“The Odyssey” and The Greatest Risk When Colorblind Casting
Photo by Michel Caicedo on Unsplash
“Colorblind” casting, or selecting actors without restrictions to their skin color or race, has the unique ability to connect with an incredibly wide audience. It does this by breathing new, diverse life into time periods and stories that previously denied many living human beings a seat at the table. Because, let’s say the quiet part out loud: Black and brown people have existed all across the globe for centuries, including Ancient Greece.
However, colorblind casting has one potential pitfall: human blind spots. When a director or casting director screens possible actors for a role with colorblind casting in mind, they may not be able to consider the best person for the role objectively. Often—unintentionally or otherwise—they are viewing the applicants through their own lens of preconceived ideas associated with race. A lens that isn’t necessarily clear or impartial.
How Does The Odyssey Hold Up?
The Odyssey (2026) is not immune to the risk of stereotyping creeping into colorblind casting. Four characters—and the changes made to them once they were cast as POC—embody this risk. But with a few edits, they could have been wonderful centerpoints of diversity that left The Odyssey feeling just as open to all as it was harrowing and gritty.
Let’s explore these four major characters together, and if you see similar problems in your own writing, use the highlighted tips and suggestions as a how-to guide to make your own diverse choices more meaningful and representative.
Warning: Major spoilers ahead.
Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy: Victim as Spectacle
The Trojan War was fought in Helen of Troy’s name. However, it has been historically contested through various retellings whether or not she ran off with a lover or was abducted. This difference could paint the entire war in a different light.
Was this a battle to recapture a woman who had fled a toxic environment? Was this a selfish woman who gleefully betrayed her husband and unwittingly induced a political disaster? Or was this an innocent woman who had been abducted by an aggressor and tortured while she hoped for rescue?
The Odyssey spends no time even humoring the questions, let alone attempting to answer them. On the surface, it seems progressive to have Helen, often depicted as one of the most beautiful white women in literature, played by Lupita Nyong’o, a dark-skinned Black woman. But in this interpretation, she is criminalized and punished. The film finds her at the mercy of a cruel husband who is physically aggressive to her and displays her mangled/scarred face (which he describes as only half beautiful now) like a party trick to guests in an attempt to shame her.
Helen’s husband is controlling and cruel to her in public. Deciding when she speaks, what she does, who she can interact with, and even where she’s permitted to place her body. And the white male leads of The Odyssey who witness this, namely Odysseus’s son Telemachus, ignore her cruel treatment.
The abuse she experiences is portrayed with no depth or impact on the story, which is unusual for a Helen of Troy role because many retellings often depict her as far more heroic, less tortured, and vital to the storytelling. It’s also worth noting that no other adaptation chose to injure Helen’s canonically beautiful face.
This role of a tortured Black victim whose backstory is erased and whose pain is treated as a spectacle is a stereotypical portrayal of Black women and the excessive depiction of violence against Black bodies. As a result, this choice of “colorblind” casting feels biased.
Corey Hawkins as Polybus: The “Aggressive Monster” Stereotype
During the ten years that Odysseus is off at war and then lost at sea, his home is taken over by a disrespectful and presumptuous group of suitors vying for his wife’s hand and plotting to kill his son. While the leader of this band of assailants is Antinous (played by Robert Pattinson), a Black man serves as his evil sidekick, Polybus (played by Corey Hawkins).
Polybus’ primary task in the film appeared to be showing the absolute worst of humanity, so the other suitors didn’t seem quite as bad. It feels charged that through the process of colorblind casting, a Black man was cast for this role.
Stomping on an old, dying dog, spitting in a homeless man’s bowl of food, and beating his host’s son earns the honor of getting shot first by Odysseus upon his return as an act of “justice.” This role stripped him of all humanity until he could only be perceived as a monster.
Polybus has no moral growth. In contrast to the other white suitors, he didn’t do one single good thing in 2 hours and 52 minutes. He is the only suitor made to be 100% evil, and by no coincidence, the only Black one.
In your writing, avoid this pitfall of depicting Black characters’ deaths as “heroic,” or making the most immoral character one of the only Black people.
Himesh Patel as Eurylochus: The “Child” Trope
Himesh Patel is a British Indian actor who plays Eurylochus, Odysseus’ second-in-command. Canonically, Eurylochus is meant to embody a character whose caution, cowardice, and mutiny against Odysseus lead him and the rest of the crew to doom.
Casting an Asian man—and a darker-skinned Asian man at that—in this role is a potential recipe for disaster. Given that stereotypes of weakness, cowardice, and untrustworthiness are common stereotypes against Asian people in books and films (see the “Yellow Peril” trope and the “emasculated Asian man” trope).
However, The Odyssey started with a nuanced depiction of Eurylochus, even featuring him giving Odysseus sound advice that they should leave the Cyclops’ cave and as an important member of the crew. So imagine the surprise when the film has Odysseus save Eurylochus from a murderous Laestrygonians (the pale-armored soldiers) only for Eurylochus to lead a mutiny against him the very next morning.
From that point on, Eurylochus becomes a thorn in Odysseus’ side, constantly questioning him like a petulant child both when it makes sense and when it doesn’t, and ultimately joining the other crew in committing an act that angers their sun deity Helios and seals their deaths—an act Odysseus explicitly warned them against.
In this way, the story reduces Eurylochus’ initial autonomy and intelligence and instead frames Odysseus as the only sensible one on the ship. Eurylochus and the rest of the crew are then treated like children who don’t know any better, while their white paternal figure, Odysseus, tries and fails to protect them from their own mistakes. It gets to the point where another crew member, the only visibly Asian man, Anchialus (played by Will Yun Lee), throws himself to his own siren-caused death for no justified storytelling, despite Odysseus giving him all the tools he needed to survive.
This idea of non-white men being perceived like foolish children is rooted in historical racism. It’s where slurs against Black men like “boy” arise from, and it permeated multiple character arcs within The Odyssey. The final nail in the coffin was when the deities that Odysseus worships explicitly told him that the best thing he could do for Eurylochus and the rest of the crew was just let them die, and it’s not his problem.
Benny Safdie as Agamemnon: Stereotype of the “Natural Monster”
Benny Safdie, an American filmmaker and actor, is of Ashkenazi Jewish and Syrian Jewish ancestry, and he plays a central villain of The Odyssey, Agamemnon. His crimes include but are not limited to demanding soldiers (like Odysseus) abandon their families and risk their lives to help him wage the Trojan War. As well as hurling his own young daughter into the sea as a sacrifice to win the war while his wife Clytemnestra fought and screamed, trying to stop him.
Yet, despite this unspeakable atrocity of filicide, the film attempts to paint him as a martyr when his grieving wife Clytemnestra kills him. Never once do any of the male leads of the film condemn Agamemnon’s actions against his own family or say that Clytemnestra was justified in seeking vengeance for their slaughtered child.
Choosing an actor of Middle Eastern ancestry to commit an honor killing of sorts against his own daughter and leaving it largely uncritiqued in 2026, while a Black actress playing his wife(also played by Lupita Nyong’o) is painted as a conniving and bloodthirsty monster—is a choice The Odyssey could have avoided.
These were choices made by the filmmakers. Ones you can avoid in your own projects if you remember the following rule: don’t reserve the tortured, aggressive, abandoned, ignored roles exclusively for your POC actors. We can be loved and heroic, too.
Shanice Felix is a Black, second-generation, Haitian American, queer woman. By day, she puts her B.A. in Film and Media Studies to the test by working as a freelance editor and beta/sensitivity reader, helping creatives tell the stories that make their hearts sing. By night, she fangirls over her favorite books, movies, anime, and fanfics. Don’t get between her and a new chapter update on Ao3. BlueSky @shanicefelix.bsky.social