it’s gonna be fine probably

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The cast:

The movie signals quite early that it's not set in Ancient Greece, the historical place, but rather in Ancient Greece the mythological setting, and it's a stylized and opinionated interpretation of that setting as well. You'd think this might be obvious given the kind of story that it is, but a lot of the controversy around the cast seems to have overlooked this. With that in mind, a number of things that are obvious historical inaccuracies make perfect sense. Helen is cast as an extremely dark-skinned black woman because it makes her stand out visually from the rest of the cast (almost all of whom are white), which is the same reason that Agamemnon has that vertebra helmet.

Page is in the movie for all of three scenes, and for the character she's playing it makes sense that they wanted to cast a shrimpy twink.

Zendaya as Athena is... she's fine. She's also more minor than you might think given pre-release hype.

I understand why people were skeptical that Damon could carry the role of Odysseus, but in fact I thought he was great. With the beard and his weatherbeaten skin, he actually plays the role quite well, and was quite believable as both the grim warrior and the polymetis trickster.

Tom Holland feels very young as Telemachus, but I believe that this is deliberate: the central problem of the film is that he is fully-grown but has not fully become a man, due to his mother's perpetuar not-quite-widowhood. Hathaway is phenomenal as Penelope.

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The film's moral universe centers around the Law of Zeus. I suppose this is loosely based on the actual Greek concept of xenia, but it is defined in the film with the exact words of the Golden Rule. A savvy viewer will note that the Golden Rule is, in fact, associated with not Zeus but some other guy who came several hundred years later. This bit of anachronism is fully deliberate.

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The central problem that Ithaca faces is that it is a kingdom without a king. The Law of Zeus requires that the suitors be extended hospitality, even though they will not return this hospitality but are rather participating cynically as a way to exploit the palace in its kingless state. What Ithaca needs, and this is stated explicitly, is for the king to return and kick the unwelcome guests out, and properly restore the kingdom.

And all this happens in due time, and it is awesome.

The obvious political interpretation of this barely needs to be spelled out.

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The absolutely pervasive mentality that unwanted criticism or critique shouldn't be given and should be ignored is why fans of color don't stay in fan spaces.

And I am not going to mince words here:

A lot of you are racist. A lot of your fan works are racist.

That might have been difficult to hear. And if it was, you should probably reflect on why that was.

"Fandom etiquette" has created a space where fans of color either bite our tongues and eventually leave or say something, get dogged on, and then eventually leave.

If I say "I am uncomfortable with fandom's tendency to write trans men as feminine and submissive" I do not mean "I think every person who writes feminine submissive trans men should be chased with pitchforks". I don't even mean "any cis-person who writes feminine or submissive trans men should be chased with pitchforks". I mean "I would like writers to seriously think about why this is so common, why they write that, and if it fairly and genuinely engages with what it means to be a trans man, or if they just think it's hot when submissive people have vaginas and didn't want to write omegaverse of m/f".

Similarly, when people say "fandom is systemically less interested in black characters, less willing to give flat black characters rich fanon than flat white characters, and less interested in black characters in ships", the response is not to explain why you, personally, just happen to like popular white guy in that fanon. Your job is to look at yourself and ask if you tend to "just happen to be more interested" in the popular white guy across fandoms, be honest, and start unpacking that. Sometimes it's easier to love the flat character who's already getting 10,000 fics with headcanons and art and meta.

If somebody says "I wish there were more gluten free options at the potluck. I hate always showing up and not finding anything I can eat*", they are not asking you to throw your cake in the trash and weep. They do not want to hear your long speech about how actually this is your grandmother's recipe, and you've tried it with rice flour actually, but it just didn't work. You think about what you can do, and you listen to how they feel.