What is an American Hero?

After Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey was released in theaters, Elon Musk declared he would use Grok to create a more “historically accurate” version of the ancient epic poem. The uproar over the film’s supposedly woke casting has been loud and sustained, but the people most upset have ignored a pretty significant detail: The Odyssey is not real. It is a story filled with gods, goddesses, and violent monsters who are apparently more historically plausible than the presence of people of color. Even the fact that Greek, Asian, and African peoples were in contact throughout the ancient world is less believable, it seems, than a sentient whirlpool.

The goal was never historical accuracy, though. It never is. The same logic that scrubs people of color from ancient epics is the logic that scrubs us from American history because in both cases, the sanitized version requires our absence. America becomes a space of prosperity and hope for all if enslavement is deleted. It becomes a benevolent nation welcoming to everyone if internment camps and detention centers are excluded. It becomes a beacon of cultural mixing if the genocide of Indigenous peoples is overlooked.