@oneeyedundertaker brother I drop off all my laundry every Friday morning at the dry cleaners next to that deli. I don’t make anything or do anything at this point
She was literally noted as being "white-armed" and is always depicted as white. I'm glad you now feel "seen" Goat.
Isn't "white-armed" the ancient Greek equivalent of "blue-blooded?"
Are you really trying to claim that white-armed had nothing to do with having fairer skin? Your pedantry is tiresome. If you don't care about accuracy and historical reference, just say that. Some of us do.
Even ChatGPT, the wokest of AI:
- Mythologically: The Greeks generally imagined her as a beautiful Greek woman, often with fair skin and sometimes light hair.
- Using modern racial categories: If she were a real Mycenaean Greek woman, she would generally be considered White/European (West Eurasian) by modern standards, while recognizing that "white" is a modern social category rather than one used in the Bronze Age
I'm sure they imagined her looking like them. That's what people do with myth. But it has nothing to do with historical accuracy. She wasn't real.
What you regard as mere pedantry is me simply responding directly to the arguments you are making. If you find that tiresome, maybe try making better arguments.
Whether or not she existed in actuality isn't the point. Her presence was set in a fictional story within a historical period. We can debate whether it's historical fiction or a legend based on history (more likely), but there were many historical references and perspectives at the time. We do know there is plenty of art depicting people from the Odyssey in various ways, and it has been for millennia. I don't know why we need to purposefully clash with that.
I don't view it as being distinctly different than James Fennemore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales (the best of which is The Deerslayer- fight me!). Natty, Uncas, Magua, they are all fictional characters. If you are okay with Ru Paul playing Magua next time, then we'll never find common ground.
For the record, sea salt and vinegar, and you're a racist if you think otherwise.
@jdb next time you’re in town. Protzels. Half mile from the ritz on Wydown. Salt and vinegar chips pastrami all the good sodas. Old school Jews. Phenomenal
@jdb I take it you haven’t seen the play Hamilton? Original cast had George Washington and Thomas Jefferson black and Hamilton as a Latino. I really don’t remember there being much of a big deal about it.
I saw it a decade ago in Chicago when it first came out. I found it entertaining - the songs and dancing were quite good.
But were you hiding under a rock? It got all sorts of praise and criticism for its depictions of Jefferson and Hamilton (owned or managed slaves too IIRC). Hell, there were black people who thought it was marginalizing the slavery era by having black people play his and Jefferson's part.
@jdb I’ll add that the amount of iu alums that live in our neighborhood around the deli is nuts
@jdb If you're going to limit yourself to just historical fiction, I can see the point. It would have been weird watching Morgan Freeman as William Wallace. But the Odyssey is myth. It's not historical anything. You can play with it all you want. Much of what Nolan showed actually came from the Aeneid, which didn't reflect at all how the Greeks viewed the Trojan War, but rather how the Romans did. So it's already skewed away from the original narrative context, anyway. So now, in the 21th century, it will reflect how modern audiences view the Trojan War. I'm not offended by historical inaccuracy in this case, because there is no history to be inaccurate about. We're down to Joseph Campbell levels of universal mythology at this point. Odysseus is the hero with a thousand faces, just like Helen is the hot milf with a thousand faces. And some of those faces will be black. Big deal.
First time I watched Dunkirk I was nonplussed.So you must have seen it. What are these DEI injections and did you leave the theater in disgust?I LOVE Greek mythology
I presume you particularly love fictional Greek mythology with Hollywood DEI injections.
I'm going to see it tomorrow. Reviews from the critics and the audience are super high.
These look just like how Ancient Greeks have always been depicted. Spitting image.
I am not going to see it until it comes out to streaming.
I'm mixed on Nolan. I liked Memento a lot. Same with Inception and The Prestige. Those are Top 25 caliber movies for me. Was not a big Dark Knight or Dunkirk fan, but I'm more of a character-building movie vs. cinematic masterpiece (sans Dances with Wolves) and I dislike superheroes (Deadpool being the exception)
Second time, I thought it was one of the best movies of the last 25 years.
Did you care when the Cohen brothers made O Brother, where art thou?I thought it was a good movie and enjoyed it. To enjoy it, it does require you not to get hung up on the accuracy of how fictional characters are portrayed though.
The purpose of historical context matters in historical movies. I wouldn't want to watch Zulu with the Asians fighting Latinos. I wouldn't want to watch a movie about the Revolutionary War with Shermans and Mark VIs battling it out.
@jdb If you're going to limit yourself to just historical fiction, I can see the point. It would have been weird watching Morgan Freeman as William Wallace. But the Odyssey is myth. It's not historical anything. You can play with it all you want. Much of what Nolan showed actually came from the Aeneid, which didn't reflect at all how the Greeks viewed the Trojan War, but rather how the Romans did. So it's already skewed away from the original narrative context, anyway. So now, in the 21th century, it will reflect how modern audiences view the Trojan War. I'm not offended by historical inaccuracy in this case, because there is no history to be inaccurate about. We're down to Joseph Campbell levels of universal mythology at this point. Odysseus is the hero with a thousand faces, just like Helen is the hot milf with a thousand faces. And some of those faces will be black. Big deal.
Fuck it. I’ll wander in. I think part of the problem is the insistence that non-white/european stories be correctly and faithfully portrayed (see Moana, which was a fucking cartoon or Black Panther) but Hollywood can play around with western and traditionally (let’s face it) white narratives however they like.
at the end of the day it’s art which makes it subjective. I doubt Homer (if he was even an actual person and not a collection of poets) saw Helen in his/their minds eye as Lupita Nyongo (who FTR is smoking hot). But Nolan did and that’s ok. She’s on screen fo like two minutes I’m probably more surprised he didn’t throw a token Greek person in the flick. Seems like an oversight.
I’ll definitely see the movie. I’m a sucker for Nolan’s films.
Eli Wallach (member of the Tribe) is one of the best Mexicans on film as Tuco.I still see movies with John Wayne as Genghis Khan, or Yule Brenner as the king of Siam, and a lot of westerns with Whites as indigenous. I even watch humans as hobbits.
Never seen either of those, but I find them all to be cringeworthy. Wes Studi, Rodney Grant, Eric Schweig or Graham Greene do a much better job playing Native Americans than some honkey, a black person, an Asian person, etc. I cannot imagine how bad that movie must be with John Wayne (i just saw IMDB has it as a 3.8!) since he is the most overrated actor of all time. He sucked at anything other than a slow, twang-type ramble.
I want to see close proximity to reality, whether the movie is fictional (e.g., Dances with Wolves, Last of the Mohicans) or pseudo-documentary (Geronimo, Zulu).
First time I watched Dunkirk I was nonplussed.
Second time, I thought it was one of the best movies of the last 25 years.
We watched it opening night at the imax and I was very disappointed. A daughter gave me the blu ray for a gift, watched it, loved it.
Maybe this is a trend.