Aidonian's blog

Whenever a movie comes out, the choices to who is cast as who portrays Ancient Greeks can lead to some controversy. The casting of Helene of Troy in the new Christoper Nolan is no exception.

The last decades we saw that Hollywood cast black people to portray Ancient Greeks on screen. While Ancient Greeks were aware of the existence of black people in Africa, having some black actors portray Greek characters is somewhat strange. Than again with the Gods of Egypt, it were mostly Americans and British actors who acted in the movie. Besides for the obvious racism that is on display here, there is also a case to be made for sexism here. They are only outraged when its about women. So we have two camps here. One camp are racists and sexist. The other one wants accurate representation of the Greek heritage. The myth of Phaeton shows that ancient Greeks were aware of black people. Like with all patriarchal societies, women of aristocracy don’t have many rights. I have seen that she is described as with a white complexion which could refer that even then having a pale skin meant wealth, meant that she didn’t had to work in the field. Working outside meant being exposed to the sun and being tanned and being pale skined meant that you had the luxery to have somethine else do the work for you.

representation matters

This is true for all things. Just like its important that black characters or native Americans are played by actors with these roots, its also important when it comes to mythology that this occurs. When it comes to the Gods, one can take artistic license as they can show themselves in whatever form they deem necessary but human characters, that is different. I think it ultimaly comes down to the following. The latest Christopher Nolan is a big budget Hollywood production which means that the producers want recognizable faces to sell tickets, not unknown actors to play the leads. It could also be that they were hoping for some controversy because that means people are talking about the movie before they have seen it. We need to discuss actual representation of the Greeks in movies and tv shows on Hellenic mythological stories or even historical stories. Cancelling the movie is dumb and won’t make a difference. If it flops, it means that Hollywood wont make any movies based on Hellenic mythology. The thing is, if we have this discussion, we need to stay clear from sexism and racism, otherwise its pointless to have this discussion. Unfortunatly, that is what is happening now: the focuss lies on skin colour. That in itself is plain wrong. We can’t move forward if we focus on race, instead of representation. The line is very thin, i know.