MAGA Said The Odyssey Would Flop. Whoops!

Summary

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Episode Overview

Theme:
This episode of The Bulwark dives into the outrage and discourse surrounding Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey, focusing on the backlash from MAGA media and right-wing influencers. The hosts—Sam Stein, Sonny Bunch, and Will Sommer—unpack the accusations of "wokeness," debunk conspiracy theories about the film’s casting and performance, and highlight how online outrage contrasts with the movie's actual success.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: The Success of The Odyssey

• The episode opens with a breakdown of the film’s box office performance:
  • $124.5 million in U.S./Canada ticket sales, biggest live-action domestic opening of the year ([00:00]).
  • Third only to Toy Story 5 and Super Mario Galaxy.
• Despite the numbers, MAGA and right-wing accounts are aggressively attacking the film online.
  • Sam Stein: “If you just followed MAGA accounts…you would think this is like one of the greatest affronts to literature, the classics, humanity, really, in modern cinema.” ([00:52])

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2. Twitter (X) Outrage: The Main Complaints

• Algorithm Amplification:
  • Both Sam and Sonny note Twitter’s algorithm is pushing anti-Odyssey content heavily.
    • Sonny Bunch: “It is Odyssey maxing on Twitter right now. And like most of this is very negative…” ([01:32])
• Casting Criticisms:
  • Lupita Nyong'o (a Black woman) cast as Helen of Troy—a focal point for cries of "wokeness."
  • Fake news about Elliot Page being cast as Achilles (not true—Achilles is not even in the movie).
  • Complaints about the use of Emily Wilson’s translation (accused of being "feminist" and "revisionist") ([02:28]).
• Right’s Determined Narrative:
  • Despite record-breaking pre-sales and sold-out screenings, a determined strain of right-wing social media declared the film destined to flop.

Sonny Bunch: “The right wing shud brigade was pretty convinced that they are going to tank this movie. That it was not going to do well. It didn’t matter that the pre-sales were the best pre-sales of all time… The IMAXes are sold out all over the country.” ([03:27])

• Sam Stein: Other talking points—unhappy with Travis Scott’s casting, period-accuracy of armor and ships, and lack of Greek actors ([04:20]).

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3. Example of Right-Wing Critique (Featuring Matt Walsh)

• Sam Stein reads from Matt Walsh’s negative review ([04:45]):

  “Just saw the Odyssey. Despite what you may have heard, literally all of the criticisms by conservatives were entirely correct. Movie is just as woke as you fear, if not more so. The DEI casting is atrocious, completely takes you out of the story right from the beginning…

  But even worse than that is Nolan’s decision to turn Odysseus into an anachronistic, whiny, solemn shell of a man plagued by trauma… It’s impossible to overlook these flaws because the film itself is not terribly entertaining or well-constructed…” ([04:45])

• Sam’s response:

  • The critique is overwrought, and “verbose and overly rushed”—ironically echoing the criticism Walsh directs at the screenplay ([05:51]).

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4. Will Sommer: The Conspiracy Machine & “Woke” Translator

• Will Sommer: Expecting a flop based on right-wing chatter (Sargon of Akkad, Tim Pool), surprised by box office success ([06:19]).
• Emily Wilson’s “Wokeness”:
  • Right-wing discontent over her being a woman and her appearance and tattoos:

    “Emily Wilson, the translator here also has like Millennial sleeve tats. And they've made a lot about this... This is like HR Millennial woke lady and someone let her do a translation.” ([06:30])

• Conspiracy Theories About Box Office and Critics:
  • Claims studios are secretly buying up tickets or juicing critic/audience scores.
    • “So a couple things. The critics obviously have responded well to this. So there have been accusations that the studio has to be secretly paying the critics, people going to theaters and saying... it must be the studio is secretly buying all of these seats.” ([07:19])
  • This reflects a pattern seen with other movies, like the right-wing film Sound of Freedom.

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5. Debunking the Troll Narrative

• Is it possible for studios to juice box office numbers?
  • Sonny Bunch: “A lot of things are possible, Sam. I could go to a movie theater right now and buy all the tickets...” ([07:43])
  • But the scale and forms of fraud alleged are far-fetched.
• Rotten Tomatoes Ratings Explained:
  • 95% critics rating;
  • 97% verified audience rating (requires ticket purchase);
  • 92% general audience rating.
  • Downvoting campaigns seem not to be making a dent in the numbers ([09:15]).

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6. Not All Conservatives Are Outraged

• Dave Rubin’s Positive Take:
  • Rubin calls the film a “masterpiece,” notes that backlash has been insane:

    “It was spectacular. I tweeted it was a masterpiece... The responses were psychotic... And I don’t know if, you know, people were like, did you get. Who. Who bought you out? Who paid you to say this... There was nothing woke in it. There really wasn’t.” ([09:47])

  • Even points out that controversial casting choices amounted to only “about eight minutes of screen time.” ([10:07])
• Sonny Bunch: Confirms this is a rational, minority position within the right-wing world.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sam Stein, on the right-wing reaction:

  “If you just followed maga accounts... you would think this is like one of the greatest affronts to literature, the classics, humanity, really, in modern cinema.” ([00:52])

• Sonny Bunch, on algorithmic outrage:

  “The algorithm is incredibly Odyssey juiced. It is Odyssey maxing on Twitter right now… Elon really wants to push that this movie is woke trash, that it’s a violation of all we hold dear by having Lupita Nyong’o, who is a black woman, play Helen of Troy…” ([01:32])

• Will Sommer, on the reality distortion:

  “Maybe it was still a flop. Maybe, you know, the I can still live in this sort of reality of my own choosing.” ([07:01])

• Dave Rubin, on the mob reaction:

  “The responses were psychotic. If you go on Twitter and look at the responses to that tweet, psychotic. ... There was nothing woke in it. There really wasn’t.” ([09:47])

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00 – Episode introduction & box office landscape
• 01:32 – Social media outrage and “Odyssey maxing”
• 02:28 – Breakdown of fake news about casting and translation controversies
• 04:20 – Additional right-wing complaints (casting, historical accuracy)
• 04:45 – Matt Walsh’s viral critique (read aloud and dissected)
• 06:19 – Will Sommer on conspiracies and translation panic
• 07:19 – Conspiracy theories about fake ticket sales and ratings
• 09:15 – Rotten Tomatoes numbers and why “juicing” is unlikely
• 09:47 – Dave Rubin’s defense of the film

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Summary Takeaway

The Bulwark episode sharply illustrates how intense online outrage, particularly from right-wing influencers and MAGA-aligned accounts, primarily lives on platforms like Twitter/X—and stands at odds with broader public reaction and box office data. The cast dissects the root of the backlash (claims of “wokeness,” casting, translation choices), the echo chamber of conspiracies, and the resilience of fact-based reality: The Odyssey is, by every real-world metric, a hit. Even some conservative voices, like Dave Rubin, contradict the dominant right-wing narrative.

Listeners come away understanding the anatomy of a modern culture war over a major film—and the increasing disconnect between social media noise and real-life outcomes.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor of the Bulwark. I'm joined by Sonny Bunch and Will Summer. We're going to be talking about the Odyssey and the backlash, the ridiculous backlash, the over the top backlash that has happened online among the maga, right towards this Christopher Nolan, soon to be classic. Let's just set the stage here. The Odyssey. It's open to incredible success, commercial and acclaimed success. $124.5 million in ticket sales in US and Canada from Sunday will be easily the biggest domestic opening of the year for a live action film. Ranked third behind the great Toy Story 5, which is a Sonny Bunch favorite, of course, and Super Mario Galaxy movie, another Sonny Bunch favorite.

[B]

No, no, I won't. I'll put up with Toy Story 5, but not super Mario Galaxy. Don't. Don't slander me that way.

[A]

I would never besmirch you like that. And yet online, you. If you just followed mag accounts or some MAGA accounts, I shouldn't say all MAGA accounts. You would think this is like one of the greatest affronts to literature, the classics, humanity, really, in modern cinema. I had the unfortunate experience of retweeting or no, I clicked on one Matt Walsh tweet and my entire algorithm for the for you section became flooded with Elon Musk styled takedowns of the Odyssey for being too woke. So, Sonny, what exactly is the problem with the Odyssey according to these people?

[B]

It's interesting that you mention what happened with the Twitter algorithm for you, because I've noticed the same exact thing since the movie came out. Like, I wasn't tweeting about it a ton. You know, just kind of standard stuff. But then I started this weekend as the numbers were rolling in and the. The algorithm is incredibly Odyssey juiced. It is. It is Odyssey maxing on Twitter right now. And like most of this, most of this is very negative because that Elon really wants to push. He wants to push that this movie is woke trash, that it's a violation of all we hold dear by having Lupita Nyong', O, who is a black woman, play Helen of Troy, which is a casting choice that would never happen, certainly would never happen in a 1950s adaptation of the film by Orson Welles or anything like that. That certainly wouldn't happen. The other thing is the casting of Elliot Page as a Greek soldier was. So there was fake news. There was actual fake news.

[A]

This.

[B]

For weeks and weeks, people were saying, oh, this is Achilles. Christopher Nolan has cast Elliot Page as Achilles, and Elliot Page has many Great qualities as an actor, but is a very small person. Like is not. Is not a big brawny warrior. And they were like, oh this is ridiculous. This is wokeness. Blah blah blah. Turns out not actually Achilles. Achilles is not in the movie at all. Achilles is. I don't believe I did not see Achilles on screen once. I don't think in the, in the sacking of Troy Agamemnon is prominently featured. And then there's a bunch of kind of nameless faceless Greeks rushing into Detroit and of course Odysseus and his men running around doing things. No Achilles. So there, there were all. There were these two kind of separate controversies and, and the, the third kind of ancillary thing which I think, you know, I don't know how many people who were complaining about this have read any translation of the Odyssey, but there was a lot of talk about Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey being the one that was used. And of course she's a woman and it's kind of revisionist and it's a little more feminist. So it's too woke. We can't have that. And I, they. The. The right wing shud brigade was pretty convinced that they are going to tank this movie. That it was not going to do well. It didn't matter that the pre sales were the best pre sales of all time. That like AMC's website crashed. The only time it had crashed like that before was when Taylor Swift was doing a kind of one night only concert or one weekend only concert thing and then she expanded it to more weekends, whatever. But the, the like AMC couldn't keep up with the, the, the demand for these tickets. The IMAXes are sold out all over the country. It is, it's in multiple formats. It's gonna, it's doing huge numbers as you said and it will probably continue to do pretty good numbers because the pre sales remain very good. But all of this, all of this just goes to show that Twitter, not real life turns out Twitter, no, not real. Not real.

[A]

There's a couple other things that have stood out among the critics and I'm going to go to Will after this one. Travis Scott is cast in this. People didn't like that he's black. Two is apparently the, the armor and the ships are not Greek enough. And there. And also I should just add to that there are no Greek actors apparently in here and people are very upset about that. They're very, very despondent that they didn't have Greek actors in here. I referenced Matt Walsh. This was the the post he put up last night that got my algorithm all hot and bothered says just saw the Odyssey. Despite what you may have heard, literally all of the criticisms by conservatives were entirely correct. Movie is just as woke as you fear, if not more so. The DEI casting is atrocious, completely takes you out of the story right from the beginning. But even worse than that is Nolan's decision to turn Odyssey Odysseus into an anachronistic, whiny, solemn shell of a man plagued by trauma. Traumas in quotes. Why is trauma in quotes? And guilt. It's impossible to overlook these flaws because the film itself is not terribly entertaining or well constructed. For the most part, it's disjointed, dull, self serious, disenchanted somehow feeling both verbose and overly rushed at the same time. This feels, this tweet feels over. Both verbose and overly rushed. The dialogue is some of the worst I've ever heard. And quote, critically acclaimed film wise criticize that and quote, quote on the nose and quote, clunky are descriptions that can't even begin to describe the script. This is Homer, guys. At no point the story does Nolan even transport the audience into the ancient world. You never feel like you're 3000 years P in the past. You feel like you're watching modern Americans put a, put on a pageant, because you are. Nobody would be calling this thing a masterpiece if it was made by a director not named Christopher Nolan. I, I, yeah, that tweet sucks. Will, what, what have you been witnessing online?

[C]

Well, you know, look, I'm obviously very steeped in the right wing algorithm in the media. And I was like, I don't know, this movie might be a flop. You know, Sargon of a cod. All these guys are mad about it. And, and, you know, then it came out and I was surprised. I thought, oh my gosh, it's doing so well at the box office. I was told by Tim Pool or whoever this thing was going to flop. One thing I want to flag about Emily Wilson, the translator here also has like Millennial sleeve tats. And they've made a lot about this. They, oh my God, this is like HR Millennial woke lady and someone let her do a translation. They've been mad about her translation for years. Obviously, it's getting a lot of attention now because of this movie. So they were not happy about it. And yet despite the success of this film, the conspiracy theories, now they're starting to think maybe it was still a flop. Maybe, maybe, you know, the I can still live in this Sort of reality of my own choosing.

[A]

Yeah. Can you get into that? Because there's like, some, like, people are accusing, like, Rotten Tomatoes of being juiced and stuff like that.

[C]

Yeah. So a couple things. So, you know, the critics obviously have responded well to this. So there have been accusations that the studio has to be secretly paying the critics, people going to theaters and saying, well, you know, it looked like it was sold out when I bought the tickets, but it looks like maybe there are some more empty seats. So, in fact, you know, it must be. The studio is secretly buying all of these seats.

[A]

Is that even possible?

[B]

Is it possible? Is it? Is it. I mean, a lot of things are. A lot of things are possible, Sam. I could go to a movie theater right now and buy all the tickets. I guess that's the thing I could do.

[A]

Christopher Nolan's out there just buying those tickets. His.

[B]

His wife and producing partner, Emma Thomas is like, we got to juice these stats. We. They'll never let us make another movie. No, I mean, look, is it possible? It's possible. It's funny, because we had some of the same conspiracy theories when Sound of Freedom was putting up numbers, A lot of. There were people who were like, this movie can't possibly be making money. Right wing people aren't showing up for this. The studio's buying out the theaters, blah, blah, blah. And that was also fake news. The. The argument that Rotten Tomatoes is juicing the stats. I don't under. I don't actually understand the argument because Rotten Tomatoes has three different measures. They've got a critics rating, four different measures. They got top critics and all critics, but let's just say one. One critics rating, which is, I believe, 95%. Right now they have two different audience rankings. They have. They have a verified audience rating, which is based on people who Rotten Tomatoes can certify purchased a ticket. So if you purchase a ticket, you can put in the. I don't know exactly how it works. I'm not. I don't. I've never used it before. But you can put in the data, and then you can go to a link and it'll let you vote, you know, thumbs up or thumbs down on the movie. That number is actually higher than the critics number. That number is 97%. The verified audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 97%. So again, maybe Emma Thomas has purchased all these tickets and is like. Like clicking the thumbs up on Rotten Tomatoes too. I don't. But the. But the.

[C]

All.

[B]

The. All audience. So this is the non. The non. Verified audience is 92% fresh or something like that. So, like, even with probably some downvoting efforts, this. This movie is blowing past expectations on all fronts.

[A]

Not everyone on the right has decided that they're going to decide that this is just the greatest affront to classic literature and a woke orgasm on screen. There is Dave Rubin, who seem to like the film. We can play Dave Rubin, right? Yeah, let's play Dave Rubin. Talking about the Odyssey.

[D]

I just want to say one, one quick thing about the movie. It was spectacular. It really. I tweeted it was a masterpiece. I tweeted it was an absolute masterpiece. The responses were psychotic. If you go on Twitter and look at the responses to that tweet, psychotic. And I don't know if, you know, people were like, did you get. Who. Who bought you out? Who paid you to say this and everything?

[B]

I don't know.

[D]

I went with a car. I went to a movie with a couple friends. Then I had a thought about the movie, but there was nothing woke in it. There really wasn't. There was no woke messaging. There was two or three odd casting choices. I thought the casting was a little bit off, but Elliot Page and Lupita Nuengo were barely in the movie. I would say combined had about eight minutes of screen time.

[A]

That seems totally rational. And yet.