Lupita's Helen of Troy has exposed Hollywood's race problem

This week we take a break from Kenya’s eerily predictable politics to an important “going on” that should be permeating Kenyan discourse with more fervour than it currently is.

It involves the controversy arising from the casting by Christopher Nolan of our very own Oscar-winning Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy in the epic movie, The Odyssey. Lupita’s casting has ignited a global firestorm and unveiled the reality of racial prejudice that still reigns in the 21st century.

The controversy erupted almost immediately after Lupita’s role was confirmed. At its core, the backlash hinges on a simple but revealing premise: that the “most beautiful woman in the world” cannot be Black. Critics, led by South African-born tech billionaire Elon Musk, have argued that casting a Black actress as Helen, a figure traditionally depicted as white in Western art, is “historically inaccurate” and a capitulation to “DEI lies”.

Other commentators declared that Nolan had “grossly insulted the Greek people” and accused the director of being an “anti-White racist”. Some American conservative commentators have gone further, claiming that “not one person on the planet actually thinks that Lupita Nyong’o is ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’”.

Greek director Yannis Smaragdis has suggested that Nolan’s choice was a cynical Oscar grab. He also alleged that casting Lupita constituted “a hostile act and a deception of the Greek people”, a claim that underscores how deeply racialised the debate has become.

The arguments against Lupita’s casting are revealing in the way they expose modern racial attitudes. While detractors contend that Homer’s varied descriptions of Helen is definitive proof of her whiteness, scholars have long appreciated that racism has not always defined human societies but is a product reinforced by more recent events, particularly the slave trade.

Ancient Greeks would never have judged someone on skin colour, they lived in a world that was far more diverse than contemporary imagination allows. In Kenya the backlash has been unsurprisingly muted, probably submerged by politics,  especially with Prof Anyang' Nyong'o being the face of President William Ruto’s Vision 2060. But where it emerges, it is mixture of both pride and dismay.