Why is Tom Holland saying ‘dad’ in ‘The Odyssey’? Experts weigh in on Christopher Nolan’s new adaptation
American accents and modern sounding words like “dad” abound in the latest big screen adaptation of the classic text. But linguists and literary experts say these choices are oddly in keeping with “The Odyssey.”
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It was the “dad” heard round the world.
Despite the hype around blockbuster director Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming adaptation of “The Odyssey,” conversation around the film has been obscured by a seemingly small yet important detail: language.
A brief moment in the film’s trailer caught the internet off guard. In it, Telemachus, played by Tom Holland says, “My dad is coming home,” in reference to his war hero father Odysseus (Matt Damon). But the question on keen observers’ minds: Why would an ancient Greek say “dad”? And why is every character in this classic Greek text speaking in an American accent?
While it might be easy to assume Nolan’s dialogue and decision to use American accents are anachronistic, experts said they are actually more in line with the origins of “The Odyssey” than you might think.
Performed in front of crowds for centuries before it was first written down in 6th century B.C., “The Odyssey” was constantly reinterpreted by whoever was performing it.
“Nolan is only continuing in the tradition that the original performers of ‘The Odyssey’ would have been undertaking themselves,” said Adam Cooper, director of the linguistics program at Northeastern University.
The consternation around Telemachus saying “dad” and the use of American accents points to misconceptions around what words are modern, he said.
The word “dad” itself is far from a hyper-modern piece of language. It can be traced as far back as 1533 and even showed up in William Shakespeare’s plays. In fact, English is littered with words and phrases that are much older than you might think, Cooper explained.
For instance, “Hang out” dates back to the early 1800s and was a favorite of English poet John Keats. “Crib,” a slang term for someone’s house associated with African-American culture, was used in the same way as its modern counterpart as far back as Shakespeare’s “King Henry IV” in the 1590s. “Legit,” short for legitimate, can be traced back to 1897 in the U.S. The phrase “What’s up?” is over 180 years old, emerging in British and American slang in the 1830s and 1840s.
“Dad” was not part of ancient Greek vocabulary, but it likely had an equivalent, Cooper said. “Pater” was used for the formal version of “father,” but a diminutive like “papa” was used too, he explained.
According to Cooper, that people see “dad” as too modern for “The Odyssey” speaks more to the age group it’s associated with, children and young adults.
“‘[Dad]’ is meant to approximate something we would have very much expected to have existed in ancient Greek, as in any language, where there are close social bonds between parents and children,” Cooper said.
So, why is Tom Holland asking for his “dad” instead of his “father”?
Kathleen Kelly, a professor of English at Northeastern, acknowledged that it might seem out of place to an audience accustomed to the kind of formal, elevated language in previous adaptations and translations of “The Odyssey.” But it speaks to the truth of the character — a boy on the cusp of manhood who hasn’t seen his father in years and is being overshadowed in his own home by suitors pursuing his mother.
“It’s this moment of vulnerability for Telemachus” that Kelly said cuts to the core of the text, even if it’s presented in a nontraditional way. “For him to say ‘My dad’s coming home’ makes perfect sense.”
The pushback against Nolan’s use of American accents also comes with more recent historical baggage from decades of on-screen sword-and-sandals epics in which English accents prevailed, stretching from “Spartacus” in 1960 to more modern fare like “Gladiator” and “Pompeii.” It’s rooted in a strong British theater tradition and specific style of acting and talking promoted by institutions like the British Broadcasting Company, said Tomas Elliott, a media historian and assistant professor of English at Northeastern in London.
Elliott admitted that there’s no more reason why an adaptation of an ancient Greek text should involve English accents over American accents, since both “are equally remote from the world of ‘The Odyssey’ itself.”
But the inherent American-ness of Nolan’s “The Odyssey” might serve a purpose that its British predecessors don’t. According to Cooper, part of the jarring effect of hearing American English in a version of ancient Greece is that the accent is a relative linguistic “upstart.” The accent comes packaged with cultural associations that it’s “more down to earth because [America] is more recent, newer, fresher,” Cooper said.
That could make a millennia-old text feel more grounded and relatable for a general audience for whom America is a constant pop culture presence, Cooper added. It makes sense for “The Odyssey,” which was the blockbuster entertainment of its time and is already projected to be a modern blockbuster as well.
Nolan’s decision to subvert expectations for what this story can look and sound like might rub some viewers the wrong way, but even a linguist like Cooper acknowledged there is room for creative liberties.
“Historical accuracy is not really achievable for something that is so heavily mythologized,” Cooper said. “If you start with that understanding, that gives the creators that much more flexibility to go in the direction that they want to go in so they can convey the story as effectively as possible.”
