[cauch]

I was writing point-by-point response, but it is just too useless.

First, as for the diversity in Roman era, I think it's incorrect to compare it to 100 year ago diversity. It looks like it was the error done previously and historians now acknowledge it was stupid. We find more and more black people at an unexpected fraction. Historians are realizing that people of the roman era did not care about the color of skin as much as our mentality driven by "what is was like 100 years ago" would let us think: some people were mentioned abundantly in historical documents and it turns out they were black and no one cared enough to even mention it; or people being buried in the cemetery as anybody else, with no trace that other citizen at the time even cared (so, no, they were probably not "incredibly rare"). Other elements, such the strategy of the roman empire itself to force trade within the empire or to send troupes from remote lands to manage other remote lands, also indicate that it is not as easy as you think it is.

But my main point, that you don't really react on, is that the phenomena of the "diversity in cast" is order of magnitude lower, in dangerosity and aggressivness, than the phenomena of "right-wing chud". Trust me, if the "diversity in cast" crew was as common and as aggressive as the "right-wing chud" crew is, you would cry right now. It is just another level. It does not mean that the "diversity cast" crew is ideal, sure, they can be criticized when they are doing things that are not smart. But it is strange to totally ignore the ugly right-wing chuds while happily defending their talking point (even if they are right), it just feels your intervention is not about "truthness" or "correct history", it is more about "culture war".

As I've said, there are order of magnitude between the presence of right-wing chuds and left-wing chuds. The right-wing chuds are way more imposing their views on the society. If you are worried about "rewriting history", Hollywood is not at all a real problem. And the "problem" with using a diverse cast is really not a big deal. What is the bad consequence from it, exactly? That people who currently have a totally incorrect understanding of the diversity during the Roman era will now have an incorrect understanding of the diversity during the Roman era because somehow they will base it mainly on Hollywood movies that show actors with __american accent__? At the same time, Nolan's movie is also presenting a story very neoliberal (the economy theory) and friendly-globalisation-story. But strangely, this aspect, totally inaccurate, is apparently not a problem, the problem is "omg, he used a diverse cast that may not correspond to the reality of the time". People being obsessed around that are just idiots playing the "culture war", they are not defending "history" or "truthness".

I don't really recall the movie, but I remember one guy complaining that one movie was criticized for not having a diverse cast, pretending it was being cancelled. Looking up the article they were talking about, it was an article giving the movie 4.5 stars over 5 and encouraging people to go to see it. There was just one sentence saying something like "the cast was a bit disappointing, not super diverse". Parallel to this, the reaction to the Odyssey, for example, are "rage". Right-wing people are really angry about it, they see it as a danger for society and are adamant it is a bad movie, ignoring all other aspects. So, the idea that "diverse cast" is a dangerous cult destroying our society seems to be a bias: people who, ideologically, don't like the idea of diversity, will unconsciously blow everything out of proportion.

So, no, your argument don't really work. You are worried about the people who "see diversity everywhere". Well, sure, maybe there are idiots there. They are rather harmless. Currently, the real problem is the right-wing chuds. These are the aggressive people, these are the ones who want to stop the movies they don't like. They are the ones who want to create movies with, on purpose, rewritten history in it.

And as for the "white-armed" description, if it is really the point of the criticism, then it is even more stupid (and even more uncharitable). First, let's ignore that Helen of Troye is fictitious, half-swan, that "white-armed" may also mean "aristocrat" (same way nowadays we can say "blue blood" without meaning their blood is blue) and all the difficulty of usage of color in Greek text (but I'm sure an answer to that is "academic who say that are all woke"). But secondly, are they stupid enough to complain about a race swap in a context where the actress has an american accent? And what about all the other actors? Or maybe they are obsessed around white-to-black swap because they are too stupid to understand that, because of recent decade of racism, swapping a black character for a white character may not be a smart thing after years where black people were treated as inferior and had no visibility, but that swapping a white character for a black character is not much a bigger deal than swapping a blue-eyed character with a brown-eyed character.