A black face and a thousand ships, by Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi
Reading Homer’s ‘The lliad’, as a child who was being educated in a post-colonial, commonwealth country, it is no surprise that right from the time I learnt about these characters, the image of Helen of Troy was one of a white woman.
In essence, what the reactions to Lupita Nyong’O’s casting as Helen of Troy tells us is that a black woman can never be beautiful enough to force Kings to go to war.
In 2026, thanks to Christopher Nolan, when we think about ‘a face that launched a thousand ships’, the image that comes to mind should not automatically be that of a blue-eyed, blond, model-thin Caucasian woman.
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