this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2025
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[–] Saapas@piefed.zip 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

There's a black Greek guy in this movie?

[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 22 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

That's historically accurate actually, because "Greek" was not a race, it was more like a cultural identity that you could pick up by practice. A black Greek would just be a Greek with black skin. If they spoke Greek, worshiped the Greek gods, understood Greek cultural practices, lived in a polis, boom they're Greek. There were multiple Greek states in Africa, even below the Sahara like the Auxamites, who spoke Greek and ruled parts of Ethiopia until around 1000AD.

Also, there were Ethiopians (people of burnt faces in the Greek) under Memnon at Troy fighting the Greeks, this was in fact the subject of a now lost poem part of the.broader Epic Cycle, of which the Odyssey was part. And in one part of the Odyssey, when Athena makes Odysseus beautiful, she is clearly described making Odysseus' skin black (though the Greeks described colours very differently than us, so wouldn't read too much into it)!

[–] newacctidk@hexbear.net 25 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Greeks don't even exist yet. When we say Greek, they say Hellenes which comes from Helen. These people in the movie who are from mainland modern Greece are Achaeans and still pretty disparate and even more population movements are to come in the next centuries.

[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

True true, even more credence to the point. Though the historical identity of Greek is like predicated on and constructed by the Iliad and Odyssey.

[–] newacctidk@hexbear.net 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

The fact that no one seems to show care with Greek cultural identity, like it is just this collective past for all modern Europeans and Anglos is so gross. There is this fantastic video essay on modernizations and attempts to "fix" Greek myth by a student of the Classics that I absolutely love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tL3Pbc_zhU&t=5s

She made me question the way Greek history is abused both for reactionary and liberal pan-European identity. To quote Katerina Cosgrove

If these writers co-opt Greek oral histories, handed down from mouth to mouth and generation to generation, I don’t see them leaving any room for minority Greek writers, within Greece and in the diaspora, to tell their own stories and to have any hope of getting them published and garnering attention. My Greek publisher, the oldest house in the country, is struggling to stay afloat in the new Greece. Greek writers can’t get published. Maybe the Greek myths don’t belong only to the Greeks. Yet I wonder why the international publishing industry chooses these particular books to champion, white writers writing for white audiences – a structural issue that I can’t begin to unravel here. Greece has suffered from many waves of colonisation, and this feels like the latest.

I’m not saying these writers should not have written these books. The West has always appropriated Greek cultural heritage for its own purposes. The easy aspects are often celebrated while the marginalisation of Greek peoples – both ancient and modern – is rendered invisible. I am saying, though, that we should be thoughtful and humble, listening and approaching any culture’s myths with a healthy dose of respect, even dread and wonder. The Greek gods would be justly pleased by this, I think.

https://islandmag.com/read/who-owns-the-greek-myths-by-katerina-cosgrove

This along with the fact that the British effectively made up a "real" ancient Greek language you could learn because they felt then-modern Greeks did not deserve their own fucking history, derisively calling their language "Demotic Greek" (the people's Greek) really put me off from people like Nolan telling this story.

They wanna talk about "our" canon, as if there is some direct line from Homer to Milton, that some Brit is the heir to that legacy. Said youtuber has a video on this aspect as well actually, in which she talks about Boris Johnson using recitation of the Iliad as part of this pantomime of Greek culture, to cloak modern western Europe in someone else's past.

[–] HexReplyBot@hexbear.net 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

[–] Blakey@hexbear.net 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's historically accurate actually, because "Greek" was not a race, it was more like a cultural identity that you could pick up by practice. A black Greek would just be a Greek with black skin. If they spoke Greek, worshiped the Greek gods, understood Greek cultural practices, lived in a polis, boom they're Greek.

I knew this was true of Romans, and it makes sense that it would be the same for the Hellenes, but still good to know! I think even among people who know and accept that "race" is a modern construct, it's hard to truly internalise that not only did these cultures not conceive of themselves in racialised terms, they were also more or less cosmopolitan.

[–] newacctidk@hexbear.net 1 points 4 months ago

For the Greeks of the classical era the larger divide was mostly if one was a citizen. Which of course would likely preclude people passing through or refugees from far flung places, but for something quite different than colorism or even strictly being foreign.

[–] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] Saapas@piefed.zip 1 points 4 months ago

It's sorta mentioned in the meme?