Five Quick Things: The Iliad Over Nolan’s The Odyssey | The American Spectator

I’m just here for long enough to check this box, and then it’s back to finishing the first draft of The Necessary Men. Marco Rubio made that a little harder this week by releasing the bombshell State Department report on Cuba and its export of communist revolution all over the place, including here; I’m not going to get into that in the 5QT, because after having read it I decided I’m going to do a longer thing on it this weekend.

So look forward to that, I guess, though it definitely won’t be a happy column.

And let’s get this started/over with, depending on your perspective.

1. Stop That Fighting. It’s Just a Movie.

I’m not exactly sure when we as conservatives were conscripted into the Christopher Nolan fan club. I don’t remember having signed the membership form; it just seems like it came in the mail already filled out, and I neglected to throw it away, or something. (RELATED: When Homer Meets Hollywood)

Nolan, who made excellent films with his Dark Knight series starring Christian Bale as Batman and whose treatment of the British evacuation at Dunkirk was masterful, is an excellent filmmaker when he wants to be.

But he’s not perfect. He certainly has a very healthy self-esteem, which sometimes gets him in trouble — when critics and audiences rightly praised Inception, though it bordered on an abuse of the audience with its hyper-complicated plot, Nolan decided that gave him license to make Tenet, which is one of the least watchable or intelligible films ever made.

And while as a film project Oppenheimer was undoubtedly a win, Nolan got the fundamental premise wrong. The fact is that whether Robert Oppenheimer was a communist or not really didn’t make much of a difference; it was on his watch that the Soviets stole our nuclear secrets, and for that reason he was rightly pushed aside as the head of our nuclear program. Nolan utterly glossed over that point, which in reality was central — the scientist’s political leanings and motivations could have been anything; the job he was given was to develop nuclear weapons that gave America an advantage over our enemies, and when that advantage was lost he was ultimately a failure in his job after having been a rousing success who saved many lives by creating Fat Man and Little Boy.

The point being that while I generally like Christopher Nolan’s movies, I’m fully aware that he can hook one into the next fairway.

And he’ll also pander to the Left.

Nolan was beaten about the head and shoulders for not casting any “black or brown” people in Dunkirk, which was one of the stupidest film critiques in the history of Western culture. The reason he didn’t cast any black people in Dunkirk is that there weren’t any black people in Dunkirk when the British troops were evacuated from there. But it’s obvious that Nolan took that criticism to heart, because the casting of The Odyssey, which Ben Shapiro and the staff of National Review have somehow insisted conservatives should embrace along with the film itself, is the opposite of what Nolan did in Dunkirk. (RELATED: The Left Wanted the Culture War They’re Now Losing)

Casting Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, or Travis Scott as a Greek bard, or Ellen/Elliott Page as a Greek warrior, or Himesh Patel as Eurylochus — these are horrific casting decisions which detract from the story. Even if they’re good in those roles — and I haven’t seen the film, which I’ll get to in a second, but I haven’t seen any positive reviews of any of those portrayals — those casting decisions detract from its consistency and watchability. (RELATED: Hollywoke’s Last Gasp — Race and Gender Swapping)

And stop it with the “Oh, but this is a myth” thing being a justification for bad casting. No, it’s a GREEK myth. This is Greek culture being appropriated. Why is it OK to make casting decisions which are obvious departures from the source material? Especially when by doing so, you’re insulting the culture you’re drawing from.

Yes, Diane Kruger was a questionable Helen of Troy the last time somebody did a cinematic treatment of this material; she’s German, not Greek. But this was worse than that. To be honest, Matt Damon as Odysseus is pretty questionable, too, but at least there were ancient Greeks who looked like Damon. But Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Himesh Patel as Eurylochus are bad casting in the same way John Wayne as Genghis Khan is bad casting. At least the Duke was sure to generate box office; since when are any of these people a draw?

Let’s remember that somebody has already done a quite masterful not-so-historical reinterpretation of The Odyssey. If you want to watch that, go and stream O Brother, Where Art Thou? Trust me, you’ll find it much more entertaining.

To me, Nolan’s movie is irreparably harmed by the bad casting. And of course it was done to appease Woke Hollywood and to give the movie a shot at winning Oscars given the Academy’s stupid rules about minorities and trans weirdos having to fill a certain quota of the cast and so on. We all get that, and maybe Nolan thinks he’s obligated to play that game.

I’m not necessarily embracing Steve Deace or Matt Walsh with respect to their takes on this thing, either — because I haven’t seen it. Deace and Walsh lit into The Odyssey with significant relish, and not just because of the casting; both of them said it was boring and stupid even outside of that flaw. Walsh notes that Patel giving the line “We are Greeks from Ithaca” is unintentionally the funniest part of the film, and I’d have to agree that’s a bit of a self-own.

But I haven’t seen it, so I’m not going to judge. And I’m not heading to the theater to see it. It’ll undoubtedly come to one of the streaming platforms I subscribe to, and I’ll see it then. But I’m under no obligation to see a movie which wants me to believe Ellen Page is a Greek warrior. That’s too much work for me to do, just like trying to follow the plot of Tenet was too much work for me to do. Especially when I’m the one paying rather than getting paid.

And yes, Nolan is an excellent filmmaker when he wants to be. He does occasionally do work which advances, or at least preserves to an extent, Western cultural values. I don’t have to give him grace when he fails at that project despite having more than a half-billion dollars to spend on it that maybe he’ll make back.

So miss me with all the bellyaching about this. I’m going to assume this is a mediocre film which probably would have been better with smarter decision-making, and because of that it’s for streaming when I’ve got nothing else to do. I don’t have to watch it, and I’m not paying to, and let’s move on. I hear Young Washington is terrific; maybe I’ll go and see that while it’s still in the theaters. (RELATED: Young Washington: No Cherry Tree Required)

2. Brandon Gill Destroys the Head of the American Bar Association

I thought the ABA was the professional association that governed the lawyers all over the country. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the case.

Given that, it would have seemed to me that to get to be the president of the ABA, people would have to think you’re a good lawyer.

Except I don’t think that’s true right now.

And I don’t think it’s true because Michelle A. Behnke is the president of the ABA, and the clip of her getting questioned by Rep. Brandon Gill, who’s a House Freedom Caucus member from Texas, gave me the impression that Ms. Behnke is something of a hack who might be in that job for reasons other than that her peers think she’s a great lawyer. (RELATED: Texas and Florida Shatter the ABA’s Gatekeeping Power)

Great lawyers don’t get tied up in bows like this…

…or like this…

This was an absolute disaster of a performance, and if the ABA is to continue as an organization we allow to govern the legal profession or accredit law schools, it seems quite obvious it has to be led by more talented and coherent people than Michelle Behnke.

The above wasn’t even the worst of it.

Good grief.

3. Highly Educated and Downwardly Mobile

You’ve probably seen this, or at least you’ve seen it discussed. Nate Silver had it at his Substack…

As a result of contentious Democratic primaries in Michigan, Maine, and New York, I’ve been reading a lot of conversation about the role that class plays in voting patterns in the United States. In these primaries, candidates like Graham Platner and Abdul El-Sayed who are associated with democratic socialism often claim to have the mandate of the working class. But in practice, their strengths tend to be with college-educated voters. Even before his scandals, Platner wasn’t particularly doing better among voters without college degrees than previous (losing) Democratic nominees in Maine. El-Sayed has relatively weak support from Black voters in polls, meanwhile…
I’m reminded here of Peter Turchin’s elite overproduction hypothesis. It basically argues that America is producing “too many” college graduates relative to the number of high-prestige, well-paying jobs available to them. People who wind up in this situation often carry heavy student loan burdens or other sorts of debt. Even if their material situation is objectively “just fine,” it’s rarely great. They’re gloomy about their own financial prospects, and feel aggrieved about the state of the country. Their class status is ambiguous: privileged in some senses, but they’re part of the “have-nots” in other meaningful ways.

This is correct, but it’s also pretty obvious. Assuming you know something about who Karl Marx was and who his followers were.

These were always the rich kids who didn’t have their acts together and didn’t have what it took to keep the family fortune growing — and there are lots of those — but with the special sauce that instead of trying harder or learning some humility from their failures, the Marxists invented or adopted a belief system that excused their inadequacies and then used that belief system as a costume they could LARP from. (RELATED: When the ‘World-City’ Votes Socialist)

So wasting money on a college education which instills in you no useful skills or knowledge but rather the belief and passion that your role in life is to “change the world” creates what?

Bitter revolutionaries who sign up to be DSA drones.

So now we can ask the question — who benefits from this? And is it an accident that the factories producing all the Marxists are also producing ruined lives, inescapable debt, and professional failure? (RELATED: American Education Is in Almost Irredeemable Decline)

The single best piece of policy we could pass if we want to let the air out of the DSA’s sails, and maybe we won’t want to do that until the commies have tanked the Democrat Party altogether, would be to make student loan debt dischargeable in bankruptcy. Every university in America would have to start rethinking what kinds of people they were creating on their campuses on that day.

4. There Are No Democrats Dumber Than New Orleans Democrats

This isn’t a controversial statement, seeing as though the previous two mayors of the Big Easy were the ridiculous Mitch Landrieu and the hilarious LaToya Cantrell, but if anything, New Orleans has gotten dumber in the past year. (RELATED: Mitch Landrieu, Low-Functioning Political Vampire)

Let’s start with the fact that Cantrell left new-ish mayor Helena Moreno — she’s a former state representative who spent a decade on the City Council — a budget deficit of more than $100 million. The city has already taken a bailout from the state of Louisiana to cover a massive shortfall, and they need another one.

That’s going on at the same time they’ve started a war with Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill, which led to a press conference Wednesday that was absolutely for the ages.

So here’s the story — in the state’s legislative session this spring, a raft of reform bills eliminating New Orleans’ dual Clerks of Court (there was one for criminal court and one for civil court; nowhere else in the state is this the case) and downsizing the massive overage of judges the city has (most of whom are dangerously crooked/incompetent/both) moved through the legislature to passage and Landry’s signature.

You might have heard about the elected clerk of criminal court who had spent 28 years in prison on a murder conviction which was vacated, which is not to say definitively that he was innocent. The guy’s name was Calvin Duncan, and the bill eliminating his position was enacted before he took office. This infuriated New Orleans’ Democrats, even though the change in the law put the clerk-of-court functions under the office of Chelsea Napoleon, another black Democrat who had been the clerk of civil court and now would be in charge of the combined office.

So Moreno, the district attorney Jason Williams (he’s a Soros DA, by the by), and a majority of the city council decided they were going to appoint Napoleon’s interim replacement and then call an election for a permanent replacement — on the theory that the combined clerk functions created a new office. Which explicitly is not the case, according to state law.

Which earned them a letter from Murrill, which essentially said, “Hey, you already have a duly-elected clerk of court; state law makes that clear, and no, you can’t replace her. In fact, trying to do that is illegal under the state’s usurper law, and if you go there you can literally go to jail for that decision, so maybe tap the brakes on stupid.”

Moreno got that letter and said Murrill was guilty of intimidating a public official, which there’s a state statute against (written for things like burning crosses on somebody’s front lawn). And the next thing Murrill knew, there was a grand jury that returned an indictment of her for that supposed crime. And a judge who set a $400,000 bond and a warrant for her arrest.

This obviously has not gone particularly well for New Orleans. The state Supreme Court suspended the warrant, and after Landry started laying into Moreno and the clown car that runs New Orleans, the indictment was dismissed. But not until after Murrill had to spend $250,000 or so out of pocket in legal fees in order to make this go away.

So at the press conference Wednesday, Landry and Murrill were both calling for an investigation into that grand jury indictment to find out just how “organic” it was, on the theory that it was almost certainly spun up by the clown car politicians in that city.

And what has the response been? A raft of social media posts and statements claiming the economic effect New Orleans has on the state — its culture, its cuisine, the tourism dollars it brings in. As if the clown car has anything to do with those successes.

And they still need $125 million in loan guarantees from the state. Good luck with that.

You may think your Democrats are morons. Trust me, they’re geniuses compared to that clown car in New Orleans.

5. And Speaking of New Orleans…

…the clown car politicians who warn that everything will fall apart if they don’t get their bailout money had nothing to do with creating The Revivalists.

Who come from New Orleans.