Conservative pundits are outraged that a trans male actor has been cast in the role in an upcoming Odyssey film.
By Faefyx Collington
With Elliot Page’s casting announced in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming The Odyssey, rumors have gained traction online that Page will be playing Achilles, known as the greatest of all Greek warriors. Shockingly, right-wing voices have come out in outrage at the concept of a trans man being cast in the role.
“The most famous warrior in all of history, not just Greek history, Achilles, is about to be played by a transgender woman in a brand new movie,” said right-wing Newsmax anchor Rob Finnerty in a rant in which he repeatedly misgendered Page and referred to Achilles and his accomplishments as historical, despite Achilles being a mythical figure.
Achilles, star of Homer’s Iliad and famously portrayed by Brad Pitt in Troy, has only a small role in Homer’s Odyssey, one that, if it appeared in today’s MCU, might be marked as fan service. Having died after the events of the Iliad, Odysseus runs into Achilles’ spirit in Hades, where the fallen hero comments on fame not being all it’s cracked up to be and asks about his son. If Page is indeed playing Achilles, which has not been confirmed, then it’s unlikely they’ll have a huge amount of screentime.
That hasn’t stopped Finnerty and some right-wing voices from rolling out their outrage. Finnerty had more to say, taking issue with Page’s physique: “You might even remember Brad Pitt played Achilles in a movie 20 years ago, meaning we go from Brad Pitt to a girl who dresses as a guy who’s five-foot-one, 118 pounds. That’s the person who’s going to be playing the greatest warrior in history, because to the left, that is normal. That’s okay.” He then went on to criticize the casting of Black actress Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, a mythological (not historical) figure who Finnerty claimed was “definitely white.”
Never one to miss an opportunity for performance, Elon Musk has been retweeting and commenting on X posts that mock the casting, offering supportive messages. Most of these transphobic posts center around the idea that Page’s Achilles might struggle to open a jar of pickles. Musk, as well as noted anti-trans activist Matt Walsh, have also piled on with criticism of The Odyssey over the casting of Nyong’o.
In a piece for UnHerd, Spencer Klavan suggested a grossly transphobic reason that Page is a good casting choice. “Achilles in The Odyssey is therefore the drained shadow of an unmade non-man, yearning for the time when he was real and alive,” Klavan claims. “His power sapped, he bitterly regrets the trade-off he made by dying young in exchange for immortal fame. It’s part of Homer’s greatness that he both celebrates the glory of martial valor and undercuts it with this harrowing image of what happens even to the proudest fighters after they are slain: they turn into empty specters, grieving the loss of their former selves.”
“They behave, in other words, a lot like those poor souls who go through gender transition and regret it, wishing they could recover the vitality of their natural bodies. If this is what Nolan has in mind by casting Page as Achilles, assuming he’s actually done so at all, it could serve as a daring commentary on the dark side of this industry.”
That description is a somewhat liberal interpretation of the text and relies upon a reading of only one of the many translations that exist of Homer’s Odyssey. Nolan has reportedly said that he favors Emily Wilson’s 2018 translation, the first complete and published English translation by a woman, which has been lauded for correcting some of the misleading language and erroneous cultural assumptions present in many other translations. This preference is another point that Klavan mocks.
It’s worth noting that Achilles has often been read and portrayed as a queer mythological figure, with Plato and others suggesting that his relationship with Patroclus went beyond simple friendship. Achilles and Patroclus have repeatedly been read as lovers.
All of this is particularly performative, given that there’s no actual confirmation about what role Page will be playing, with only a fraction of the cast confirmed with specific roles. In fact, one keen-eyed Redditor, r/hasanahmad, suggests that Page is more likely to be playing one of Odysseus’ crewmates, Elpenor. They note that a behind-the-scenes photo of the cast of Odysseus’ crew includes Page.
In the Odyssey, Elpenor dies inconsequentially on Circe’s island, and Odysseus and his crew don’t bother to search for him when they notice he’s missing, as the hero of the story is eager to return home. When Odysseus later reaches Hades, he is confronted by Elpenor’s spirit. This encounter catalyzes a moral turning point for Odysseus, and he then returns to lay Elpenor to rest properly. The brief shot of Page in the trailer could match up with this storyline as easily as if they were playing Achilles.
There might be a lot of benefits to a trans actor playing cis roles, one of which is helping to normalize seeing trans people as their own gender within the mainstream.
In the Achilleid by Statius, Achilles’ mother tries to hide him from the war by disguising him as a woman in the king’s court on Skyros. However, Odysseus finds him by bringing a series of gifts to the women there, including some weapons. His men then imitate the sound of an attack, and Achilles is revealed when he takes up weapons to fight. While there are societal pressures trapping Achilles in femininity, his true identity as a man in that society wins out.
Source: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/05/elliot-page-might-play-the-mythological-hero-achilles-the-right-is-losing-its-mind/
