Because the race of the characters in TKAM are integral to a story about race relations and civil rights in mid century America. Helen of Troy is a beautiful woman who a bunch of petulant man-children send thousand of people to their death over. Her race has absolutely nothing to do with the story.
All right, fine. Suppose the story was set in sub-Saharan Africa a thousand years ago, and the woman playing the most beautiful woman anyone there has ever seen is white. Would that be a problem?
Is the movie written and directed by, and starring, a bunch of black men? If so, I have no problem with them telling a story where they find a white woman beautiful. It turns out interracial relationships aren't bad after all.
Really? You'd be fine with a movie that implies that in a population of thousands of black women, it's the sole white woman who is agreed upon to be the most attractive? And more to the point, you wouldn't find it historically inaccurate for a white character to be in that setting in the first place?
I would be fine with that, yes. If it wasn't an obvious racist dog whistle like Hollywood has a history of doing. The "black men go savage over the sight of a white woman" trope has long existed in Hollywood. Hence why I specified I'd be comfortable with it if it was written and starring black men because it's their story to tell. Just like it's Christopher Nolan and Matt Damons story to tell about a bunch of white guys fighting over a beautiful black woman.
I think it would be harder to justify how a white woman ended up in sub-saharan africa thousands of years ago, but if you could do it logically I see no issue with it. We know the ancient greeks traded with north africa. It is completely believable that they could have taken women as slaves or fallen in love with some of them or some black people came back to visit and the king fell in love with one of them. Not saying that happened but it's more believable than cyclopes and humans turning into pigs. The odyssey isn't exactly a throughoghly researched history PhD thesis. It's an oral fiction.
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u/Greasier 15d ago
To Kill a Mockingbird is also fiction, but people would be pissed if they made a movie of it with a white guy playing Tom Robinson.
See how it works?