The Online Odyssey of ‘The Odyssey’

Universal Pictures announced last week via a tweet that director Christopher Nolan’s next film, and the follow-up to his Best Picture-winning, box office champ Oppenheimer, would be an adaptation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. The announcement was a Christmas gift for Film Twitter, with many speculating how Nolan, famous for his insistence on IMAX cameras and practical effects, would make such an effects-heavy film. Others commented that the story, about a man trying to get home to his wife and home after years of war, lines up nicely with Nolan films like Interstellar, Inception and Dunkirk.

But others, who apparently have never heard of one of the oldest and most popular pieces of literature in the modern world, decided to make their lack of curiosity everyone else’s problem.

With all apologies to Homer (and translator Robert Fitzgerald), what is it about Christopher Nolan adaptations and dumb Twitter drama? A few years ago, it was age gap discourse about Oppenheimer and American Prometheus. Now, it’s privilege and class discourse about Nolan’s next film.

Is it pretentious to know about The Odyssey?

It all started with this tweet, where user Matt Ramos shared a screenshot of The Odyssey’s plot summary, with the comment “HOLY SHIT.”

HOLY SHIT https://t.co/hrsdYKXWzt pic.twitter.com/tU6bbabTPI

— Matt Ramos (@therealsupes) December 23, 2024

 

Ramos had apparently never heard of The Odyssey and said in a follow-up tweet that the poem was never taught in his school, and then got annoyed when a bunch of people started dogpiling on him for not being curious about the poem:

“The world would be a better place if we just welcomed learning about new things & embracing the passion that connects us vs beating down on people & degrading them for being uninformed.”

This led to a number of dumb comments that proved that Twitter brain rot is alive and well. Some wondered how anyone could know about the poem if English wasn’t their first language. Some said it was “pretentious” to know about the Odyssey.

The thing is, Ramos is right—the world would be a better place if we just welcomed learning about new things. But getting defensive about advertising your willful ignorance about a piece of common knowledge should be embarrassing.

There are some causes for this, though. I was taught The Odyssey (and watched the Armand Assante miniseries) in 9th-grade English class, but the curriculums change. Schools might not be teaching The Odyssey now.

Before I even read a line of The Odyssey, I swam in a sea of references and parodies of the poem from TV shows like Arthur, Wishbone, or The Simpsons. That’s not to mention films like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and…The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie. The rise of streaming, especially in kids’ media, has eliminated much of the ways people used to overhear references and learn about past media by osmosis.

Anecdotally, there also seems to just be an overwhelming lack of curiosity by many people about media that existed before 1990. Which is sad, because, at least on Twitter, the population is becoming dumber, and that dumb faction is quickly becoming the loudest.

New Translations

After the pretentiousness discourse died down, a new discussion emerged about which translation of The Odyssey is the best for newbies to read. The most recent translation, from Emily Wilson, has been propped up by many as the most accessible — “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending” is translated as “Tell me about a complicated man.” Others say it’s too simple, and prefer the Fitzgerald version I butchered earlier, or the 1996 Robert Fagles translation.

This sparked a ton of debate from the Literati and classics folks on Twitter. All in all, it reminded me of a bunch of Southern Baptists arguing about whether the New International Version or the English Standard Version of the Bible is better.

That’s maybe the funniest outcome of all of this. Without saying a word, Nolan managed to get film nerds and literary nerds to fight for an entire week and drove up renewed interest in The Odyssey. Good for him. Hopefully more people will be more curious as a result.

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story

of that man skilled in all ways of contending,

the wanderer, harried for years on end,

after he plundered the stronghold

on the proud height of Oscar and box office glory.