Movies We Dig: KAOS (live at CAMWS w/ Amy Pistone)

Introducing Movies We Dig, the podcast about film, antiquity and everything in between, part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network! This episode was recorded live at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Midwest and South to talk about the 2024 Netflix show, KAOS. Filling in for Colin as co-host is fan favorite (and regular guest of LTAMB!) Amy Pistone. To learn more about Amy and her work, be sure visit her website https://www.amypistone.com/. Find more Movies We Dig wherever you're listening to this (and be sure to check out Liv's episodes on BBC's Atlantis mini-series and Starz Spartacus!). Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. MWD Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/zoo/imagine Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/groups.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you'll never get back. Save time and money with stamps.com. Over four million businesses have skipped the line with stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90% off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code PODCAST for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply. I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone. And I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  Everybody, listen up.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 2:10Liv Albert?

  Hello, this is Let's Talk About Miss Baby, except again, kind of not really. I am your host, Liv. And just like a little while ago, when I shared with you an episode from Sweet Bitters, Season Three, in honor of them joining this brand-new Memory Collective Podcast Network, and all of the big and far-too-lofty goals that I have here with the Memory Collective, we are now sharing another episode from another show that is part of the new network. This is Movies We Dig, hosted by, hosted by Christie, Elijah, and Colin.

• 2:50Liv Albert?

  And, well, you'll know Christie from many episodes of the podcast now. Christie studies medicine and women in the ancient world. We love her. But on the side, Christie has Movies We Dig, which is a really fun podcast. We didn't want to make it all too heavy and historical, just people who are sharing this kind of stuff with the important, important outside information. And Movies We Dig is really fun. They talk about well beyond movies now, but classical reception, reception broadly, reception of the ancient world. So movies, TV, books, I feel like they've not really done much in the way of books, but I also think they might be everything in that realm.

• 3:35Liv Albert?

  And fortunately for all of you, they have just recently done a very special episode looking at chaos. That's right, chaos, the thing you all want me to watch. And I know I should, but the problem is, once 200 people tell me to watch it, my brain puts this little lock on the door. Anyway, I haven't watched it yet, but thankfully, these guys are here to talk about Chaos. I know there is so much to get into because honestly, that show, R.I.P., really got deep into the mythology. I may not have seen it yet, but I know that much and I know I gotta watch it. I'm gonna watch it, I promise. But until then, here is an episode from Movies We Dig featuring Chaos. Find more episodes of Movies We Dig wherever you're listening to this, or via

• 4:20Liv Albert?

  the links in the episode's description, and stay tuned because this is going to mean Chaos is going to get talked about on this podcast, on Let's Talk About Myths, baby. It's coming. We're figuring it out. Stay tuned, and until then, enjoy these three historians and archaeologists and their guests, who are more of the same, talking about Jeff Goldblum as Zeus, among other things.

• 5:01Speaker 03

  Hello and welcome to Movies We Dig, the podcast about film, antiquity, and everything in between. I'm Elijah Fleming.

• 5:08Speaker 04

  I'm Kristi Vogler. And I am not Colin, but I'm pitch-hitting firm today. I'm Amy Pistone.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  Yay. Thank you, Amy, for joining us. And we are sad Colin is not here. He's in Greece, though, so we kind of hate him.

• 5:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. He's doing fine.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's fine.

• 5:23Speaker 04

  We're gonna talk about, like, Greece, but we don't get to be there right now, so unfortunately.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Colin and I started this podcast over the pandemic, as I think many grad students did, start a podcast over the pandemic, because we were living in separate states and, you know, did not have a whole lot of talking beyond our one little office rooms. We were both dissertating at the time, and just really wanted to make more connections with ourselves, with each other. We said, let's just, you know, chat and have people that we know come talk to us on Zoom. Let's do Zoom in a better way. And it really just came about as something that we did anyway. We would drink wine and watch movies and talk about them.

• 6:14Speaker 04

  And look at you now.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  And look at us now.

• 6:16Speaker 04

  Watching movies and talking about them.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 6:19Speaker 04

  At Camus, and we should mention that we have a very special audience guest today is our audience. Wow, that came out as.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  I was like, what?

• 6:28Speaker 04

  I know, verbal, verbal blah at this point. It's been a long week, a very fun week for us. But we want to thank people for coming in to enjoy and gush about chaos with us as well as maybe if you want to learn more about podcasting, this is the place to be.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. My first question is for Christie, and I would love you to talk a little bit about engaging the public via social media and why we as academics should be in that space, need to be in that space.

• 6:58Speaker 04

  Desperately need to be in that space. I did not plan this, but it worked out wonderfully. So a very, very recent study came out. Media Matters did an analysis and found that nine out of the top 10 online shows access are right-leaning. We found that substantial asymmetry in total following across platforms. Right-leaning online shows had at least 480.6 million total followers and subscribers, nearly five times as many as left-leaning. Our analysis, which looked entirely at shows with an ideological bent, found over a third self-identify as non-political, even though 72% of those shows were determined to be

• 7:42Speaker 04

  right-leaning. Instead, these shows describe themselves as comedy, entertainment, sports, or put themselves in other supposedly non-political categories. And if you look up at the screen, sorry, listeners, you don't get to see my screen today, you will see a small infographic. Those dots that are red versus blue is the most popular online podcasts, YouTube shows, and whatnot. And you can see how overwhelmingly red it is. This is a space that you do not have to be political in, but you are definitely a voice that needs to be present, especially when you value classics as being inclusive discipline. So.

• 8:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, that is what we've been working on. And we learned something very surprisingly with our Spotify Raps this last year. We are not apolitical on our show by any means. I think me and Laj both go on feminist rants quite often in our analysis of film and television. And we were very surprised to learn in our Spotify Raps in December of 2024 that the people who listen to our show, they also gave us a list of what other shows they listen to. The number one being The Joe Rogan Show.

• 9:03Speaker 04

  And that felt weird for a moment.

• 9:04Speaker 05

  It's basically the same thing. You guys like to ask questions.

• 9:09Speaker 04

  We do.

• 9:09Speaker 05

  He asks questions.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  We're asking questions. We talk about ancient aliens. We're there for...

• 9:14Speaker 05

  Kind of.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  We do.

• 9:17Speaker 05

  Sometimes you guys look befuddled when someone says something you didn't... Oh, man, really? Whoa. It's basically the same show. That's what I'm saying.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  But upon further reflection, the way that the, you know, what we talk about on the show, we spent two seasons looking at Rome exclusively. We are now looking at archaeology. And it's not too surprising that the audience that goes to Joe Rogan with interest in many, many different topics is more than willing to listen to what we have to say about it as well. So I think it's actually imperative that we find more ways for people to get on YouTube, to get on podcasts, to get their research out. Not in an academic conference setting, where it can be really intimidating to come into these spaces. But instead, sit down, have a drink, chat about a great new television show that came out.

• 10:09Speaker 04

  Or a horrible one, depending on the day.

• 10:12Speaker 05

  Depending on the show.

• 10:13Speaker 04

  And it's, you know, our popular media is the touchstone for everyone. Like, it's the best way to make inroads into audiences that we might not otherwise. So.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  All right, that brings me to Amy.

• 10:28Speaker 05

  I didn't know there were questions.

• 10:29Speaker 03

  I told you I had two. I had two questions.

• 10:31Speaker 05

  This is here to be a peanut gallery.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  And the rest of it was just gonna go. As a scholar, like, how do you prepare to come on a podcast to chat about something? LOL, perhaps, but also, why, why would you want to speak as a guest? You have been on our podcast three times now?

• 10:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  And we love having you. And what is, what is your willingness to come talk about silly things with us?

• 10:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, how do I, I watch the movie and note some not terribly informed opinions about. To be fair, when I come on your podcast, I don't have to know things. Like, you, you guys bring actual knowledge and I, I serve as a useful idiot interlocutor about like, and film words, you guys know them, what are they? But no, I think in general, it's students, I, I mean, my students love when we can, I can give them a podcast episode, right? It's a change of medium, it's accessible, it's conversational, it is much, much easier to consume than a scholarly article. And so, you know, I think the, depending on what the topic is, I've been on some podcasts like about the ancient Olympics

• 11:39Speaker 05

  and the development of modern sports where I'm doing a little more prep to make sure I get my years right and stuff. But yeah, I think it's, it's not that different from prepping to teach, except it reaches a much bigger audience. Even things that I've written that like, probably the most eyes on anything I've written was back when Adalon still existed as an online journal. I wrote out an article about mythological themed drinks that I invented at a bar one time.

• 12:02Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 12:02Speaker 05

  Have a brand.

• 12:04Speaker 04

  You hang out with Liv Albert, don't you?

• 12:06Speaker 05

  I sure do. And, you know, even that is, is only reaching so many people. And that's about things I made the local bartender help me create. So I think it just reaches a much broader audience. And what we do, especially those of us in academia who are thinking a lot about the politics of the field, whether or not we explicitly flag it as a politics podcast topic. I think this is, this is how we reach more people to talk about things like, hey, did you know that statues had color on them? Did you know that? This movie is actually like an interesting depiction of Persians or what have you. Right. So I, I just think it's really important on that front. I will say, and then I'll start, this is what happens when you give me a question.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  This is, I asked you a question. This is what I wanted.

• 12:49Speaker 05

  So I, I referee football and I hang out with a, it's pretty much dudes, mostly white dudes. And the number of times that someone will send me a podcast episode with something like, hey, do you know about this guy? And, you know, Al Sabaides, or they listen to a podcast about Medio or about something. And it really is, even people who I may not necessarily a hundred percent of the time agree with their politics. They're entering into this with curiosity. And I think sometimes in an academic sense, we can shut down that curiosity because we need to be pedantically right. Or we need, it's just not, it's not the, the way to engage people. But these are people who want to know more. And when you point out like, hey, here's some interesting things, maybe you didn't know about sexuality, about gender, about race,

• 13:33Speaker 05

  about depictions in movies of different demographics, right? It's, I think, I think that is a way that we reach a much broader audience and get them interested in a more correct and more, I don't know, value laden way of engaging with the ancient world.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, awesome. Cause yeah, I think my next sort of topic is how we might use podcasts in a classroom. And I totally agree that assigning a podcast to listen to instead of an article, it's like the chances of my students listening instead of reading like go up like 50%.

• 14:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, it really, the people in the past, you know, are we allowed to say that you guys are gonna be on a new podcast now? So the, you know, you guys will be podcast network buddies with, with some of these other podcasts. But my students love, right? It's a, it's a way of people pitching their, their research in ways that are like accessible and fun. And it's, I mean, those are great ways too. And yeah, the, the chances of my students, if it's the 12th article I've assigned them in a row, you know, getting a little flagging results on that. Whereas like if we mix it up and there's a little YouTube video and then there's a podcast episode, like it's just much, much higher rate of engagement. And it's a medium they are used to and feel comfortable engaging with.

• 14:49Speaker 05

  Like they listen to podcasts, they may not read academic articles in their free time. So they feel much more comfortable like engaging with that as a medium.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. I also appreciate them as like a creative and iterative.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  Genre, I guess, and I sometimes ask my students to make podcasts, either with themselves or with each other, because I think listening to podcasts, and even if it's not necessarily about the ancient world, even if it's about something far more political, it is still modeling having discussions, having interesting discussions, being curious, and that curiosity being okay. And so them getting to turn around and do that themselves has been really fun to watch. Because as, I know people make fun of it, but it's like, everybody has a podcast now. And it's like, yeah, because it's

• 15:34Speaker 04

  Especially millennials.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  Especially millennials, yes. And it's because it's fun. And it's relative, I don't want to say easy, it's relatively lower on the like, commitment scale.

• 15:45Speaker 04

  We're making this look very involved. It does not have to be.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, it doesn't have to be.

• 15:50Speaker 05

  To be fair, sound editing does seem complicated to me. This is, this is another reason I really love coming on your podcast, because I don't have to learn how to sound edit.

• 15:58Speaker 04

  I, I can speak to that. The experience of editing an episode, I find equivalent to grading student papers. It is very mind numbing, except when you are editing audio, when you grade papers, you can listen to music or a podcast in the background. You just have to listen to your own voice. For a long time.

• 16:18Speaker 05

  Are you trying to encourage this for people to try?

• 16:21Speaker 04

  I, I'm just saying, it takes a special kind of person who's like, I like my voice. I can do this, to do it. And I think editing is fun. Like, once I get into it, once you get in the rhythm, you know, it's the, I don't want to start grading papers, but once you start going, you get through it.

• 16:39Speaker 05

  I, just because I feel like we're going to switch topics. And before I, before we do, I wanted to follow up on something you said, like, it models how to have conversations, but it also models what kinds of questions we ask about texts.

• 16:50Speaker 03

  Hundred percent.

• 16:50Speaker 05

  I would say, like, especially for reception. I, I love being able to give students, like, if we're talking about, I assign, now it's weird, because I, I got to talk about this movie, but before, the first, the first time through on Rockulies, I, like, I love assigning that to my students, because a lot of times with reception, sometimes the first instinct when you're writing a paper is, here's this text, here's that text, here's 10 differences I found between them. Which is fine, as a starting point, but it's not the endpoint. And I think having Having something I can point them to, like your podcast, that models the kinds of questions we ask. What is the, like, sure, that's an interesting thing that I don't think we have attested in the ancient sources. So what? Why add that? What does it, what

• 17:32Speaker 05

  does it gain the creator to put that in the movie or whatever? So, yeah, I think like just in terms of modeling the kinds of things one can do with media, I think having, having examples of people who are doing that well is incredibly valuable to me as a teacher.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, definitely.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  I'm going to piggyback on that a little bit more because you talked about, like, we've talked about curiosity being an aspect. And I know that my experience in the classroom that I was always very saddened to have happen is have a student raise their hand and say, this is probably a stupid question.

• 18:02Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 18:02Speaker 04

  And it's like, no, you are seeking information. And I think, I think there's something about public education that makes students not ask questions. Because the fear of not having the knowledge, the fear of being wrong, is penalized in many ways. Like, that is kind of our academic grading system. And Amy's been doing a lot of work, I know, in her classroom.

• 18:28Speaker 05

  Doesn't have to be there.

• 18:29Speaker 04

  To change that. But like, generally speaking, that is what a lot of people experience. And I like the idea of asking students to do a podcast episode together because you do have to talk. And a very great contribution to any discussion is just asking questions.

• 18:46Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  So I think, I think that's a great assignment to have in mind as well for that reason.

• 18:53Speaker 05

  And I think the, I don't like, I mean, like I said, I don't know very much about film criticism in like, a smart way. I just have random plot-based opinions about things. I don't know that much about like cinematography and diegetic music scores or whatever. Like, I'm, I'm, I very quickly get out of my professional depth. But Not to like pat myself on the back, but I do think it is useful to be able to show students something where like, I don't know, I'm trying. Like, I'm coming in with my questions, I'm coming in. And like, I definitely say things that people are like, mm, like when we talked about The Odyssey, we were talking with Homer, like, you know, Joel Christensen knows so much more about Homer than I do. And I think it's good to model, here's a thought I have, correct me if

• 19:36Speaker 05

  I'm wrong, but I'm, I'm gonna put it out there, because that, that's how a conversation gets going, right? That's how we start a conversation, is by putting something out there, and then someone corrects it, or yes ands it, or whatever. And so I think, like, I think all of that is helpfully modeling. Like, I learn things all the time when I come, you know, when I talk to you guys, or, you know, I learn so much. And I think getting away from that fear of looking silly, or doing something wrong, and instead getting to like, this is exciting. We get to be curious, we get to be playful, we get to throw some stuff out there, and we don't need to be afraid of looking silly.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, that it's totally okay to be wrong.

• 20:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're wrong all the time on our podcast. You're like, oops.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  That it's also totally okay to disagree. Like, we have, like, really run into a lot of brick walls in trying to convince each other of like, the merits of this or that. And, like, I still don't like animation. I'm sorry, they all hate me for it, but animation is not my thing. And I think, you know, that's just part of the things that we, we can prefer things as, you know, consumers of media, and having a disagreement is not like the end of the world.

• 20:40Speaker 05

  No. Sorry, not to discounter that, but, so you don't like Disney's Hercules?

• 20:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's fine. I like it. Obviously, I like it.

• 20:49Speaker 04

  Me and Colin are also really into anime, so like, we go hard for the animated stuff.

• 20:53Speaker 05

  No, I get, like, there are different styles, the different, I just was curious about, like, that is, Disney animated movies are like such a touchstone of people growing up media.

• 21:02Speaker 03

  I know. And I obviously loved it as a child, and I do really appreciate it now, and I love listening to the music. I'm just not sure I want to, like, sit down and watch it for fun.

• 21:11Speaker 05

  Okay. No, that's because it's fine to have differences of opinion.

• 21:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that's a really great, like, we are authentically really good friends.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:23Speaker 04

  Through the podcast. In fact, my friendship with Colin happened through the podcast.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Through podcasts, yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  So it's, yeah, that's a really cool observation that disagreements happen all the time and they can be amicable. It doesn't have to be this fraught debate like Flint Dibble going on Joe Rogan to duke it out with Graham Hancock. Now, it's great if you can do that.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 21:45Speaker 04

  But that isn't what it has to be.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  I will say, though, I do appreciate Flint doing that because I think there are some lines that perhaps we should draw. Ancient aliens being one of them.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  Because, yeah, there's something, you know, about having a difference of opinion about what the archaeological record can tell us or does tell us. And using, you know, racist and horrifically wrong methodologies to continually put down and exploit people.

• 22:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I think, you know, there are people who argue, as we showed, like, going to those platforms because that's where the listeners are.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:23Speaker 04

  I think there's a lot more to be said of building up more platforms, giving more options for people to get different viewpoints. And that maybe is the long-term project. Maybe people who are very media literate can go and do that sort of thing. I know Politically, Buttigieg, Buttigieg.

• 22:42Speaker 03

  I was like, where are you going with this?

• 22:45Speaker 05

  Who are we talking to?

• 22:46Speaker 04

  I know. Buttigieg is really great about going on Fox News and actually just putting forth really eloquent messages. That is going to a platform that's huge.

• 22:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:56Speaker 04

  But at the end of the day, we need to build up our platforms as well. And we need to support each other's platforms, which is why we're doing Namasini, the Memory Collective. We want to work with more podcasts that have similar values and want to create content that is scholarly, but accessible. So.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. Okay, that's a great segue, actually, into kind of modeling, perhaps, an example of a discussion that we would have.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  Using chaos as as our avenue into this. So on on our podcast, we always ask our guests, do you dig this show? Do you dig this movie? And why or why not? And kind of what is your experience with the show? So I'll go Amy first, and then we'll hit Christie. Some of this we already know, but we're doing it.

• 23:48Speaker 05

  I so yes, I extremely dig this, the show. And I think I really like adaptations that take chances, right? And I think and that don't, don't try to stick too close to the content. And I think that it both weaves together a lot of ancient content that I really like a lot. But it it really puts some interesting spins on them. And that that kind of dynamic interplay, I think, is something that I really enjoy in classical reception, to have something where it both makes me think differently about the source text, and it's fun to engage with on its own. And it isn't just the experience of reading the source text, right? I think sometimes we get hung up on like, well, is this faithful to the book? And like, if I want,

• 24:30Speaker 05

  if I want the book, I will read the book. I want something that gives me something different, a different angle, a different perspective, a different whatever. And I think it did that in really beautiful ways.

• 24:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, Christie.

• 24:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, just to reiterate the story of us.

• 24:44Speaker 03

  Sorry, I got excited.

• 24:45Speaker 04

  I know. No, no, no, talking about chaos the first time, because initially, we we knew about the production and how like, it had really struggled. And so initially, we were not excited for its release. And then Amy saw it, and Amy quickly emailed us, be like, please, please.

• 25:03Speaker 03

  I think it was all caps, like, Oh, my God, I want to call dibs on chaos. I'm so excited to talk about chaos.

• 25:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I'm like, well, I guess we're covering chaos.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  Yes, we're talking about chaos.

• 25:11Speaker 04

  And oh, boy, did I not regret it, because it was wonderful the first time. And then the second time that we have watched it was in order to prepare for this panel. But it was also, we had the chance to go to a reception panel. And Anastasia did a great analysis of the three mortal characters that have the same prophecy as Zeus. And it again made We rethink certain things about the show and watching it. So it's it's always fun to like go to more scholarly looks about how we can think about these shows, but then bring it back and be like, how can we talk about this in a really fun way?

• 25:51Speaker 04

  So as we're watching it the last few days, I keep seeing Zeus and I keep hearing Elon Musk in my head. Every time he's just having a crisis. And that's the kind of a new take. It's a new reality from when the show came out. I think we have even more observations of the show. That's why we weren't afraid to revisit it this time.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 26:12Speaker 04

  And yeah, I think this is, it's really sad that this is the only season that we have. Elijah, go ahead and tell us your experience with it. And then I did want to kind of highlight a point of where the future of culture, the culture of the media is going.

• 26:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I think I really enjoyed it the first time we watched it, like to a very surprising degree. I think I was not expecting how much I liked it. And on revisiting it, I just keep finding things that I like more and more. And yeah, listening to the panel and the folks who even just like chatting in the hotel room, watching it, having weird, random thoughts has been really, really satisfying. And I very much dig chaos and I almost don't mind that it doesn't have a second season. I know I want like all the storylines to wrap up and stuff, but then it can't get ruined.

• 27:05Speaker 05

  Like they can't fumble this second season?

• 27:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, they can't it up.

• 27:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  It's good and it's gonna stay good. And I feel like it's something that I can re-watch and really enjoy.

• 27:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:16Speaker 05

  I think sometimes shows that get canceled before their time, there's the like, what could have been?

• 27:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:20Speaker 05

  That becomes part of the show of like, man, like if Arrested Development hadn't gotten canceled and then, you know, whatever. But like the, or like Firefly, if they hadn't made the movie, there was like all of these questions about like, what, what could this have been?

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 27:34Speaker 05

  And I think sometimes, especially like, people have put their heart and soul into working on a script for a season, right? And they're pitching it and they're pitching it and it never gets picked up. And then it finally does. And it's amazing because they they worked so hard on it. And then the second, they're like, great, now you should do a second season because people liked this one and it was profitable. And the second season's flop.

• 27:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:54Speaker 05

  Because they have four to six months to to do a second season and they had eight to 10 years working on that first season, right? So yeah, I will grudgingly say there is something that like it remains a this was so good and what could it have been and there's never the potential like we never have to deal with the potential of a second season that is not good.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's gonna undo all the good things.

• 28:18Speaker 05

  Gladiator 2 was just not good in a way that kind of in some ways I think sort of taints the first like now I'm just like oh Gladiator that movie that the first one was like really transformative and did all these things and it wasn't without fault but and and then there was also that other movie that the only real strength of it was that there was some graffiti that was really funny and Denzel was having the time of his life.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  And that should have been the protagonist.

• 28:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, our episode that we discussed it was still up in the air if there's gonna be season two and I had a sinking sinking feeling maybe it should have been indicative of a lot more things to come but I had a sinking feeling that if Netflix hadn't quickly like how well it was received with the amongst the audience I'd watched it if it hadn't already received word at the time that we were recording that episode I had doubts that it would

• 29:09Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 29:09Speaker 04

  get a season two and there's someone who worked in the industry that posted something that I think is kind of indicative of those feelings were validated they wrote I was pitching a TV show last year and the feedback I got was that streaming platforms and networks were already prepping for a Trump win by planning to slash contributions from visibility for people of color a lot of ostensibly independent cultural decision makers way more than zero anyway were planning to comply in advance before Trump even got back into office and I think streaming platforms we've talked a lot about this where there's this golden era where so many ideas so many shows get an opportunity.

• 29:56Speaker 04

  But also because there's so much media being given to us in our homes by ourselves on our phones and we don't get to sit down with our friends and watch it together and be like, "Oh, look, when we first see Canaeus, his overall, one overall thing is down like an Amazon."

• 30:16Speaker 05

  Oh, that's so cool.

• 30:17Speaker 04

  It's so good. And like, that's, thank you Sammy for that observation. That was wonderful.

• 30:21Speaker 05

  Shout out Sammy.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  And, and it's like those little moments that you can't individually catch on your own through a single watch through, but doing it collectively as friends and communicating about it is such an improved experience. And we try to replicate that with the podcast, but that's after we viewed it.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 30:42Speaker 04

  And we've talked to creators who put stuff on Netflix and the onus is on creators to promote their shows and to get the numbers, the eyeballs and everything in order to have the story continue. And I think it's really detrimental.

• 30:56Speaker 05

  It's so cruel.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's really detrimental to these projects.

• 30:58Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, if they don't get the numbers in the first week, like they're making decisions at Netflix based on like, "Hey, do you have the numbers right away?" And I don't like, that cuts off a lot of potential shows that like need a little while to like a slow burn kind of thing that's going to build and it's going to get word of mouth and people are going to talk to their friends about it. And like, if you do not watch it when it drops, like your show might not exist anymore.

• 31:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I think it is also something that I begrudgingly like from HBO in that they do drop one episode at a time for a lot of things. Because I think it does give shows that chance to build and for people to talk about it and to start sharing more about it and to create those like theories and questions and even have viewing parties that when like-

• 31:48Speaker 04

  Eight, you know, one hour episodes drop in one night, you're not gonna have a viewing party for all of it.

• 31:54Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, if you think about every single show that's been like a huge phenomenon recently, right? It's ones that are once a week.

• 32:02Speaker 04

  Yep, yep.

• 32:03Speaker 05

  It's

• 32:04Speaker 04

  White Lotus.

• 32:05Speaker 05

  Last of Us. Um, Severance. You know, Ted Lasso was a week by week one.

• 32:10Speaker 04

  Yep, yep.

• 32:11Speaker 05

  Like, there are all of these shows where you could like, oh my god, did you see that episode of that thing? Like Severance, every week I'm talking to people about like, oh my god, that thing that happened, or like, oh, now I have more questions, what are they gonna do? And like, I think, I think it does, as much as I love to binge a show, I think it actually hurts the experience because we're meant to consume media together. Like, I work on tragedy, so I'm like, very much, you watch this traumatic thing together, and you deal with it together.

• 32:37Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 32:38Speaker 05

  And I think there is something that we really, something is lost when we always watch everything on our own, and it was, there was a weird, almost, I don't know, it wasn't a replacement, but during COVID, we would kind of watch things together, but separate, right?

• 32:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:53Speaker 05

  And I think we don't even, like, we don't have that anymore, which was kind of an experience of, we would have movie watch parties where we'd all start the episode at the same time.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 32:59Speaker 05

  And I think we don't even have that, you know, now, like, if a new show drops on Netflix and you binge all the, it's arcane, right? Like, it just comes out, and it's, and it's a show, like, it's a great show, and I know it's animated, but, um...

• 33:12Speaker 04

  It's just gonna crawl under this table, I'm sorry.

• 33:15Speaker 05

  Look, I know some people don't appreciate the beauty of, of animated, uh, art, you know, you just don't respect animators and the work they do, but that's fine.

• 33:23Speaker 04

  Crawl's under table.

• 33:24Speaker 05

  But no, I think, like, it's just a different experience of consuming media when it drops as one big bucket, and you can't talk to someone after, episodes are designed to kind of have a plot that, like, I mean, most shows, like, it's, there's an arc for that episode, it's not just a 12-hour story that you chopped up randomly, like, it's meant to have an arc for an episode, and when, when there's not a second to the "I just said" episode, like, I do think, I feel like such a, like, wow, back in my day, we, we watched one episode on the regular television every week, but like, it kind of, it, there's something different, right?

• 33:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's a shared experience that, I think, we fractured as a, as people in the United States, and part of that is the fracturing of our media, I think really is involved in that in a lot of ways, so. Yeah, I would, I would just add that like the movie going experience is also kind of interesting in that regard.

• 34:20Speaker 03

  So different.

• 34:21Speaker 04

  It's very different. I've just started going to like a theater again fairly regularly because they serve alcohol at that one and it's fun. And I remember sitting to like a young woman and like the sound, the trailers start playing. She's like, oh, is it always this loud? And I'm like, mm-hmm. You don't get to, like you are all collectively have to experience the environment the same way. And I think there's some restrictions on, like we, I talked to the Parlo Panides brothers who do Blood of Zeus. And they asked us like, why do younger generations think like films are too long? Why is it difficult to sit through them? And I think our experience of getting to stream where like you can pause at any moment.

• 35:06Speaker 04

  You can turn on subtitles so you can see what you're hearing. You can rewind a moment and be like, what was that right there? And I think that actually gives us a more engaged experience with the media that is very hard to not have in a theater setting. So.

• 35:25Speaker 03

  Because yeah, at home you can also sit and have something on the TV and also be on your phone.

• 35:30Speaker 05

  I mean, that's the thing that I think is such a difference when I, when I am in a theater. Because like when I'm at home, like I am looking at stuff on my phone or I am like making food over in the kitchen or whatever. And I'm not giving something my undivided attention. And like, that's the biggest thing I notice when I go see a movie in a theater, which isn't that often. Like I, I pay for enough streaming services. I'm like, I will watch it when it comes out. I'm the thing I'm already paying for. But like, I think it, it is that experience of like undivided attention. And it's very, there are almost no situations in my life where I am like giving something my undivided attention. And that is something that is both like not what I'm, you know, like I love having subtitles on because sometimes I can't hear what they're saying.

• 36:12Speaker 05

  And you know, they didn't speak clearly enough and they're mumbling and, um, but it fundamentally changes the way you watch things. And I think that, that shift from, somebody was telling me that like the, the youth.

• 36:25Speaker 05

  Or like watch so many things on the small screen and how that changes when you're watching things on your phone, right? Like that's not what, I don't know, like Scorsese or something is like making films for, right? It's not like it's, it's, we're not watching something on a big screen where you can see the detail. You're watching something on like a phone screen. And that's a fundamentally different consuming experience that like really does change the product that you're consuming when the medium is, is really changing like that. Yeah.

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• 39:39Speaker 04

  All right, and I think with that, we can open the discussion more broadly. So we have some people in our live audience. If you guys have comments or questions about podcasting, about chaos, about anything reception in general, feel free to ask. We are also quite savvy about starting to talk about some different things as well, so.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Hello. Thank you so much for doing this live show. This is amazing.

• 40:07Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  So I was wondering, with regard to chaos, what you all thought about the casting? Especially when you have like the heavy hitter, like Jeff Goldblum in the lead role of Zeus. I wonder if there's like a star power there, you know? Especially with some other roles that he's played recently, right? Like The Wizard of Oz. And if any of that is maybe like coming into like how you perceive him as a character and his characterization of the King of the Gods.

• 40:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  Can I? Can I?

• 40:40Speaker 04

  Yes, I know you want to.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  I do, I really want to. I know Colin had an issue with Jeff Goldblum being Zeus. He said he couldn't see. Yeah, boo Colin. He said he couldn't, he couldn't see past the Jeff Goldblum of it all. And I, I get that. I do get it.

• 40:57Speaker 04

  I get that.

• 40:58Speaker 03

  But I also think he was perfectly cast as this kind of megalomaniac.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Kind of like frenetic.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  Which is what he's been doing lately.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  But it is his thing. It's his total vibe. But the, the thing that really got me was just this casual cruelty that he has throughout the whole series where he like, you know, flicks his wrist and Prometheus is on, you know, chained to the rock or is sitting by the pool and he doesn't seem to care. And it's just these tiny little things that he does that I think really speak to what we see in Zeus as a character throughout myth. As someone who is so convinced of his own power, someone who feels very insecure about that power and has that sort of manic nature to him, but also just that absolute pure casual cruelty of don't really care about anybody else.

• 41:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. And I think that was what's interesting. I mentioned that, like, I was just hearing Elon Musk all the time.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:59Speaker 04

  But what's interesting, when that cruelty is happening, he doesn't, I think we imagine cruelty being loud and vicious and he's just nonchalant, like torturing the tacita.

• 42:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:12Speaker 04

  Uh, he's just using his normal speaking voice. He's like, I need this information. Oh, that probably hurt. Like, and it's scarier because of that, because it, it does not, it's not emotional, right? And yet everything he does, like, he's the most emotional one there, it feels like, even though when Dennis is killed, Dionysus tears up and we feel very like connected to Dionysus as like a real emotion. And, and it's like, actually, no, I don't want to call Zeus emotional. I want to just call him irrational and has nothing to do with actual emotion, actual caring.

• 42:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think, so I will, because I hadn't thought about the Wizard of Oz intertext there, but I think the, um, God, who does he play in the, um?

• 43:01Speaker 04

  Thor Ragnarok?

• 43:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, like the collector?

• 43:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  The game master?

• 43:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, whatever. Anyway, there he plays. And like, he has several of these roles that I do think it's really like, seem like fairly face blind and I rarely recog- like, he is someone that is recognizable enough that I recognize him between roles. My partner will stop things, but you know, like, do you recognize that guy? I'm like, no. He has a beard and he didn't have a beard last time I saw him. How would I recognize him? But Jeff Goldblum is a clear, and because he's had a run of these type of roles, right? Where it is this, I mean, like even the, he's doing commercials for like apartments.com or something. And it's still like, it's a similar vibe, like he has a vibe. And having that as Zeus, I think is like, I'm sorry, I'm gonna go on like a tragedy scholar.

• 43:48Speaker 05

  This is such, like, this is the Zeus that you see in Prometheus Bound. This is the Zeus who's not there, but you hear like Prometheus is talking about this Zeus. And like I, on this re-watch, I'm really into how they, how they play with the Prometheus character. Because like that is such, most of the time we see an established Zeus. And he's scary and he's callous and he's, he's all of these things, but he's not, I don't know what the word is. Like not insecure and like the, the emotional, I mean, he has that as well in this, but he's, um, like his, his rule isn't secure, right? And that you get this idea of, in the Prometheus Bound, Zeus has just become Zeus. And we don't know how it's gonna go, right?

• 44:33Speaker 05

  He's the third in a cycle of kings of the gods, and this could just be the next step before the next cycle. And you see the snapshot of, of a Zeus where you get like, what kind of, what kind of king is he gonna be? What's he gonna look like as a ruler? And I think between the, like, he thinks Prometheus is his best friend.

• 44:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:51Speaker 05

  Like, that was such a wild detail that didn't hit me as much on a first watch, but on the second watch, she's like, he thinks Prometheus is his like one true friend and Prometheus fucking hates him. And like, that's such an interesting detail that, this is the thing that I really love about reception is that, I don't know, I use Cersei as an example for this a lot, but like, that, like, yes, we think about reception as source text to the texts that were, you know, whatever, chaos or Cersei or whatever it is. But it works the other way too, right? It works like I can't go back and read the Odyssey. I can't go back and read Prometheus Bound without having this other perspective in mind. And like that way that it feeds back on the source text, I think is so interesting.

• 45:33Speaker 05

  Like, most of what we see Zeus in is not the Zeus of Prometheus Bound. It's the Zeus of like, he's secure, he's comfortable, like, no one's gonna really threaten his rule. There's always that like idea in the background that like maybe the next, the next cycle of son overthrowing father, but it doesn't happen with him.

• 45:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:50Speaker 05

  But the Prometheus is that window into this particularly sort of tenuous state in his, his rule as king of the gods. And, you know, the next time I teach, like, I don't, if I'm, if I teach Prometheus Bound, which I've been wanting to do for a while, like, I don't think I cannot teach chaos with that. Because it's such an interesting inner text for that, to think about, like, what is this depiction of a king who is this, this fragile?

• 46:15Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I think it's that fragility that makes you think of Elon Musk, especially.

• 46:21Speaker 04

  Yes. And so like, this is, this brings us back to the panel that we listened to.

• 46:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  Anastasia's paper where she was looking at the mortals who share the prophecy with Zeus. And it's, I think one thing that's interesting is, it's the same exact prophecy and they all interpret it into their lives differently. Which goes back to something the fates say towards the end of the series of like, it's only as real as you believe it to be real. It's like, you could just ignore it and it could just not actually impact your life, or you can incorporate it into your identity. Like, every person has an individual prophecy and they read something into it about what happened during their lifetime. And I thought that was really interesting. And so Anastasia's paper really focused on like, how the three mortal characters that have the prophecy are,

• 47:10Speaker 04

  I want to use a gender other, so they're not... Yeah, there's something, they're not traditional in their gender performance in any way. And that allows them to disrupt the traditional story to gain agency over their own stories, which is a really cool interpretation. And I wanted to juxtapose... That against what is happening with the gods. And it's really interesting that Zeus, the beginning of this fragility is he understands the first line of the prophecy, a line appears to be an aging line, like this possibility that he could age out of this patriarchal role that he holds. And he very much is representative of the patriarchy.

• 47:52Speaker 04

  And I think it's interesting that you have Hades, his brother, that appears very frail in comparison and still has a sense of morality in certain ways, like a sense of responsibility, even though he's kind of given into the whims of Zeus for this whole time. I, it seems to me like Zeus is very fearful of becoming what Hades is and he lash, literally lashes out at Hades. But at the same time, you have the young man in Dionysus, who wants the approval of his father, who wants a more responsible role, a more powerful role within the family. And on the one hand, he's trying to do things, he does commit an act of cruelty in a very

• 48:35Speaker 04

  casual way by removing a shopkeeper's mouth.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:38Speaker 04

  Her ability to speak. And that's one of the only times we really see that overall, maybe what he does to Orpheus, but we don't feel bad for Orpheus in the car at that point. And in order to get Zeus's approval, either he has to give up the things he loves.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  Dennis.

• 48:58Speaker 04

  Dennis, or it will be cruelly taken from him to force that conformity, to enforce that idea of the ideal masculinity. And we're left at the end of the series of the season with Dionysus holding a bottle of meander, going up to the palace to meet Ari, and we very much are left with this decision. It's like, will he give in to the cruelty? Will he become the new patriarch based on the model that his father has given him? Or will he challenge it? And I think that's like the one. Outcome I really want to see. I really wanted to see what was gonna happen with Dionysus. And again, it's like this is an observation that would not have happened without more conversation,

• 49:39Speaker 04

  more academic conversation about the show overall, which is why it's fun to be in these spaces.

• 49:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, cuz I think the reversal of multiple myths is something that I certainly missed on my first watch and talking about all three of the mortals as actually gaining more agency in their stories. Because the big one is Orpheus and Eurydice and how it's very much a Eurydice-focused story. And she gets to decide, she gets to choose, and she says, "No, I don't want you, Orpheus."

• 50:10Speaker 04

  She says, "F*** you."

• 50:11Speaker 03

  She says, "F*** you," which is brilliant. And it was one of my favorite ways that that story has ever been told. But the fact that Ariadne and Ceneus also have reversals in their stories, that they also create much more agency and get to choose. So yeah, I loved having that discussion.

• 50:31Speaker 04

  I think the fact that Ceneus, in traditional myth, actually embraces what we might call the toxic masculinity of becoming a ruthless warrior. Whereas in this one, Ceneus is loving and caring of Fotus, of Riddi, of his mom, even though he even feels betrayed by his mom. He still truly believes that she loves him. And it's, we could argue that that final scene, all of the care that he showed for those people, it flashes through as his mother is brought back. Which is, oof, it's so good.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  Really good.

• 51:10Speaker 05

  I, I just, I like, okay, first of all, you mentioning Fotus, I'm like, oh, baby.

• 51:17Speaker 05

  I was rewatching with, like, my dog was next to me on the couch as we were watching, like, he's like, "But what about my dog?" And I'm like, "Diver's not get dogs." Like, oh.

• 51:27Speaker 05

  Let the diet, dogs love water, let them have a dog. But yeah, it was like, one of the things that over the years, like, you know, there's some texts that like, we teach over and over. And because like, the text hasn't changed, but I've changed over the years, right? And like, I, I see myself in different parts of, of some of these texts. And one of the things that in my reading of the gods over the years and Homeric stuff and tragedy or whatever, it's that there is something, like, nothing means anything if you live forever, right? And like, I don't know, I was raised on talk everlasting, like, it's a very like, things don't have meaning. Your decisions mean nothing because you're gonna live forever. Everything will happen eventually because you live forever.

• 52:12Speaker 05

  And like, none of your decisions have meaning. And when we get like in Iliad one, we get the cut from like, these incredibly costly decisions. And then we pan to the gods and nothing, they don't care. They're having a party and they're laughing and they're, they're drinking and like, and on some way, I think there is a sense that, obviously like, you know, gods are powerful and be cool to not die and have sad things happen to you or whatever. But like, I think there's also this sense like gods can't grow. They can't learn, they can't change, they can't grow because they are forever. And, and they're static, right? We like, we have gods, you know, even if you're like Apollo and you're in like a permanent effete status, you're, you still don't grow, you're, you're in a coming of age age and you never change that.

• 52:56Speaker 05

  And I think the idea that like, humans can grow and like, that is, our decisions matter because they make like, do you go back with Orpheus or do you say, no, I don't want to do that? And like, whatever Hera decides that like, at the end, I mean, what is, what does it matter when you're the gods? Yeah. Right. But I think that that idea, and I think we see it in ancient texts, but it, it also jumps out to me a lot when we see modern receptions of like, The ability to make decisions about who you become. And for the most part, the gods don't ever have that. And that is something that is enviable, right? Like, I think there's a sense really, like, kind of under the surface in Greek mythology of, I mean, not that what we have is better than the gods exactly, but kind of, right?

• 53:40Speaker 05

  That there is something, you can impart meaning to something. Because of the temporality, because of the fact that eventually, eventually this goes away. A decision has lasting consequences and you don't make that choice and you make this choice and your life is changed.

• 53:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think we see that with Dionysus at the end in his conversation with Persephone, where Persephone is like, you caring about that kitten actually is a strength. And maybe you should embrace your humanity. And I think that's why at the end, we see him holding the bottle of meander water and he gets to choose, is he going to embrace his divinity and the role that his father might place for him in this patriarchal structure? Or will he embrace his humanity and give up the immortality?

• 54:25Speaker 05

  Hear me out, because I know you're like, that's the one decision I wanted to see played out. And I actually really, to, to, John, what you said there, it's like, I like that we don't know.

• 54:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:34Speaker 05

  That, like, that is one of those things of like, because isn't like, isn't that kind of, not to be like, super meta and whatever about this, but like, isn't that kind of the question we all face of like, do we become the, the systems and the patterns that have harmed us? Whether that's, I don't know, getting a position as a tenured professor? Do I impart the kinds of shitty things that were done to me as a student about like, hazing through my, my qualifying exams?

• 54:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:59Speaker 05

  Or do you not? Do you reject the system, right? Like, I don't know why, apparently I'm just gonna have this be therapy now, but, I could talk to my students about, like, as I, as a former pick-me-girl, growing up, like, I feel like there's a lot of, like, I, I really understand that kind of internalized misogyny thing. And like, the decision to, like, do I keep doing that? It's profitable. Like, that is a thing that you can trade on of being a girl who's not like the other girls.

• 55:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:26Speaker 05

  Or do you take a different path in your life? And like, I think we all on some level, like, is it gender? Is it race? Is it sexuality? Is it whatever? Like, Do we perpetuate the systems that we are impacted by? Or do we choose to do something else with the meander water? And like, so I like, I like that it leaves it open. If we're not going to get like conclusion of all the stories in a perfect five season arc. Like, I, I like that it leaves that.

• 55:49Speaker 04

  It was supposed to be three.

• 55:50Speaker 05

  Was it three?

• 55:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:51Speaker 05

  But a perfect three season arc? Or do, like, if we're not going to get all of that and hear the whole story as it was designed from the start? I like that that question is open.

• 56:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:01Speaker 05

  Because, like, that, I don't know, the, the possibility there, it kind of, I, I like that.

• 56:07Speaker 04

  Yeah. Actually, I, yeah, this is Sammy, friend of the pod. Um, no, the, um, what's funny is I was watching it literally with you guys and I still didn't see, like, Dionysus holding the meander water and looking at the palace and as like a decision between those two things, which like with the knowledge of, you know, everything that had happened, that obviously does make sense. But my first understanding of it was like, he was going to give it to Ari or something? And so my, my like, understanding of the storyline as it could have gone was like crazy different, it sounds like than what you guys, and, and I think rightly, obviously, um, but like. But I think that's what's fun about leaving it open in the end because, and that's what's fun about reception, right?

• 56:52Speaker 04

  That's what's fun about our individual prophecies is we interpret it to mean it what we want to. And we present evidence for why we think that interpretation makes sense. But we can't ever definitively say, yeah, that's what's going to happen, which is kind of cool.

• 57:07Speaker 06

  Hi, so I'd love to talk a bit about the Trojans. Um, I know, well, I was watching the show. I was happy I was watching at home because that was the thing that like, I kept wanting to pause or talk after an episode and wonder where is this going to go? What's going to happen with Ari? And just what the ramifications are of.

• 57:28Speaker 04

  Stynax being alive and all of them living the way that they are now, so. Yeah, and that storyline is even more poignant today than again when it came out a few months ago in terms of their migrant population that have experienced like they're asylum seekers. I that was just where I'm I'm late. I'm throwing it up to someone to keep going.

• 57:53Speaker 05

  No, I think you're right. The like, I think the current context really highlights in a way like it it makes that reading much more salient of like, okay, this is like, um, who was it? Was it Andromache, maybe, or I'm trying to remember who maybe it was Hecuba? Was saying like, you know, like the city that adopted you and she's like, what kind of parent adopts a child and treats them like this? Like, you think we should be grateful for, you know, we're in a segregated society or being treated terribly. And I do think that, I mean, especially after like recent news articles about who should be grateful for what? I'm like, it's it's hard not to read those echoes into like, oh,

• 58:34Speaker 05

  I like, yes, the demanding that someone be grateful for their not as bad as it could have been treatment is it just hits different now than it did two years ago or whatever.

• 58:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:45Speaker 06

  That actually reminds me. So I very much felt okay with it only being one season, but the more you guys are talking about it. I like, especially with the Trojan side of things, Prue had the the Trojan mark and she was so.

• 59:01Speaker 04

  Annoying.

• 59:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, but also like conforming. I mean, she was very much by the book and everything was, you know, you were supposed to follow the rules and do as you were told, and she seemed generally happy to do so, but that doesn't seem at all similar to.

• 59:16Speaker 05

  Also dead.

• 59:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, that that's an interesting question. Did Prue die in the fall of Troy? And how does like a society that's thriving and functioning? How what might that look like versus once your society's collapsed? Now what does that look like? And we see the survivors. We see Hecuba and Andromache and Stynax and.

• 59:41Speaker 04

  There, I mean, the whole catalyst for everything going on is the monument to the gods has been piled full of shit, right? And it's in defiance of the authority, which comes at a great cost of people who have already paid a great cost. And I'm not sure where else I'm going with that. But I think that's really, a really good observation that Prue is probably before in a functioning society. They described Troy as being very, like, a great city and everything like that. We still don't really know what happened to it exactly, other than it fell.

• 1:00:19Speaker 03

  Don't go into that, yeah.

• 1:00:20Speaker 04

  I get like Babel, like Tower of Babel vibes from it, almost.

• 1:00:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I, I really like that they chose to keep Styonax alive. I think I hadn't seen that happen before. And it was kind of like, oh, that's fun, like, but he didn't actually die. But then he just like, kind of dies again. And so it just, it felt like this heartbreak all over again. And I think we see that in Andromache. And I think that was a way to really pull back that, like, horrific part of that story to a more modern setting.

• 1:00:52Speaker 04

  There's an interesting with the Styonax too, because we, even when he dies, we see him again in the underworld.

• 1:00:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:58Speaker 04

  And he has not mummified.

• 1:01:01Speaker 03

  Nothing?

• 1:01:02Speaker 04

  Done the thing, yeah, he had, his soul wasn't actually extracted. It had to be manually extracted. It couldn't go through this system they've set up.

• 1:01:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:10Speaker 04

  And I, I think that's interesting. I think that's a question we have with Canaas too. Why can Canaas go into the nothing and break free of that, that process? Is, and Canaas's interpretation of his own prophecy is like, I live in defiance of the gods because of who I am. So maybe there's something about maybe the defiance of the order.

• 1:01:36Speaker 03

  Fate, yeah.

• 1:01:37Speaker 04

  And fate.

• 1:01:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:39Speaker 04

  Is what allows you to actually get this chance for renewal?

• 1:01:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Speaker 05

  I think, sorry, I have a couple of disconnected thoughts here, but the first is while we're on the topic of, like, it does seem the people who can really, really change things, it seems like not just in terms of sexuality, but also like, but also especially maybe in terms of sexuality. It's, it's a lot of queer people. Who, and like, I wonder if there is a sense of like, yeah, like the, the non-normativeness of like, I'm already not, the system wasn't built for me and I don't have to play by its rules. And that, that has something to do with, because like, that's one of the things we talked about last time. Like, I love the, I don't like the casual queerness of the show that like,

• 1:02:25Speaker 05

  there's not a very special lesson, there's not a burying your gaze, there's not, like, there's not all these tropes about like, it's just like, yeah, I don't like, it's just part of the story in a way that isn't putting a real spotlight on like, and look, we've made this character gay, isn't that a thing? Like, it's just, it's just there in a way that I think is really, that was one of the things I loved about it. And I wonder if there's something to, I don't have to play by your rules because I, the rules were never made for me. I have, I have one other, I'm sorry, I know you're about to say.

• 1:02:54Speaker 04

  Well, to go off that, like, I saw something really similar with the fates. And I think there's a question we have about the fates and the furies, of whether they're part of the system of the meander water to gain this immortality, or if they're even, they're removed from it somehow. So that question's in the back of my mind, but the final episode where Zeus decides he's gonna defy his fate by killing them, and they fully embrace it, and it's like, try it, motherfucker, let's see what happens. And what I liked about that message, especially because they are all very much gender non-conforming, trans, non-binary actors that are in these roles, they...

• 1:03:35Speaker 04

  Come back. So the patriarchal structure as represented by Zeus that tries to destroy these entities, these individuals that exist will always exist, no matter what the patriarchy does against them. And I thought that was like a really cool subtle message at the end that I only picked up on the second watch, so.

• 1:03:55Speaker 05

  Well, until, I mean, until you mentioned like the Steenak stuff, like I hadn't thought about like how queerness functions in that, like, want to shout out, like, what happens when we come together and talk about things with other people? Like, I hadn't noticed that at all, but like, thinking through the way that there is, like, queerness operates in kind of, like, I don't want to say like a superpower, but it kind of is, right? The ability to navigate a world that wasn't made for you is something that can also help you survive that world, right? Like, that you have developed the tools that you have to have to survive. And, yeah, I don't know. The other thing I was thinking with Prue, I had wanted, like, this is, I don't know, man, this was like years ago in some different political crisis. Like, there's just a, it was something I saw on, like, Twitter, and

• 1:04:35Speaker 05

  it just has really stuck with me about that there is no amount of, like, siding with whiteness, siding with patriarchy, saying that will save you. You know, maybe you'll be the last one, you know? If you're constantly, like, selling out, selling out everybody else for the patriarchy, and you're on board, and you're playing by all the rules, like, that will not save you at the end of the day.

• 1:04:58Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:04:58Speaker 05

  You are still expendable. Because, like, and for, you know, for Prue, like, it doesn't matter, like, did that help you? Did that help you not die, that you were playing by all of the rules? Clearly not. You're in the underworld now. So I think that idea of, like, there isn't, there isn't an amount you can comply that is, is going to protect you from oppressive systems. Like, it ultimately will, the system will still get you if you, even if you try and play by all the rules.

• 1:05:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. I think it's interesting, too, because the idea of compliance, and she, there's one mystery, because I was like, you didn't get in trouble for, like, this thing? And I think it's really interesting, because she kept talking about how, like, she kept applying to be a diver, kept applying, like, she follows the rules, and then she finally gets it, and then Ritty sits down at the table, and is like, this table's for divers, like, oh, I am one. She's like, you just got here. And it's, it's like this idea that, oh, it's because of her dedication, her compliance, she finally got this role. But it literally is like a middle finger to her. It's like, no, we just need more divers.

• 1:06:04Speaker 04

  And yeah, so Prue is a very interesting character that.

• 1:06:08Speaker 03

  And also like unresolved, right? Like she was buried without a coin in this universe. And so I'm like wondering what. I'm just thinking way more about Prue now.

• 1:06:17Speaker 05

  I did not, like, I have never until, like, Sammy, until you mentioned it, like, I did not, I don't know, like, Prue's just like a NPC that's just like there for whatever, so that, like, Canaas and like all of these other people can have, have contrasting. She's just a foil to like cool people who have cool stories. And yeah, I've never thought about her. Especially detail before, like, I love this.

• 1:06:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, she definitely feels like a character that could have had like a surprising storyline down the line.

• 1:06:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, especially if like at the end, when Andromache and Aery are like, help me rebuild Troy. I feel like it was really setting up for something to like, go back and talk about the Trojan War and like, talk about what happened to Troy. And like, why are these people refugees? Why are they in Crete? Like, what?

• 1:07:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:03Speaker 03

  What? How did we get there? Why haven't we rebuilt Troy? And maybe that would have given us, I don't know, just more of that background.

• 1:07:11Speaker 05

  I do, now that I'm just chewing on things that you all have have surfaced here, like, I think, and maybe this is again, just the political moment we're in, but the way that the Greeks destroyed Troy, right? Whatever happened, presumably the Greeks destroyed Troy if we're basically in the canonical world that we we associate. And like, to have destroyed a place and then treat the refugees like shit is not an entirely foreign concept. Like, how did you stabilize destabilize an entire region and now we're entirely sympathetic to the people of that region? Like, what must that be like? And so like, I think that, like, I just think it's really interesting to think about, like, you could, I mean, I, you know, we don't, the world building outside of Crete and Olympias is, we don't know what that looks like, right?

• 1:07:56Speaker 05

  I think it's, it's interesting, like, you could have, like, why hasn't Troy been rebuilt? You wouldn't have to have this system of refugees and. You know, the segregated kind of system, if not for that you destroyed their home. And now you're mad they're here when you took away their home.

• 1:08:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:08:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's one of those, I think I quoted this in my paper on Gladiator. But one of the scholars I quoted just pointed out how like our films are in political conversation. And sometimes they make these astute observations that because they're responsive to the moment that might anticipate because you're always trying to like, you're trying to create a what if, right? Whether in the past or in the future and an alternate world. But sometimes those what ifs become prophetic.

• 1:08:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:45Speaker 04

  And I feel like the show kind of did that. I think a lot of our media does that in hindsight, right? Like when you're epimetheus and you're like, huh.

• 1:08:54Speaker 05

  Interesting. Maybe, did I make a mistake?

• 1:08:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:58Speaker 05

  Couldn't be me.

• 1:09:00Speaker 05

  But no, I think the, I mean, this is one of the things when we talk about like, is Derrida a feminist? And like, no, probably, I don't know. I mean, I don't know the guy, but like, the fact that you can see a feminist message in Shakespeare, in Euripides, in whoever, like, doesn't mean that the author was a feminist. It means that the author, more often than not, is an astute reader of human, the human experience, right? And you are putting elements of the human experience into a story that like, I will see something different than like, I'm sure what I get out of, I don't know, Taming of the Shrew isn't what Shakespeare intended, but I don't particularly care about that. But like, when they have things to offer to people, I think it is like a testament to being a really astute

• 1:09:46Speaker 05

  reader and understander of the human condition such that you are writing well-developed characters. You are giving, like, there is, there is room for really interesting character development because you wrote a character, even if you don't have a lot of sympathy or understanding of what it's like to be, I don't know, like, Cersei, right? Like, there is room for a rich character there, even though, quote unquote, Homer doesn't like explore that, right? And I think, I think in a similar way, like, I think people who tell a really good story, they're There is this room for other readings and other interpretations and other lenses on it because if you can understand how humans work, even if you can describe and you can replicate, even if you don't understand, and I think that's what gives some of these things staying

• 1:10:30Speaker 05

  power, that they were created by people who like got humans on some level.

• 1:10:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:10:36Speaker 06

  This is more of a question, I guess, kind of more directly, something that you said earlier, Amy, and I mean, we've all kind of discussed it.

• 1:10:45Speaker 05

  It's my question, back off.

• 1:10:48Speaker 06

  You commented that you really like it when reception pieces and film and things like that take risks and don't follow the original storyline to a T. But one of the things that was talked about earlier was about trying to make sure that people are understanding like the original meaning and the original truth behind things. And it is always just kind of an interesting juxtaposition, even just as students too. When you have a student taking an exam or trying to learn about something from antiquity, the balance between the adaptation and appreciating that as an art while also still staying informed about what the original version was. And I just was curious about how that's something that really any of you kind of handle as you go about embracing the reception and the modified pieces while also still trying to

• 1:11:32Speaker 06

  keep an anchor on what the original source was to appreciate the changes.

• 1:11:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, can I take a first crack at this? I have so many thoughts on this topic. So I will say, so I've done, well, actually, especially there's people in the room who do like receptions and modern media and antiquity and media studies and things. I've done a fair amount of work with like fanfiction as a framing device for thinking about all kinds of literature, but the way that, you know, we are, we write ourselves into the story and we read ourselves into the story at all times. Good Lord, Christy. It's a screw top.

• 1:12:11Speaker 05

  Help yourself.

• 1:12:11Liv Albert?

  We also have plenty.

• 1:12:13Speaker 05

  We got little cups here. I did, I have never once discussed media with them while not having a drink, so I wasn't about to start today.

• 1:12:24Speaker 05

  But no, I think there, and there's, God, now I'm gonna screw this up. Old Futures, I think, is the book. Alex Lothian, I go, God, I could be wildly misquoting that, or misciting this, but anyway, they talk a lot about like fanish affect and the way that like, when I encounter media in a fanish way, like the orientation of a fan. And that is, that is anepistemology. I don't, I don't always know if I'm using like special philosophy words in the way that special philosophy people want me to, but it's a way of approaching a text, right? It's a way of reading a text. I'm a fan of this. I like it. And my liking of it is going to inform my reading because I want to give it the benefit of the doubt.

• 1:13:04Speaker 05

  There are texts I don't give the benefit of the doubt because I don't like them. And I've decided at some point in the past, I don't like them and I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt, right? And I think that's how we all operate with media. Like, I, I don't like the person who made that, like, I don't know. There's things he's done that are fine, but like, I don't particularly like Zack Snyder, so I'm not gonna give him a more generous reading than what I have to when I, when I encounter a text, whereas there are, there are creators that I adore their work. And even when something seems like, mm, I don't, I don't immediately like that. How can I, how can I salvage that, right? And, but I think any kind of fanish affect is really different from how I read as a scholar, which is very different from, I'm a literary scholar and I have a good friend.

• 1:13:48Speaker 05

  Shout him out. He's been giving me a lot of attitude lately, so I've been telling him, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna cite him when I talk about things that he's done that are good, but. So Zachary Hertz, who works on assorted different things, and he's a historian, and he does not love reception the way I do. And he is not really a fan of like myth retellings, just doesn't, it's not his thing. And some of it is, like, as a historian, he.

• 1:14:12Speaker 05

  Thinks differently about where his allegiances lie. He owes something to the people. He owes something to the historical events in question. And he recently wrote an article about Elagabalus and about like if we want to read Elagabalus as a trans icon, we are taking at face value people who hated him, right? And that that isn't like doing justice to this person. I read literature most like I read literature from a literary perspective and I'm not thinking about what I owe to the people. Like, I don't care what I owe to Euripides, nothing. I owe him nothing. And I'm much more thinking about the meaning that we make when we encounter these texts. And they're different. There are different orientations to the the content, right?

• 1:14:55Speaker 05

  And so anyway, this is a really meandering way of saying, I think it's useful to distinguish what those differences are, right? Like, I one that comes up a lot, and I don't know exactly where I come down on some of these, but I'm sure someone will have thoughts. Hades and Persephone retellings, right? Do you tell it as a romance? Do you tell it as a story of trauma? Do you tell it as what what is that story? And you can read the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, and it's not a romance, right? And it is nonetheless an extremely popular retelling for romance novels these days. And I think there are a lot of texts where I'm like, anybody, no one owns this, like whatever, the Odyssey, anyone can do whatever they want with it.

• 1:15:38Speaker 05

  It belongs to all of us and none of us, and do what you want with it. And I had to kind of think a little bit about why I balk at that when it comes to telling Hades and Persephone as a romance. Why do I think that's a problem when I don't think it's a problem to fundamentally retell something else? And like, part of what I think it is, is, and then I'll go, yeah, sorry. I just, I think, I think part of what it is, is that it is a question of what does the retelling do? You're not married to the original story, but.

• 1:16:10Speaker 05

  It's good to know what the original was. In vague terms, what is the story that we are kind of looking back to in a general sense? What is the vibe of Hades and Persephone that is in the air now for people who don't like, don't want to go read the Homeric Amptidometer and get the story from our oldest attested source? But then, when we tell a story of kidnapping and sexual violence and we tell it as actually it's a romance, you just don't know it, that is a harmful narrative, right? The like, oh, well, it looks like Rick, but it's not. That is a harmful narrative as opposed to, oh, it looked like this person was cool, but it turns out he's a liar, is not as harmful. You know, like, I don't know, different retellings of Odysseus. Like, we're not doing a lot of harm when we imagine he's more deceptive or less deceptive

• 1:16:55Speaker 05

  or more earnest or less earnest. There isn't an active replicating of harmful rhetoric. And so I think, sorry, this has gotten really off track, but I think the idea of like, it's worth seeing the ancient, like, seeing the original, seeing the retelling and recognizing that those can do different things. Because I think like responsible, thoughtful, critical media consumption is incredibly important. Yeah. And I think reception is one of the best ways to like, practice and learn that.

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• 1:19:17Speaker 05

  No one's kicking us out. We're fine.

• 1:19:19Speaker 04

  Well, I actually just wanted to bring it back to chaos for a moment because also. Thank you.

• 1:19:25Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, the thing this was about.

• 1:19:28Speaker 04

  I have two quick things. First of all, I'm very salty that Demeter was not at all in chaos. Yeah. And Aphrodite was supposed to call Zeus daddy. Yeah, messed up. Also, the second thing, thinking about, I guess, especially films geared towards children, but just reception, and how it sort of, what you said about how it informs like differences from how we are to how the original text was perhaps received. I guess, what can we pull from from chaos? Like, what's our favorite sort of takeaways for things that seem necessary for the moment now? Yeah.

• 1:20:11Speaker 05

  Ah, such a good question.

• 1:20:12Speaker 04

  That's like the final, perfect final question.

• 1:20:14Speaker 05

  Look at you, just, I mean, sticking the landing, right? I'm up on some bullshit about like cyborgs and stuff. Thank you for bringing us that.

• 1:20:23Speaker 04

  My biggest takeaway from chaos, and I think why I'm sad to not see the story continue, is because it was a story about challenging actually challenging.

• 1:20:35Speaker 04

  These patriarchal structures that have been around forever, giving us something like it was violent. It was horrifying. I came away from it hopeful. I watched Gladiator. And there are people who can watch it and be entertained. And it's like, I don't get stuck on the historical inaccuracies. I get stuck on the fact that the final speech about the dream of Rome that Lucius presents is not to the people of Rome. It is to the military and the Praetorian Guard.

• 1:21:07Speaker 05

  So you're saying you are not entertained?

• 1:21:09Speaker 04

  I am not entertained. I'm horrified because I also don't think it's wrong. It is prophetic. And I hate it. I hate that I feel written out of the story.

• 1:21:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:21Speaker 04

  And

• 1:21:22Speaker 05

  Like, I think, have you seen Gladiator two?

• 1:21:24Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, you have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But like, I think that the idea of what happens to the dream of Rome between the first one, which is like ambiguous and opti- like you can read your own political dreams into like the dream of Rome because it's never defined. Right? And like I, I hadn't noticed the part about how like it's, it's to the Praetorian. Like I love, I love that observation because I didn't, I just never clocked that. But then Gladiator two is so poorly, it poorly defined. Like it's trying so hard to say something.

• 1:22:01Speaker 05

  And it, it just, it, it doesn't say, and like it's trying so hard to make a political state. Like we're not leaving it ambiguous because the times call for like, I don't want to be misunderstood. Here's the [bleep] point. And, but it's, it's not good, right? It, it strikes me as like, I, I went to Berkeley for undergrad and like I, I encountered many, many people who potentially under the influence of, of some sort of substance would like have these ideas that they would say like was the deepest thing you've ever under, like I ever encountered. And like, it's just not that deep. And like, that's what Gladiator two was for me. If someone be like, dude, dude, can you imagine?

• 1:22:42Speaker 05

  And like the premise, sure, great. I love the premise. You absolutely fumbled everything about the execution. And like, I feel like that is the sort of like the dream of Rome just gets absolutely screwed up in the sequel.

• 1:22:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. And that's why I think chaos, which, which feels like an unfinished message. And it still ends on like a horrifying note almost, but again, because what the people manage, what the characters manage to achieve in that season gives me hope. It gives me this message of we don't, we can fight these structures as individuals in our own ways. We can find ways.

• 1:23:19Speaker 03

  Even being ourselves, right?

• 1:23:21Speaker 04

  Just being ourselves.

• 1:23:21Speaker 03

  Not even changing anything about us, just maintaining who we are. And like, that's maybe the most important part of it, right?

• 1:23:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think that I, I really like, I always come back to the Orpheus and Eurydice of it all, because I think there's so many variations of that story. Some of them that I really love, like we've talked about Hadestown,

• 1:23:43Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:44Speaker 03

  which I think is a beautiful musical.

• 1:23:46Speaker 04

  It's one of our favorite pieces of Potme.

• 1:23:48Speaker 03

  It's spectacular and it's like, it says so many things and it does its own, you know, variation of so many relationships between people and gods. But like, even in that story, they don't, Orpheus and Eurydice love each other. They, it's like this, I don't know, like perfect storm that it's still, we're like maintaining the, the lines of Orpheus and Eurydice love each other. And it's this horrible thing that happens to them. And what does he say? Like, it's an old story.

• 1:24:20Speaker 04

  It's an old story.

• 1:24:21Speaker 03

  And I love, again, that Chaos, not, that's not the story. They don't tell it that way.

• 1:24:27Speaker 04

  It's not an old story.

• 1:24:28Speaker 03

  It's not an old story. It's a new story. And so as much as I love Hadestown, I also really love Chaos. And I love the way that it treats the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. And I wish that it had been out when I was teaching mythology, because I, I showed my students part of Hadestown and we, you know, read a couple of different translations of variations of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. And it's

• 1:24:54Speaker 03

  It's one that I feel like a lot of students can latch on to because of this like unrequited love and that's something that everybody goes through even if you're like a little teenager in high school and being like my crush doesn't like me back and like, but you feel that, right? Like you feel that sort of rejection, that loss, that like hopelessness, but that's why it's an old story, right? That's why we all feel that way. And I truly love that Chaos was like, [BLEEP] it, we're doing it completely different.

• 1:25:23Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:25:24Speaker 03

  Going off book, taking risks, taking real risks in this story. And I absolutely adore that they don't end up together and they part on like beautiful terms. And I think it's one of my very favorite scenes in the show is when they climb out of the dumpster.

• 1:25:44Speaker 03

  And Eurydice comes first. She is the first one who climbs out. She's the first one walking through that tunnel and Orpheus is behind her and she's the one who says like,

• 1:25:54Speaker 04

  Look at me.

• 1:25:54Speaker 03

  Look at me. And, and he's like, I don't want to because

• 1:25:59Speaker 04

  It'll end.

• 1:25:59Speaker 03

  It'll end. And so it's, it's using that same context, that same use of the story that we know in a really beautiful, wonderful new way. And so I think that's one of my favorite pieces that to talk about.

• 1:26:14Speaker 05

  Like when you were recounting that scene, like Lucet got like shiver, like I was like,

• 1:26:18Speaker 04

  It's so good.

• 1:26:19Speaker 03

  When we watched it again, I was like tearing up. It's really good.

• 1:26:23Speaker 05

  What we think of as a love story, right? Like just really fast. Cause like, so the thing that first drew me to classics as a discipline, which is just like such a weird thing for this to be why I'm a classicist, but I was in a Greek mythology class and we were reading Medea and I was coming off of a rough breakup with a guy who was a real douchebag and there was a guy in the back of the class. Like I remember I was up in the front because I was that kind of student who was like right in the front. And like he says something to the effect of like, you know, like sometimes women are just crazy and oh boy, did I not handle that well. And I mean, like a whip around and but like I'd never had that kind of passion for like my, I was an electrical engineer or sorry,

• 1:27:05Speaker 05

  chemical engineer at the time. And I'd never once been that invested in any conversation I'd ever had in my engineering classes. And like that was a big moment for me of like, I don't know if I can like do this for real Z's as a career, but like I I feel like it says something that I I care this much about this content because I don't care this much about my chemistry classes or my physics classes or whatever. But like what we see is a lot like that is such a a mature loves like it's like sometimes it it doesn't work. It's not like not everything is a fairy tale and like that that's a story worth telling too about the like the you.

• 1:27:44Speaker 05

  You can be friends with your ex because you're adults and sometimes people grow apart and that happens like and I don't think I don't think me at eighteen would have liked that story. Sure. But like me at God, what am I thirty eight, thirty nine, something like that, like me at this age, like. And I like I love the moments when you see someone teach a text and you just see them in the text. Like I had a professor in grad school who he taught, we were taught just a snippet of the Aeneid. We were reading the part with like those games and stuff. It was a sports class. And so he's giving people the background of it and he's he talks about how like his framing of Dido and Aeneas was something like it's not how anyone had ever framed it like.

• 1:28:25Speaker 05

  He's there and he's with Dido and he's so happy and like he just he has someone that he can come home with for from a long day and have a glass of wine with and just be himself. And he has to give that up and like it like is such a not a close reading might not like, you know, support, but like. It's that moment where you see where someone sees themselves in a text and like I can remember these snapshots of like where I saw. I had another professor who was talking about like Achilles' experience in the Iliad of you've been told that this is the way that things work. And then you realize that it's not and the things that people told you as like values and things that are real and things that are true are not like, what do you do?

• 1:29:07Speaker 05

  Like, of course you throw a fit. Of course you go sulk. Like, your entire worldview is is falling apart. And like, so anyway, I think like the when we talk about what constitutes a love story, these kind of like, I don't know, at times like melancholy and modern love stories are really. Interesting. Anyway, the thing that I like the most about, this is the worst way of possibly answering the question.

• 1:29:32Speaker 05

  I like how it, I always read like, as gods are to heroes, kings are to normal people. That's the kind of metaphor that we think about mythologically, what are our heroes doing? And like, that's such a hierarchical structure, and it's such, at a time where the division between your normal people and your heroes, or your mortals and your gods, like, if we think about like, wealth inequality or power structures, like, is bigger than it's ever been. I love a story that says that it doesn't have to be that way. Because Greek literature never tells us it doesn't have to be that way. The gods are what they are, and they will be that forever, and you better get your shit together, or you're gonna be smited, right? And like, a story that gives us, you're talking about the hope, right?

• 1:30:17Speaker 05

  Like, a story that gives us that hope that like, actually, maybe the mortals can make choices that that change the outcome for the gods. That's, I don't know, that's a story we need right now, I think.

• 1:30:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a story that we need, and that's why I'm upset that we don't get it.

• 1:30:35Speaker 03

  Well, we have this.

• 1:30:36Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:30:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:30:37Speaker 04

  We do have this. And with that, I think we have to wrap it up.

• 1:30:42Speaker 04

  So, quick wrap up. Special thanks to our live audience today. Thank you for your questions and comments. Special thanks to Amy for stepping in and being our first, like, host, guest host, in a while, since me, practically.

• 1:30:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, probably, yeah.

• 1:30:58Speaker 04

  And to Sammy Cronin for helping with the setup and being our Vanna White in this situation. We hope to do this again in the future. Finally, special thanks to our listeners. None of this would be possible without you. Please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe if you like what you hear. And if you want to learn more about our plans for the future, follow us on social media, under the handle @movieswe dig. Or check out our website at movieswe dig.com. Thank you, and ciao. Bye.

• 1:31:33Speaker 04

  Thank you, guys, so much.

• 1:31:35Speaker 03

  Thank you, guys.

• 1:31:37Speaker 05

  It was such a fun conversation.

• 1:31:38Speaker 04

  It was.

• 1:31:47Speaker 06

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