Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster THE ODYSSEY has blown away audiences and critics alike in one of the most surprising turn of events in cinema as I have ever witnessed in my adult life. This film was set to be a flop – or so I thought. I, along with a lot of YouTube reviewers thought this was taking a great classic and giving it a “woke” take especially with what seemed like incongruent casting. But then, I opened my copy of Robert Fagle’s translation. And there it was. Five pages into the introduction, I realized I had been consumed by the rage of the day to take on a point of view on a matter. Like every well-meaning moviegoer in the last five years, I grew skeptical of watching filmmakers placate and make casting choices that seemed to play into identity politics as opposed to thematic relevance and depth.

But upon reading the introduction to this translation I realized that conundrum of disappointment in the expression of the day was a common feature in artistic expression throughout the ages. Artists always found themselves looking for ways to connect with their audiences through a dance of high incongruence to congruence in order to set up for themselves a taste in the audience of their day. The Odyssey was no stranger to this and in fact had been going through this since Homer put it to paper (or papyrus). Thus, it stood that the very issues people were arguing about such as casting (aka what the characters looked like), language/poetic phrasing, and thematic focus were actually the very aspects audiences have been grappling with since the beginning; just to different degrees. And there it was.

My initial disagreement hid a shallow engagement with the Odyssey as a concept and a shallow engagement in the literary phenomenon that is Greek mythology. It exposed that I could not use Marvel and DC comic sensibilities and experience the same level of satisfaction. I proceeded to keep reading the poem. But then I saw the movie.

I was not ready to be that impressed. The last time I engaged with a dramatic performance of The Odyssey was a freshman at the Juilliard School, as it was performed by the Junior class under the direction of one Ruben Polendo. It had been my favorite production to date. But then Christopher Nolan had other plans. Everything I thought would be a problem turned out not to matter because the direction was anchored in one main theme among several. As a freshman at the Juilliard School, the Odyssey was one of the myths we had to engage in and I remember being so torn by the many themes that were coming at me as a reader from the harshness of the male gods towards the female gods, Odysseus not being a hero but more like a antagonizing protagonist, the ruthless sirens… I had a tough time trying to anchor myself in a theme to guide my interest.

Christopher Nolan took one theme; the cost of breaking Zeus’ Law, breaking the code of civility among one another and the corruption that will ensue. He took THE TROJAN HORSE an event in greek mythology studies that is often revered when discussed in modern war and political circles with pride and showed us that it was one of the most disgusting things ever written about. It led to the fall of a kingdom and all who traded with them. To see this point driven so clinically throughout the movie and realize how despite how far back this story was (mind you, it was ancient history to Homer himself), it still bore such distinct relevance to geopolitics of the day in 2026. Christopher Nolan took an epic poem and was able to extrapolate effectively a thematic alignment that gave us one of the greatest period pieces and apocalyptic movies ever made. He took this age-old tale and revealed to us how much we have not changed in terms of where our larger and powerful civilizations go wrong in areas of diplomacy, trade and morality.

In all this, I could not find room to care about Himesh Patel being of Indian descent, Lupita Nyongo’o being of Kenyan descent, Zendaya being of Nigerian/American descent. I did not care that Menelaus sounded like a New Yorker from Brooklyn and I did not care that Matt Damon and Charlize Theron looked Nordic in the Mediterranean. The thematic direction was established so formidably early on in the film such that my focus was steered in that direction more than anywhere else. But why was this change of intellectual disposition so possible for me this fast as opposed to for others?

I grew up a religious catholic and also went on to study as a classically trained actor. I was raised on myths that did not center ethnicity over morality. Mind you, I do believe there is something to be said for knowing the myths that emerged from one’s cultural background. I spent a lot of time seeking those out as well and what I later on discovered is that all cultures used myths to establish a collective imagination around divine morality and human morality and how failing to respect either came with disruptive consequences. The more myth I read up on or studied the more I realized most ethnic groups are trying to pass down similar principles: respect the gods and each other or we will invite hell upon ourselves. But what if you never attended a parochial school or belonged to a church as a child?

A lot of western societies would disavow organized religion while inheriting a civil platform very much inspired by European values since the Reformation. Even when religious activity was low, the adherence to societal foundation rooted in religious virtue was present in the public and private sectors. You could argue some of it was not all Christian but you could still find that it was all still rooted in MYTH.

Prior to organized religion, most cultures and kingdoms relied on myths to cultivate a collective imagination around morality. Unfortunately, the authority that came with organized religion led to a lot of misuse of power or misdirection of instruction. The Odyssey, the rightful progenitor of Western mythology was at the risk of being unrecognizable to a people who for the last three generations have been pursuing de-religionizing or deconstruction of the values of the myths that got them the society they hold dear. Religion went from being a tool of civil instruction to a measure of cultural allegiance. The tool that helped us see beyond race became an excuse to enforce racial categorization. We from being humans of different races to races of different humans and what we once believed we could collectively share became a contest for propagandic authority.

This is where I argue, our literacy or lack thereof may be failing us. We no longer allow ourselves to realize (at least in public) that knowing more is meant to open us up into admitting that we really do not understand enough to claim a certainty over what we know at the expense of divine reverence and civil morality. How well do we understand that we may never be able to educate or enrich ourselves beyond the importance respecting the divine order? How literate are we if cannot submit to myth?

by Julian Michael Yong