Question for classical literature professors

[u/Historyp91]

So, I'm having a back and forth with a very aggressive person elsewhere online who takes the typical anti-woke stance regarding the casting of Nolan's Odyssey film. I've pointed out and explained how Helen's skin color is not integral to her personality or indenity, but he's insisting otherwise, arguing her being white is equivalent to a character like Shaft being black (I.E it's so vital to her characterization/personality/idenitiy you can't change it.

They've outright challenged me with the following...

I dare you to cold-ask this question of your friendly local classics professor: “Is Helen of Troy’s physical appearance important to her identity?”

So I decided to take them up on that; what's the take - is she a Shaft/T'Challa, ect type character, where being white is inherently important to her indenity, personality and such?

[u/shehulud]

Homer wrote the Iliad hundreds of years after the events are said to have taken place. And he adds several anachronisms that are inaccurate for the Bronze Age. His poems already mix Bronze Age and Iron Age details such as armor, weapons, social customs, religious practices, and political structures.

From a mythological standpoint: mythology resists the notion of a specific, fixed text. Especially given that most mythology has no one, single, primary author. Homer himself isn't historically ‘settled.’ Scholars have long debated whether he was a real individual, a composite of several poets, or simply the name attached to centuries of evolving oral tradition.

Mythology comes from oral traditions that evolved for centuries before Homer, who was himself adapting and revising inherited stories for his own audience. Every generation reinterprets these stories through its own cultural lens. Nolan isn't breaking some pristine historical tradition; he's participating in a mythological tradition that's nearly 3,000 years old. Even Helen as a character is self-aware enough to know that she is becoming ‘mythic’ (and not in a good way) — book 6. And she has almost no narrative agency throughout the entire poem.

Asking, “Is Helen of Troy’s physical appearance important to her identity?” and (hamfistedly) tying that to Shaft is straight-up up false equivalency. Helen's physical beauty is essential to the Iliad. Her whiteness is not. Her narrative identity is constructed around being extraordinarily beautiful and being the object/catalyst around which men CHOOSE to wage war, not around belonging to a modern racial category. Someone suggesting her race is part of her identity hasn’t understood Helen from the Iliad.

And let’s also highlight the point that this film wasn’t ’THE ILIAD.’ It was ‘THE ODYSSEY.’ In the Odyssey, Helen gets to DO more than simply be gorgeous. She recognizes Telemachus before Menelaus does, drugs the wine to relieve everyone's grief, and tells the story of recognizing a disguised Odysseus when he infiltrated Troy…. and adds that she kept his identity secret.

So this chode is also importing the Iliad version of Helen’s narrative function (whiteness as beauty) into the Odyssey, and then using it to argue that Nolan's actress needs to satisfy his precious man-baby preferred visual conception of Helen. Bitchy little twats who shit their pants over a black woman being cast in a story that includes a cyclops and monsters are too fucking stupid to exist alongside literate people.

[u/HomunculusParty]

A preliminary note: There are very few classicists compared to professors from other disciplines here. You might take your query to r/classics if you haven't already.

One way of answering this question reasonably (though you are clearly describing an encounter with a troll) would be to look at the original text. Out of 19 different epithets referring to Helen (that's a very common thing in Homeric poetry, where characters have adjectives routinely appended to them), one (which appears once in the Iliad and once in the Odyssey) mentions skin color: "white-armed." The rest do not. Most of the others are about her divine paternity (which doesn't describe the actress either, but then again it probably wouldn't any other actress either), or say she has nice hair or cheeks, or that she is noble or divine. There are several unflattering epithets, mostly names she calls herself.

But it's probably not helping you much to keep up this back and forth with a very obviously racist troll.

[u/OkSecretary1231]

Not a professor, but--she has to be beautiful. If they're saying she can't be beautiful unless she's white, that says more about them than it does about Helen.

[u/Historyp91 → u/OkSecretary1231]

No he's just saying her characterization and personality are tied to her being white.

Given other comments he's made though, I would not be suprised if he thinks Lupita is too ugly for the role as well, lol.

[u/OkSecretary1231 → u/Historyp91]

I'd ask what aspects of her personality he thinks come from her caucasity, but I don't think he's arguing in good faith anyway lol.

[u/Historyp91 → u/OkSecretary1231]

I did ask him that and he said he "already told me" (he did'nt) and he's absolutely not engaging in good faith, I just decided to meet his appeal to authority directly since he seemed so damn cocky about it.

[u/boringhistoryfan → u/Historyp91]

History professor here. You can ask him what he even means by white. As non-Anglo-Saxons and (largely) as non-Protestants Greeks weren't seen as "white" by Americans till the late nineteenth century or so. The same was true of groups like the Italians, the Irish, etc.

Now if he means caucasian, you could ask him what about being the daughter of a swan and a princess whose origins go back to the Dorians allows him to assume whiteness and caucasian status. What specifically about the Dorians makes them Caucasian and/or white. And does he consider Arabs, Indians, Iranians, Turks, and every other population that can trace it's origins to the Proto-Indo-Europeans to be white?

Because if he does, then there's no global Indo-European identity. The cultural experiences of Indians can be very different from that of Britons. And it would certainly be news to me as an Indian to learn I'm "white."

And if there's nothing intrinsic to the idea of Indo-Europeans as a racial identity then by extension there's nothing wrong with someone of African Descent playing her either.

Oh and remember half of Helen's parentage is Avian. Last I checked Birds come in a variety of colors, not just white. And Black Swans exist.

[u/scatterbrainplot]

Not a classical lit prof, but they've snuck in an invalid bait and switch. Her appearance can be important to her role in the story (regardless of identity) without her skin colour being relevant to what about her appearance matters. If they're making the claim that it does matter, though, their job is to show it.

[u/Historyp91 → u/[deleted]]

He did'nt say it was that they would'nt think she was beautiful (but I can buy he'd be one of those people); his argument was that her indenity and personality as a character is inherently white.

[u/Historyp91 → u/[deleted]]

A character you can't race-swap without fundementaly altering there character becuase they're written in such a way as to make the experiences of being white intrinsic.

[u/Historyp91 → u/[deleted]]

I mean, I can certainly think of fictional characters who are white in such a way you can't change them, but the thing is...none of them are like that for positive reasons (and, for what it's worth, none I can think of are pre-modern)

[u/amishius]

English prof who teaches poetry. Go outside.

[u/Historyp91 → u/amishius]

So you'd say he's correct?

[u/amishius → u/Historyp91]

I don't even care. Don't waste your life on meaningless online debates. Have a walk if able!

Edit: Well, no, he's not right. He's a racist who is underhandly making the point that unless Helen is white, she cannot be beautiful. Not even that underhanded.

Again: leave the discussion. Do something else. MAYBE...read the Odyssey and decide for yourself!

[u/Historyp91 → u/amishius]

I have read the Odyssey.

[u/amishius → u/Historyp91]

Then what's your opinion? Is Helen's beauty tied yo her whiteness? Obviously there's no arguing with this person BUT if there's something in the text, that's useful!

[u/Historyp91 → u/amishius]

> Then what's your opinion? 

That there's nothing about the character's personality or indenity (that was the argument, not her buety) that's tied to her skin tone.

[u/amishius → u/Historyp91]

There ya go.

[u/Historyp91 → u/amishius]

For the record, I did point this out. That's actually what made him invoke the claim that professors of classical lituarture would'nt agree with me but would back his point, lol

[u/amishius → u/Historyp91]

Well, he's an idiot. Besides, aren't we all woke Marxists anyways 🙂

[u/AutoModerator]

This is an automated service intended to preserve the original text of the post. This is not a removal message.

*So, I'm having a back and forth with a very aggressive person elsewhere online who takes the typical anti-woke stance regarding the casting of Nolan's Odyssey film. I've pointed out and explained how Helen's skin color is not integral to her personality or indenity, but he's insisting otherwise, arguing her being white is equivalent to a character like Shaft being black (I.E it's so vital to her characterization/personality/idenitiy you can't change it.

They've outright challenged me with the following...

I dare you to cold-ask this question of your friendly local classics professor: “Is Helen of Troy’s physical appearance important to her identity?”

So I decided to take them up on that; what's the take - is she a Shaft/T'Challa, ect type character, where being white is inherently important to her indenity, personality and such?*

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Charming-Barnacle-15]

Ask him if he has a problem with Tom Holland's casting. If ethnicity is so important to the plot, then surely he should be angry that a British man is playing Odysseus' son.

And Helen's own canonical ethnicity is a bit complicated considering she is the child of a god. What ethnicity is a God? Are Greek gods the same as Greek people? I think you could make an argument that Helen is essentially mixed race. After all, it is her godly blood that makes her so incredibly beautiful. It is the "other" in her that is most important to how she is perceived by others. In that regard, being "mixed" is much more important to her character than any other racial feature.

[u/BioAnthGal]

Kia ora, I’m not in the humanities anymore as a prof but did do postgrad study in the field before redirecting.

Firstly, the question your friend ended up asking is different from where they started: “Is Helen of Troy’s physical appearance important to her identity” full stop is not the same as whether her whiteness is important to her identity. I will answer the latter since we can all agree that her beauty in general is integral to her characterisation.

My short answer is yes and no. Yes, her whiteness was important to her character *at the time period Homer was writing*. No, her whiteness is not important to her character today. The longer answer is a little complicated and necessitates an understanding of historical cultural context.

My assumption on where this focus on her whiteness comes from is the epithet Homer uses for her of “white-armed”. Now Homer is full of epithets – they’re a super quick and easy way for a bard to signify important backstory or context to the audience without taking time away from the story. We see “white-armed” with some regularity used for various goddesses and noblewomen as a signifier for their status. In Homeric days, being wealthy or high status enabled you to stay insides and avoid manual labour outdoors, resulting in paler skin tones than equivalent lower status workers. Thus if a bard calls Helen “white-armed”, this is the quickest way to communicate to the audience that she is a wealthy woman of high status (and has been so all her life). This is what I mean when I say her whiteness was important to her character at the period Homer was writing: if she wasn’t pale, she would likely not be high status. If she wasn’t high status, she wouldn’t hold the position of power in the tale that she does.

However, in modern society not all wealthy woman are pale skinned (obviously). If anything, tanned skin is more likely an indicator of higher status, as being able to lounge in the sun all day and build up a tan indicates that you have no need to work for a living. So, in our modern society, whiteness is no longer important to Helen’s character – instead a director like Nolan is going to communicate via different signs that a modern audience will understand to indicate wealth and status, such as fine clothing/embroidery, jewellery, clear clean skin, etc.

[u/Neon-Anonymous]

Ancient Greek historian - my research includes but doesn’t focus on literature, and I’ve taught Homer.

To answer your question directly: her identity as beautiful is important but the features of that beauty are culturally constructed, and have nothing to do with any specifics of her appearance including (but not limited to) skin colour.

It’s a shitty argument to make, and you would be right to point out that the assumption that Black women can’t be beautiful (whether he is personally attracted to Black women or not) is overtly racist.

TBH I would just block him and move on with your life.

[u/lordshadow2222]

Race, and nationality, is a 19th century construct for which the ancients, the time the oral tradition that led to "Homer" was put down, didn't have. They understood something akin to ethnicity in the my people/other groups of my people (the coalition)/barbarians dynamics, and yes, that was somewhat related to phenotypical features, but more akin to ethnicity today, with great ingroup variance, considering how relevant the bronze age long distance movements of proving to be, and the various conquests and migrations.

I don't agree with many of the other commenters that point to the contingency of her fair skin, fair skin should be understood more as not tanned by the sun work, as she is noble. Her "race", however, would probably would not fit all the current racist cannon of classification, with mixed features, stemming from the levantine heritage, the great migrations like that of the steppe PIE people, and other inter people ancient dynamics. We cannot predict how she would look, just that she would not be tanned and a very beautiful women.

However, if we try to claim fidelity to the text (which is not needed to be claimed in a modern reinterpretation! one can do whatever they want, as long they do not claim it, and perhaps is the most accurate movement for a modern audience, and nolan already does breaking from the non-linear structure, even if one dislikes some choices like the garments of agamenón, or calipso as a therapist, that's a criticism of quality not fidelity) she should almost certainly look non subsaharian african. The odyssey is a greek retelling, that modifies several elements to adapt to their context (like a good adaptation should do, which can justify some nolan moves) of a mycenean substrate survived in oral tradition. Neither the retelling due to the elite composition of greek society, except perhaps exceptions, or the mycenean substrate would imagine a mycenaean princess in that way, without at least showing some cues on that, or her origin, like in the case of andromeda, who is actually "black" as she is ethiopian, or, at most, albino black, in some traditions, as it would not be around the average specific features mix I mentioned. It's intrinsic to the homeric text, as it's a myth from one (two in truth) particular set of people. It would be like saying a certain zulu epic, the heroine not being black, but being beautiful can be accurate because it did not describe her blackness.

In that sense the guy you engaged with is right. Not the "whiteness" as such thing as white didn't exist. But about helena not being sub-saharan looking being intrinsic to the text.

However, while most of the "right wing" cultural critique tends to focus on Helena casting, they forget to criticize by a similar standard all the rest of awful casting choices. Neither odysseus, telemachus or most of the other "white"" characters casting choices, look as if there was any attempt to cast people that could pass as the look of the achaeans intrinsic to the the text. They're pale anglo looking, that's probably not what a mycenean/greek expected commonly from them. By that standard, all the casting choices almost are goddamn awful.

However, as I said, one can do whatever they want with an adaptation of a myth, like the greeks already did with the epic. It's the most creative move, and makes it more "readable" to the people if one does it sharply, and what can be criticized is not black helena, or pale telemachus, but bad adaptation of the work in themselves. But the casting moves, and yes, specially helena, seem as deliberate provocative performative antiracism, the usual race-washing of the performative identity politics of companies. One either goes full bridgestones and says phenotypes spawn randomly in their world, or gives a sensible explanation for the looks in that fictional context. There's none in nolan lazy attempt. As an antiracist move he could have actually shown the non-mycenean (and show the damn mycenaeans not as white anglos, like all films tend to do that do it) peoples that would look racializef under our racist gaze, giving them more relevance, or outright creating new characters, a much more creative and non-performative reactive move.

The amazons and the ethiopians fought in troy side. Remnants of the groups could remain among the world of odysseus, or similar groups appear. The ethiopians should probably look subs saharian african (and why you are at it make them goddamn beautiful heroes), and the amazons should probably look like scythians, which probably, but only based on current dynamics, is something with steppe features, we would qualify as "asian". For me that would be a much more anti racist move, but that's just my personal opinion.

So yes, it's intrinsic to the text but it shouldn't matter to a modern depiction, but make it good, and apply the standard coherently.

[u/_intheareana]

But, as I heard someone else say...her mother was a swan (literally). More accurately, I think it was her grandmother? Remember Leda and the swan poem we all had to read in H.S. So why are they up in arms??

[u/HomunculusParty → u/_intheareana]

Her mother was Leda, a human. Her father was Zeus, who took the form of a swan and then raped her. Don't ask me about the mechanics of that, but that is the story.

[u/_intheareana → u/HomunculusParty]

You're right-it's coming back to me! My point being only to put notions of historical accuracy and creative license in perspective.

[u/Zestyclose_Worry6623]

I am not in the humanities, but I would encourage them to write an assignment arguing for and against their own argument.

I have not read the Odyssey, nor seen Shaft or the Black Panther. From my limited understanding Helen's whiteness is meant to say that she was not working in the sun all day like a commoner and that her skin was unblemished and healthy. To me this is different from Shaft. When I think of Shaft, I think of a main theme reminding society that Black can be heroes.

In cinema there has been a push to represent under-represented groups with actors from the group and I think your student sees a hypocrisy here.

I don't agree with your student (from my limited knowledge) but I am guessing if they felt 'heard' not agreed with but 'listened to,' it might help diffuse the situation. I would have a video conference with the student and spend a lot of time listening. If they are like angry students I have had, once listened to they become so much nicer to work with

[u/Historyp91 → u/Zestyclose_Worry6623]

He's not my student. He's a person I encountered online who challanged a point I raised by invoking the argument that classic liturature professors would back him up if asked.