The Odyssey has rendered my inbox a disaster, and it will not be getting any better because ELLE magazine has a big new feature on the women of The Odyssey featuring Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, and Lupita Nyong’o.

As we already knew, Anne Hathaway is starring as Penelope, Odysseus’s patient and faithful wife (go F-CK yourself, Telemachus, you know what you did!), and Lupita Nyong’o is starring as the sisters Clytemnestra and Helen of Troy. But now we have confirmation, Charlize Theron stars as the nymph Calypso, who falls in love with Odysseus and detains him on his journey home, and Zendaya stars as the goddess Athena. Everyone is going to be SO SO NORMAL, I just know it.

Here is Zendaya serving on one of the covers of ELLE:

Lainey also sent me this clip of Z posing for the photoshoot. In an alternate universe she is THE supermodel of all time.

Because all the worst people have bought all the biggest microphones, the conversation around The Odyssey continues to be garbage, and I just can’t take it anymore because too many people are trying to argue that the “issue” around Lupita Nyong’o playing Helen of Troy is anything other than racism. It’s just racism, y’all. It is not more complicated than that. Lupita is an Oscar winner, her bona fides are as good as anyone else cast in the film, the reason some people are mad about her casting is because they’re mad a Black woman is playing an epic beauty of western literature (whose father is a swan. She is half a bird).

I love this quote from Lupita: “I can’t spend my time thinking all the people who still don’t love me.” There are so many contexts in which that can be relevant, but specifically here, I am applying it to losers who aren’t stoked to see her dual performance.

The photos in this spread are outrageous. I like that they lean into melancholy for Anne Hathaway, as Penelope is the ultimate literary yearner. She pines for twenty years. She’s clever and resourceful, most certainly, but Penelope is also sad. She’s lonely. Annie is leaning in.

Finally, for Charlize, playing a magical nymph, they lean into mystery, and I appreciate that Theron and Christopher Nolan are not framing Calypso as a villain. Greek mythology is hideously misogynistic—because the culture was hideously misogynistic—and the subtext of Odysseus’s interactions with women in The Odyssey are just variations on “that dumb c-nt, get out of the way”. I hope Nolan and Theron do more for Calypso than present her as a villain trying to entrap Odysseus. I always saw her more as a tragic figure, a lonely person longing for love. With the right framing, she could even be a foil for Penelope, two sides of the same coin. There could be a beautiful connection there, let’s see if they make it in the film.

Looking at this cast, it’s obvious what Christopher Nolan is doing. The cast of The Odyssey is huge, even small roles are played by superstars, but the cast is also intergenerational, intercontinental, and with a purpose-built broad appeal, a “someone for everyone” approach. Chances are good there are 3+ actors you, personally, like in this movie. To say that Nolan is dumb or doesn’t understand The Odyssey or doesn’t know what he is doing—all arguments I have heard—is idiotic. He clearly knows what he’s doing, he’s made a film meant to appeal to a global audience. The cast reflects that.

And it’s going to work. The Odyssey hasn’t hit box office tracking yet, and it won’t for several weeks, but as mad as people online are about this movie, all I hear in the real world is that people are excited for it. And a key to that excitement is that it looks accessible to people who either haven’t read or don’t really remember reading The Odyssey. Some of us can write treatises on the perfidy of Telemachus, but a lot of people just want to see a big fun movie full of famous people. The Odyssey will be one of the biggest movies of the summer. And in three months, we’ll be talking, AGAIN, about how diversity is good for business.

Source

Anne Hathaway/Zendaya/Lupita Nyong'o/Charlize Theron cover ELLE

Photo credits: Norman Jean Roy/ELLE

Share this post