Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Beowulf: Prince of the Geats, Nazis, and Odinists


Richard Scott Nokes' article on an unexpected set of reactions to the casting of a black actor as Beowulf in Beowulf: Prince of the Geats is now available on line.
It is a journalist's cliche that only weird English profs (and not all of them) care about Beowulf; and they masochistically inflict it on their defenseless students. The flood of Beowulf material in recent years, in movies and elsewhere, blows that throw-away out of the water.

Thanks to Modern Medieval for the heads-up.

Image: Jayshan Jackson as Beowulf.

3 comments:

Dr. Richard Scott Nokes said...

Another major difference between me and Nazis (and Odinists) -- when they look at that image, they are horrified to see a black Beowulf. When I look at it, I'm horrified to see Beowulf doing a thumbs-up to the camera.

Jayshan, it's not the 1980s. Time to retire the thumbs-up pose.

Joe said...

I have to ask, was there outrage at Denzel Washington portraying Don Pedro in "Much Ado About Nothing"?

Joshim Uddin said...

Nice