Nolan's 'Odyssey' Sparks Debate: Who Owns Ancient Texts?

The release of Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of *The Odyssey* has sparked widespread debate, reflecting deeper questions about cultural ownership and interpretation. The film’s casting choices, box office success, and critical reception—including a notable negative review from translator Emily Wilson in the *London Review of Books*—have fueled discussions about who determines the meaning and audience of ancient texts.

At the heart of the controversy is a longstanding tension over the political implications of classical literature. While some conservatives condemned Nolan’s casting as overly "woke," scholars have also critiqued the film, though their objections reveal their own biases. For decades, right-wing figures have weaponized classical texts, framing them as foundational to a mythologized "Western civilization" that excludes diversity and critical race theory. This framing overlooks the fact that ancient Greece was multicultural, with Troy located in modern-day Turkey and Odysseus plausibly arriving in North Africa.

Classicists like Emily Greenwood, Dan-el Padilla Peralta, and Mathura Umachandran have documented how the field of classics evolved during the Enlightenment to reinforce white supremacy, aligning antiquity with imperialism. Given this history, adaptations of *The Odyssey* cannot avoid political implications. Traditional casting choices, for example, reinforce the idea that these stories belong to a white, elite Western tradition. Similarly, the use of formal British accents in historical films subtly reinforces class and educational hierarchies.

Nolan, however, engages directly with the text’s reception across history. His film includes Easter eggs referencing Virgil’s *Aeneid*, Hesiod’s *Works and Days*, and Tennyson’s *Ulysses*, while a brief scene features modern Greek spoken by foreigners, rendering it incomprehensible to Odysseus’ crew. Some of Nolan’s casting choices—such as Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Elliot Page as Sinon—challenge conventional expectations, provoking both praise and backlash.

The film also reinterprets the Trojan Horse episode, drawing on Virgil’s more critical portrayal of Odysseus. For Nolan, the horse represents a violation of *xenia*—the ancient Greek concept of hospitality—as Zeus’s law. This framing shifts focus from Odysseus as a cunning hero to a man burdened by the consequences of his actions, mirroring Nolan’s portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Yet the film’s political framing remains limited. While it critiques imperial decline, it does not fully acknowledge how the norms of "civilization" have been used to justify domination. Nolan’s invocation of *xenia* as a solution to modern xenophobia overlooks systemic causes of migration crises, including U.S. sanctions in countries like Venezuela.

Nolan filmed portions of the movie on occupied Western Saharan land, further complicating its political stance. Though the film is ambitious, its lack of radical or decolonial perspectives leaves key questions unaddressed.

The debate over Nolan’s *Odyssey* ultimately reflects broader struggles over who controls cultural narratives. While some critics dismiss the film as politically misguided, others overlook its thoughtful engagement with ancient and modern reception. The conversation itself underscores the enduring relevance—and contested legacy—of Homer’s epic.