Helen of Troy being played by Lupita Nyong'o. As a Greek myself, it does bother me & almost every other Greek I know, as it's simply not historically accurate. Lupita is very beautiful, but she's not Homer's girl.
People from ANY other kingdom or race in ancient Greece were ending up becoming slaves. I believe that it's beneficial to show how BAD things were, rather than adding a modern cultural spin to it. The ancient world SUCKED. Fact.
@eugenialoli I don't know, I feel like we've just accepted at this point that modern actors don't look like historical people - we're taller now, most of us don't have rotten teeth, all female actors have to shave off all their body hair to be acceptable on screen and most of them have lip filler. If it's not a forensic historical reconstruction and someone can act I don't think it really matters if their skin tone doesn't precisely match what's most historically probable
@afewbugs Not a single Greek actor in either in this Odyssey film, or Troy of 2004.
Instead we get all these British actors, because somehow, the American audiences think that if they sound British, they automatically have something ancient about them. It's ridiculous really.
@eugenialoli honestly I think that's part of a bigger problem, that our blockbuster media that the whole world is supposed to see as the pinnacle of filmmaking is Hollywood. And yes there aren't really famous Greek Hollywood actors (or directors, or scriptwriters, or...) because all the world's most famous Hollywood stars are English speaking. So mostly American, some British and a few Australians
@afewbugs correct, but there's also a generally accepted by society (at least Greek society!) as to how these people looked like as a general rule.
In fact, I'd go even a step further, and say that even older Troy movies weren't having enough mediterranean actors in them. Helen on the previous big film, was played by a German, although she DID look like as to how Homer described her.
The thing is, we spend 3 years of studying Iliad in Greek schools, in ANCIENT greek. We have expectations. :)
