MAGA’s latest culture war target, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, is “grandiose and superficial,” according to a world-renowned scholar on the Greek poem. But one prominent author thinks that Wilson is playing into MAGA’s hands.
Literary legend Joyce Carol Oates jumped into the conversation to slam Emily Wilson, one of the foremost authorities on Homeric poetry and the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English, after Wilson called the film “abysmal” and said it “had nothing convincing to say.”
Oates wrote on X, “Her tone of dismissal & haughty superiority strike a sour note.”
“Rather than disagreeing with interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner, this person, who has benefited enormously from Nolan’s film, speaks in the crude language of MAGA folks attacking someone with ideas that differ from hers,” Oates continued.
She added, “One would expect a translator, of all people, beholden to a text, in service to a text, to be just a wee bit more thoughtful & respectful of others who are acting in good faith just as (she would claim) she is.”
Wilson’s take on the blockbuster was published in the London Review of Books, following Nolan’s praise of her work on its press tour.
The filmmaker told Empire in November that his version of the titular character Odysseus was inspired by “the Emily Wilson translation that begins, ‘Tell me about a complicated man.’” Nolan said that Wilson’s translation captured “the genius of the character, the cleverness, the inventiveness of him, that was a huge part of what interested me. He’s not just a soldier. He’s an amazing strategist, a very wily person.”
But Wilson, who admits in the essay that her Odyssey translations have been “flying off the shelves” because of the interest generated by the film, savaged Nolan’s mention, implying he hadn’t read much of the text.
“As they say at the awards shows, I was humbled to learn that Nolan has read at least the first line of my translation of The Odyssey into iambic pentameter,” she wrote. She added that the film lacked “psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth,” and she would be “ashamed to have written any part of this script.”
Wilson doubled down when she told NPR’s Fresh Air that Nolan should have hired a screenwriter instead of writing the film himself.
Oates argued that Wilson’s “sour” review slotted right in with MAGA’s uproar over the film’s cast, as right-wingers, led most vocally by X owner Elon Musk, whined that Helen of Troy is portrayed by Black actress Lupita Nyong’o, and that trans actor Elliot Page was cast at all. (Page plays Odysseus’s cousin, Sinon).
Newsmax Host Rob Finnerty dedicated an entire segment to his complaints about the film’s “wokeness” before the film was released. Musk led an online crusade to call Nolan “racist against the Greek people” and more.
MAGA-friendly podcaster Joe Rogan opted out of joining the backlash in comments he made on his show on Wednesday. “I know a lot of people that wanted to go hate it and because they were upset that Elliot Page played this person” and “Helen of Troy is a Black lady,” he said. “Who f---ing cares?!”
