Latest / The Infographics Show Podcast / The Odyssey: A Story of Sex, Strategy and Power

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The Odyssey: A Story of Sex, Strategy and Power · The Infographics Show Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Right now, like millions of people are stuck in these
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Speaker 1: endless digital cues.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's absolute chaos online.
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Speaker 1: Literally crashing ticketing servers worldwide, and people are fighting these
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Speaker 1: vicious culture wars across social media. And the cause of
0:15
Speaker 1: all this modern twenty first century chaos. It's a three
0:18
Speaker 1: thousand year old poem about a guy just trying to
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Speaker 1: get home.
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Speaker 2: It really is wild. I mean, it's a testament to
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Speaker 2: the sheer, stubborn durability of a good story. We always
0:27
Speaker 2: think of modern blockbusters as these fleeting, momentary distractions, but
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Speaker 2: what we are witnessing right now is the gravitational pull
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Speaker 2: of like foundational mythology.
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Speaker 1: It's completely disorienting to watch if you look at the
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Speaker 1: entertainment landscape today. Christopher Nolan's twenty twenty six film adaptation
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Speaker 1: of the Odyssey isn't just a movie release, no, not
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Speaker 1: at all. It is a massive seismic cultural event. So
0:50
Speaker 1: today we are going on a huge deep dive into
0:53
Speaker 1: the enduring legacy of Homer's original.
0:56
Speaker 2: Epoch, which is so needed right now exactly.
0:58
Speaker 1: We are going to unt hangle this incredible web of
1:03
Speaker 1: myth versus reality. Our mission today is to figure out
1:07
Speaker 1: how female power actually operated in ancient Greek literature, and
1:11
Speaker 1: then contrasts that with the jarring historical realities of.
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Speaker 2: The time, because the contrast is huge, it really is.
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Speaker 1: And ultimately, we want to understand for you why a
1:20
Speaker 1: Bronze Age epic has become the most contentious, high stakes
1:24
Speaker 1: battleground in modern pop culture.
1:26
Speaker 2: Right because it really has taken over.
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Speaker 1: Everything it has. We've pulled together a massive stack of
1:30
Speaker 1: sources for you. We've got academic papers on gender roles,
1:33
Speaker 1: deep historical analyses of classical Athenian law, and a literal
1:37
Speaker 1: mountain of contemporary media coverage tracking this cinematic stampede.
1:41
Speaker 2: And you really need all of that context because to
1:44
Speaker 2: understand the debates dominating your feeds right now, you have
1:47
Speaker 2: to understand that these are the exact same arguments humanity
1:50
Speaker 2: has been having about this specific text for millennia. Really,
1:53
Speaker 2: oh absolutely, every single generation reinvents Homer, and every generation
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Speaker 2: projects its own anxieties onto the epic is just doing
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Speaker 2: it with you know, an Imax camera and one hundred
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Speaker 2: million dollar budget.
2:04
Speaker 1: And it is a phenomenal spectacle to witness. Let's talk
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Speaker 1: about the sheer scale of the hype first, because it's
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Speaker 1: almost impossible to comprehend.
2:12
Speaker 2: It's staggering.
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Speaker 1: This is an R rated two hour and fifty two
2:16
Speaker 1: minute epic shot entirely in IMAX seventy milimeter. The demand
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Speaker 1: to see it completely obliterated the AMC Theater's website.
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Speaker 2: I was trying to get tickets and I couldn't even
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Speaker 2: load the page exactly.
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Speaker 1: People were stuck in our long digital waiting rooms just
2:32
Speaker 1: for a chance to select a single seat.
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Speaker 2: It's funny you call it a cultural stampede because the
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Speaker 2: only thing I can compare it to is the hysteria
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Speaker 2: around Taylor Swift's Eras tour.
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Speaker 1: That is a shockingly accurate comparison.
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Speaker 2: Right, But instead of pop music, people are just rabid
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Speaker 2: for antiquity. What is it about this specific story that
2:50
Speaker 2: warrants that kind of frenzy? I mean, movie theaters are
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Speaker 2: literally selling popcorn buckets shaped like the Trojan Horse.
2:56
Speaker 1: Which is the Trojan horse popcorn bucket is certainly a
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Speaker 1: masterpiece of modern capitalists irony, definitely, especially considering what was
3:03
Speaker 1: actually hidden inside the original horse. But the frends he
3:06
Speaker 1: makes sense when you look at how the studio has
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Speaker 1: positioned this thing, Well.
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Speaker 2: They aren't selling a history lesson. They are selling the
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Speaker 2: foundational blueprint for every single action movie you've ever loved, and.
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Speaker 1: They are backing it up with a cast that is
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Speaker 1: incredibly star studded and honestly fascinatingly unexpected.
3:22
Speaker 2: Oh, the cast list is insane.
3:23
Speaker 1: You have Matt Damon stepping into the role of Odysseus.
3:26
Speaker 1: You've got Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaia, Charlie Thearren his
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Speaker 1: massive names. Yeah. And you have Robert Pattinson, who the
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Speaker 1: Internet has entirely claimed as their own in this context.
3:36
Speaker 2: Of course they have.
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Speaker 1: And then you have Lapita and Youngo stepping into the
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Speaker 1: unimaginably iconic role of Helen of Troy. Oh, Travis Scott
3:44
Speaker 1: is in there too, which is.
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Speaker 2: Just that is the cherry on top of this surreal
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Speaker 2: casting Sunday.
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Speaker 1: It really is. Yeah, And the numbers we are seeing
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Speaker 1: in the sources reflect this bizarre mix. Industry projections are
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Speaker 1: looking at an eighty to one hundred million dollar opening weekend.
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Speaker 2: For a three hour Greek epic.
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Speaker 1: Right the BFI Imax in London broke records with a
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Speaker 1: million dollars in pre sales in a single twenty four
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Speaker 1: hour window and the trailer. It pulled one hundred and
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Speaker 1: twenty one million views in its first day. Wow, that
4:14
Speaker 1: is double what Oppenheimer managed. Double.
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Speaker 2: It is a staggering level of engagement, and critically, the
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Speaker 2: reception is proving to be massive, if slightly polarized, which.
4:24
Speaker 1: Is pretty part for the course for Nolan.
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Speaker 2: Right, very typical for Christopher Nolan's biggest swings. If we
4:29
Speaker 2: look at the critical coverage in our sources, film critic
4:32
Speaker 2: David Erlick noted that the film is quote too clunky
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Speaker 2: to be s tier Nolan, but the last act rewards
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Speaker 2: the journey.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so a bit of a mixed bag critically, but
4:42
Speaker 1: audiences don't seem to care exactly.
4:44
Speaker 2: But if we zoom out and connect this to the
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Speaker 2: bigger picture of Nolan's filmography, his choice to tackle the
4:50
Speaker 2: Odyssey isn't just some random studio assignment. It makes perfect
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Speaker 2: thematic sense.
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Speaker 1: Really, because usually we associate him with like, mind bending
4:59
Speaker 1: sci fi or intense hysterical biopics. Yeah, not guys in
5:02
Speaker 1: sandals fighting sea monsters.
5:04
Speaker 2: True. True, but Nolan calls the Odyssey the ultimate adventure
5:07
Speaker 2: story for a reason. Strip away the sea monsters and
5:10
Speaker 2: what is the core of a Nolan film.
5:12
Speaker 1: I mean usually a guy in a suit looking stressed out.
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Speaker 2: Well, yes, but deeper than that, he is a director
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Speaker 2: fundamentally obsessed with time, the malleability of memory, and the
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Speaker 2: intensely subjective nature of Homecoming.
5:24
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Okay, I see where you're going.
5:26
Speaker 2: Think about Memento, Inception or Interstellar. What is Cooper doing
5:31
Speaker 2: in Interstellar when he is trapped behind that Tesseract bookcase.
5:35
Speaker 1: He's desperately trying to reach his daughter across the distortions
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Speaker 1: of time and space.
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Speaker 2: Exactly he is trying to get home. Odysseus is the
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Speaker 2: original three thousand year old prototype for that exact character arc.
5:47
Speaker 1: That makes total sense.
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Speaker 2: He's a man fighting through the distortion of years, battling
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Speaker 2: the elements just to get back to his family before
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Speaker 2: time completely runs out.
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Speaker 1: Okay, that completely recontextualizes the whole movie for me. He's
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Speaker 1: essentially been making fragmented sci fi versions of the Odyssey
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Speaker 1: his entire career. Yep, and now he's just gone back
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Speaker 1: to the absolute source code. But to truly understand why
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Speaker 1: this specific adaptation has ignited such a massive firestorm, we
6:12
Speaker 1: need to look at the text itself. We do, and specifically,
6:15
Speaker 1: we need to dive into the element of the text
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Speaker 1: that has sparked both the most intense academic fascination and
6:21
Speaker 1: the biggest Internet arguments, the women.
6:24
Speaker 2: This is where the epic becomes incredibly layered, because the Odyssey,
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Speaker 2: despite being written in this deeply patriarchal ancient society, constantly
6:34
Speaker 2: subverts what we assume about the gender dynamics of that era.
6:37
Speaker 1: Right But before we look at how the text does that,
6:40
Speaker 1: we have to talk about how we are even reading
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Speaker 1: the text today.
6:43
Speaker 2: The translation issue.
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Speaker 1: Exactly, because one of the most fascinating discussions we found
6:47
Speaker 1: in the sources was a deep dive into the politics
6:50
Speaker 1: of translation. We're looking at a historical Reddit thread where
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Speaker 1: users were dissecting how different translators frame the women in
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Speaker 1: the epic.
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Speaker 2: It's such a crucial point.
7:00
Speaker 1: Was eye opening. One user pointed out that they were
7:02
Speaker 1: reading the classic Robert Fagel's translation and they noticed that
7:05
Speaker 1: Helen of Troy actually refers to herself as a whore
7:09
Speaker 1: in his text.
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Speaker 2: Which is a remarkably loaded modern term to drop into
7:14
Speaker 2: a Bronze Age narrative.
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Speaker 1: Exactly, and other scholars and readers quickly jumped into the
7:18
Speaker 1: thread to point out that Fagels, who translated this decades ago,
7:21
Speaker 1: occasionally let twentieth century tropes and biases bleed into his work.
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Speaker 2: You literally cannot find the exact entomological equivalent of that
7:30
Speaker 2: deeply derogatory English word in the original Greek phrasing that
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Speaker 2: Helen uses.
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Speaker 1: Right, it just doesn't exist in that way. They contrasted
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Speaker 1: this with Emily Wilson's much more recent, highly regarded translation.
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Speaker 2: Which is fantastic, by the way, it really is.
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Speaker 1: Her version strips away a lot of that embedded modern
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Speaker 1: misogyny and translates the original Greek much more accurately to
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Speaker 1: its cultural context. It's a perfect reminder for you as
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Speaker 1: a reader that the lens of the storyteller, even the translator,
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Speaker 1: fundamentally alters the reality of the myth.
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Speaker 2: Precisely, translation is interpretation. Every single choice of a noun
8:05
Speaker 2: or an adjective carries cultural baggage absolutely, and that brings
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Speaker 2: us perfectly to the academic analysis we pulled from a
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Speaker 2: paper by Lindsay Smith titled A Gray Area.
8:14
Speaker 1: This paper was fascinating, it really was.
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Speaker 2: Smith cuts right through those modern translations to examine how
8:19
Speaker 2: the original architecture of the Odyssey actively subverts the traditional
8:23
Speaker 2: men are superior orthodoxy of its era.
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Speaker 1: She focuses heavily on Book ten, which is the famous
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Speaker 1: encounter between Odysseus and Circe and the island of.
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Speaker 2: Ada, a classic scene.
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Speaker 1: Let's set the sensory scene for you. Here, Odysseus and
8:37
Speaker 1: his exhausted, battered crew land on this mysterious island. Circes
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Speaker 1: is an incredibly powerful entity. She's a witch or a goddess,
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Speaker 1: depending on the scholarly interpretation.
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Speaker 2: You read right, The lines are very blurry with her.
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Speaker 1: She invites Odysseus men into her home, give them this
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Speaker 1: seemingly hospitable potion, and then strikes them with her want.
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Speaker 1: In a flash, they are literally transformed into pigs, just.
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Speaker 2: A terrifying display of raw transformative power.
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Speaker 1: She locks them in a sty, tossing them acorns. It
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Speaker 1: is absolute domination.
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Speaker 2: She strips them of their humanity and their autonomy with
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Speaker 2: literally a wave of her hand.
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Speaker 1: But then Odyssey survives. And because he gets a little
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Speaker 1: divine intervention, a special herb called Molly from the god Hermes.
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Speaker 1: He drinks the exact same potion, but he is completely immune.
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Speaker 2: Yep, the magic fails.
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Speaker 1: He draws his sword, rushes her, overpowers her, and forces
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Speaker 1: her to submit and turn his men back. Now, hold on,
9:32
Speaker 1: I played devil's adjucate here for a second.
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Speaker 2: Go for it.
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Speaker 1: If Odysseus drinks her poison, is completely immune to her magic,
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Speaker 1: physically dominates her with a weapon, and forces her to
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Speaker 1: undo her spell, doesn't that just make it a standard
9:45
Speaker 1: patriarchal hero story.
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Speaker 2: You mean, the strong male warrior easily overpowers the wicked
9:51
Speaker 2: female villain.
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Speaker 1: Exactly? How is that subverting anything?
9:54
Speaker 2: You are completely right to flag that he literally holds
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Speaker 2: a blade to her throat, and for a very long time,
10:00
Speaker 2: classical scholars viewed it exactly the way he just described.
10:03
Speaker 1: As just a simple restoration of male dominance.
10:05
Speaker 2: Exactly. But Lindsay Smith's research points out a massive blind
10:09
Speaker 2: spot in that traditional reading. This is not a simple,
10:12
Speaker 2: clean victory for Odysseus.
10:14
Speaker 1: Because she doesn't just surrender and cry right.
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Speaker 2: What Smith argues is that this violent clash actually creates
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Speaker 2: a fascinating liminal space of fluid power.
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Speaker 1: Okay, unpack liminal space for us.
10:26
Speaker 2: Well, Yes, so Odysseus has the sword, and yes, his
10:28
Speaker 2: immunity to the potion gives him a significant physical advantage
10:32
Speaker 2: in that exact moment. But Circe doesn't just crumble, weep
10:35
Speaker 2: and lose all her agency. She retains incredible leverage.
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Speaker 1: How does she maintain leverage with a literal bronze sword
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Speaker 1: at her throat?
10:43
Speaker 2: Because physical force isn't the only currency of power in
10:46
Speaker 2: Homer's world. She still controls the ultimate fate of his men.
10:50
Speaker 1: Oh right, there's still pigs at this point.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, And she possesses the magical knowledge required to navigate
10:56
Speaker 2: the treacherous waters ahead. He can't get home without her instrums, so.
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Speaker 1: He's physically in charge, but strategically totally dependent on her.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. She dictates the terms of his captivity and his
11:09
Speaker 2: eventual release. She invites him to her bed, and she
11:12
Speaker 2: essentially forces him to swear a solemn oath not to
11:15
Speaker 2: harm her. He needs her, and.
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Speaker 1: This isn't like a quick afternoon hostage negotiation, not at all.
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Speaker 2: She keeps him and his men on her island for
11:24
Speaker 2: a full, luxurious year.
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Speaker 1: This is a stalemate.
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Speaker 2: It's a complex negotiation where power shifts back and forth.
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Speaker 2: They are locked in this intense tug of war where
11:33
Speaker 2: they each hold entirely different cards.
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Speaker 1: Right, Odysseus has physical and martial dominance, but Circe has
11:39
Speaker 1: mystical dominance and strategic foresight.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, and Smith points out that this dynamic actually unites
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Speaker 2: them in a shared space of strategy and leverage. It
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Speaker 2: proves that within the narrative framework of this epic, true
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Speaker 2: consequential power is accessible to and fiercely wielded by both sexes, and.
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Speaker 1: That leads to one of the most fascinating rabbit holes
12:01
Speaker 1: we went down in the research. Because the women in
12:04
Speaker 1: the story, Athena, Circe, Penelope are so incredibly strategic and
12:08
Speaker 1: vital to the plot, there is a legitimate, albeit fringe
12:13
Speaker 1: theory among some historians about who actually wrote this text.
12:17
Speaker 2: I love this theory so much.
12:18
Speaker 1: It's wild. We always picture Homer as this singular, blind
12:22
Speaker 1: bearded man, but some scholars suggest Homer was actually a
12:25
Speaker 1: profession like a title for a traveling.
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Speaker 2: Storyteller, rite, a collective identity, and even.
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Speaker 1: More provocatively, some theorize that because of the incredibly nuanced
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Speaker 1: psychological ways women shape the plot of the Odyssey, especially
12:37
Speaker 1: compared to the brutal, male dominated warfare of the Iliad,
12:40
Speaker 1: the author of the Odyssey might have actually been a woman.
12:43
Speaker 2: Samuel Butler famously championed this theory back in the late
12:46
Speaker 2: nineteenth century in his book The Authoress of the Odyssey.
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Speaker 1: Which was hugely controversial then.
12:50
Speaker 2: Oh definitely, and it remains a fringe theory in mainstream
12:53
Speaker 2: academia today. But as the historical discussions we reviewed noted,
12:57
Speaker 2: it's a theory that feels emotionally understand animal when you
13:00
Speaker 2: read the text closely.
13:01
Speaker 1: Because the epic is absolutely populated with women pulling the
13:05
Speaker 1: strings behind the scenes constantly.
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Speaker 2: You have Athena architecting the entire rescue mission, you have
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Speaker 2: dangerous witches like Circe dictating the journey.
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Speaker 1: And you have incredibly strategic queens like Penelope. I mean
13:18
Speaker 1: she outsmarts a palace full of violent, greedy men for years,
13:23
Speaker 1: just using a loom and her intellect.
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Speaker 2: It paints this incredible picture of ancient women as these
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Speaker 2: brilliant tacticians operating on the exact same level as the gods.
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Speaker 1: But and this is a massive jarring butt for you listening.
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Speaker 1: If we step out of the mythological fantasy world of
13:39
Speaker 1: Homer and we walk into the real historical streets of
13:41
Speaker 1: ancient Greece, the reality for women was nothing like Penelope
13:45
Speaker 1: or Circe.
13:45
Speaker 2: It was shockingly, almost horrifyingly different.
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Speaker 1: It is arguably one of the most jarring paradoxes in
13:51
Speaker 1: all of classical history. To unpack this, we rely heavily
13:56
Speaker 1: on a piece from our sources titled Narrative Hegemony.
13:59
Speaker 2: A really dense but crucial read.
14:01
Speaker 1: It details how the epic Mythos celebrates independent, brilliant women,
14:06
Speaker 1: while the lived reality in classical Greek city states, particularly
14:10
Speaker 1: the supposed birthplace of democracy Athens, was vastly oppressively different.
14:16
Speaker 2: Women were entirely excluded from public political life.
14:19
Speaker 1: Let's give you some specific legal terminology to show just
14:22
Speaker 1: how restrictive it really was, because it goes way beyond
14:24
Speaker 1: just not being able to vote. In classical happens, women
14:28
Speaker 1: were legally treated as paids.
14:30
Speaker 2: Which translates literally to legal miners.
14:33
Speaker 1: Right, you were a child in the eyes of the
14:35
Speaker 1: law from the day you were born to the day.
14:37
Speaker 2: You died, and that had massive crushing economic consequences. They
14:41
Speaker 2: were completely barred from owning any significant property.
14:43
Speaker 1: So what happened if a woman's father died.
14:45
Speaker 2: The estate didn't pass to her, It went to her
14:47
Speaker 2: closest male relative who essentially inherited her along with the
14:51
Speaker 2: property as a dependent.
14:52
Speaker 1: That is just wild to think about. And physically their
14:55
Speaker 1: lives were heavily restricted too. They were largely confined to
14:58
Speaker 1: a specific part of the he house called the Genesium,
15:01
Speaker 1: which were the inner women's quarters, usually placed far away
15:04
Speaker 1: from the street to prevent them from even being seen
15:06
Speaker 1: by non relatives. And legally they could not participate in society,
15:10
Speaker 1: sign a contract or conduct business without a curios.
15:14
Speaker 2: The curios was a male guardian, usually a father, then
15:18
Speaker 2: a husband, and if she was widowed, it could even
15:20
Speaker 2: be her own son.
15:21
Speaker 1: Think about that for a second. Imagine the legal documents
15:25
Speaker 1: you signed to rent your apartment, or buy your car,
15:28
Speaker 1: or open a bank account. If you were a woman
15:30
Speaker 1: in classical Athens, your signature would mean absolutely nothing without
15:34
Speaker 1: a male guardian co signing your very existence.
15:37
Speaker 2: Even if that guardian was your own teenage son.
15:40
Speaker 1: Exactly so, you have a society that builds massive temples
15:44
Speaker 1: to worship Athena, the goddess of absolute wisdom and strategic war,
15:48
Speaker 1: and they sit around campfires telling grand tales of Circe's
15:51
Speaker 1: magic and Penelope's genius.
15:53
Speaker 2: Yet legally they treat their own wives and daughters as
15:56
Speaker 2: perpetual children who cannot leave the house unescorted.
15:59
Speaker 1: It is profound cognitive dissonance, it really is. It's like
16:03
Speaker 1: imagining historians digging up our culture three thousand years from now.
16:07
Speaker 1: They find our hard drives and watch movies like Wonder
16:10
Speaker 1: Woman or Captain Marvel.
16:11
Speaker 2: Oh I like this analogy, right.
16:13
Speaker 1: And based on those movies, they assume twenty first century
16:16
Speaker 1: women all had superpowers, ruled intergalactic empires, and faced zero obstacle.
16:22
Speaker 2: They would completely ignore the actual legal, social, and economic
16:26
Speaker 2: struggles women face today.
16:28
Speaker 1: Exactly. That's exactly what it's like when people confuse the
16:31
Speaker 1: fantasy of the Odyssey with the everyday reality of ancient
16:34
Speaker 1: Greek history. It's mistaking the blockbuster movie for a documentary.
16:39
Speaker 2: That is an excellent analogy, and this intense paradox, the
16:42
Speaker 2: gap between the mythical superwoman and the legally suppressed historical
16:46
Speaker 2: woman has led to a major historical debate, which our
16:49
Speaker 2: sources also dive into.
16:51
Speaker 1: Because it's hard to reconcile where these powerful stories came from.
16:54
Speaker 2: Right, exactly because of the presence of these powerful female
16:58
Speaker 2: myths in a society that so have restricted women. There
17:01
Speaker 2: has long been a theory about a prehistoric matriarchy.
17:04
Speaker 1: This is the idea that maybe before the Greeks we
17:07
Speaker 1: read about in history of books, there was an older
17:10
Speaker 1: society ruled entirely.
17:11
Speaker 2: By women, Yes, exactly. It's a deeply fascinating archaeological and
17:15
Speaker 2: historical theory. It suggests that the native Grecians, specifically the
17:19
Speaker 2: Minoan civilization on the island of Crete, might have been
17:22
Speaker 2: a matriarchal goddess worshiping society. What's the evidence for that, Well,
17:27
Speaker 2: the archaeological record there shows a heavy emphasis on female
17:30
Speaker 2: deities and priestesses. The theory goes that these matriarchal Minoans
17:34
Speaker 2: were eventually violently conquered by the deeply patriarchal Achaeans, the Mycenians.
17:39
Speaker 1: And when you conquer a people, you don't just erase
17:41
Speaker 1: their gods overnight, you absorb them precisely.
17:45
Speaker 2: The idea is that these conquering patriarchs had to integrate
17:48
Speaker 2: the older, deeply entrenched Mother Earth goddesses into their own new,
17:52
Speaker 2: male dominated pantheon.
17:54
Speaker 1: So they married them off to Zeus.
17:56
Speaker 2: Or turned them into monsters, or framed them as witches
17:59
Speaker 2: like Circe that syncretism is why we have these lingering,
18:02
Speaker 2: powerful echoes of female agency in texts like Homer.
18:06
Speaker 1: The myths are essentially a geological record of a patriarchal
18:10
Speaker 1: society building its foundation on top of a conquered matriarchal one.
18:14
Speaker 2: That's the theory, yes, But it's crucial.
18:16
Speaker 1: To note that modern scholars view this theory today with
18:20
Speaker 1: a lot of skepticism.
18:21
Speaker 2: Right, very much so. The theory of a utopian prehistoric
18:25
Speaker 2: matriarchy was popularized by writers like Robert Graves in his
18:29
Speaker 2: incredibly influential nineteen fifties book The.
18:31
Speaker 1: Greek Myths, which is still widely read today.
18:34
Speaker 2: It is, but, as one deeply researched historical discussion in
18:37
Speaker 2: Our Stack pointed out, Graves's scholarship has been severely questioned
18:41
Speaker 2: over the decades. He often bent mythological interpretations to fit
18:45
Speaker 2: his own poetic theories rather than sticking to the hard evidence.
18:49
Speaker 1: So where should a listener look if they want a
18:51
Speaker 1: more accurate picture?
18:53
Speaker 2: Contemporary historians warn against taking Graves's commentary as historical fact. Instead,
18:58
Speaker 2: if you want a defensible, academically rigorous perspective on how
19:02
Speaker 2: women operated in these ancient cultures, there are a few
19:05
Speaker 2: different directions like what, well, you could look at Leonard
19:08
Speaker 2: Schlin's The Alphabet versus the Goddess.
19:09
Speaker 1: Oh, that sounds interesting.
19:11
Speaker 2: It poses a fascinating theory about how the literal invention
19:15
Speaker 2: of written language, which requires linear left brain thinking, fundamentally
19:20
Speaker 2: shifted cultural power away from holistic image based goddess worship
19:25
Speaker 2: toward patriarchal text based religions.
19:28
Speaker 1: Wow, that is a whole other deep die right there,
19:31
Speaker 1: it really is.
19:32
Speaker 2: Or if you want strict historical economics, you look at
19:35
Speaker 2: more Silver slavewives, single women, and bastards in the ancient
19:39
Speaker 2: Greek world.
19:39
Speaker 1: A very catchy title, right.
19:41
Speaker 2: Silver is an economic historian and he bypasses the poetry
19:45
Speaker 2: entirely to look at the actual ledgers, laws, and economic
19:48
Speaker 2: realities of these women's lives.
19:50
Speaker 1: So we have this massive, intense friction, the friction between
19:55
Speaker 1: the mythological ideal of the powerful, cunning Greek woman and
19:59
Speaker 1: the the actual, lived, legally restrictive history of the everyday
20:03
Speaker 1: Greek woman. Yes, you would think that after three thousand
20:06
Speaker 1: years of distance, that friction would have cooled off. We
20:08
Speaker 1: would just view it as ancient history. You would think so,
20:10
Speaker 1: but it hasn't cooled off. In fact, it is violently
20:13
Speaker 1: re emerged in the year twenty twenty six, and it
20:15
Speaker 1: has turned Christopher Nolan's movie into a literal cultural battleground.
20:19
Speaker 2: It truly has. The release of this film has ignited
20:22
Speaker 2: a massive online culture war, and it perfectly illustrates the
20:27
Speaker 2: central thesis of that narrative hegemony source we mentioned earlier.
20:31
Speaker 1: It is that ancient classical literature is still even today
20:35
Speaker 1: used as a proxy battleground for modern socio political anxiety. Exactly,
20:40
Speaker 1: it is impossible to log online right now without seeing
20:43
Speaker 1: this debate.
20:44
Speaker 2: Let's start with a minor controversy surrounding the film, just
20:46
Speaker 2: to set the stage before we get to the massive flashpoint.
20:49
Speaker 1: Okay, where do we again?
20:50
Speaker 2: First you have the accents. Nolan made the distinct stylistic
20:54
Speaker 2: choice to have the actors use standard American accents, and predictably,
20:58
Speaker 2: a certain vocal segment of the Internet lost.
21:01
Speaker 1: Their minds, insisting they should sound well British.
21:04
Speaker 2: Presumably, yes so, because, as we all know, ancient Mediterranean
21:07
Speaker 2: warriors famously spoke with crisp London accents.
21:10
Speaker 1: It's hilarious when you think about it, but it's a
21:12
Speaker 1: classic Hollywood trope. For decades, from Sword and Sandal epics
21:16
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties to modern prestige television, British accents
21:20
Speaker 1: have been utilized as an audio shorthand for antiquity or
21:24
Speaker 1: high fantasy right regardless of the actual geographical or historical setting.
21:29
Speaker 1: Nobody complained that The Romans and Gladiator sounded English exactly.
21:33
Speaker 2: By choosing American accents, Nolan breaks that entrenched cinematic illusion.
21:38
Speaker 2: It frustrates viewers who are conditioned to that audiquory trope,
21:42
Speaker 2: even though neither a British nor an American accent is
21:45
Speaker 2: even remotely historically accurate to Bronze age grease.
21:48
Speaker 1: It just shows how much we rely on cinematic conditioning
21:51
Speaker 1: over actual history. And then there's the helmet debate.
21:54
Speaker 2: Oh, the metallurgy experts came out in full force for
21:57
Speaker 2: this one.
21:58
Speaker 1: Matt Damon plays Odysseus, and when the first look photo
22:01
Speaker 1: drop showing him in his armor, armchair historians immediately flooded
22:05
Speaker 1: social media. They were creating thread after thread, nitpicking the
22:09
Speaker 1: historical inaccuracy of the metallurgical design of his helmet.
22:13
Speaker 2: Comparing it to museum artifacts, and pointing out.
22:15
Speaker 1: Rivets exactly, which again highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of the
22:20
Speaker 1: source material itself.
22:21
Speaker 2: The Odyssey isn't a historical documentary. It is a myth
22:25
Speaker 2: that was orally transmitted for centuries and cartified hundreds of
22:29
Speaker 2: years after the supposed historical events of the Trojan War.
22:32
Speaker 2: The armour that Homer actually describes in the text is
22:35
Speaker 2: often an anachronistic hodgepodge of different historical eras, blending weapons
22:40
Speaker 2: from the Mycenian period with arma from the Iron Age.
22:43
Speaker 1: So demanding strict museum grade historical accuracy in the costuming
22:49
Speaker 1: of a mythological hero who fights six headed sea monsters
22:52
Speaker 1: is a somewhat feudal exercise, completely feudile. But those debates
22:56
Speaker 1: the accents in the helmets are just a drop in
22:59
Speaker 1: the bucket compared to the major flashpoint of this movie.
23:02
Speaker 2: Here we go.
23:03
Speaker 1: The absolute center of the culture war right now is
23:07
Speaker 1: the casting of Lupita Yango as Helen of Troy. Now,
23:11
Speaker 1: we're going to look at this trickly based on what
23:13
Speaker 1: the sources report, looking at the facts of this public
23:16
Speaker 1: clash impartially that's right.
23:17
Speaker 2: The controversy blew up largely on x Elon must explicitly
23:21
Speaker 2: attacked the casting decision, what exactly did he sick? While,
23:24
Speaker 2: according to the media reports, he publicly called the decision
23:27
Speaker 2: to cast a black woman as Helen of Troy Woke,
23:30
Speaker 2: stated it was desecrating Homer and tweeted that the filmmakers
23:34
Speaker 2: were peeing on Homer's grave. He even went so far
23:37
Speaker 2: as to use the platform to share an AI generated
23:40
Speaker 2: trailer of the Iliad featuring a cast of white actors
23:43
Speaker 2: that he deemed more appropriate, presenting it as a counter
23:46
Speaker 2: response to Nolan's film.
23:49
Speaker 1: And on the other side of this very loud, very
23:52
Speaker 1: public debate, you had prominent voices immediately stepping up to
23:56
Speaker 1: defend the film and the.
23:57
Speaker 2: Casting, like Tom Holland.
23:59
Speaker 1: And to be clear, we are talking about the classical
24:01
Speaker 1: historian and co host of the Rest Is History podcast, not
24:05
Speaker 1: the actor playing Telemachus in the movie.
24:07
Speaker 2: Right important distinction.
24:08
Speaker 1: Holland got into a highly publicized, heated exchange with Musk.
24:13
Speaker 1: Holland defended Nolan's adaptation, arguing for its profound thematic fidelity
24:17
Speaker 1: to the myth, regardless of the ethnic background of the actors.
24:20
Speaker 2: You also had actor Alec Baldwin jumping into the fray
24:23
Speaker 2: to publicly defend Jungo against the wave of digital.
24:26
Speaker 1: Backlash and amidst all of this incredibly loud online fighting
24:30
Speaker 1: with billionaires and historians trading blows. Lupeta Jungo herself was
24:35
Speaker 1: asked about the controversy during a press junket.
24:37
Speaker 2: Her response was so telling.
24:38
Speaker 1: It was remarkably calm and direct. She said, quote, I'm
24:42
Speaker 1: not spending my time thinking of a defense. This is
24:44
Speaker 1: a mythological story.
24:45
Speaker 2: That quote just hits the nail on the head. It
24:47
Speaker 2: cuts through all the noise.
24:49
Speaker 1: It really does. But I want to pose a question
24:51
Speaker 1: to you and to you listening right now, based on
24:53
Speaker 1: everything we've uncovered today, it's fascinating that this is the battleground.
24:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.
24:57
Speaker 1: On one side, you have a furious demand to protect
25:01
Speaker 1: the traditional quote unquote historical legacy of Western antiquity, and
25:06
Speaker 1: on the other side, you have the argument that myth
25:08
Speaker 1: is fundamentally designed to be reinterpreted. Why is the friction
25:13
Speaker 1: between these two ideas so intensely volatile right now?
25:18
Speaker 2: It's a vital question. And if we look back at
25:20
Speaker 2: the narrative hegemony piece we discussed earlier, we find the
25:23
Speaker 2: sociological answer, which is the debate we are seeing online
25:27
Speaker 2: isn't actually about the Bronze Age. It's not about Homeric scholarship,
25:30
Speaker 2: and it's certainly not about historical accuracy. Classical literatures has
25:33
Speaker 2: always functioned as a mirror. Society looks at these ancient
25:37
Speaker 2: texts and sees its own modern socio political anxieties reflected back.
25:41
Speaker 1: So it's fundamentally about ownership exactly.
25:44
Speaker 2: It's about modern identity representation and who gets to claim
25:48
Speaker 2: ownership over the foundational touchstones of Western culture.
25:52
Speaker 1: Right Because for centuries, the visual representation of these specific
25:56
Speaker 1: myths in Western art, literature, and eventually film, has been
26:00
Speaker 1: heavily filtered through very specific, largely Eurocentric lenses.
26:04
Speaker 2: We are used to seeing marble statues and Renaissance painting.
26:08
Speaker 2: So when a blockbuster film with a massive cultural footprint
26:11
Speaker 2: challenges that entrenched visual hegemony, it naturally sparks a fierce reaction.
26:16
Speaker 1: Because it disrupts what people feel they own.
26:18
Speaker 2: Yes, the fight over Helen of Troy's casting isn't about antiquity.
26:22
Speaker 2: It is a contemporary fight over who is allowed to
26:25
Speaker 2: embody and interpret the foundational myths of Western literature today.
26:29
Speaker 1: It's just staggering to think that a story told around
26:31
Speaker 1: campfires thousands of years ago. Is there reason billionaires, podcasters,
26:36
Speaker 1: and actors are yelling at each other on the internet today?
26:39
Speaker 2: It is pretty surreal, But ultimately.
26:41
Speaker 1: This modern fight reveals something deeply, almost painfully ironic about
26:44
Speaker 1: the nature of the story itself, doesn't It.
26:46
Speaker 2: It does because demanding a rigid, singular, accurate version of
26:51
Speaker 2: Homer completely ignores how oral traditions actually function.
26:55
Speaker 1: Right, So let's trace the massive journey we've been on
26:58
Speaker 1: in this deep dive today. We start garded right here
27:00
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six, looking at the crashing AMC ticketing
27:04
Speaker 1: servers and the one hundred million dollar box office projections
27:08
Speaker 1: for Nolan's IMAX.
27:09
Speaker 2: Epic The Modern Spectacle.
27:11
Speaker 1: Then we traveled back into the academic interpretations of the text,
27:14
Speaker 1: with Lindsay Smith discovering how Circe and Odysseus negotiated a
27:18
Speaker 1: liminal space of fluid power, proving the text itself subverted gender.
27:21
Speaker 2: Norms a fascinating dynamic.
27:24
Speaker 1: From there, we stepped into the real historical world, examining
27:27
Speaker 1: the deeply restrictive gymnasiums of classical Athens, where women were
27:31
Speaker 1: legally treated as miners, alongside the theories of a conquered.
27:34
Speaker 2: Matriarchy, the jarring reality.
27:37
Speaker 1: And finally we arrived right back in the present day,
27:40
Speaker 1: analyzing the intense online culture wars over who gets to
27:43
Speaker 1: play Helen of Troy.
27:44
Speaker 2: It's a journey that spans three millennia, but the core tensions,
27:47
Speaker 2: who holds power, who gets to speak, who owns the narrative,
27:51
Speaker 2: and how we interpret these ancient figures remain remarkably consistent,
27:55
Speaker 2: which brings us.
27:56
Speaker 1: To a final thought. I want to leave you with today,
27:58
Speaker 1: something to mull over as you wait in that digital
28:01
Speaker 1: queue for your Odyssey tickets.
28:02
Speaker 2: Oh this is a good point.
28:04
Speaker 1: We talked a lot today about what is accurate to Homer,
28:07
Speaker 1: and people are fighting viciously online over that exact concept.
28:11
Speaker 1: But remember what Homer actually is.
28:12
Speaker 2: It wasn't a book.
28:13
Speaker 1: No, The Odyssey began as an oral tradition for hundreds
28:18
Speaker 1: of years before a single word was ever written down
28:20
Speaker 1: on papyrus. It was spoken, it was sung, and that
28:24
Speaker 1: means it was changed, remixed, and culturally adapted by every
28:28
Speaker 1: single Bard who sat down around a fire to tell
28:30
Speaker 1: it to a new audience.
28:32
Speaker 2: They changed the armor to match what their local audience wore.
28:34
Speaker 2: They changed the dialects.
28:36
Speaker 1: They shifted the emphasis of the story to fit the
28:38
Speaker 1: political moment of the village they were performing.
28:40
Speaker 2: In, because the very nature of a myth isn't to
28:43
Speaker 2: be a static museum piece. It is designed to breathe, evolve,
28:47
Speaker 2: and mutate with the culture that is currently telling it.
28:49
Speaker 1: Exactly, by screaming on the Internet and arguing over one strict, rigid,
28:54
Speaker 1: quote unquote accurate historical version of a story about sea monsters,
28:58
Speaker 1: witches and gods, modern Internet debaters might be entirely missing
29:03
Speaker 1: the point of what a myth is actually supposed to be.
29:06
Speaker 2: They really are.
29:07
Speaker 1: Christopher Nolan isn't desecrating history. He is just the latest
29:10
Speaker 1: bard sitting around the campfire, updating this story for the
29:13
Speaker 1: specific audience sitting in front.
29:15
Speaker 2: Of him and a seventy millimeter Imax screen is quite
29:18
Speaker 2: the campfire.
29:18
Speaker 1: It really is. Thank you so much for joining us
29:20
Speaker 1: on this deep dive today. Keep questioning the stories you
29:23
Speaker 1: are told, keep looking closely to who is telling them,
29:26
Speaker 1: and we will catch you next time.