into this. So just from a bird's eye view about the Odyssey, I just want you to take a look at this cast. The film is coming out this summer. It's been very anticipated and it is so stacked. I mean, Matt Damon is in it too. Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Charlize Theron. It is like the Avengers of A listers. And I mean, I look at that and I'm like, okay, that's cool. I'm sure we're gonna get amazing performances out of this project. No, wrong, wrong, my friends. Not cool, not great, not acceptable. Because controversy after controversy has now followed this casting every step of the way. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone is arguing about it from their own political point of view, obviously trying to win the culture war, per usual, which I feel like just in general, most people in the real world are exhausted by. I find myself exhausted by it. But again, bird's eye view, like the left wants representation. They want to see everybody represented. They want fewer roles for these big, rich, established actors. They want Christopher Nolan to be helping out the little guy. The right is calling out Christopher Nolan for race swapping. And the very odd, interesting choice to cast Elliot Page. Elliot Page, allegedly as the great warrior Achilles. And we're going to get into that. But first we need to talk about the hypocritical selective outrage which this time is coming from the left. Because when this cast was first announced, I think it was, you know, more than a year ago, a lot of people were upset. Specifically the film snobs, the woke Hollywood types. And they were upset because, number one, like you just heard, because he chose these A list actors instead of finding young, up and coming people getting a gritty cast together. And then number two, they were upset because none of these actors are actually Greek. And of course, Homer's the Odyssey is an epic poem. It is a Greek epic poem. Probably the most well known, famous foundational piece of Greek arc in the entire world. But here's the thing, this is the way that I view it. Christopher Nolan, because of his standing in Hollywood, he can cast whoever he wants. I mean he is the most sought after director in Hollywood. Literally like everyone in Hollywood literally fights to get cast in his movies. Robert Pattinson, who is in this upcoming Odyssey film, he even talked about how he begged Zendaya, who he was just in another film with, to put in a good word for him. And that's actually how he got his role in the film. Anytime you watch those actors on Actors roundtable interviews, I think maybe Hollywood Reporter or Variety does those. They're always talking about how, you know, their bucket list item, their dream in their career industry is to work with Christopher Nolan. So he has his pick of everyone. If he wanted to do all Greek, he could. If he wants to make a crazy diverse cast, he can make that happen. And everyone in the industry is kind of like, we just let Christopher Nolan be Christopher Nolan. And listen, like I am not here getting my panties in a bunch of about stuff. But I agree, like an all Greek cast would have been incredibly cool. Especially because if they're. Is anybody in Hollywood who has the sway to pull that off, who could, you know, put together a cast of essentially nobodies like up and coming Greek actors that he has discovered. If anybody could put that together and still get butts into theaters, still get them to come out to support an amazing film, it would be him. Just because of the pull that he has in Hollywood and with audiences. So was going with all of these A listers the lazy or easier route? Sure, I would argue it was a lot more expensive. So I don't know if it was the better route, but you could say that. But again, I don't really care. It's Christopher Nolan. He's gonna do what Christopher Nolan wants to. But a lot of people really did care. And that's the point that I'm trying to make. Like somebody said, I decided to check up the IMDb page for Nolan's Odyssey and it really managed to assemble a diverse cast from all over the world without including a single Greek generational casting work for a movie based on one of the most well known pieces of Greek literature. The best they could do was giving a supporting role to part Greek Michael Willemas. Hopefully I'm pronouncing his name correctly. So that's just an example of one of these critiques. Now, on top of this very dire situation, the lack of traditional Greek representation, as the trailers started coming out and the little teasers for the Odyssey. People also started nitpicking Christopher Nolan's costume design. So for example, in this image and clip, you see Agamemnon, who was wearing black armor. And I saw that, I was like, okay, that looks cool. I didn't really think anything of it. But some people, again, some people were not happy about this. Like one person tweeted, you have two kinds of people upset about the historical accuracy of the new Odyssey movie. There's the ones who are very upset about black people being in it, but not so much the white people. And then you have the people upset that they didn't go with the tin can armor that they had back then. Who is me is what this girl is saying. So a lot of people apparently were expecting the traditional bright bronze, AKA what would have been more historically accurate, or I guess what we perceive as being historically accurate for the Trojan War Greek era. But Nolan obviously went with this really dark, heavy style. It kind of looks medieval to me. People online were saying that it looked more like Batman armor instead of Greek armor, which, honestly, I see it in some of these clips. It makes sense. But to his credit, Nolan was apparently looking for other historical accuracy. Like he said that the black armor was very intentional. It was inspired by theories about dark bronze weapons at the time. Like there was a style they would use sulfur, they would darken the armor. I don't know. He also took some liberties while simultaneously trying to pursue historical accuracy with things like telling his composer not to use an orchestra for the score because they didn't have an orchestra back then. So that was something he was being really particular about. So the point that I am trying to make is that way before the last 48 hours, the last four days, whatever it's been way before the right wing Internet got involved in this whole controversy, people were already nitpicking Christopher Nolan's choices. They were nitpicking the historical accuracy, the cast, everything. And so this week, when it came out that Nolan had cast actress Lupita Nyong' o to play Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world. So beautiful that the story of her abduction literally started the Trojan War, long been described and perceived and portrayed as this like blonde, fair skinned beauty, Helen, that Helen of Troy, you would think that the same people who were nitpicking the historical accuracy, colors of things, the beauty, all of that, that they would take issue with that casting as well. Right? Like you would think that they would kill, keep the same energy. Wrong, obviously. Wrong. Obviously not. They just decided to call out everybody on the right as being racist. And so suddenly now the Odyssey has become the latest culture war fodder. So obviously Lupita's role being announced sparked a frenzy on X. For example, Matt Walsh posted, we're told that we shouldn't object to Helen of Troy being portrayed as a black woman. And yet if a major Hollywood studio made a film set in Africa and cast a white woman as the most beautiful woman in Africa, those same people would literally ride in in the streets. If, say, Sydney Sweeney was cast in the role, they would be driven to murderous violence. We all know this is the case. And he's not saying anything that is inaccurate. Like, that is a fact, especially when it comes to Sydney Sweeney, who they long have called a Nazi. Now and then, Elon Musk responded to Matt's tweet and said, absolutely true. Such hypocrisy in Hollywood. And like, from there, Elon just let it rip. Post after post talking about this, saying, Nolan was just trying to get an Oscar, so he was filling his diversity quota. All of these things talking about how idiotic this casting choice was. So there were so many posts like this, but my personal favorite actually was Alex Jones jumping into the fight. So he posted this. He said, why is Elon Musk upset that Hollywood cast Lupita Nyong' o is Helen of Troy in Christopher Nolan's upcoming Odyssey? What's wrong with purposefully erasing any evidence that white Western culture ever existed? This is what Helen of Troy actually looked like versus the new woke improvement. And then you can see here in my screenshot, there's a blonde woman and then a very unflattering photo of Lupita Nyong' o from another movie. However, in the actual post, that photo of the blonde girl is not a still. No. It is actually a video going from her legs all the way up to her head that really highlights her ginormous dump truck butt. Literally. We can show her here. Literally, like, her butt is the purpose of the video. And that is what Alex Jones decided to post. Like. Like, what are we doing here? Sorry, I know I'm getting off track, but I was like, looking at this, I was like, alex Jones, you have daughters. Pick an actress. Post a photo of Sydney Sweeney. Use the woman who played Helen of Troy in the movie Troy. Anything other than this. And this is just where it gets even worse. I'm like, oh, my God, I can't defend this because somebody replied to his post saying bruh, and then posted a screenshot that links to that girl's onlyfans account, Alex Jones was posting an onlyfans girl saying this is what Helen of Troy looks like. Oh my God. No, I can't defend it. This is terrible, just terrible, terrible example. Anyway, that was just an aside. Moving on from that. So like I said, now this entire thing has become a culture war. It's a race war. Every news outlet is reporting on these awful right wing people that are criticizing Christopher Nolan that are being so racist. These white supremacists, they just need to calm down. For example, people online were saying things like people mad about a fictional character. Again, race is a social construct created in 17th century, didn't exist in ancient Greece. Okay, yeah, race didn't exist. Brilliant, brilliant thought, sir. There were plenty of black Greeks. And calling Lupita Nyong' o non conventionally attractive shows at best your egocentrism, at worst racism. Or maybe it's just personal preference. Another person said the fact that those who don't want Lupita to play Helen are opposed to it because of her race and not because she isn't beautiful enough tells it all. Everyone knows the daughter of Nyong' o is gorgeous. They are just racist. Yeah, so hence why Variety put out that article that we read at the top of the episode. You know they're doing it again. The white supremacists and the right wing trolls are doing it again. They're complaining about race like they complained about Snow White and obviously Snow White was a smashing success. So l in the chat for all the racists, like it's just, it's such a cope because again, we know how Snow White turned out. We know that it was such a colossal failure that they put a pin in their upcoming adaptation of Rapunzel because God knows what they were gonna do with that. It actually, I believe caused them to completely get rid of their live action adaptation section altogether because they just couldn't get it right. But that is besides the point. I don't wanna get off track again in terms of my own personal opinion on this. Like initially I wasn't even bothered that Helen of Troy was going to be played by a black woman because again, like Christopher Nolan had already been hiring this extremely diverse cast that were people, people of all races involved. It was like just a hodgepodge of people. So again, I was not even shocked. I didn't waste breath on it at all. But the thing that made me go like, huh? Like really, really was that it was Lupita of all people. Like, she is an incredible actress. I think that she is brilliant. She gives Amazing performances. But, like, I'm sorry, you're gonna call me a racist, I don't care. But like, the most beautiful woman in the entirety of the world, a woman that causes wars to start the Trojan war of all wars. Like, okay, does not make sense at all. Like, what actually makes sense is that I'm taking care of my health with Jevity. And if you want to take action on your health, then you need to reach out to them and learn about their new free option. Now, in the past, you might have spent hundreds of dollars on one of these blood work companies and received like just a PDF, no plan, no provider, just numbers on a page that you were supposed to decipher. And that is not how JEVITY operates. 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I feel like you could have had so much fun with that casting and like, I would get it if Helen of Troy was some central character in the Odyssey. Like, this needs to be somebody with major acting chops. We need the best person that we can find who can carry this entire movie. But. And like, I haven't read the script, I haven't seen the movie, but based on the actual poem, if I remember correctly, like, Helen is only in one section of one of the chapters. I think it's chapter four. It's like one scene. And that entire scene, like her entire character in the Odyssey, it all revolves around her looks, every conversation about her. The one little segment that she's in, everything is about how insanely, awestruckingly beautiful this person is. But again, the whole thing didn't really give me much pause because he was already race swapping. He was already hiring a whole diverse slate of actors. This was not supposed to be some really serious, accurately casted thing. For example, on top of Lupita, he also cast Travis Scott, the rapper, in the film, which obviously made a lot of heads turn. Apparently hiring Travis Scott was supposed to help connect the film to the Odyssey's oral traditions, because it was a poem that was passed down for generations before it was even written down. In one article, the author writes, Nolan had also defended the casting of rapper Travis Scott as a bard, whose appearance in the early trailer caught some by surprise. 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. I really hate that we are putting Travis Scott and the oral telling of the amazing epic Greek poems in the same category. But unfortunately, that is 2026 for you. This isn't even about race or skin color. It just like, doesn't make sense. Sort of like with Lupita, like, just from a physical attributes point of view, like what this character represents, the beauty, the strength, it just doesn't make sense. That's common sense, people, that this is just ridiculous. The left, of course, is digging in their heels. So now we can Kind of circle back to this outrage in that original Variety article. Because the author goes on and on in this piece about how the vicious, this ridiculous political right needs to calm down with their transphobia and their racism. They just want to be outraged about everything. There's so many other movies that allegedly the right loves, like Troy, which also took so many liberties and was not accurate whatsoever. You know, you people just need to pipe down and enjoy the movie is essentially what the author was saying. And the entire thing was just so ridiculous to me because did you forget that all of the criticisms about the historical accuracy, everything that it actually started with people from Hollywood, it didn't start with the political right. Like, way before the Matt Walshes and the Alex Joneses with the weird Onlyfans girl. Like way before they were notified about Elliot Page getting close to the Odyssey, the Hollywood wokey types were already throwing a fit about Nolan's transgressions and the armor and there not being enough Greek people and up and coming actors. But now that race, that a black person is involved, that a trans person is involved now, oh well, now Hollywood has an oppressed class that they need to protect. Everybody is racing out to say how amazing it is that the movie is so diverse. It's gonna be so amazing. And it's like, guys, three months ago you were complaining about very, very similar transgressions. It is just so ridiculous. And I'm over it. I genuinely. It's just so absurd. And here's the thing, like, Christopher Nolan objectively is an amazing filmmaker. And I love the Odyssey. I love so many actors in the cast. I love Matt Damon, I love Anne Hathaway. But like, it is clear that Christopher Nolan is taking liberties with this film. Like, just as another example, he has very openly said that the translation that has been most helpful to him and inspiring to him is the 2017 contemporary feminist translation of the Odyssey. And so just based on that fact alone, like, we should not be surprised if we go to see this film and suddenly we see Elliot Page racing into battle as Travis Scott is rapping in the background. Like, I will not be surprised in the slightest. And I know I'm crapping on this entire thing right now. I'm mocking it just simply because it all sounds so ridiculous. Especially because Christopher Nolan is doing these little things, trying to show that he's being so accurate. Whether it is the composer not allowed to use the orchestra, or connecting to the oral traditions with Travis as Scott. But also he is making it very clear with the translations, with the casting choices that really historical accuracy is not the thing that he cares about the most. And so, listen, maybe the film will be brilliant. I have no idea. And if it's not, that's fine, because at least we'll have something to laugh about.