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Transcript:
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:33:02
Trent Horn
This past weekend, Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey grossed over a quarter of $1 billion, and even conservative commenters are praising the film and encouraging people to see it. But not me. I will not see this film in theaters, because I refuse to support the destructive propaganda that is intrinsic to the films casting, and in particular, it’s the casting of Elliot Page, aka Ellen Page, a woman pretending to be a man after subjecting her body to gruesome mutilation that in recent years has become a socially addictive fad among young people, especially young women.
00:00:33:05 - 00:00:53:04
Trent Horn
In fact, Page’s character wasn’t even in the original Odyssey, but instead was featured in Virgil’s Aeneid, another epic tale of travel after the Trojan War that was written 700 years after Homer’s Odyssey. Of course, my main beef is that page is a woman pretending to be a man in real life, who is now pretending to be a man in Nolan’s film.
00:00:53:08 - 00:00:57:20
Trent Horn
I’m a dude. Playing the dude disguises another dude. What
00:00:57:20 - 00:01:20:28
Trent Horn
This casting decision is part of Hollywood and modern culture’s desire to normalize transgender ideology. And it works. If films featuring these casting decisions do well at the box office. So I cannot in good conscience spend money on something that will lead impressionable children into thinking irreversible sex change operations, including the removal of breasts and genitals, is a healthy decision.
00:01:20:29 - 00:01:46:01
Trent Horn
Just because a Hollywood celebrity did it and they see this celebrity in a film everyone is fawning over. Promoting films like this normalizes mental illness. And because I love everyone made in the image and likeness of God, I do not want to encourage something that brings misery rather than authentic health. As you can see in videos where people who identify as transgender go ballistic when people supposedly misgendered them.
00:01:46:01 - 00:01:48:13
Trent Horn
Can we get another unit to deal with?
00:01:48:15 - 00:01:56:08
Trent Horn
Jay Lee. Here he is having a breakdown day. Shot. Just say the right road out.
00:01:56:10 - 00:02:20:05
Trent Horn
Transgender ideology not only harms people who accept it, it can harm people who oppose it. Because, as I showed in my previous episode on transgender terrorism, when people who identify as transgender are not affirmed in their identity, they can threaten violence against those who don’t affirm them. Like when Matt Frank was threatened in Australia by a transgender person who basically said that they wanted to fight frat in the parking lot.
00:02:20:07 - 00:02:24:23
Trent Horn
If God loves you, wouldn’t he want you to live in accord with reality?
00:02:24:25 - 00:02:29:19
Trent Horn
But like that to me, out in the car park, I want to say that to me. I mean, yeah, kind of. It’s just
00:02:29:26 - 00:02:42:20
Trent Horn
Or consider several years ago when Ben Shapiro debated Robert Tur, the guy who filmed the OJ Simpson chase who later pretended to be a woman named Zoey Ter. Here’s what he said to Shapiro when Shapiro rightly asked about his chromosomes.
00:02:42:22 - 00:02:56:10
Trent Horn
but even so, you have a thing like Klinefelter syndrome. So you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not educated on genetics. Discuss the genetics. Well, no, no. You’re genetics. So that’s the way from the genetics and back to the brain scans.
00:02:56:10 - 00:03:15:05
Trent Horn
You cut that out now, or you’ll go home in an ambulance. Yeah, that seems mildly inappropriate for a political discussion. No, I know, well, to be fair, but to be fair. But to be fair. But to be fair, you’re actually being rude. You’re. No, no, no. And that’s not fair. I’m sorry. It’s not rude to say that someone who is biologically male is a male.
00:03:15:06 - 00:03:24:00
Trent Horn
You’re just someone who is biologically male is a male. But, Mr. Shapiro, you know, you knew very well that saying that the zoo would be would be agreed.
00:03:24:03 - 00:03:52:12
Trent Horn
It’s not hard to find posts on social media arguing that supposed transphobia deserve to die, as can be seen in memes that include guns and other acts of violence against those who reject transgender ideology. In fact, most transgender humor are just fantasies about murdering people who disagree with transgender ideology, and sometimes the fantasies become reality. In 2023, a transgender nurse in Austria killed a patient that brought up her true gender identity.
00:03:52:17 - 00:04:02:26
Trent Horn
Rejection of trans ideology may also have been a motive. In a 2023 Nashville shooting at a Christian school by a woman claiming to be a man, or this 2026 school shooting in Canada.
00:04:03:00 - 00:04:21:26
Trent Horn
The person responsible for Canada’s deadly school shooting has now been identified as an 18 year old trans woman, Jessie Van Rustler. Her first victims were her stepmother and her stepbrother at the family home, and then five students and a teacher at Tumbler Ride High School.
00:04:21:26 - 00:04:41:27
Trent Horn
And, of course, we shouldn’t forget the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Prosecutors are now arguing that Tyler Robinson, the man on trial for murdering Charlie, was motivated by his disagreement with Kirk on issues related to sex and gender. No doubt spurred on by Robinson’s lover and roommate, who is a man that pretends to be a woman and identifies as transgender.
00:04:41:28 - 00:04:55:05
Trent Horn
Those were views that were opposite of Charlie Kirk’s on issues such as LGBTQ rights. This is the first time we are hearing the state bring up a potential motive for the shooting.
00:04:55:05 - 00:05:11:14
Trent Horn
But for some reason, many people on the right are not seeing Charlie’s death as an opportunity to galvanize people in opposition to LGBT ideology, but instead as an opportunity to promote ludicrous and gravely sinful conspiracy theories about Charlie’s wife and company being involved in his murder.
00:05:11:17 - 00:05:23:13
Trent Horn
yeah, I’m not going to see a movie that is used to normalize a mental illness that causes real harm. Harm that is detailed at length in Abigail Shriner’s book, Irreversible Damage The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.
00:05:23:13 - 00:05:51:29
Trent Horn
Now, some critics may say that I’ve just cited a few bad apples, and most people who identify as transgender or support transgender ideology do not openly threaten or commit violence. And that’s true. But so what? Most people who identify as white supremacists don’t openly threaten or commit violence either. But the critics who say I’m cherry picking would have no problem with me calling out the threats and violence of white supremacists, even if most white supremacists aren’t violent.
00:05:51:29 - 00:06:08:25
Trent Horn
If I can call out the evil of white supremacy in this way, then why can’t I call out the evil of transgender ideology in the same way? And of a famous Hollywood film casted a white supremacist in a role? Liberals would say it should be boycotted for the reason of not wanting to support this kind of evil.
00:06:08:28 - 00:06:30:01
Trent Horn
In fact, white supremacy is evil because it perpetuates a lie related to biology that some races are morally superior to others. Likewise, transgender ideology is evil because it perpetuates a lie. Related to biology. Pope Francis even said today the ugliest danger is gender ideology that cancels out differences.
00:06:30:04 - 00:06:53:18
Trent Horn
I don’t think Christians who go and see the Odyssey are sinning or doing something evil. I just disagree with their decision. Also, I will point out, though, that choosing to support works like this because of their artistic merit is often why conservatives lose culture wars and liberals win. If Christopher Nolan had cast Ben Shapiro in The Odyssey instead, liberals would be up in arms.
00:06:53:18 - 00:07:29:01
Trent Horn
They would say this is a politically motivated, wildly miscast role. And so the film should be boycotted because we shouldn’t normalize the insanity of the right. Even if the film were an artistic masterpiece, the left would put their desire to stop what they consider propaganda ahead of their desire to see a good film. It’s been said that conservatives care about being right and liberals care about winning, which is why liberals often win over public institutions, and they only lose when they throw caution to the wind and make absolutely awful films that are solely designed to push.
00:07:29:07 - 00:07:30:17
Trent Horn
The message.
00:07:30:17 - 00:07:52:12
Trent Horn
And when they do that, they indulge in the conservative desire to be right rather than win. And so what we’re seeing now is the left’s return to practical ways of winning the culture war. This is a strategy of not trying to be in your face, but to slowly and incrementally numb people to the disordered nature of liberal sexual ethics and LGBT ideology.
00:07:52:13 - 00:08:20:14
Trent Horn
I covered this in a previous episode, linked below, on a book written in the 1990s by two gay advertising executives called After the Ball How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s. In that book, the authors Marshall and Hunter said that the LGBT community shouldn’t lead with over the top debauchery, but they should instead present an image of the community that is as close to normal as possible, and then shame people for not accepting this.
00:08:20:14 - 00:08:38:00
Trent Horn
And with the Odyssey, we’re seeing this because it isn’t an over-the-top casting decision. It’s not like a plus size transgender influencer like Allie Lopez, who the internet nicknamed Gerlach the Destroyer was cast as Helen of Troy. But it’s the subtle things that end up moving people.
00:08:38:00 - 00:08:48:28
Trent Horn
Finally, some people may ask me, are you never going to see a film if it has a self-identified gay person or a transgender person in it? Were you against men playing women in the time of Shakespeare?
00:08:48:28 - 00:09:00:05
Trent Horn
Yes, I would have been against that because it was silly that in Shakespeare’s time, characters like Juliet were often played by a young boy because it was illegal for women to perform on stage.
00:09:00:06 - 00:09:26:10
Trent Horn
In general, actors shouldn’t dramatically differ from the character they portray unless there is a legitimate artistic or story driven justification for doing so. But casting page in the Odyssey as a male soldier is solely meant to push this kind of propaganda, and so I have no interest in supporting it. I may even see a film like that just to review it if other people aren’t discussing it and it’s just going to bomb anyways.
00:09:26:10 - 00:09:51:04
Trent Horn
But that’s not the case here with the Odyssey. And I would ask conservatives who go and see the Odyssey, where are you going to draw the line? Imagine if Christopher Nolan teamed up with Judd Apatow to make an Oscar worthy sequel to the 2007 film Juno, where Elliot Page reprises his role as a mom who had a teen pregnancy, and the film gets a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes.
00:09:51:04 - 00:10:11:27
Trent Horn
Our conservatives going to see Juno Part two because it’s pro-life and it’s Oscar worthy. As I said, I’d have to judge each film I see on its own merits, but especially in this case, I can’t in good conscience support this film because Christians have made so much progress in reversing society’s acceptance of transgender ideology.
00:10:11:28 - 00:10:25:04
Trent Horn
According to Gallup quote, in 2021, 46% found transgender ideology morally acceptable and 51% found it morally wrong. Today, those numbers stand at 38% and 57%, respectively.
00:10:25:08 - 00:10:54:21
Trent Horn
and much of this change was brought about by Christians courageously and graciously exposing the insanity of transgender ideology, which tries to make things like grown men exposing their penises and female changing rooms. Totally normal. Deep down, even people who identify as transgender. No, they aren’t a real woman or a real man because they get upset when people don’t notice they are a trans man or a trans woman, a situation they call stealth thing.
00:10:54:25 - 00:11:19:17
Trent Horn
the only way to make a successful stand against this insanity, or any kind of insanity in general, is to use blunt language and not cover the evil with a euphemism. For example, instead of choice, we need to call abortion for what it is the dismemberment of children. And instead of pride, we need to talk about the disordered nature of sodomy and the ugly consequences of anal intercourse.
00:11:19:21 - 00:11:45:26
Trent Horn
Ephesians 511 says, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. And we need to have the same attitude with transgender ideology. When I told my oldest sons, who were still in elementary school about what was done to Ellen Page’s body, they were horrified. They had no desire to see the Odyssey because it just reminded them of this grotesque procedure performed on one of the stars.
00:11:45:29 - 00:12:05:20
Trent Horn
as adults, we have to be careful to not allow ourselves to be dulled to evils and lose this shock and horror. Whether it’s transgender ideology, abortion, or any other kind of modern evil. Now I get the why people are excited to go and see a film that isn’t just a bunch of CGI slop that we’ve been fed for the past decade.
00:12:05:25 - 00:12:12:25
Trent Horn
as Christians, we should make sacrifices to not conform to the pattern of this world. As Romans 12 two says,
00:12:12:27 - 00:12:29:00
Trent Horn
this is one of those small sacrifices. So I hope that fellow Christians, and really anyone who is firmly committed to the nature of reality, will continue to normalize what is normal and not patronize that which is trying to gaslight the rest of us about reality.
00:12:29:02 - 00:12:41:12
Trent Horn
For more on this subject, though, I recommend my book Made This Way, coauthored with Layla miller and Abigail Shriver’s book irreversible. Both of which are linked in the description below. Thank you all so much for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day.