The Odyssey Hullabaloo › American Greatness
Victor Davis Hanson
Acclaimed British filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s (The Dark Knight, Oppenheimer) newest film, The Odyssey, opens this week in the United States.
But controversy has already surrounded Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s 2,700-year-old epic poem about Odysseus’s 10-year struggle to return home after the Achaian victory in the decade-long Trojan War.
Some of the film’s actresses have suggested that Nolan is offering a more feminist—and long-overdue—take on the ancient poem. Actress Lupita Nyong’o, in particular, has criticized Homer’s purported sexism.
Perhaps her misreading of Homer stems from her admission that, despite receiving degrees from elite Hampshire College and Yale, the 42-year-old actress had never even read the Odyssey until she was cast in the minor dual roles of Helen and her sister Clytemnestra.
The Odyssey was composed orally sometime around 750–700 B.C., contemporaneously with the rise of the Greek city-state. Along with Homer’s other epic, The Iliad, The Odyssey marks the inauguration of Western literature. Over the next three millennia, it came to be recognized as not only the earliest but also one of the most profound works of Western civilization.
Far from being sexist, Homer’s Odyssey offers a timeless and diverse panorama of powerful, independent, and savvy women.
more
https://amgreatness.com/2026/07/16/the-odyssey-hullabaloo/
