Workers install a hand-painted billboard, painted by artist Virginia Axioti, for Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film “The Odyssey,” starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, outside Athens’ Athinaion cinema, Saturday, July 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) Long before I became mayor of Ithaca, I was a kid growing up in a family that sometimes relied on food stamps and occasionally did not have a permanent home. I was raised by my mother and grandparents, and I learned early that the distance between security and hardship is often much shorter than politicians pretend.
Years later, at 24, I became Ithaca’s youngest mayor and its first mayor of color. It was an improbable journey — not quite 10 years at sea, but with enough political monsters and budgetary whirlpools to qualify as an odyssey.
So I have always felt a certain kinship with Odysseus. He was king of Ithaca. I was mayor of Ithaca. He had to contend with Poseidon; I had to contend with potholes. He faced the wrath of the gods. I faced three-hour Common Council meetings, which occasionally felt like the same thing.
Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is spectacular filmmaking. His direction gives Homer’s ancient story an extraordinary scale without losing its human stakes. The sea is immense, the dangers are thrilling and the hero is commanding — but Nolan never allows grandeur to become moral simplicity. This is not merely a story about a powerful man triumphing over monsters. It is a story about the monsters that power can create within us.
That is why the film matters politically.
Culture shapes our politics before politics ever reaches the ballot box. Stories teach us what courage looks like, who deserves to be seen, whether strength means domination or restraint and whether leaders should be worshipped or held accountable.
I understood this instinctively when I ran for office as a young Black man who did not look like any previous mayor of Ithaca. My election was possible because enough people could imagine leadership looking different from what they had known before. Political change requires cultural imagination.
That is also why the right-wing backlash against Nolan’s casting choices has been so revealing. Elon Musk and MAGA commentators have attacked the inclusion of actors such as Lupita Nyong’o and Elliot Page, acting as though a myth filled with gods, witches, cyclopes and sea monsters must suddenly conform to their preferred racial and gender census.
Their complaint is not really about historical accuracy. It is about cultural ownership. They are disturbed by the idea that people once excluded from the Western canon can now stand at its center — embodying beauty, courage, intelligence and power.
But diversity does not weaken an immortal story. It helps explain why the story is immortal. “The Odyssey” has survived because each generation has entered it, challenged it and found new meaning within it. A culture that cannot welcome new faces into its greatest stories is not preserving tradition. It is embalming it.
Homer’s epic also endures because it understands the dangers of greed and unchecked executive power. Odysseus is brilliant and brave, but his hubris repeatedly brings suffering upon himself and those around him. His authority does not free him from consequences.
Every mayor learns — or should learn — that being elected does not make you infallible. When I entered City Hall, Ithaca faced a multimillion-dollar deficit. I could not command it away or blame every difficulty on an angry sea god. I had to listen to people who disagreed with me, acknowledge what I did not know and accept that leadership is less about giving orders than building trust.
Unchecked power tells leaders that rules are obstacles, critics are enemies and personal loyalty matters more than the law. “The Odyssey” tells us the opposite: Intelligence without restraint becomes recklessness, and power without humility points the ship directly toward the rocks.
The suitors offer another familiar warning. They consume everything around them and mistake their appetites for entitlement. We have modern suitors too — oligarchs who accumulate unimaginable wealth, purchase political influence and treat public institutions like extensions of their private estates.
Yet the deepest lesson of Odysseus’s journey is hopeful. He survives not simply because he is strong, but because he learns to listen, adapt, accept help and recognize his limitations. Humility is not the opposite of leadership. It is what keeps leadership from becoming tyranny.
The success of Nolan’s film suggests that audiences are ready for stories that are ancient without being trapped in the past, diverse without apology and skeptical of power without surrendering hope.
My own journey — from housing insecurity to City Hall — was possible because people imagined that someone with my background belonged in the room. And every achievement — closing the deficit, lowering the tax rate, building more housing — was because we expanded that political imagination further.
Odysseus ultimately discovers that getting home requires more than defeating enemies. It requires becoming worthy of home. That is a lesson for every king, president, billionaire and former mayor of Ithaca. And it is an odyssey our democracy can still complete.
Svante Myrick is president of People For the American Way.
Add as preferred source on Google Tags "The Odyssey" Christopher Nolan Christopher Nolan city hall culture wars Democracy Elliot Page Elon Musk Homer Ithaca Lupita Nyong'o odysseus Poseidon Svante MyrickCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Comments: Link copiedMore Congress Blog - Politics News
See All
Congress Blog Attorney general nomination receives intense scrutiny by Don Wolfensberger, opinion contributor 4 days ago Congress Blog / 4 days ago 
