SPOILER SPECIAL: Truly ADHD-fueled Ramblings on Nolan's Odyssey and Wilson's Review of It

This is a bonus episode for a reason! Liv rants and rambled and goes on various ADHD tangents about Christopher Nolan's Odyssey and (thank the GODS!) Emily Wilson's recent review of the movie in the LRB https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n14/emily-wilson/an-uncomplicated-man. AVAILABLE NOW! The Odyssey: a Modern Retelling. https://geni.us/TheOdysseyBook 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. Enter ourpodcast guest https://www.mythsbaby.com/contact form if you'd like to be on the show as a conversation guest! CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. I try to provide direct warnings when there is reference to anything with overtly traumatic themes but be aware that Greek mythology regularly features assault, death, and many other potentially triggering events. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. 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/grouptrip.

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• 2:11Liv Albert?

  Hi, hello there, welcome. This is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your host, Liv, here, as promised, with another episode where I just kind of talk about Christopher Nolan's episode. Just like the last one, this is a bit of a bonus, a sort of listen or don't. It will be full of spoilers for what he did in the movie. I mean, it's not a spoiler for The Odyssey, it's The Odyssey, but his choices in the movie, so beware. I will say that I feel, I wanted to record, or I intended to record this immediately

• 2:52Liv Albert?

  after recording the Q and A episode, and actually took a moment, and thankfully I did, because I'd kind of forgotten. It had been sent to me yesterday, and I hadn't got the chance to read it fully yet. And actually, I'm still kind of in the middle now, and I paused my reading so that I could start this recording, because I'm speaking in circles, but I'm currently in the middle of reading Emily Wilson's review of Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, which is in the London Review of Books, and

• 3:29Liv Albert?

  the relief I feel at reading her thoughts is so immense. And it really has kind of soothed a part of me that I really needed to be soothed, and which I kind of hinted at, I think. I don't know quite what got in to the Q and A episode about The Odyssey that I've made some choices later, but I have been feeling very, like, dysregulated, for lack of a better word, by Christopher Nolan's Odyssey. Because, primarily because

• 4:11Liv Albert?

  what little discourse I'm seeing about it, and I've had to kind of limit how much I see because it has frustrated me so much, and I just, I'm trying to not engage on social media, but the part of me that, like, gets incredibly frustrated when, when things are being misrepresented or misunderstood, like, just, oh, man, I've been really struggling because The Odyssey is this thing that I, I mean, I, yes, like, I am the author of

• 4:52Liv Albert?

  my retelling of it, and, you know, I spent the last year and a half, like, in deep, and yes, I love it generally, and yes, you know, I know what I'm talking about, and The Odyssey is very much within my specialty, but more than any other story from Greek myth, like, The Odyssey is sort of my real, like, the singular text that I feel most connected to. There, it's a different thing to be said for myths and the actual characters or something, but in terms of a text, like, oh, I just, and the story, you know, like, you've all

• 5:33Liv Albert?

  probably heard years ago, the Odyssey series that I did, and, like, I loved that man, and I mean, I still do, he's my problematic fave. Did my sort of opinions on him overall, like, evolve? Absolutely. He's super problematic, and I love him. I love Odysseus. And like I said, I knew that I wouldn't like this movie. I knew I wouldn't like this movie, and I, I went into it knowing that, in a way that I thought, I think was healthy, because I knew it wasn't going to be for me. But I still, I still think I had it in my

• 6:13Liv Albert?

  head that, I don't know, I think that I was prepared for it to be wrong, but I wasn't prepared for the certain ways in which it was wrong, and which really sort of clamped around my heart, and which I will still talk about. And I'm looking at, again, planning some conversation episodes with other people in this realm, so that I, we can talk about it in, you know, a better format than me just singularly talking into a microphone. But I also know that, that people have wanted more of my thoughts, and I've also wanted to vocalize things a little bit more. You know, I recorded the last spoilery episode

• 6:58Liv Albert?

  about the movie, right after seeing it, and in the couple of weeks, week and a half, god, not that much time has passed. It's weird, because I saw it early, too, so I had to sit with it for, like, days, and that was something. But, you know, in that time, obviously, it's gone on to be, like, just enormous, enormous, and, and so, a lot more discourse has happened since I last talked about that. And one of the things that has been really hard to watch is people who I broadly considered to be, or I understood

• 7:41Liv Albert?

  to be, like, pretty staunch feminists, and also just, like, pretty anti-imperialist, I guess. Like, I just think I, I miss, I misread some people, maybe, but I've just been really disappointed by a lot of the things I've seen men saying about this movie, men that generally, you know, men that I know personally in the field, and, and who I, there's a lot of men I wouldn't be surprised, right? But there's a lot whose opinions I

• 8:18Liv Albert?

  respect, who, who have failed to flag, like, any issues with, not just the women, in terms of Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, but, but, but other, you know, issues, too. One thing I didn't get the chance to talk about, I'm gonna try not to go too deep in circles, but this is, this is an ADHD brain in a solo microphone setting, so we'll see. But one of the things I didn't get to talk about before, and which I would like to do more research on generally, maybe I can get a conversation out of it somehow, but I will just flag it here without enough research having been done, is that also, you know,

• 8:59Liv Albert?

  on top of a lot of issues when it comes to, I mean, I think it's a huge problem that they didn't hire any Greek people. I think the attempt at diversity was a bit of a show, primarily because he didn't, Emily Wilson says it incredibly well, but he doesn't give, he doesn't, he really diversified the cast, and then all of those diverse cast members were given, like, a really, like, I mean, they were just sidekicks at best, kind of thing. And again, I will read some of what Emily Wilson said, but I'm speaking

• 9:41Liv Albert?

  in circles again. The thing I wanted to, to point out for now is that the film was also shot, it was filmed, on occupied territory in the Western Sahara, territory which is illegally occupied by Morocco? Oh, good, I hope I got that right. But, which is illegally occupied, a huge portion of the Western Sahara, and where the indigenous peoples have been pushed out and are primarily forced to live in refugee camps, not on their land. And

• 10:20Liv Albert?

  And they just filmed it there. And to me, like, the, you know, again, I knew it was going to be Western propaganda, like, from moment one, from the second they said it had Matt Damon in it, I was like, "Okay, cool. It's gonna be pro-America." Um, but I think that I, I didn't, I mean, I'm still, I guess, shocked at the audacity of filming on occupied land. And also telling a story that, that features lands which are being bombed by the Israeli government, speaking of occupiers. Like, I'm not even talking about Palestine, but,

• 11:02Liv Albert?

  because it's not technically in the Odyssey, but Lebanon is. Like, cities in Lebanon which Israel is actively bombing are mentioned in the Odyssey very outright. Like explicitly cities that they're bombing. It's horrifying. And you know, while that is happening, they're gonna go to another occupied land, a colonial experiment of some fuckery, and, and film this movie that, you know, uses

• 11:35Liv Albert?

  primarily American, I mean, there's obviously a lot of, there was a great diversity, but it's heavily American cast within that, and English, British. So using these colonizing groups to tell a story, I mean, of colonization, but also one where, I mean, the, the moral high ground that Nolan was trying to take in this movie is really absurd. Like, it really was trying to be like, oh, it was just trying to be a commentary on civilization in a way that just turned it into like, Western propaganda. I mean, uh, again, I, I will, oh, God, this is, this is unhinged. Again, this is a listener don't episode.

• 12:19Liv Albert?

  You don't get to complain, because it's extra.

• 12:23Liv Albert?

  But there's just, there's so, there's so much going on. And again, to get back to the men whose opinions I had, I guess, hoped would be better, I, you know, I am under no

• 12:41Liv Albert?

  uh, misconception that, that, you know, I'm not on a particularly radical, like, spectrum on the left. I recognize that. But usually, the people I surround myself with, um, are, are left enough, right? That they are typically capable of recognizing

• 13:04Liv Albert?

  Western civilization propaganda and, and overall acknowledging the, the dangers and the real threat of, of like, the Western supremacist ideals that come with classics. Like, I don't tend to be associated with people who don't feel that way. And so just to have, to be reading, and I don't, I'm not naming anybody, not least because like, I've not looked deeper into what they've said. I've seen a lot of surface level things that, that men have said because I

• 13:39Liv Albert?

  don't wanna respect them less, honestly. But I mean, maybe they were better within, but you know, I'm, I'm talking about, I've seen, I've seen posts here or there, just like,

• 13:49Liv Albert?

  that, that imply that like, it was just a great adventure movie. And like, sure, was it accurate to Homer? Like, no, but that's okay. It's just a great adventure movie, too. And like, I just don't think that, I don't think that it is okay to not be mentioning some of the wider, the bigger cultural issues that are at play here. I mean, at the base level, they didn't hire any Greek people. It's wild. And then they do have a scene where Odysseus and his men are speaking with the Cacones, these people who are mythologically Thracian. Um, and they're talking to them about being Greek.

• 14:35Liv Albert?

  Like, they, like, Odysseus and his men, I am 95% sure use, use a phrase around the idea of that they are Greek. And they're talking to somebody who doesn't speak English, and they did not put subtitles on the screen. And the person who was not speaking English and whose language was not subtitled was speaking Greek. To people who were saying that they were Greeks.

• 15:04Liv Albert?

  And that is so insulting. Like, they made a character, they implied a character was a barbarian by having them speak a different language from all of the other characters and not subtitling it. And in the Homeric world, that makes them a barbarian. We all know this, right? I mean, and also the Cacones are explicitly meant to be non-Greeks in the story. It's why Odysseus does that. I mean, he would do it to Greeks, too, but it's why. And so they have these non-Greeks speaking Greek. And when I first, when I first saw it, I, I mean, there was, there was so much going on. I was trying to take it in without being too, you know,

• 15:46Liv Albert?

  ugh. Um, but I heard it. And they, and I, I think I hinted at this on the first episode, but it's been confirmed to me, it is, it is Greek that they're speaking. Because they said "denksero," which means, "I don't know." And I thought, you know, my ear for Greek is pretty good, but like, I don't know Greek. I'm not gonna pretend that I do. So maybe I'm wrong. But no, no, they had barbarians speak Greek. And it's crazy.

• 16:13Liv Albert?

  Anyway, it's just, those are wider issues. And I've not, again, this is not in relation to Emily Wilson's review, which I've read most of by the time of, of recording this, and which I really respect so much. Um, and I'm gonna read more and, and, and comment on it. But just generally, I'm disappointed in seeing a lot of male classicists try to say that just, that it's, you know, it's not accurate, but that's okay. And it's still, it's good for everything else. Like, I think we need to be flagging this. And I also think there's, there's, there's developed this, this like, pushback that

• 16:53Liv Albert?

  if you're criticizing the Odyssey, you get, like Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, you are, you get lumped in with the people who are mad about the diversity. Like, the racists don't like it because it's diverse. And so because they, the, there was a huge, you know, racist backlash and all of this bullshit, like, because of that, criticizing it for entirely different reasons, like, we're getting lumped in the same thing, as if like, oh, just like, shut up and watch it. It's fine. It's not, you know, like, you're, you're just as bad as them. And I think that's not, not just like absurd, but dangerous.

• 17:37Liv Albert?

  And so, again, just to, to circle back to how few men I have seen openly talking about the mistreatment of the women. And granted, I don't think a lot of women are also focusing on it as much as I am. And I, I get that, too. Like, a lot of people are still pretty programmed to, to not be so angry in their feminism because of this idea that, that

• 18:05Liv Albert?

  just this idea that like, I mean, I don't know, we can't be loud, or that there's some level of equalities. I don't even know. But like, I think it's crazy what he did to the women. And yeah, Christopher Nolan's bad at writing women. Yeah, he was never gonna write good ones. Like, all of that is fine.

• 18:24Liv Albert?

  But, okay. And again, I can go in circles. I'm gonna go through and actually look a little closer at,

• 18:32Liv Albert?

  at, at certain characters and, and also go and, and talk a little bit more about Emily Wilson's review. So I'm gonna try to make this into something slightly more organized.

• 18:45Liv Albert?

  I'm gonna just honestly jump right into, to sort of some comments on Emily Wilson's review, because as I read a little further, and I so highly, highly, highly unbelievably recommend you all read this. It's long and detailed. And, oh, she's just, I'm so, I'm so glad. I'm so glad that she's written this. I'm so glad that she feels this way. And so, anyway, I'm just honestly gonna kind of jump right in. I'm, I'm in the middle slash towards the end, but I just have to share just a few of, of her comments, because she does, she does really harp on, on the American-ness in a way that I am so,

• 19:27Liv Albert?

  so grateful to see. And, and also in a way that is really important alongside using these, these Greek concepts. Because what I think the film does so much, and, and which was so frustrating to me, is like, both represent itself as being aware of the Greek customs that it's working with, and also, like, completely ignoring them. Um, and so like what, you know, one of the things that they say over and over again, it's really obnoxious is they, they are harping on about Zeus's law, which of course is, is

• 20:08Liv Albert?

  meant to be Xenia, but it doesn't, they don't ever like explain really what it is. Um, and, and so as we all know, right? Xenia is the, the cultural kind of understanding, very important, specifically mythologically, but also culturally. Um, but obviously the importance gets conveyed via these myths. Um, but just this idea of hosts helping strangers, uh, this, this guest host relationship, right? And so just to quote Wilson's review here, she says, "In the film Xenia is filtered through contemporary American ideas about the importance of philanthropic charity. Wealthy people should be gracious towards the poor and hungry in their midst without necessarily doing anything to mitigate their

• 20:53Liv Albert?

  poverty. Many of the film's implicit values directly contradict those of Homer's poem. Deception, war mongering, extramarital sex, cruelty to animals, abusing women and yearning for honor, all perfectly fine in the world of Homer are, in this version, very bad. This is not in itself a problem, but it is a problem if the film's own values and vision don't hang together and if the characters motivations don't make sense on their own terms," which is of course the issue. No long, I'm out of the quote, obviously. Um, there were so many lines. That's why I've sort of like in between trying to figure out how to record this while also just be like reading it because she really makes

• 21:33Liv Albert?

  this point in ways that I'm so glad it exists because when I talk about it, I know my emotions often get the better of me and I don't think that's bad, but I also think that we need, we need people who can speak about it i- in this more sort of measured way. And, and as much, you know, I think it's so frustrating because so much of the, the, the to, so much of the, the discourse around it is that, you know, if you are criticizing the movie, you must be just complaining about anachronisms or, you know, changes to the story or all of these things, these really surface level things. And it's like there, there is a really,

• 22:15Liv Albert?

  really big difference between complaining for the sake of complaining and pointing out issues which structurally harm the wider culture, you know, like I just, it's, it's, I mean, the same i- issue I have with what, how like pointing out these important issues is then lumped in with the same people who are complaining about the racism as if those things are in any way equivalent, like, ah, anyway, but, uh, one of the things I have to say, this, this review, uh, of Wilson's is also not just, you know, I, do I feel

• 22:57Liv Albert?

  like she really put into really strong and intelligent language, so many of the like screaming feelings that I've been having, but also she's just, I, I think, um, she's being a classicist about it in a way that I think is really productive and also generally entertaining. Um, you know, she, she points out that, that people complaining about the issues with the language and stuff, those are really not, those are not big issues. Is it weird? Sure. That, you know, Telemachus is saying, dad, personally, I, I didn't find it as jarring in the movie as I thought it might be from the, the previews. The only,

• 23:36Liv Albert?

  the thing I found most, most confusing was the fact that, that they had British people doing the like sort of Americanized accent. Like I just think if you're not, like just do, anyone gets their, you know, natural accent because i- it's weirder, it's weirder for me to hear like Tom Holland, who I know is British, like speaking in an American accent than it is to hear him just, them all just speaking the English that they naturally speak because English is an anachronism. So like, it doesn't matter. Um, but I understand people also want like one, I guess, generalized accent. I don't know. It, but I'm glad that she, you know, is talking about it because these are issues, like those are not the

• 24:20Liv Albert?

  issues we need to be worried about. We should be worried about the issues which like structurally, like are cultural issues, like broader issues that can affect, like I want to say the public, but I, I think I need to explain, but you know, it's just the wider impact, like the world is the most dangerous it's ever been for marginalized peoples. And so I, there are issues that are important to raise and there are issues which are not important to raise. And I think it's important to differentiate, like, don't, it's, it's pointless and useless to complain about anachronisms like the language, but it's not useless to

• 25:00Liv Albert?

  complain about, you know, filming in an occupied territory or like, uh, turning wi- women into abused characters for no reason. Like, real women are abused and now more than ever. And so doing that is actually a problem. It's not just like, oh, he changed something from the story. And I don't think everyone sees it like that. And I understand like Helen is a really complex character and there are versions of her where she could be like that, but the Odyssey is not one of them. And I, I, anyway, I, I'm stuck on, on Helen. I'm, I think I'll never let go of Helen, but reading this review is cathartic, to

• 25:42Liv Albert?

  use, um, an ancient Greek term. Uh, and, and I say that wanting to read a very specific additional line. This is a little earlier than the last one, but a quote, "As they say at the award shows, I was humbled to learn that Nolan has read at least the first line of my translation of the Odyssey into iambic pentameter. Into it, in at least one interview, he cited my version of the first line of the poem, 'Tell me about a complicated man,' but I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script." And I love that for her. That made me laugh out loud. It was so delightful. And then she goes on to like shit on Matt Damon very specifically. Matt Damon's Odysseus isn't

• 26:24Liv Albert?

  complicated or wily or artful, she says, and she is right. And also, um, you know, she, she also points out rightly, and one thing I've been sort of complaining about in texts to random people is the lack of, she doesn't use this word, but I want to, whimsy. Greek myth is whimsical. And I think particularly modern men have this desire to turn it into this, you know, dark and gritty. Um, like, I mean, it's very Christopher Nolan, every, like, that he's a very predictable director. My God, I didn't even realize until I've been reading more and more of the reviews. The man has minimal creativity, even when he's given like a pretty perfect piece of source material. But I think that there's

• 27:08Liv Albert?

  this, this desire to make it like dark and gritty at the cost of the whimsy. And I just don't understand it. I mean, I, I see where it's coming from, but I just think it's so silly. One of the things that, that Wilson's review points out, and I know a lot of people have, which is great, is that he does, uh, Christopher Nolan doesn't even have, um, Polyphemus, the Cyclops speak at all. Like there's literally no dialogue in the entire scene, which does so many different things to the story, right? If you have Odysseus have the entire episode with the Cyclops with no dialogue, you remove the intellect of Odysseus, his whole cleverness,

• 27:51Liv Albert?

  right? Like that entire scene is about Odysseus proving that he's clever. It's, it's like, it's one of the most formative scenes when it comes to understanding his character. So, and I think it, I really think it conveys a lack of like depth in Christopher Nolan's thought process entirely because you lose Odysseus's intelligence, you lose the trick, right? Because he can't say, I, my name is no man. The Cyclops can't call out to his friends saying, no man or nobody has blinded me. We lose all of that. And we also lose

• 28:30Liv Albert?

  the empathy involved with the, the Cyclops. I mean, Nolan makes him very monstrous. Um, he's it, uh, throughout and, and just generally, generally meant to be very inhuman. And it's interesting. I actually read some comment of a, a man who suggested that Nolan had made the Cyclops more empathetic, which I think is wild and wacky because I think, I mean, Polyphemus is so inherently empathetic or, or like sympathetic in, in the Odyssey. And that gets really conveyed in the scene, you know, Odysseus is revealed to be this

• 29:10Liv Albert?

  intelligent trickster in the scene. And he's also revealed to be someone who's not particularly empathetic, caring. You know, I mean, a- as, as many of you have probably heard me talk about, the, the introduction to the Cyclops in the Odyssey is, it begins with essentially a letter in like colonization, just like it's manufactured consent. It's this whole, these lines and lines about how the Cyclops don't live like men, like human men. They don't do, they don't have laws and like, uh, you know, the societal structure. They basically are saying that they don't have patriarchy.

• 29:53Liv Albert?

  And, and that that is essentially like a flaw. You know, they, they talk about how they live completely differently. Um, in, in, they have different family structures and all of these different things. But the implication and in sometimes some, in some moments, like explicit bit is that that means that Odysseus can take what he wants and, and, you know, he, he doesn't, he doesn't feel like he has to show the same respect that he would to someone who did follow, you know, these so-called human laws, um, which are essentially they are laid out as like a patriarchal power structure. And, and so it's just, I mean, it, Christopher Nolan made a movie about good guys versus

• 30:36Liv Albert?

  bad guys, but also he, he thought he was making it not about that. Like you can tell he wanted to make it complex. There's this whole like reveal that spoilers, the sea people, which he has this whole thing with the sea peoples, which thankfully Emily Wilson points out as like debunked and silly and, and, but he was like, he's trying to do his Christopher Nolan thing where like in the whole time, the people are, they're fearing the sea peoples and they're talking about like threats to their civilization. They use the word civilization a lot in a way that made me go, uh, but they really hype up this like, ooh, we're all afraid of the sea peoples. They're going to come destroy our civilization.

• 31:20Liv Albert?

  And then, ooh, at the end, oh, Odysseus was the sea peoples all along. It's like trying to have this moral high ground, but what it, it's just neoliberal nonsense. Like it's just, it's, it's rich people patting themselves on the back. It's, oh, it's just, it's wild. Anyway, I'm going to return to, um, the review so I don't, she's helping me keep myself a little bit, a little bit in check.

• 32:04Liv Albert?

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• 32:46Liv Albert?

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• 33:30Liv Albert?

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• 36:53Liv Albert?

  Now, one of the characters I, I didn't really, you know, talk about, uh, in the, in the other episode is Elliot Page's character. And I'm probably not going to say a ton more. Thankfully, um, Emily Wilson does, again, she, she talks about it in this review. So you'll get more because, uh, you know, what I'm sure I said last time, or at least I will again, um, Elliot Page plays this character who's not in The Odyssey. He's, uh, in the, the wider mythos. Um, Wilson points out that he, I think maybe is, or she is suggesting he's coming from the Aeneid, which I thought, which makes sense. And also just like, just changes everything.

• 37:37Liv Albert?

  Um, it's just so, it's just so interesting. And then, you know, I had someone pointing out to me, calling me a hypocrite for saying that I wished, that I was disappointed that Elliot Page didn't play Achilles. I forget what they suggested, what the alternative was. Anyway, somehow I am, I maintain, I'm disappointed that Elliot Page didn't play Achilles. Like, I think, I think much like the women characters, um, that I think that Elliot was, was kind of used.

• 38:18Liv Albert?

  Like I, I think that this movie wanted to propose itself as this like capital D Democrat type of like liberal and like it's capital L liberal in Canada, you know? It's the liberals that, that want to say that they are accepting and like not racist, but also like don't want anything to change. Right? It's the, you know, obviously like, I'm not saying all the, the Democrats, but it's the, the old people, the ones who, who think that, you know, all it takes is to just go back to the old days of law and order.

• 38:59Liv Albert?

  Like it just felt like this, this very pretentious attempt by rich people to like make the pores shut up. I don't know. It was like, we do care about you. I promise, like, we won't do anything, but it just.

• 39:18Liv Albert?

  That that took a turn, I realize, but that's the overall is is the movie. And to me, casting Elliot as this character, because the whole point is that he's kind of like sacrificed. He kind of almost sacrifices himself, like he, his character is basically the way that Nolan attempts and fails, I would argue, to explore Odysseus's humanity and the kind of like realizations about his mistakes in war, but like, it just kind of, it all falls flat. But essentially, he like somewhat, he doesn't invent the character entirely, but he kind of invents the whole storyline around this character who's named Sinon.

• 40:01Liv Albert?

  And it's this, this whole thing about he shouldn't have gone to war, he was too young and Tinus was supposed to go, and then Sinon took his place, and then he ended up being the one, the guy was sacrificed, um, so that the Trojans would take the Trojan horse in, and it just became this like very dramatic show of, of sacrifice. And, and much like casting Lupita Nyong'o as Helen, it feels like, like they were tokenized, I guess, is the best way of phrasing it, like that both, I mean, I think the, the women

• 40:39Liv Albert?

  broadly were tokenized, but I very specifically Helen and Sinon were these very tokenized characters, because, and, but I would argue, like, the problem is, is that they're also involving like the real people in it, because both, both like Lupita and Elliot were always going to get some form of backlash, right? It's fucked up, but it's predictable at this point, and I also think that we can simultaneously acknowledge that it should not be like this while also protecting people, because it will be like this, right? Like those, both those things can exist simultaneously.

• 41:20Liv Albert?

  Helen, Lupita as Helen was always going to get racist backlash, like, I could have told you that, years ago, I could have told you, anyone could have told you that, right? Like, I mean, we, we can think back to when Netflix made that Troyfall of a City, this was years ago, it wasn't even very big, Achilles was black, the internet lost its mind, it was not a very big show. And it was back then, like, things had been worse. And so, like, obviously, she was going to get this racist backlash. And so I think the responsible thing to do was to present a powerful Helen who has the, like, who, like, the strength of someone to, to push back on the racist backlash too, right?

• 42:05Liv Albert?

  Like, to give her character, I mean, it's not to say to change Helen, it's to present the Helen that's in the Odyssey, because that Helen is, is the one who's in the Odyssey, she's respected, she's absolutely comes back in control, but because, it's because Nolan wanted to tell this story where like Agamemnon was this big bad war monger, and like, which, I mean, he was, but like, he, they didn't have like a king, they presented as if Agamemnon is like everyone's king, and that he's this big bad war monger, and, and that like, you know, it's all about the, the cost of that, except that at no point does the cost actually

• 42:47Liv Albert?

  get examined in like a realistic way, like, the women are these props to be used in these scenes to show what men do, right? There's, there's, at no point are we meant to like empathize with the women and see that they are like their own characters, it's just very much like, look, men violent against woman, bad, he bad, but like, it's, it's in this way where it's like, okay, cool, so we'll just continue on with this, I, this like patriarchal idea of like, men damage women and that, and, but then say they protect them, but really are also the ones they need to be protected from, and like, we're just gonna, that's just the cycle, that's, that's

• 43:32Liv Albert?

  right. And then damaged men damage themselves, and nothing ever gets better.

• 43:40Liv Albert?

  This is such a rambly episode, again, listener, don't, um, I, I want to return to some of the, the review, but I also wanted to, we'll take this little moment. I want to read to you all just some of the notes that I took while watching the movie, so to, to, to explain, I didn't really think ahead that I would want to take notes, in hindsight, obviously, I'd want to take notes, I want to remember stuff, and, and obviously, I wasn't going to be a person using their phone, I mean, not least, because for the screening we went to, I held a microphone up in front of the entire, uh, theater full of people, um, to announce the movie and to tell them to turn off their phones, so I wasn't going to do that. Um, and so the only thing I could find was, uh, it's a very cool moment for me, there

• 44:23Liv Albert?

  was a piece of paper taped to my seat and my friend's seat, uh, that just said, reserved for live A. Anyway, so I, I grabbed that and scribbled some hot nonsense in the dark, so a lot of it was like me hoping that my finger, my hands were writing correct things in the dark where I couldn't see anything. At first, I tried to be like, oh, I'll just like, check off the women, and then it was like, oh no, you fucked everything. He, he showed a lot of the women, it just, what he did to them, um, so that's what it begins with me listing women, and it's, sorry, I'm also trying to like, uh, I, it was folded, I didn't think ahead on this, and this is just, it's just a piece of paper with a bunch of random words scribbled on it. Um, I have here, a lot of them are just me scribbling angry things, I just have here,

• 45:08Liv Albert?

  removed even Athena's power, uh, clearly, that's just, just anger. Um, oh, here's just a funny one, Pylos is on Ithaca, because, yeah, they like walked to Pylos, it was very weird, pointless, is Mara speaks Greek, I wrote with a bunch of lines under, ah! Um, did I just write venting fury? Hopefully not. Um, that I wrote, see peoples, really? Oh, one, like, okay, anachronisms don't matter, like, they should not be a reason that we, you know, say a movie is good or bad, but if I've already decided that I hate the movie,

• 45:49Liv Albert?

  I'm going to make fun of certain anachronisms that I find funny. I mean, one, the costuming was just bad, it wasn't even funny anachronisms, it was just bad, but one thing that I found hilarious is there was this one scene, and so I think it was meant to be, it must have been like the Ithaca, the palace at Ithaca, so there's this one scene, and there's this stone wall behind Telemachus, and it is so like in focus, in so many shots, and I, like, so it just felt like so intentional, so it's this stone wall, and generally, the stone looks like it's probably, I mean, if not fully ancient, you know, it, it was some like, um, it, it basically, it looks like they're using a

• 46:33Liv Albert?

  real set, or a real monument of some form to film this thing, and it's mostly stones, but then it has this key, this particular arch formation, like, in set, it's not even like an actual arch to walk, walk under, it's like they bricked up a wall, but, but visibly, there's an arch, and it just, because I'm a loser nerd, and I'm not ashamed of it, um, it's like a keystone arch that the Romans invented, and it, there was a lot of things in this movie that, to me, were such, like, just to the nerd in me, were such,

• 47:18Liv Albert?

  like, partic, there was a type of anachronism that I was like, mm, no, I don't like it, like, I think it's, it's just my neurodivergence, but there's a type of anachronism that I was like, mm, I'm better than this, and there was one, like, at one point, Hazem, the incredible illustrator, who, I'm not criticizing him at all, because he was just like drawing beautiful things, um, but at one point, there were arches in an early palace, uh, drawing, I think it was Ithaca Palace too, actually, and there were arches, and I remember my comment so specifically, it was like one of the first few illustrations, and I commented back, just, the Romans invented these, no arches, please, and, and I just thought about

• 48:01Liv Albert?

  that every time, and we got this like really in-focus shot of this particular type of arch, and I just, there's just, and again, that is not an actual complaint, it is just a nerd thing that is funnier than the real complaints. What did I put here? O is so innocent, he helps.

• 48:24Liv Albert?

  Somebody, but the, the writing got cut off because clearly I was writing in a folded piece of paper. Um, it, it basically, it was just, there was so many attempts to make Odysseus into a good guy that I just, and it's so funny because so many of the people talking about it, and this is when again, like, I have trouble when, when things become like in this realm become quite so mainstream because I just have, I want to interact more, but I just, I don't, I don't have the mental fortitude for, for social media in its current format. Um, but like, you know, it, it's just, there's so many people who were like, oh, Christopher

• 49:08Liv Albert?

  Nolan's really done it. He's give us, given us an anti-hero. Oh, here he is, the complicated hero. And you're like, I, I mean, is he slightly more complicated than a, an American Marvel hero? Sure, maybe. He's not more complicated than Odysseus from Homer. Like, the amount of Odysseus's cleverness and complexity that Nolan chose not to show ever at all is like enormous. And so it's just so interesting. And I think it really conveys how particularly

• 49:48Liv Albert?

  like mainstream Hollywood has co-opted so many of these general notions and, and how like the Overton window has just shifted so much that we think that just because he sho- he made a handful of mistakes, that this was like a complicated hero and somehow that was like really good or like innovative in some way. When in truth, like, he really, Nolan really chose to make Odysseus quite passive in the whole situation. Actually, now that I use that phrase, he's kind of giving Jason energy at a lot of points. Like,

• 50:30Liv Albert?

  he doesn't choose to do a great number of the things that lead to his downfall, you know, the death of all his shit, his crew. Like, there's so many places where Nolan makes it happening to Odysseus as opposed to what happens in Homer, which is like Odysseus really taking it on himself. And it's this way to like remove so much of the guilt, right? This way to just make him this much more straightforward hero. And so it's just so infuriating to see, and, and I understand why people who don't have a grounding in Homer would see a character like this and think that in some way it is like, it is like, you

• 51:13Liv Albert?

  know, innovative because he's slightly complex. But it's like, without the, the grounding to know that like, no, actually, like he, he simplified this guy to a degree that you'll never fully comprehend, like without reading the Odyssey. But it just, it's fascinating to me. I think I, I, I'm just so exhausted by, by the, the, the really overt Western media like this and just the, the American-ness. And I, obviously I knew, I've been talking about this since the beginning. It just looked like it was going to be so American and oh, it was so American. Oh, actually, just because I think it's a perfect segue. I want to tell

• 51:58Liv Albert?

  you all that I don't know which news organization, but it was like some kind of, you know, entertainment news, not the, not the actual one called that. Um, but just like one of those sites. And it, so it was like press tour for, for the Odyssey and the, a bunch of the cast were asked, they were read quotes and asked whether it was Homer, like from the Odyssey or the Elliot, I think, or whether it was a Homer Simpson quote. And when I tell you they got most of them wrong, I just thought, oh, wow. And everyone's like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And I'm just like, oh, right. No, no, this is, this is exactly, this is exactly

• 52:40Liv Albert?

  what this was always going to be. Returning to my notes, I'm reminded that at one point, Matt Damon calls the underworld hell, which might be one of my biggest pet peeves. I wrote down here, hell, exclamation point, a question mark, exclamation point, question mark, even in the darkness of the theater, I wrote that many. I, it's so infuriating to me when the underworld is conflated with hell. I mean, for so many reasons, like this movie was already giving Western, Western Christian nation, Americanism, right? Like

• 53:24Liv Albert?

  it was already giving that in, in a great many ways. I mean, the fact that they're, they yammer on and on and on about Zeus's law, this and Zeus's law, that. And, and they, they point out that, that Cyc- the Cyclops was the son of Poseidon and so Poseidon has cursed them too. And yet there are no gods in the movie, not really spoiler, Athena's not even real. It's so stupid. It's just so stupid. So it's like, they can't even bring themselves to put the polytheistic gods into a movie like this because they have got such a fucking hard on for the Christianity of their nation, of their American-ness. And so instead they go and call the underworld hell? It's just so absurd. And like, they're

• 54:09Liv Albert?

  just such explicitly different things. Like, why would you call it hell? And then go to a place where you're like, I'm talking to my friends. Like, they don't, they take out the mother because God, I mean, who needs another woman? So I guess he doesn't go to hell and then talk to his mom, but it might as well be that stupid. I just, I realize I, I talked myself in circles and, and didn't even fully phrase my frustration about Elliot Page and the casting of him, which like, also he did a great job, I will say. He did a great job. Um, this is the first thing I've seen him in as his new and beautiful

• 54:51Liv Albert?

  self, his real self. And like, I'm obsessed with Elliot Page. Also, Canadian, Canadian. Um, but I just think that like choosing to put, uh, yeah, I just think that like, it was just very token. It was very token, right? It was like, here is our most perfect innocent character. Like, his character was really hyped up as being too young and innocent to be at the war, to be like Odysseus's big regret. Like, it was just all about the emotions that it, that the experience tied to, or gave to Odysseus. Like, that is really

• 55:36Liv Albert?

  what the whole project of this Sinon character was. Someone who again, is not in the Odyssey. Um, and so I think to do that, to create this like, perfect, ideal, like metaphorical, up on a pedestal, this is, this is like the, the whole, the whole story of like Odysseus's quote unquote, like trauma and his, his whole, all of his shit in Nolan's version hinges around this character of Sinon who's, who it just appears to be this like perfect. And

• 56:17Liv Albert?

  I just think that it just, like, I don't, it just felt so disappointing, I guess. It just, it felt like a real show of like, look what we're trying to do. Like, it's the absolute bare minimum. It just, and maybe it's not my place. I don't know. It just felt very weird to, to create this whole character who doesn't really have much story except for being this kind of like, perfect person. And then casting a trans man who again, you know, is going to get, you know, is going to get a bunch of shit. And you, you know,

• 57:00Liv Albert?

  they, they didn't reveal the cast list. And so there was all this speculation, like, and so I just think at the very, it's just, I guess I'm just disappointed that he didn't play Achilles because I think that it would have at least been, it would have been a progressive, I think it would have been a progressive thought, a, a progressive casting, like really interesting to have a trans man playing Achilles, a character who, who has such gender fluidity and who has such like fluidity in his sexuality and his stories, like, but who is also a man. Like, I think it would have been interesting. It would have

• 57:44Liv Albert?

  been a progressive idea to, to take this character who is meant to be this like icon of masculinity and have a, a trans man playing him. Like, that would have been really interesting and actually would have pushed the boundaries and would have pushed against the bigots, right? In the same way that if you cast Lupita and then give her the strong Helen, the respected Helen, the, I am the fucking queen of Sparta and Menelaus is my husband only Helen. Like,

• 58:24Liv Albert?

  it would have been progressive. It would have pushed at the boundaries to, to cast a particularly dark skinned black woman to play that Helen, that beautiful, strong, like knows her shit, puts her fucking foot down, like she's the boss Helen. That would have been progressive.

• 58:49Liv Albert?

  And I, I mean, I don't, I'm just trying to make sure that this isn't me like overcompensating my ideas or just, but I just think that that would have been the socially responsible and interesting way of doing it because like those are also like, those are the characters in the Odyssey. I'm not saying that he should have been casting, like making these progressive casting choices and then inventing a new quote unquote woke character. Like I'm suggesting you cast these people who are really, really well cast for the characters that exist in the Odyssey. It's that instead he cast these people and then gave them these like really tokenized characters.

• 59:35Liv Albert?

  It's just, it was so, so disappointing.

• 59:40Liv Albert?

  And you know what? Actually, I'm, I'm looking back at, at Wilson's review and this is a great point. I mean, again, she puts all of this into like really, really great, um, words and, and, and just really, it's really well written in a way that my brain is just so, I think, like

• 59:57Liv Albert?

  dysregulated by it all that I just haven't fully gotten there yet. Um, but she talks a lot about, uh, Elliot Page's sign on character generally and the choices made there. Um, but the, the paragraph on this wraps up with, with this, um, a quote, "This muddled subplot, subplot is foisted on the film in order to make Nolan's relentlessly didactic point, relentlessly didactic point about the contemporary Anglophone world that the lies and xenophobia of the war on terror and Brexit began a cultural decline that is now destroying the values we hold most dear."

• 1:00:37Liv Albert?

  It's, it's faux progressivism, right? It's, it's what, it's what the right accuses wokeism of being, like a show. It's, it's not real. It's not propos, it's not like fundamentally pushing the boundaries of like what the West is and like why, why this world that we've created is like this. It's just like, no, like if we, if we make it diverse, it'll be okay. We don't actually have to like address the problems of the past. We can just cover over them, right? It's like,

• 1:01:17Liv Albert?

  I mean, this is, this is a wild, like offshoot thought that I honestly still stand by, but it reminds me, it reminds me so much of as a Canadian participating in or watching American history happen, but also like learning about American history. It reminds me of the, the why of why, you know, American, like racism is as bad as it is, which is that no one ever actually looked back and said, hey, slavery was really

• 1:01:57Liv Albert?

  bad. Like they just papered over it, right? They just like, it, it was only in, in like the sixties that schools were desegregated. Like they never actually

• 1:02:09Liv Albert?

  paid the, like the white people, the slave owners never actually paid the price for what they did. They were just told to stop doing it. And that is not a solution to a problem like slavery, right? Like it, it, which by the way, since I got onto this thought, at no point in the Odyssey is the word slave used despite them heavily utilizing the slave characters, Eumaeus and Melantho. But they're servants, we hear. And so it's another reminder. It's exactly this thing, actually, of this American ideal that like, if you just don't talk about it, it'll go

• 1:02:53Liv Albert?

  away, right? No one ever had to pay the price for enslavement. The, the white slave owners did not, the, the most they had to do was free their slaves, right? They didn't go to jail. They didn't like, it, it, I'm pretty sure at the end of the Civil War, they didn't even like

• 1:03:13Liv Albert?

  imprison the, the men who were in the Confederacy, right? They were just like, you lost, now you have to live like this. Like if you just say, like this thing that you were doing that is like fundamentally one of the most horrifically damaging things that one person can do to another person, if not the most horrific thing one person can do to another person, is like saying, you did that for hundreds of years. Now stop. No punishment, no nothing, no like, uh, no lesson on why it was one of the worst things

• 1:03:55Liv Albert?

  to ever happen to human beings. Just stop and be okay with it. It's why Jim Crow laws existed. It's why all of this, right? It's why Christopher Nolan can make a movie featuring these like quote unquote good slaves and not use the word slave. Because the entire American cultural system is based on the idea that they didn't need to pay the price for slavery. They could just stop and have that be okay. Right? Like, and, and yeah, it, that this went far into the realm, but I really,

• 1:04:35Liv Albert?

  it's just, yeah, i- i- I mean, lessons in Western supremacy, which again, I knew this movie would be, and yet still, you know, I find there are fresh ways for these white American men to surprise me with every new fuckery they engage in.

• 1:04:55Liv Albert?

  And again, to return to Wilson's review who, and I, I recognize that, uh, most people are not as radical in their thinking and not as open to just screaming about these types of injustices. So I'm not, I don't have that expectation. It's kind of nice to also have, you know, something from, from someone who's less, uh, emotionally furious about the world's injustices because it's a bit clearer to understand. Um, and also who had an editor on this, thank God for that because you're all just listening to an hour of my brain on unhinged. But to,

• 1:05:40Liv Albert?

  to kind of put it into, well, to, to the, that wild tangent aside slash still quite related. Um, the way Wilson talks about, uh, these, particularly the, um, these, these kinds of side characters, but in one case specifically, Eumaeus, the slave is, is really interesting. Um, and so I, I want to, I'm going to read another, another section of this. So this again is a quote, "Homer's Odyssey gives a clear, moving account of the feelings, histories and perspectives of several of Odysseus's comrades and subordinates, including Eurylochus and the enslaved swineherd, Eumaeus. Kidnapped, trafficked and sold into

• 1:06:23Liv Albert?

  slavery as a child, Eumaeus fantasy fantasizes that his long-lost enslaver, Odysseus, will one day return and give him a home of his own. In the film, none of these subordinate characters has a personality of their own. Mentor, who helps Telemachus, is not a disguised goddess, but a helpful guy with a beard. Eurylochus is not an embittered rival to Odysseus, but another helpful guy with a beard." And then she goes on to, to, uh, praise John Leguizamo's performance, which I agree with. I think he was one of the best, even if I think his character of Eumaeus was written pretty poorly. Um, but it, it is just, it, it, I mean, yeah, again, she, she does also point out that they don't use the word slave, which I'm very glad that she points it out.

• 1:07:07Liv Albert?

  It's so unhinged. It, it's like, as she says here, quote, "But Nolan's script gives him nothing to work with. The only wish of this servant, the film's preferred term for slave, is to make Odysseus's life more comfortable." Like that's what he gave to Eumaeus. It's so wild. And then she goes on to, to say, and I'm, I want to read another bit here. So quote, "The Trojan War is an aberration, the face of face, the fault of faceless monstrous Agamemnon, who has failed as an American family man by killing his daughter. Odysseus is an idealized leader who would never willingly put his people in danger. His foolish men

• 1:07:48Liv Albert?

  insist on going to check out Circe's hut for themselves, and he kindly retrieves them without pausing to have sex with the goddess for even an hour, let alone a whole magical year. Damon's Odysseus is motivated mostly by anxiety and guilt, though he is also eager to protect his boy. Holland is good at playing a gormless young man of 20 going on 12." She's right. No, Tom Holland was actually pretty legit as Telemachus. Also, Robert Pattinson as Antinous was like pretty, pretty good. Um, and again, that, those are not quotes if you couldn't tell. No, it's just, uh, even she points out that the representation of Odysseus, okay, again, a quote, "As a reluctant warlord makes a nonsense of this movie's imagined world."

• 1:08:34Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's, oh, oh my God. Oh, I can't, I just want to read another, I gotta stop. Like one, one more sentence. "We are not shown that war or killing are bad, only that good men sometimes feel bad about it." A very different point, which I agree with her so completely. Like that was, that felt to me like the point. It was that Odysseus feels bad about war. Like that, I think is where the overall like Western propaganda of it all comes in and the, the, the general idea, you know, that I was kind of trying to conceptualize earlier, just the American-ness of it all. It's not about showing the actual cost of

• 1:09:14Liv Albert?

  war on the everyday people. Like they don't care about that at all. In the same way that the women are just used as these objects. We're not actually meant to feel for them as the victims of this war. All we are meant to see, like all we see is Odysseus feeling bad after. This is a movie for Americans who feel bad about the wars they committed. Like it's a movie for Americans to like bomb their, their moral, ugh, it's just, it's, yeah, it, it's, it's this, it's him saying like, hmm, the war on terror was maybe a little

• 1:09:56Liv Albert?

  bad. We, we maybe feel a little bad about that. Like, but it, but in no way recognizing the actual harm on real people.

• 1:10:09Liv Albert?

  And filming it on occupied land!

• 1:10:15Liv Albert?

  And again, I try not to idealize any human being, but oh my God, I just got to the end of this review. I really, you're all just kind of getting my, my live and in the moment, um, thoughts on, on this, but I, oh, I'm, I love Emily Wilson so much. I'm so glad she exists. This is the second to last paragraph of this review. Okay. Quote, "The most troubling ethical problem with Nolan's Odyssey concerns the decision to film part of the movie in the occupied territory of Western Sahara, thus normalizing the ongoing violence against the indigenous Sarawee people. It is particularly galling that Nolan used this land simply as a visually striking backdrop for a film that centers,

• 1:10:57Liv Albert?

  aggrandizes, and redeems the hero of a territorial war on account of his belated and partial acknowledgement of his own guilt."

• 1:11:10Liv Albert?

  She said it. Oh, I'm so impressed. I'm so impressed. I am so happy she wrote that. I really, I think the bar is just low, but I didn't expect, I didn't expect that. And I have high expectations of her. Um, this is really, like, if you're wondering if I'm looking to get her back on the show, don't worry. Like, obviously I am. Um, uh, I just, I'm so glad she was so honest. These are some of the other last sentences. Like, actually the, I'm, I'm so glad she got through, I got so caught up with that second to last paragraph where she, she talks about, um, that, that horrific choice, which also, like,

• 1:11:55Liv Albert?

  the, it was the scenes in Troy that they filmed in the Western Sahara. They literally, like, it was about how they're saying, "Sorry, war bad, but we're gonna film it on an occupied territory." It's just the most American thing imaginable. It's just like, not being, it's the, not being able to see the forest for the trees. Like, are you fucking crazy? This movie is appearing to be some kind of attempt to say that American wars of aggression are a little bad, but it simultaneously is upholding everything about Western civilization

• 1:12:36Liv Albert?

  being the quote unquote "good" and simultaneously doing all of that whilst committing violence against an already violated indigenous peoples by filming on their occupied land. Like, I, I know we, and I don't want to use the word tone deaf, but I can't think of an equivalency right now. But it's like, read the fucking room. Are you crazy?

• 1:13:08Liv Albert?

  Oh, reading this review, reading this review. Okay. Sorry, I have to read, I have to read another, um, little bit at the end here. "Nolan's Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior's glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends, and neighbors. It lacks psychological, emotional, political, and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky, the writing is abysmal, none of the characters has convincing motivation for their actors, actions, or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible."

• 1:13:53Liv Albert?

  Oh, I'm so glad she wrote this. I really, I needed it. I needed it. And maybe this is my way of wrapping up. I had actually originally thought like, oh, I'll talk about the different characters and stuff, um, and what his choices were. Um, and I actually originally, I was gonna read some question, maybe I'm gonna do more on this. Um, if, if you all are enjoying listening to me just kind of ramble, they'll all be, there'll be bonus episodes again, um, in addition to whatever's the regular one. But if you would like to hear another of me kind of just rambling about, um, some of the choices and reading some, some comments specifically, uh, from, from Spotify and things on my last episode

• 1:14:38Liv Albert?

  where people were really putting in their two cents in a way, um, that's really beneficial. If anyone would like me to, to read, to do more of that, let me know. I'm probably gonna do it anyway, but I will feel better about it if you leave in the comments whether you would like to hear me do this again, um, just more talking about it. But in the meantime, oh my God, read this review because I, like, I've been saying this to people, uh, you know, behind the scenes, but I've really been struggling with how to handle how much I hated that movie and how affected by those choices that I was with the reactions that I'd been seeing

• 1:15:19Liv Albert?

  from men online. Um, yeah, like, I was really, I've been really struggling with it because this is a piece of, of text that I really, I mean, it's, it is my life and I, obviously mythology is, but, and so specifically though, just like, I just am so desperate for us to be better as humans. Um, and, and I see so much potential for that and like, so much to learn from the ancient world and so much to, to, to, to understand, to just help us

• 1:16:02Liv Albert?

  be better people and to just see the world somehow maybe eventually be a better place for, for people who don't look like me, but also women broadly. Um, so yeah, I'm just, you know, I was really struggling with, with, with interacting with, with the movie and specifically because I need to for the book and it's just a whole thing. And reading this review has made me feel so seen and heard and I, I didn't know how much I needed to read this. Um, so I would highly recommend it. I'm gonna link in the episode's description.

• 1:16:42Liv Albert?

  Um, oh, and I will hopefully probably be back with more. And in the meantime, oh, I love you all. I am Liv and I love this shit.

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