Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. picked a fight with actors Lupita Nyong’o and Elliot Page and this weekend, they lost big time, an MS NOW analyst argued Saturday.
Media critic Brian Lowry ridiculed the two “anti-‘woke’” crusaders’ attacks as predictions rolled in Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster hit “The Odyssey” — in which both stars are featured — would pull in $200 million worldwide its opening weekend.
“Musk and others sought to transform [Nolan’s casting] into something nefarious, bizarrely arguing that the diverse casting represented some kind of cynical ploy,” wrote Lowry.
“Nolan’s film merely makes those conservative provocateurs sound foolish.”
In the weeks before Nolan’s interpretation of the Homeric epic debuted, Musk and Trump Jr. took to social media to share their outrage that a Black actor had been cast to play Helen of Troy and a trans actor to play a Greek soldier.
“Shame on Chris Nolan for desecrating Homer! ” wrote Musk in May. “He will never live it down.”
“Maybe one of theses days Hollywood will least to stop pushing this c— on us,” Trump Jr. wrote in an Instagram post, replete included anti-trans rhetoric, the following day.
It is worth noting that Lowry argues the person who suffered “slings and arrows” was Nolan — not the two actors he cast — and survived because of the short amount of time those actors were allotted on screen.
“At a run time of almost three hours, ‘The Odyssey’ continues the ‘Oppenheimer’ director’s personal war on moviegoers’ bladders,” wrote Lowry. “But despite the advance obsession over Nyong’o’s and Page’s characters, the two actors each occupy no more than a few minutes of screen time.”
Lowry argued Nolan’s focus on the film’s white, non-trans stars — Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Anne Hathaway — represents a talent for drawing talent.
“The beauty of being Nolan, at this point, is that his reputation and track record enable him to attract identifiable talent — a la Zendaya, rapper Travis Scott and horror queen Mia Goth — for even smallish roles,” he wrote, “a clever means of broadening the film’s appeal.”
Lowry also praised Nolan for not rising to Musk and Trump Jr.’s bait with an angry response.
“Nolan himself has diplomatically dismissed the right-wing naysaying when asked about it, even as he basks in a torrent of critical praise for the film,” Lowry wrote. “In an interview with The Telegraph, Nolan politely said such criticism ‘comes with the territory,’ calling it ‘irrelevant.’”
And ultimately, Nolan’s success disproves conservative claims that to “go woke” is to “go broke,” Lowry concluded.
“Projections are that ‘The Odyssey,’ tailor-made to premium large-screen formats, will earn roughly $200 million worldwide its opening weekend,” he reported.
“Whatever the final tally, it should go a long way toward erasing the prospect of a ‘go broke’ scenario for Universal Pictures, the studio releasing the film.”