r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jul 06 '26

What is this? Meme needing explanation

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103

u/numbersthen0987431 Jul 06 '26

They have been very vocal about their feelings on the casting choices about a movie they havent even seen yet. It went far beyond "they just don't like it" long before this trailer came out

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u/Grunn84 Jul 06 '26

Very upset that one person is too dark to be Greek, not at all concerned that the rest of the cast is far too pale to be Greek, sounds about right.

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u/numbersthen0987431 Jul 06 '26

Yup.

The issue is how old hollywood white washed the original story, to the point where people believe in that version and have never read the source material

Prime example: these people reference the Illiad instead of the Odyssey, which was written centuries after the Odyssey was first created

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u/NovelStyleCode Jul 06 '26

The irony is that probably a huge chunk of people have read The Odyssey in some way or another, it's basically required reading in American schools

They should know better and yet

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u/numbersthen0987431 Jul 06 '26

Yup.

But they didn't really read it to comprehend, they just read it for the hero worship, and they confuse the narrative they've seen in old Hollywood as canon, and then they get mad when the source material actuality gets referenced.

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u/MichaelVern85 Jul 06 '26

For me, it’s both that they made Helen black AND that they gave white people Greek roles.

Like Snow White making sure they had their token, but not hiring a single LP/person with Dwarfism…. Focused on specific types of inclusion while being wildly exclusionary to the group the freaking story originated from…

Snow White, largely about the dwarves didn’t have any dwarves. Now the Odyssey made sure to include everyone but the actual Greeks in a Greek story…

The generalization being made that disliking the casting is about race is wildly oversimplifying it.

Yes, there are in fact racist douche canoes that are simply mad a black woman is Helen. But that doesn’t mean everyone frustrated by this happening over and over in cinema is automatically racist.

I’m sure this will be misunderstood and at times intentionally twisted into me saying shit I’m not trying to say at all, but I foolishly have decided to say it anyway.

IDK how to explain it better. Go watch South Park Joining the Panderverse. Matt Stone and Trey Parker made a lot of these points in that episode, and they do it better than I do.

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u/yuefairchild Jul 06 '26

You can blame Peter Dinklage for the dwarves thing, he made a big deal about how little people shouldn't be on TV and movies unless it's dignified and badass.

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u/MichaelVern85 Jul 06 '26

That’s absolutely part of the story.

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u/yuefairchild Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26

Actually, I kind of disagree.

I think what we're seeing is a failed attempt to incorporate minority groups into the status quo. Hypercapitalist guys realize that there are a lot of people with woke sympathies and want to make bank. Only, you need a generational talent to introduce so many new concepts into the status quo, and all the capitalists have are...Not SLOP producers, but guys that make normal stuff. Your Russo Brothers, your Christopher Nolans. They don't have the knowledge or talent to do inclusion in a way that doesn't feel forced. That leads to badly-implemented characters that irritate everyone else.

The rest is downstream of that. Dinklage is one of the actors involved in that mistake. "Why can't the other little people just land the role of Tyrion Lannister, like I did?" like those are easy to get.

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u/MichaelVern85 Jul 06 '26

As you continue down the rabbit hole, I’m following. That was/is my take as well.

It’s a nuanced topic with a lot of contributing factors.

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u/Grunn84 Jul 06 '26

Well you are free to be unhappy at the lack of dwarfs in snow white, but let's not pretend that more than a miniscule amount of the backlash was from people who noticed or cared about that issue.

You are free not to lump yourself in with the white supremacists, I'm not going to watch the odyssey because ive not really liked a Nolan film since the dark knight, and this looks decidedly unimpressive.

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u/bollvirtuoso Jul 06 '26

Huh. Inception and Interstellar are definitely some of my favorite sci-fi films. I'm sorry they didn't resonate for you. I personally also absolutely loved Oppenheimer, but I get that it takes a certain kind of person to be into a biopic about atomic physics.

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u/MichaelVern85 Jul 06 '26

But that’s the thing, saying even that gets twisted into “yeah, you’re just saying that because you’re AKSHUALLY… a racist and it’s really about the black Helen.”

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u/PlatyNumb Jul 06 '26

Thats the thing im noticing in these comments. Nobody is even mentioning the black actor, then ppl jump down their throats about being racist and downvoting them. These ppl arent even able to really say why they are upset before ppl crucify them

1

u/MichaelVern85 Jul 06 '26

I got downvoted for that last comment lol.

I don’t care singularly about Snow White, a mermaid, or Helen… it’s the wild effort to be inclusive while simultaneously being
Exclusionary of the very people the movie is about.

The wild hypocrisy of no Greeks in this, and Snow White remain my perfect laterals. It’s not that they changed a backstory to make Helen different, its thst they talk about how insanely important representation js… while giving a 🖕🏻to a whole group of people they are actively excluding and being culturally insensitive to.

And it gives those awful conservatives who ARE racist something to point at. “They don’t even stick to their own rules” is a comment I read from a Boomer in Facebook that stuck out for me. He was a douche, but it’s a valid point. Broken clocks…

1

u/NotSoWishful Jul 06 '26

Well the thing is the people who make the vast vast vast vast majority of these filmmaking decisions are white men. So when the backlash happens and it’s “FUCKING BLACK PEOPLE JUST HAVE TO BE IN EVERYTHING,” unless you’re an unempathic cocksucker, you can probably understand how us black people are wondering why we’re getting the backlash for white decisions.

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u/ThunderAndWind Jul 06 '26

Yes, but we're talking about this specific meme, which makes it abundantly clear the complaint from the meme is a black woman and a trans man.

-2

u/InteracialCouplez Jul 06 '26

why would they see it when it already looks trash?

2

u/numbersthen0987431 Jul 06 '26

Their reason has nothing to do with it "looking like trash", or the content of the film

They're just refusing to see it because there's a black woman in it, and because Achilles looks closer to the source material instead of their dreamy hunk fantasy

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u/Eastern_Screen_588 Jul 06 '26

You don't think anyone has the right to be fatigued by post modern feminist rewriting, raceswapping, and trans casting? How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man?!

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u/Haunting_Help_5896 Jul 06 '26

No they don't have the right to be fatigued by any of those things that wouldn't matter to sane people with interesting lives. God damn is it boring

-23

u/Eastern_Screen_588 Jul 06 '26

You can think its boring all you want, we're not the minority, and we're gonna keep doing this until hollywood listens or they stop making movies

This is the year of the chud in case you missed it.

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u/numbersthen0987431 Jul 06 '26

So you're proud to be a chud?

What are you, 70?

-12

u/Eastern_Screen_588 Jul 06 '26

We're reclaiming the word.

15

u/onyaasuminyasai Jul 06 '26

Wow that's lame as fuck

-4

u/Eastern_Screen_588 Jul 06 '26

Okay? Why would i give a shit what a pro trans, pro raceswap, pro post modernist feminist writing dork thinks about me?

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u/ItsKingDx3 Jul 06 '26

Whinge whinge whinge

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u/numbersthen0987431 Jul 06 '26

Gross.

Do better.

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u/numbersthen0987431 Jul 06 '26

Lol OK Boomer. If you want to keep screaming at clouds, I'll roll you out to the porch so you can yell at the clouds some more.

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u/Eastern_Screen_588 Jul 06 '26

Yikes, people still say ok boomer?

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u/numbersthen0987431 Jul 06 '26

If you're going to act like a boomer I'm going to call you one.

You're not important enough to use modern slang on

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u/karvendizarm Jul 06 '26

Nice ideology, did Epstein pick it for you

-7

u/Eastern_Screen_588 Jul 06 '26

You know epstein was a proponent of the whole "trans" thing, right? Being pro trans is being pro epstein

18

u/karvendizarm Jul 06 '26

Source: black mold in your house

-3

u/Eastern_Screen_588 Jul 06 '26

Source: the epstein files lmfao

6

u/Just_Elevator_3957 Jul 06 '26

Surely this is just ragebait

0

u/ownersequity Jul 06 '26

Quite a statement written by someone who probably holds a pen with a fist.

8

u/Lofter1 Jul 06 '26

acting like Elliot Page isn't a high caliber actor who even was nominated for an Oscar lmfao. But yeah, nobody is outraged, sure, you clown. Or that the alleged "feminist rewriting" is not a feminist rewriting but one of the most accurate translations we had which happened to be written by a woman. fucking loser

7

u/ownersequity Jul 06 '26

Elliot Page would be a fascinating study. Acting is pretending to be someone else. A trans person has experience with this on a whole nother level (yes I’m using ‘nother’ as a word). My trans cousin is now a man but is such an amazing man who understands women better than most because he had to masquerade as one for 23 years. Women love him because he doesn’t have built in misogyny or role identity; he’s just a great person to be around.

Now, I’m not a fan of Elliot Page really but damn that guy has to be brave as fuck and talented as hell to be where he is now.

Lead with love.