Elon Musk has once more weighed in on Christopher Nolan‘s upcoming big-budget adaptation of The Odyssey, this time agreeing with a racist comment made by a far-right journalist who criticized the casting of Oscar-winning actor Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy.
Nolan’s epic follow-up to his Oscar-winning juggernaut Oppenheimer is ready for large launch in July. Within the lead-up, the movie has been closely hyped whereas remaining shrouded in thriller. A canopy story in Time journal this week has revealed that Nyong’o has certainly been cast as Helen of Troy — who’s described in Homer’s basic as probably the most lovely girl on the earth and “the face that launched a thousand ships” into battle. The movie additionally stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, Tom Holland as Telemachus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Robert Pattinson as Antinous, and Zendaya as Athena.
On Tuesday, conservative political commentator and Day by day Wire host Matt Walsh took exception to the casting on X. His post, which featured a screenshot of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Tuesday reporting on Nyong’o’s roles in The Odyssey, rapidly caught the eye of the platform’s proprietor.
“Not one person on the planet actually thinks that Lupita Nyong’o is ‘the most beautiful woman in the world.’ But Christopher Nolan knows that he would be called racist if he gave ‘the most beautiful woman’ role to a white woman,” Walsh wrote. “Nolan is technically talented but a coward. Too afraid to do anything that even slightly challenges the spirit of the age.”
Musk replied rapidly, writing, “True.”
Walsh returned to the subject on Wednesday, arguing that the function ought to have gone to a white actor, even floating Sydney Sweeney, who had grew to become a lightning rod for arguments about race, for instance.
“We’re told that we shouldn’t object to Helen of Troy being portrayed as a black woman. And yet if a major Hollywood studio made a film set in Africa and cast a white woman as ‘the most beautiful woman in Africa,’ those same people would literally riot in the street. If, say, Sydney Sweeney was cast in the role, they’d be driven to murderous violence. We all know this is the case,” Walsh wrote.
Musk additionally chimed in through the remark part of Walsh’s Wednesday put up, writing, “Absolutely true. Such hypocrisy in Hollywood.”
This was not the Tesla and SpaceX founder’s first public response to the upcoming movie. When rumors surfaced that trans actor Elliot Web page could be forged as Achilles, Musk reacted much more forcefully.
“One of the dumbest and most twisted things I’ve ever heard,” Musk wrote in response to a put up by UnHerd. It’s price noting that Musk has a trans daughter from his first marriage: Vivian Jenna Wilson, who modified her title and minimize ties together with her father at 18 and has since publicly sparred with him on-line.
Musk’s commentary on the movie dates to January, when rumors of Nyong’o’s casting first started circulating. He weighed in on what he characterised as a daring selection by Nolan — one of many uncommon auteur administrators to constantly stability inventive ambition with international field workplace success, with movies like Inception, The Darkish Knight and Dunkirk.
“Chris Nolan has lost his integrity,” Musk declared at the time.
Nyong’o, a graduate of the Yale College of Drama, burst onto the scene in Steve McQueen’s 2013 greatest image–successful drama 12 Years a Slave, for which she gained the Academy Award for greatest supporting actress. Since then, she has constructed a particular profession, together with a twin function in Jordan Peele’s Us, appearances as Nakia throughout the Black Panther and Avengers movies, and a lead function in A Quiet Place: Day One as a terminally ailing girl surviving an alien invasion.
THR reached out to representatives for Musk and Nyong’o for touch upon the posts on Wednesday night. Nolan’s rep referred the question to a rep for Common Leisure, who declined to touch upon Musk’s statements concerning the movie; the rep was additionally unable to substantiate Web page’s function. Nyong’o’s representatives didn’t reply to THR‘s queries.
As for Walsh, the pundit who directed the documentaries What Is a Girl? and Am I Racist?, tried to close down responses calling his put up racist with a put up letting his detractors know that he has no concern for thier opinion.
“It’s funny that these people think they still accomplish something with the ‘erm actually this is racist’ routine,” he wrote. “We don’t give the slightest shit if you think something is racist. The word has no meaning coming from you.”
