The backlash surrounding Lupita Nyong’o’s casting as Helen of Troy — and her sister Clytemnestra — in the upcoming epic “The Odyssey” has quickly evolved into another online culture-war battle over race, beauty and representation in Hollywood.
The controversy intensified after Elon Musk amplified social media criticism in quite a few posts and reposts on X, questioning both the casting and whether Nyong’o could plausibly portray Helen, the mythological figure long associated with extraordinary beauty. Conservative commentator Matt Walsh argued on X that “not one person on the planet” views Nyong’o as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” a post Musk replied to with a one-word endorsement: “True.”
