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I think they get a pass because we see Greek history as a shared western history, even though it's about as accurate as a black person in those roles.
So I think for a lot of people, when they see complaints about black actors playing historically "white" roles, what they're really seeing is a claim that black people don't have any right to our shared western heritage despite the fact that it's almost always a black person that has grown up in and only ever really been a part of western culture.
As far as I'm concerned, all your casting is wrong, it's not like Brad Pitt in Troy looks anything like a Greek person. Casting black people goes even farther, but it's just a matter of degree.
It does make sense, these are American movies, they're going to cast Americans, and the whole race issue is about who gets to star in them. There aren't enough Greek people in Hollywood to make a fuss about representation, so they don't get representation. It is what it is, but let's not pretend it's about accuracy or faithfulness to the original material, it's just about less racially biased casting.
So when someone complains about a black person being cast as Greek, in a movie filled with people of English, Irish, Scandinavian and who knows else decent, what they’re actually saying is that black people will never have a right to the shared western culture.
I'm also certain that many will feel the casting of Lupita Nyong'o as cultural appropriation while the same will be less true for Diane Kruger.
I'm not saying the Greeks should decide who to cast in a US film, but the argument that if the actress isn't Greek then any other choice has the same level of accuracy is wrong.
By your logic every movie should have a lot more east Asians, Indians, Native American etc. which I don't see anybody pushing for.
You are the one who has some weird race based conditioning where you are hyper-vigilant where it comes to race and need to act offended about it.
Seek medical assistance.
Do you realise all the contradictions in your position? And then to suggest that the other person needs medical help for stating the obvious, indicates your malign intent. This is gas lighting, ie abusive behaviour. Your own conditioning is making you unable to see the obvious.
Its not gas lighting and you diminish the term by suggesting it is.
If you demand arbitrary whiteness for a film thats about people who were considered black until the 60s or so, when you arent also demanding greekness of the whites, you are just here to grind your culture war axe.
I was accused of being conditioned, all I did was point out that its the culture war practitioners who have been conditioned like pavlovs dog to bark every time they see a person of colour on film. And yeah, that requires medical attention.
You think greeks were considered black in the 1960s?
Perhaps you have just received a very poor education. Perhaps the colours of people really have shifted a lot in your understanding.
> Its not gas lighting and you diminish the term by suggesting it is.
If the colours of different people have NOT shifted in your understanding, saying someone needs medical help for stating the obvious, common understanding is pretty close to the text book definition of gas lighting. It's just that you think it is for a good cause.
Edit: I meant swan. My recollection of mythology is rusty.
It got the "let little timmy play too" vibe all over it. It hints that there are no interesting historical events with black people having a major role in it that you would want to create a movie about.
Option A: Take a story with a white cowboy, cast a black guy for him and shoot the movie.
Option B: Find a story of a black cowboy (and as you said there were many of them) and shoot a movie about it.
IMHO option A is patronizing while option B is empowering. Because option A assumes there were no black cowboys, there are no good stories too tell about black people.
And this is the right way to do things, and not by pity race swapping some famous character/historical figure.
Let me try to elaborate on my argument. Imagine you are in a park and there are three children playing, child A, B and C. Imagine child A has 10 toys, B has 7 and C 1.
Now if you forcefully took toys from A and B and gave them to C, then that's patronizing behavior as it means "you can't have your own toys, you need to steal them from someone else, you are not good enough".
A more respectful way of solving the dilemma for all involved parties is by just getting more toys for child C.
Also, this does not particularly look like Brad Pitt. If you are referring to the greyish color of the marble, be aware statues were painted in antiquity.