The Odyssey Should Kill the "Woke" Discourse Once and For All

The Odyssey is about to prove what Barbie already showed us: 'woke' movies don't flop. Bad movies do.

Since The Odyssey releases this week, you’ve probably heard a lot about “woke movies.” There’s been a ton of discourse around the casting, some minor character changes, and the people involved. All of it has been framed by those stoking the discourse as proof that this is, once again, a “woke” movie.

This has been a popular, if exhausting, topic for years. Think about the new Star Wars trilogy, where Rey is the hero — well, she’s a woman, so that’s woke. Or the Snow White live-action remake. Or The Little Mermaid, where casting a Halle Bailey as Ariel supposedly made it woke. This argument has been ridiculous for years, but it’s managed to stick around and build a following, because a lot of these movies were bad movies. It wasn’t because they were “woke” or did something crazy. It was because they weren’t good and they failed to meet expectations. And so we get this whole sentiment: go woke, go broke. But luckily, The Odyssey is going to prove how small and insignificant that cohort of people really is, in the grand scheme of things.

The So-Called Flops Were Never Actually About Casting

Take Rachel Zegler, who got absolutely slammed for starring in Snow White. She’s half Polish, half Colombian — it’s not like the studio “went off script.” But God forbid a woman who was not pale white was cast as Snow White.

They cast a talented actress they believed could lead the film, and then the film itself just wasn’t good. That doesn’t mean woke goes broke. It means a bad movie goes broke. Bad movies don’t make money. That’s what a handful of studios have gotten stuck with these last few years — they made movies people didn’t want to see, and the anti-woke crowd jumped on that as “proof” that going woke means going broke.

The Woke Crowd Lost With Rings of Power

You saw the same pattern with Amazon’s The Rings of Power. Long before a single episode aired, the show was getting torched online for casting Black and brown actors as elves and dwarves — treated as some kind of betrayal of Tolkien, as if Middle-earth, with its wizards and hobbits and orcs, were a documentary.

The backlash got so ugly that Amazon had to suspend user reviews for the first 72 hours just to keep the review-bombing from drowning out real audience reaction. And when the actual numbers came in, critics loved it. The show got renewed and it’s still going, now on its third season later in 2026. None of the “this will kill the franchise” predictions came true, because — say it with me — casting wasn’t the problem. There was never a problem. There was just a loud, angry, mostly-online minority who decided in advance they were going to hate it, and the rest of the world went and watched a good show anyway.

Now Here Comes The Odyssey, Right on Schedule

The Odyssey sold out tickets a year in advance and simultaneously has one of the most disliked trailers on YouTube — over a couple of minor casting choices. The controversy centers on Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Elliot Page playing a Greek soldier, Sinon. Both have limited screen time, and both are great in their roles. Remember, this is a mythological retelling of historical events. In a movie with a cyclopes, sea monsters, and witches, there can absolutely be a Helen of Troy whose skin is darker than some people might have imagined, especially when its Lupita Nyong’o. Are we really going to argue that Lupita Nyong’o isn’t one of the most beautiful women in the world? She fits the role perfectly and she is an incredible actress. But the anti-trans, anti-woke crowd who don’t want to see anyone but a straight white actor cast in a role latched onto it anyway, and thought they’d win.

I would know. My early reviews on social media were flooded with bigoted, racist, genuinely disgusting comments about this movie. And yet I knew none of it would matter, because The Odyssey is a great movie, and because this vocal minority of bots, trolls, and angry people online is far less significant than it thinks it is. They were never going to see this movie. They were never buying tickets. And meanwhile, it’s on track to be one of Christopher Nolan’s biggest openings, possibly the third R-rated movie to cross a billion dollars, with screenings sold out weeks and weeks into its release.

This movie is a phenomenon, and it proves how little cultural impact the anti-woke crowd actually has - none. They don’t move the needle. They didn’t cause Snow White or The Little Mermaid or any other project to flop. Making a bad product did that. They have no impact because they aren’t actually part of the audience for the arts. They don’t watch movies, plays, or shows. They sit in echo chambers repeating the same talking points because it makes them feel like they have some kind of power, like something in their lives is finally going right.

If they had legitimate criticism, it might be worth engaging with. But they don’t — they’re parroting the same lines. I’ve seen people confuse Elliot Page with playing Achilles, over and over. He never played Achilles. He isn’t playing Achilles in this movie. But that rumor stuck a year ago, and people are still repeating it like it’s truth to this day. And even if it were true — who cares? It just shows how out of touch, and how uninterested in facts, this crowd is.

Barbie Already Ran This Experiment Once and Everyone Forgot

I thought this crowd would have died off when Barbie came out. Obviously Barbie is “woke” — it has a heavy feminist themes. But that movie made an enormous amount of money because it was good. It was entertaining as hell, unique, interesting, and a cultural phenomenon.

The anti-woke crowd operates on false confidence: every time a movie bombs, they take credit. Every time a movie succeeds, they go quiet and disappear — exactly like they will with The Odyssey in a few weeks. They can review-bomb it all they want. It won’t matter, because the vast majority of people — the ones who haven’t fallen down this conspiracy-theory rabbit hole — understand what makes a movie good, and understand that none of what this cohort talks about has anything to do with a film’s success. They take credit when it’s convenient and vanish when it isn’t.

So are some movies “woke”? No. I think “woke” is a made-up term at this point. It’s just a buzzword. It used to describe people who were forward-thinking; being “woke” used to be a compliment. But not anymore. Now it’s a meaningless label the right wing and various extremists use to discredit anyone whose opinions differ from their own. There are entire websites and YouTube channels built around “is it woke or is it worth it” content, thriving on clicks from men who can’t accept that something not centered on a straight white male protagonist might still be good — or that a slightly different casting choice doesn’t automatically ruin a character.

This Was Never a New Trend, You Just Weren’t Reading Movies Closely Enough

The idea that “everything went woke” recently says more about media literacy than about Hollywood. Movies have always carried cultural messages and undertones. In the past, they tended to do it with more subtlety — and that subtlety is exactly what made them work. It’s also exactly why people who couldn’t engage with deeper themes never noticed it was there. If you think movies “never used to be like this,” it’s because you weren’t picking up on it, not because it wasn’t happening. Attention spans have shortened, audiences increasingly want instant gratification, and storytelling has gotten more blunt as a result.

The Odyssey actually has strong antiwar and feminist themes running through it, and they’re handled with restraint. Think about the guilt Odysseus carries over the Trojan War, the way Athena needles at that guilt, and the steadiness of his wife back home — the one actually holding everything together. The film didn’t need Odysseus to turn to the camera and say “war is hell.” You get that from the performances and the storytelling — the same way Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter did it decades ago. The same way Rambo did it: a movie fundamentally about a veteran’s PTSD and how badly Vietnam veterans were treated when they came home, which a lot of people still reduce to “the cool shoot-em-up movie” because they never looked past the surface.

These themes have always been there, because movies are political. They shape culture and start important conversations, and they have always done this across every era and every genre. The idea that this is some new phenomenon designed to erase white people or American culture is asinine and ignorant.

When The Billion-Dollar Numbers Come In, This Crowd Has Nothing Left to Say

Will this crowd disappear when The Odyssey crosses a billion dollars, when it has a massive opening weekend, when it’s still selling out theaters eight or ten weeks later? No. They won’t. They’ll move on to the next talking point that gives them rage clicks and a dopamine hit, the next chance to call someone like me a slur or an idiot for having an opinion. The list of things I’ve been called goes on and on, and it really comes down to this: I have a brain. I can think critically.

I can tell you with total confidence that the live-action Snow White is bad, and it’s not because it’s woke. I can tell you at the same time that The Odyssey is great, and Barbie is great — not because they’re woke, but because they’re good movies. That’s the difference between good and bad, and I can tell the two apart because I’m capable of thinking outside an echo chamber.