Latest / We Are Spiraling / 'The Odyssey" Got Hair Wrong Vs Greek Mythology

Transcript

'The Odyssey" Got Hair Wrong Vs Greek Mythology · We Are Spiraling

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is Priya Anand, and we are spiraling.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: In this show, we use curly hair as a lens to investigate our world.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey movie came out this week.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I saw Breeze Greening.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite line in the Odyssey is this one.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Athena transforms Odysseus, and the text says for the translations, she made the hair grow thick on top of his head and flow down in curls like hyacinth plumes.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I recounted those lines for you in episode one when we talked about how the New York Times describes curly men in Hollywood as having flopsy hair that tumbles like overcooked fusili.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this show has dissected how we as a society have gone from flowing curls in hyacinth plumes to overcooked fusili, and the Odyssey was part of that cultural analysis for me.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So naturally, today we discuss the new Christopher Nolan film and what it shows us.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The ancient Greeks and Romans were obsessed with curly hair.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: We interviewed a hair archaeologist, Janet Stevens, in episode five.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's called How to Look Like a Greek God.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And Janet told us that curly hair was, as a rule, considered the most desirable.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: The Greeks even invented primitive curling irons called a column to make wavy and loosely curly hair even curlier.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Think about a skewer.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: They would put it over hot holes, and then you'd wrap your hair around that.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the trick was to not completely singe your hair, but have it be hot enough that you can actually get those, you know, heat curls.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, how does all this come across in Christopher Nolan's adaptation?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I have to say, I was looking out for where there would be a scene with Matt Damon and he's transformed and given a head of thick curls because I love that line, flow down in curls like hyacinth blooms.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: But also I kind of wanted to see what Matt Damon would look like with curly hair.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this is my request putting it out there into the universe, manifesting.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Someone put Matt Damon in a movie where he gets a perm.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what does hair represent in ancient Greek literature?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hair was often used as a way to dino vitality, emotional states, divinity.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that line about giving Odysseus curls that bloomed, it wasn't just about hair.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was about restoring Odysseus from being a crusty, weary traveler to a more robust and lively state.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: In the movie, though, we don't get to see that come to life.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: What we do see though is the film shows Agamemnon played by Benny Safty.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: You see his dark curls coming out of the helmet from time to time.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And later, when he returns home from war and he has his helmet removed, he's being bathed in oil, you see a dark head of full head of dark curls.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now I was most excited to see Zendaya representing Athena in this movie, the goddess of wisdom and war.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Her hair is mostly covered by a head scarf, though, the entire time.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the thing: if you go to Athens, this is how I came up with the idea to interview Janice Stevens about ancient Greek and Roman artworks.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Athens and I saw all these Athena sculptures always had long flowing curls, curls peeking out of whatever head covering she's given, whether it's a helmet or something else.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: But alas, the only time we see Zendayas flowing curls related to this movie is on the press tour, not much in the actual film.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about how Christopher Nolan designed this movie.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: He reportedly told Matt Damon, no wigs, no fake beard, all your hair has to be real.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So Matt Damon grew out a beard.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: He said his kids thought he made him look like Santa Claus.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So respect for actually keeping the movie very real.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that I think is what delivers such a strong effect when you're watching.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Matt Damon said in an interview with Empire that since he had that beard, if he saw the team pulling out a little pot of liqueur to paint it, he knew that they were going back to film a scene where he was a younger version of Odysseus.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we talked about wigs in our previous mini-soad about how Disney gave Catherine LaGaya wigs for filming Moana, even though her naturally curly hair is basically exactly the same as Moana's.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: That was and remains a big deal that Disney erased Moana's curls.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this realness that Chris Nolan has in the film is what makes the Odyssey such an incredible production.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is a feat of cinema.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is a film, not just a movie.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I do think everyone should see it.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I quite enjoyed it, even though it's three hours long.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I've got to say, why couldn't we have just one scene with Zendaya's Athena and long flowing Greek goddess curls?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, just give my people that.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was rooting for it.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was hoping we would get just one moment in the whole movie.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Especially because it would be true to the literature.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: It would be true to Zendaya as well.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we have talked about how Hollywood treats curly hair from time and time again.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: How the Princess Diary's transformation was damaging for a whole generation of women, starting when they were young girls.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And why it's such a big deal that Disney erased Moana's curly hair for the live action.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can find those episodes on your feed, along with our interview with Annie Corzin.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: She was a recurring guest on Seinfeld.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: She's in her late 80s, she's a longtime Hollywood actress, and she talked to us about the experience of being a woman with curly hair and how she believes it affected her career.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And she said that when she was supposed to play a woman who is a doctor, a lawyer, a judge, when she was auditioning for those roles, she never went in with her naturally curly hair.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I was hoping in this one opportunity to have flowing Greek goddess curls, we would actually get to see them.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Post your favorite Hollywood curly to your Instagram stories and tag us, where we are spiraling on every platform.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: This show is produced by Citizens of Sound, and our theme music is by Lop Gun, who is also very curly.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Catch you later.