In an attempt to slip into the rich stream of attention that Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is getting around the world, Elon Musk has promised that his generative AI tool, Grok Imagine, would produce a “historically accurate” account of the epic. Let’s keep aside the point that Homer’s account is far from settled history—for one, not all experts yet agree on the exact location of Troy, which Odysseus cunningly conquers by deceit. Musk is less interested in history than in ranting against black actress Lupita Nyong’o playing Helen and Clytemnestra. Long back, someone had playfully proposed ‘Helen’ as an index of beauty, with a milli-Helen as a face that launched a single ship. We may also propose a unit named after Calvin Candie, Django Unchained’s sadistic slave-owner?
