Conversations: The Americanness of Modern Masculinity... Reception in Nolan's Odyssey w/ Dr Charlotte Gregory

Liv is joined by returning guest (of Achilles Reception Fame!) Charlotte Gregory to talk about Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, reception of masculinity in Hollywood epic, and more of Liv's not at all subtle opinions on the film. 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.

• 0:42Liv Albert?

  Hey, it's Hannah Berner from Giggly Squad, and the holidays are around the corner, which means I'm officially entering my Hostess Hannah era with Arm & Hammer Hardball Cat Litter. You guys know I love cats and fostering, but when I'm hosting, I do not want my house smelling like cats. I want people focusing on my hosting skills. That's why I love Arm & Hammer Hardball Cat Litter. It delivers long-lasting odor control and forms compact clumps that make cleanup easy, so that's one less thing I need to worry about when people come over. Be guest-ready with Arm & Hammer Cat Litter. Find it now at Walmart or Amazon.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  Love the crown molding.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 1:26Speaker 02

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet?

• 1:30Speaker 01

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.

• 2:11Liv Albert?

  Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your host, Liv, here with another conversation episode. Today, I am speaking with returning guest Charlotte Gregory. Now, you may remember Charlotte from, or Dr. Charlotte Gregory, I should say. I like to be sure when people have doctors involved. Dr. Charlotte Gregory, you might remember her from a couple of years back where we talked about representations of Achilles specifically, and masculinity broadly in reception of epic. So that's what she studies, like very specifically, Achilles and masculinity, but like in reception. So naturally, when The Odyssey was first, you

• 2:55Liv Albert?

  know, the trailers were first coming out and everything, we reconnected. Particularly, we reconnected around the idea that Elliot Page was going to play Achilles. Now, of course, that's not what happened, but we, and Achilles is not even in Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, but Such as Life, we wanted to have a just sort of general conversation about The Odyssey and reception and her take on it. As somebody who does study, you know, masculinity so specifically in modern receptions of epic, which is of course, like fascinating and so far removed from ancient masculinity and all of this. So I was thrilled to have her on. The caveat that

• 3:36Liv Albert?

  I'm leading up to is that because this is the first, like, real recorded conversation that I've had about Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, I, listening back, I, I took over too much, and I talked too much in this episode as compared to Charlotte, and so apologies, but Such as Life, I am the, the, you know, the brain is, the ADHD and the overwhelm and the general nervous system breakdown is such that sometimes I just talk too much and don't realize until it is far too late. And so we did have a great conversation, but I'm just

• 4:18Liv Albert?

  sort of warning you because I wish it had less of my voice and more of Charlotte's voice. Regardless, we had a lot of fun. We talked both about my very mostly negative feelings about the movie and Charlotte's pretty positive feelings about the movie. So I was really just also excited to have that opportunity for you all, where it is both a conversation about the movie and also with somebody who didn't immediately hate it. You're welcome. So general spoilers for the movie, I would say, but it's mostly us just talking about his decisions and such. It's not like us breaking down a storyline of changes or what have you. We just happened to mention some of the major changes that he makes as compared to the actual Odyssey, particularly

• 5:00Liv Albert?

  because we talked about Elliot Page, and Elliot Page's character is not in Homer at all. There we have it. So thank you all. Please do enjoy this freewheeling, very all over the place, but also very nuanced and much more open-minded take on Christopher Nolan's Odyssey and everything with it.

• 5:39Liv Albert?

  Conversations, the Americanness of modern masculinity in Christopher Nolan's Odyssey with Dr. Charlotte Gregory.

• 6:02Liv Albert?

  Oh, God, where do we even begin? Okay, so to the listener, to the listener, this episode is sort of an odd confluence of various things. So I am here with the returning guest, Charlotte Gregory. Hi, thank you. Hello. And you came on a couple of years ago to talk about Achilles in reception. And then, so when we, we reconnected a couple of months ago, when the whole world thought that Elliot Page was going to play Achilles, and we were like, oh, my gosh, that sounds so fun. Let's prepare an episode with that expectation. And then thankfully, because we were going to record even before the movie had come out, but thankfully, various time-related things happened, so we

• 6:45Liv Albert?

  rescheduled enough times that now we've both seen the movie, and obviously Elliot Page is not playing Achilles. But there's still so much to talk about, and especially with you as somebody who does look at reception so much more than I do, which I think is really good, because I actually like, not that I dislike reception, but I often just, it's not like my passion. I don't, I more get like, I just want to see different things, and then I get frustrated by reception more than anything. But as you said off-mic, the episodes I have recorded about Christopher Nolan's Odyssey have been mad, just me mad. And you're not wrong. And so I am excited to talk to someone who has seen it and didn't hate it like I did, which is

• 7:30Liv Albert?

  great, and then also has this background of reception, because like you were saying off-mic, like you could see why he was making these decisions, which I'm so curious about, because I didn't love a lot of his decisions. No, you didn't.

• 7:47Liv Albert?

  And it's so frustrating, because I'm like, I'm trying to figure out how to, to just even like phrase this in my work, because I knew I wasn't going to like it. Like, this is not, this is not me who was like, oh, my God, I'm so excited. I'm so excited. Like, it's going to be so good. Like this, I knew it was going to not be what I wanted, and that was fine. Probably if I hadn't been, you know, in the realm of like, oh, I've recently published an Odyssey retelling, like, I wouldn't have gone so publicly to see the movie, and I probably would just like try not to talk about it all. It's very similar with what I do about Epic the Musical, just zip my lips at this point.

• 8:27Liv Albert?

  Maybe discuss it for another time. But it's, you know, I wasn't going to like it, but at the same time, I still found myself like epically disappointed even in that realm. So, I don't know, it's all to say, I'm trying to like find more positive ways of speaking about it, even just because like it is still very good for the, the overall classics world, like the, you know, people studying it, like the general interest, it's always good. I'm always glad to have people finding Greek mythology and developing a passion. I've certainly got fresh listeners and certainly book buyers from this movie, so I'm not like entirely angry about it. And I'm kind of excited to have a different, a different perspective. Yes.

• 9:12Liv Albert?

  Especially from someone who's like, comes at it from Achilles. You know, who, I don't know, I don't know quite where to begin, but like, I mean, maybe we could just talk a slight bit about, were you also disappointed that Elliot Page was not playing Achilles? Were you disappointed to not see Achilles at all? Like, maybe we'll just base it around him to begin.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, let's start with my main guy.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  In terms of like, him not being in the film, honestly, like, the disappointment levels were quite low. Because he's so minor in The Odyssey anyway. So like, when people were losing their shit over Elliot Page potentially playing Achilles, I'm like, guys, he's such a minor, minor, minor character.

• 9:56Liv Albert?

  He'll be there for five minutes.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  He's not important in The Odyssey, so like, it wasn't worth getting angry about. I mean, even if he were a bigger character, it's not worth getting angry about. But like, I wasn't too disappointed.

• 10:10Liv Albert?

  Also just the transphobes, right? Like, let's just say what it is, right? It's transphobes who are mad and also like loser, hyper quote unquote masculine dudes who are pissed. Like, just, I mean, it's, yeah, it's all based on transphobia.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  It was like conservative men. Like, the amount of like, social, and this is what I thought was so interesting, is like, all these videos and discos I was seeing online, were from these, I think predominantly white men, American, and they're like, talking about the ancient texts and like, what Achilles was like in the age. And I'm like, you understand, it's not like one version of Achilles, right? Like, he transformed so much across different ancient sources, and then he's had 2,000 years of reception. Like, it's not going to be exactly like in the Elliot, like, we don't want, that's boring, otherwise.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  Like, it's fun to have something different, and with Elliot Page, it would have been very interesting. I don't know if he would have necessarily have been the right casting for Achilles, because,

• 11:15Speaker 03

  like, he definitely got massively in shape for the role.

• 11:17Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 11:18Speaker 03

  But he didn't necessarily scream warrior.

• 11:21Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  But he was perfect for the role he was then cast as, as this version of Sinon. So like, I don't know if-

• 11:29Liv Albert?

  Sinon, as they all want to say. No, I want to say Sinon too, which is why I wanted to point it out, because we will say Sinon, because Sinon is just bizarre, but I just like it.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  Oh, I was like, oh my god, oh god, I forgot that wrong.

• 11:42Liv Albert?

  No, no.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  But, so, but with the idea of like, a trans man playing Achilles, well, one, it also doesn't necessarily matter, because just because a trans man is playing Achilles, doesn't mean the character is trans.

• 11:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  That's one thing. But also Achilles does have this history, both in like, ancient texts and receptions, hugely in receptions pre sort of 19th, 20th century, or pre 20th century, of playing with gender. And disrupting gendered expectations of this traditional masculine warrior. I mean, the relationship with Achilles goes against a lot of expectate, no. Relationship with Patroclus? Oh my goodness. One of those days. The relationship, so the relationship with Patroclus goes against these expectations. But also the whole incident on Skeros, where he's disguised as a girl.

• 12:37Speaker 03

  And that is like hugely popular reception in sort of opera and art.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  And so like, there is this history and precedence to have played with expectations around Achilles' gender. So I would have been interested to see how they would do that, but it didn't happen, so.

• 12:59Liv Albert?

  But that was the thing, is I think that I got a little bit optimistic with that idea, because I thought it would have been really interesting. And in hindsight, I'm like, okay, if I had known more or paid more attention to Christopher Nolan's work, like, I've seen a handful of his movies, but not in a very long time, and I just don't think about him that much. Which is fine by me. And so maybe I, you know, wouldn't have been so optimistic had I been more aware. But I did just think like, that potential casting, as well as Lupita Nyong'o as Helen,

• 13:37Liv Albert?

  were both castings that had actually made me really optimistic in a way that I hadn't been expecting from day one. Like, the movie got announced, and they said it was Matt Damon, and I went, okay. You know, I wiped my hands of it, like, this is not going to be for me. They have cast like, the single most modern American man imaginable. Like, I was like, okay, cool, no, this is gonna be American propaganda, and it's probably gonna be bad, and whatever. Like, I was, I was pretty there by just the name Matt Damon being attached.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  No, I think we all had a moment of going, okay, that's an interesting choice for Odysseus. And to be fair, I think he did a good job at their version of Odysseus.

• 14:24Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I actually, I hated him less than I was expecting.

• 14:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:28Liv Albert?

  Which, yeah, like I said, I mean, I was really expecting to hate him. But, but that was the thing, is like, I, you know, I didn't have any kind of, any expectations. But then hearing Elliot Page and hearing his name linked to Achilles, I was like, ooh, that could be so interesting. Because to me, if that had actually gone through, I think it would have been like, a really potentially fascinating way to not just examine how Achilles does play with gender in, across the ancient sources, and like you've said, in reception as well. Like, it's very clear, it's all there, right? This is, that wouldn't have been an invention, like, sure, yeah. But, and it, you know, like you said too, just because a trans man is playing him, doesn't mean he would be trans.

• 15:11Liv Albert?

  But the, and, and I don't necessarily think that that would have been like, a particularly innovative idea, but I think it would have been interesting just on the face to have a trans man playing this character. Because by doing that, you are, especially a man like Elliot, who came out so publicly, and who has worked with Nolan, you know, before transition and now after. Like, I thought it would have been really interesting, and I thought too, because Christopher Nolan was clearly happy to still work with Elliot Page, as compared to, you know, when he had worked with the former Ellen Page, like.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:47Liv Albert?

  I, I hope dead naming isn't the same in those cases. I feel like you're, you're cast as Ellen, so I've talked about it in the past. Anyway, apologies to anyone, and feel free to point it out to me if that's not okay. But, but I was really interested in that possibility, and then having just the, the, the actual, just the visual, the choice to have a trans man playing that character would have been, I think, also a really solid step in a progressive and empathetic direction for the world. I think it would have really shown a sense of care for broader gender identities and been like, hey, like, look at, this is, this is a way to play with that, and it, and it does come straight from the ancient world, with or without making any transness in Achilles, but like, through that character.

• 16:32Liv Albert?

  So all to say, I thought it was gonna be, would have been quite interesting. And it's not to say that Elliot's character was not interesting, but I was like-

• 16:39Speaker 03

  I thought Elliot actually killed it, and this is someone who's not necessarily the biggest fan of his acting. I've never been particularly, I love Juno and stuff, but like, since then, kind of been a bit unsure about him.

• 16:52Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's fair. I was, I was also thinking like, outside of Juno, I can't immediately name, like, oh, that's a really, a one that I loved, but.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, but he absolutely crushed it. I mean, I thought he was brilliant, I thought he was very well cast for the role he ended up playing. And, I mean, the scene in the underworld, ooh.

• 17:11Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  That was good.

• 17:13Liv Albert?

  It was good, I will say, yeah. And that's, I think that's what excited me about it being Achilles too, like, in the underworld like that, ooh, that would have been fun. I mean, it was, it was still fun, but I just don't, because this Sinon character is not in Homer at all, I just, you know, I have so little like, kind of connection to him personally. But I imagine like, just people watching the movie wouldn't feel that, which is good. It's similar, and I know, we will make this not just about like, what I had personally hoped was coming. But I just thought, like, if, if that had been the intention with Achilles, to have him played by, and I do think like, I don't know, Achilles is also, I mean, in addition to playing with gender, he is also this kind of hero, hero that I think,

• 17:56Liv Albert?

  if we're going from a very ancient perspective,

• 18:01Liv Albert?

  I think that like, trying to just like, figure out how to put into words what I mean. But like, he, I don't think there's ever any implication that Achilles is like, big, huge, tough man, right? Like, that's Ajax. That, there are those men, we know who they are, and they're not Achilles. Like, Achilles, I think, is meant to be this kind of warrior that is like, live more than he is, like, big and bulky. You know, like, really able to, I mean, subverting the expectations, I guess, of like, what is a quote unquote warrior? And so I think it would have been interesting to kind of see that played with.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, because his whole defining feature is, he's swift footed, his speed and agility is like, his defining, like, martial characteristic.

• 18:50Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and son of a goddess, so he's like, pretty too, you got to imagine, you know?

• 18:54Speaker 03

  He's meant to be like, you know, very visually, I think, striking.

• 18:58Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  I do, can't remember, I do think he is meant to be quite tall, but that's not the biggest thing.

• 19:04Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 19:06Speaker 03

  But he's not bulky, like, he is not Brad Pitt in Troy.

• 19:09Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  All the memes then coming out being like, you know, 2004 Achilles versus 2026 Achilles and a picture of Elliot Page. And I'm like, well, one, you guys were all wrong, you were getting angry over, like, literally a non-existent issue. But also like, it's weird how Brad Pitt is being, he keeps being held up as this ideal of like, what Achilles should have been. I'm like, well, no, like, the man was nearly 40 years old at the time of filming, like, he was way too old, he's way too muscular, like, bulky. He, he wasn't perfect casting. They just liked him because it's Brad Pitt and he's this sexy, you know, um, Hollywood big name.

• 19:51Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah. And now, I mean, also like, it's been interesting to see the people hearkening back to Troy, which is otherwise a movie that I feel like for the last 10 years, it's only been nerds like us who regularly talk about it.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm, I'm seeing all these people and they're talking about how Troy got it like, oh, Odyssey, like, oh, this is woke. Cause even if we don't have an obviously trans Achilles, version of Achilles, it's still a trans actor is cast in the film. You have a black actress playing Helen of Troy. People are still, it's too, it's still too diverse. And so they're going, I'm going to go back to Troy and, you know, watch the good stuff. And I was like, I remember when Troy came, like, I don't remember when it came up, but I remember reading reviews. It was not well received. Audiences didn't have this same like level of almost not worship, but like they're really putting it on a pedestal as it's like accurate, great adaption.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  And that's, people liked it, you know, they found enjoyable film, but they weren't saying like, this is, you know, the best.

• 20:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah, no, exactly. Like, I mean,

• 20:58Speaker 03

  It's weird for visionists, like, looking back.

• 21:01Liv Albert?

  And I'm, I would like to, I mean, I think I'm comfortable in assuming too, that a majority of the people looking back at it as this like quote unquote, correct, like casting are also too young to have been around for the discourse around it. Because like I, I mean, I'm 38 and I was only 16 when that movie came out. Like I, I remember seeing it, but I don't remember discourse around it. And like, I can't imagine that the men getting so worked up, getting so emotional about this, you know, are that much older than me. Like, I doubt it.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  No, it's, it is just people are, they're, they're angry because it doesn't fit their ideas of what masculinity should be.

• 21:50Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  And what the ancient world should be. And it's tied so, they tie it so closely to their own sense of identity that it becomes like a personal attack on them.

• 22:01Liv Albert?

  It's so much like when Wilson translated the Iliad. Like when you phrase it like that, it just makes me think of like the reaction from men about her translation and the way they absolutely lost their minds at this idea that the Iliad is not an explicitly like pro-war poem. You're like, I don't know what you were reading before, but she is not the one to make it not a pro-war poem.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  Like she's a translator. She's working, she's interpreting. Yes. But she is working with what she's got. I mean, translators, kudos to them. It's

• 22:37Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Hard job.

• 22:38Liv Albert?

  And when they're doing it into a, into a meter.

• 22:41Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. How did she do that?

• 22:42Liv Albert?

  No, no idea. No idea.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  No.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. The whole thing is just absurd when you

• 22:50Liv Albert?

  It's just angry men on the internet.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  They do. And it, this is something I find so interesting and I kind of full, going forward in research, I really want to look more at like social media and receptions of the ancient world and like how it ties to identity. Not just the right wing, but also LGBT communities will take the ancient world quite, you know, close to heart.

• 23:12Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  And get upset when it doesn't quite fit their version either. So it's, it's just interesting how this text, you know, thousands of years old is still really speaking to people, but in such vastly different ways.

• 23:25Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's so indicative of the quality of these ancient texts and just the way that like, humans are always going to human.

• 23:35Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 23:36Liv Albert?

  Just that I think that as I, I, I've done like just a little bit of press around the Odyssey for like my book and just like really local stuff. Um, and that's a question I got asked a handful of times of like, you know, why is it something that still resonates so today? And I think, I really think the best way to describe it is like, humans are still human. Like it's just, these things are so timeless, but in the same way that like, people were mad back then about, you know, certain characters and inversions and characterizations and people are mad now, right? Like,

• 24:10Speaker 03

  I mean, ancient, you know, authors, I think I talked about this in the last episode review. It's like, there was so much argument about Achilles, for example, just like, was he in a sexual relationship with Patroclus? And then who was the older and who was in what role? And there's always arguing and, because you can interpret a lot from these texts.

• 24:27Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And these characters matter in these like really, you know, differing ways across the millennia, but they still matter and they, it's so, I mean, it's such, it's so indicative of just the way that humanity interacts with things like this and, and how everyone does kind of find their own thing to be, you know, so, I don't know, passionate about, but also to like latch on in this way that can be like hurt or hurt them or be healthy, you know? It's, there's the, it's just,

• 24:57Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I think I feel quite, one of the benefits of studying specifically classical reception studies and in popular media is I've been, I've had to kind of learn to detach

• 25:10Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  and look at the, the reception.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  And kind of like what it's doing and why it's doing things and separate it from like, what I think a text should be doing and try and understand the why a bit more.

• 25:25Liv Albert?

  That is, it's fun that you phrase it like that because that's also, that's always what I've struggled with when it comes to certain types of reception, because I do wonder where all these decisions are coming from. And, and for me, it's just been that like, that takes me out of something, which I can imagine would be a great reason to study it. So I, you're coming at it from like the right position because like, that's what interests you. Whereas for me, I'm often just asked like, if I've read this or that, and I'm just like, those questions take me out of it and also make me like, just less into, you know, I just, I don't have that drive. I just, I want to understand it, but often I'm like, no, but if there's no explanation, like it's just not, you know,

• 26:08Liv Albert?

  it, it just rubs the wrong part in my brain where I'm glad that there are people who are like, no, this is the thing I love, you know?

• 26:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, just when I was saying like, I think off camera, I was like Nolan's decisions. I was like, I can absolutely understand pretty much all the choices he made.

• 26:23Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  As someone who's studied, um, Hollywood epic cinema.

• 26:28Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  I was like, he, he was very much creating, it was not, you know, an ancient epic. It was a Hollywood epic film and he was working, and that has its own like conventions and features and history as a genre. And then you have like cinema as a medium in general has its own history.

• 26:49Speaker 03

  And so that's what I saw Nolan doing is choices that were harking, but he, so many visual references in that film. Like he was like chock a block of like references to other cinema or like artwork.

• 27:02Liv Albert?

  Oh.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  Or like, um, Polyphemus, uh, eating the man.

• 27:05Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Oh, that was, that's so funny. I, yeah, I

• 27:10Speaker 03

  I clocked that. I mean, I felt so smug when I saw people talking about on the internet afterwards. And I was like, yeah, I got that.

• 27:15Liv Albert?

  I was so taken up by my, like, why is Polyphemus like this?

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Um, yeah.

• 27:22Liv Albert?

  That I just didn't even think of that. But then the, the second you phrased it like that, I was like, oh my God, I love that painting so much. Which, so that does, that makes me happy.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. And there's, um, I've seen some comments talking about how the Trojan horse coming out of the water, which is just objectively a bizarre, there are some, there are some decisions in the film that made no sense, like logically.

• 27:42Liv Albert?

  Speaking, yeah, exactly. Logically, like

• 27:44Speaker 03

  That made no sense. The giants in the armor made no sense to me. Not because they're meant to be barbarians, but I was just like logically, I was taken out because I was like, that's some really intricate armor. They're obviously just, they've just been chilling, hear the child scream and they come to defend the child. I'm like, were they already in their armor? Were they just like hanging around wearing armor? That's, that seems odd.

• 28:06Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  So that was like, but

• 28:08Liv Albert?

  They were baffling.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  They're baffling, but he was going full visual and spectacle in this film. Absolutely. Which is like one of the most important things for a Hollywood epic film. Like that is, it is spectacle. Um, and the horse, um, out the water, that was kind of almost a, um, Planet of the Apes reference.

• 28:25Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God.

• 28:25Speaker 03

  The Statue of Liberty, which when you think about it, makes a lot of sense because the film, a key sort of point he's trying to make or explore is this like collapse of civilization.

• 28:38Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  And so a reference to a film that is all about the collapse of human civilization and rise of another. It like, it makes sense.

• 28:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, I just, I, and like the characterization, like Odysseus made total sense when he put him in the context of Hollywood cinema.

• 28:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 03

  It's very hard to root for OG Odysseus.

• 29:02Liv Albert?

  I know. And that's why I love him.

• 29:04Speaker 03

  He's so interesting and complex. And the thing is, we can have anti-heroes. Um, because I think he does kind of play into that role, but that tends to be explored more in TV. I mean, honestly, I feel like ancient epic poems should just, they should be in TV only.

• 29:18Liv Albert?

  I've thought that ever since, like Troy. I'm really, I would, I would kill for a, like a Game of Thrones style.

• 29:25Speaker 03

  Well, they tried a bit with Troy, Fall of a City.

• 29:28Liv Albert?

  I know. I don't want to blame the BBC, but

• 29:31Speaker 03

  No, BBC had a role, Netflix had a, had a role in it.

• 29:37Liv Albert?

  It was just,

• 29:38Speaker 03

  It, it wasn't as great as it could have been, which is a shame because I met the executive producer and Derek Wachs, and he was so passionate.

• 29:44Liv Albert?

  I remember that from our episode because I think you made me want to watch it again, which I clearly didn't do, but I should.

• 29:52Liv Albert?

  I remember that now of you talking about that, maybe like, okay, maybe I need to give it another chance.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like, there's a lot of really interesting stuff in that series.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  And, but I just don't think it was as effective as it could have been. Nolan's, I think, is very effective and successful as a Hollywood epic film.

• 30:12Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 30:12Speaker 03

  It takes everybody, you know, the hero, um, Odysseus is absolutely like this family man. That's such a trend in ancient epic cinema. Going from like Spartacus, you know, with his love interest. It's always about like a one female love interest.

• 30:30Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 30:30Speaker 03

  And you have to have them, you know, be honorable and a moral figure. Oh God, what was he? There's one like really obvious one that's a completely escape. Oh Gladiator.

• 30:40Liv Albert?

  Hmm. Oh, yeah.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  Maximus, the family man. Like, that really solidified it. And so it becomes this kind of reflection of like, idea, ideal, like Western, like relationships, like nuclear family is like a really big thing.

• 30:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  So it makes sense why he focused so much in that. And as a result, these really interesting female characters like Cersei and Calypso are completely reduced to like their bare, but I mean, Calypso, I,

• 31:09Liv Albert?

  No, I think reduced is even like, reduced is even, yeah, a strong word for what, because it really like, Calypso, I mean, yeah, the women disappointed me, as you heard clearly, if you listened to my like absolutely rage field. I'm like slightly embarrassed by the second episode I did. I don't know, but I think people, whatever, but I'm just rage field. It's fine. Um, but, but like Calypso, and I haven't had a chance to speak really in detail about anyone, except for my ramblings about Helen, but Calypso was disappointing to me because like, I understand there is a lot of ambiguity around like Odysseus's uh, choice or lack thereof to be with Calypso. I mean, or rather, I think people

• 31:52Liv Albert?

  impose ambiguity on there. I think it's pretty clear in the poem what the intention is, is that like, he was happy at the beginning and then he got tired and now he wants to go home. Like, yeah, that, that's, yeah, pretty, pretty clearly what it is. It's similarly with, you know, there is no ambiguity about his romantic relationship with Cersei. Like it's there. It is very clearly in the text, you know? And, and so it was just, it's always frustrating to me. And like, I understand why you're never going to show that in a movie about the man being a good guy. But I also think I'm just perpetually disappointed because I think that there is a, a space for that. Like a space for acknowledging

• 32:38Liv Albert?

  that this is the way stories existed and you know, that that kind of thing is, is, you know, that I, I think what we do by removing those complexities of a character like that, just removing the, the choices that he makes that do harm his wife. We inadvertently, or not even inadvertently, but intentionally place the, I mean, place the male hierarchy on a further pedestal than it already is, right? Because men do cheat on their wives incredibly regularly. And I mean, especially right now.

• 33:17Liv Albert?

  There is like a horrific epidemic of male violence against their partners and all of these different things, right? Like it's worse now than ever, I think, especially with the internet, because they're using the internet for it. And so I just think like, like I understand, but that's because I understand how Western propaganda works. But I just think like, I wish there was a place for acknowledging this because I think it would benefit everybody if we were to realize that like, these kinds of issues are timeless and that means that they, you know, if they were happening back then, they're happening now and we can be aware rather than pretend like the perfect man

• 33:59Liv Albert?

  is just, like, I mean, pretend that a perfect man exists. Like, I think that that's so harmful. And not even just like, you know, cheating or not cheating, but like, it's, I just don't see the value in pretending that anyone is perfect. Men or otherwise, but specifically men.

• 34:20Liv Albert?

  My Miss Andri is getting stronger by the day and I'm no longer apologizing for it because if they would stop being so fucking terrible so publicly, then I would stop being a Miss Andress.

• 34:32Liv Albert?

  Sorry.

• 34:33Speaker 03

  No, that's, I love that. There was something, I think, in the, in the film, you can reduce to kind of Odysseus's mistakes, kind of almost moments of stupidity, like just not, like when he shoots the arrow and stuff.

• 34:46Liv Albert?

  None of it's intentional.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  It's not intentional, but I remember there was something, when they, when the men eat the cattle and I befriended the lady sat next to me in the cinema because she was throughout, I was loving her reaction. She'd be like, oh fuck, or like, really like gasping. And eventually she went, sorry if I'm annoying. You know, went, no, this is great. I'm like writing it in my notes, being like, lady next to me, gasped, lady next to me said, oh shit, like, and I talked to her.

• 35:11Liv Albert?

  The person next to me was doing that because I was, my ex, like exclamations during like, oh my, I must've been absurd in that theater.

• 35:21Speaker 03

  Well, I loved it, but she at one point turned to me and she went, because I, in passing, I mentioned like, oh, I'm going to go on a podcast. I'm just trying to take notes, like this is kind of what I study. And she went, so then she was asking me all these questions throughout, like being like, why are they doing that? Why is the, and so when they had the cash, she went, why are they doing that? And I was like, men.

• 35:43Speaker 03

  And she just went, yeah, okay.

• 35:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I mean, that's like the story, that's the answer to like every choice.

• 35:50Speaker 03

  Oh, it, it was an, it was a very interesting film and I, I completely appreciate every point you're saying about like the complexities and how it'd be so interesting to explore. The only thing is you would have a completely different type of film then.

• 36:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I know. I know. This is the thing is what I want is not a Hollywood film. What I, yeah, which I recognize, but like I can still dream, you know?

• 36:11Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. Like you can still absolutely want that complexity and miss the nuances. But it just, it means, yeah, it just, with the current state of like Hollywood.

• 36:24Liv Albert?

  No, it would never. Yeah.

• 36:25Speaker 03

  It's, it's not a possibility.

• 36:28Liv Albert?

  No.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  As long as it is following Odysseus, like the Odyssey does, I think we're going to, for the most part, I mean, we do get the Telemachus moments as well, but I think we,

• 36:41Speaker 03

  I just think cinema in its current state and TV as well will be so focused on the primary protagonist. That they just won't be interested in exploring the female characters to the same extent.

• 36:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah. No, exactly. Like it's, I mean, it's always been like this and it's getting more, right? Like women are not getting more representation. I mean, in certain cases maybe, but not in things like that. Like I think ethics will never be accepted as being like.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  It's a very male genre.

• 37:16Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  And which is why it was great to study someone who's interested in receptions of masculinity and male sexualities. Great for me. Lots to talk about, but it, oh my God, sorry, my cat.

• 37:29Liv Albert?

  Surprise cats.

• 37:43Liv Albert?

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• 38:23Liv Albert?

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• 39:07Liv Albert?

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• 39:35Liv Albert?

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• 40:25Liv Albert?

  I'm so, okay, I'm interested in that because like, obviously, you know, I could keep talking about how disappointed I was by the women generally, but I'm curious about, you know, as someone who is interested in, you know, this representations of masculinity and everything like that, like what?

• 40:41Speaker 03

  Or what my thoughts were.

• 40:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah, like what are you?

• 40:44Speaker 03

  I'm looking at my notes app right now from when I was in the film. My first thing is literally, my first comment was, oh shit Elliot, because he's like the first one you see. And then I went Fabcasting, perfect.

• 40:56Liv Albert?

  So like, he looks so good. Like, I just wanna, I don't know, I haven't also, I haven't seen a lot of him, like, all that much, just, I'm not that interested in celebrity stuff, but like, yeah, he looks good.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  I was like, do I fancy Elliot Page? I was very confused.

• 41:12Liv Albert?

  Certainly not against it. What's funny is that, like, he looks, like, he, I, I am absolutely attracted to him, but he looks to me young, even though I know he's not younger than me.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  He's 30 nights up, because.

• 41:26Liv Albert?

  I know, okay, so yeah.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  Because I was looking up, if he was playing Achilles, he would have been only like a couple of years younger than Brad Pitt was, and Brad Pitt was way too old.

• 41:34Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 41:35Speaker 03

  So I was like, but he looks so young. And so he played this character seen on, who is transformed from basically another Odysseus in the Aeneid, like, he is, he's fully aware of the plan. He is lying, he's deceitful, like, he's, he's a tricky, like, he's tricking them. But here, he's this very innocent, young, like, he's meant to be, I guess, in his twenties or so, like, early twenties, like, he's, and he played it brilliantly.

• 42:04Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 03

  Like, he, yeah.

• 42:06Liv Albert?

  I know, I was looking at him and I'm like, I'm like, I have, you know, I'm attracted to you, but I'm like, am I too old for you? But I'm like, I know I'm objectively not.

• 42:13Speaker 03

  He's like.

• 42:14Liv Albert?

  He's older.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  A year or two older than you, yeah.

• 42:17Liv Albert?

  Well, and having grown up watching his movies where he looked around the same age as me, like, yeah, that makes sense. No, he's just looking good. I also think, and I mean this as a compliment, but it always feels like weird to point out, but like, I mean, he looks better as a man. You can tell that that was the right, that that was what was in there the whole time, because.

• 42:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I didn't fancy, didn't fancy him before. Now I do, now.

• 42:40Liv Albert?

  Absolutely. Yeah, he's looking good. I love that.

• 42:45Speaker 03

  Love that for him.

• 42:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 03

  So it's nice to see him thriving, because again, like, I can't remember if I said this on like or not, I was not a fan of his acting before, apart from June, I just, I did not find him a particularly convincing actor in this. Oh, no, he crushed it, absolutely. Like, one of the outstanding performances in the film for me. Because I think in the film, the acting, I think, is fine. Some is good, but you can tell in terms of dialogue and like, the actual material, like, the female character, like Zendaya, has like nothing to work with.

• 43:23Liv Albert?

  No, it was the writing, because the, you could really tell with a lot, I mean, the women broadly, the writing was just like, could you give them something? Like, I think.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  Something to work with.

• 43:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah, exactly. Anne Hathaway did a good job. I honestly was a bit, when I saw the trailers, I was a bit worried because we're getting so much of, you know, these, and I do not blame the women doing it, but so much Botox, you know, there's such an expectation to never age, and therefore we're getting so many actors who can no longer move their faces in ways that seem compelling. And I was a little worried because her, there was a trailer, a shot in the trailer, yeah, where it looked like, oh god. But no, she, she has a very expressive face still, and I, she did a really good job with what he gave her, I think.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, she was, yeah, I, I thought she did a good job. Again, not quite the Penelope I would have liked, but there's no real, cunning was not a thing Nolan was interested in exploring. He.

• 44:21Liv Albert?

  In The Odyssey, an epic that is almost explicitly about two cunning characters.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  That he just, yeah, he clearly, this act, this is a director who has really been moving into sort of different forms of epic cinema. And so I think it makes sense. He was like, I want to wait, like, an ancient world epic film, like, that's kind of like a pinnacle of Hollywood, like, if you make one of those films and it's successful, that's like, very, you know, impressive. And so I think he just wasn't necessarily in, he was using it as a jumping off point.

• 44:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 44:57Speaker 03

  Um, so I, I, there were a few moments where I was a bit like, maybe the marketing has been a bit wrong, like, calling it The Odyssey, when it does include a lot of stuff, but it misses also a lot. And Odysseus is not really the Odysseus, but again, as I've said, like, makes total sense. He is making a Hollywood, like, epic hero. And we need him to be a family man and honorable, because that's part of like, the genre, like, that's a huge aspect. Um, but it just, yeah. And, and calling it based on The Odyssey.

• 45:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 03

  Which I thought, at least with Troy, they used, um, inspired by Homer's Iliad.

• 45:38Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and they didn't call it The Iliad.

• 45:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, and also, um, was it the way he would cite Emily Wilson?

• 45:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah, a lot.

• 45:46Speaker 03

  Which, and, you know, talk about, um, the opening line, tell me about a complicated man. And obviously her review, people are calling it scathing. I don't think it was scathing. I think it sounded, to me, it sounded like an academic. Like, she was writing like an academic. I didn't necessarily agree with all her points, but I think that's because she comes at it from a translator perspective, not, and so someone who knows the text.

• 46:11Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  Versus like, someone who studies film.

• 46:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah, you come at it from the other side, like, I still as a classicist, but from the film side would be so different. Yeah.

• 46:21Speaker 03

  Um, but it was bizarre that he would keep citing her. So he's having this kind of, setting it up that they are going to engage very heavily with the source material, but, and they do, to an extent, but it is mostly, he's interested in exploring fears of like, the effects of war on a man. And Odysseus really isn't the character for that. That's Aeneas. Do, do the Aeneid, if you want a man who's, you know, clearly traumatized by war, who's a family man. Like, the amount of times Achilles, not Achilles, Aeneas cries in the Aeneid, like, that man is just crying all the time. He is having an awful time. Like, he's not happy. He's guilt ridden about his wife.

• 47:06Liv Albert?

  He's always.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  Looking after his son and father.

• 47:09Liv Albert?

  Yeah. No, that really would, I hadn't thought of the Aeneid as, you know, as an alternative, but it, really, you're quite right about, like, the thing that he wanted to explore would have been better served by the Aeneid.

• 47:25Speaker 03

  But the Aeneid doesn't have the same cultural weight as The Odyssey.

• 47:29Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 47:30Speaker 03

  And so, understand why he did it, but he'd, I think he'd have a lot less people getting pissy at him. Like, and, I mean, from all angles, if he'd done the Aeneid, you know, unless you studied classics, you don't really know the Aeneid. It's my favorite. I love it, but.

• 47:50Liv Albert?

  I, it's interesting. I love this. I didn't plan this at all, but I just, was it last night? Maybe, or the night before? Time is all blurring together. Um, but I recorded, not for my show, uh, but with Avon McMaster for, uh, her podcast. And she, uh, she is like a specialist in the Aeneid, but also had felt very like, had felt that Emily Wilson's review was very harsh.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:20Liv Albert?

  I don't know if I should, she was very like friendly about it. It was not, it was not in any way. It was just more like, to her, because she also liked the movie. Um, it felt like a little over the top, I think, the, the criticisms or the, you know, and her, and her review was harsh. And I, I say that having, like, for me, I, I, I really needed her review because I saw the movie early, which in hindsight, I wish I hadn't.

• 48:46Liv Albert?

  But I saw it like a week before most people were seeing it, and right before anyone was allowed to talk about it. And so like, there was never a limit on whether I could talk about it, but it meant that like, nobody had talked about it by the time I saw it. And I think that that, I ended up then, you know, kind of sitting in this space where I had felt really troubled by a lot of his decisions. But then, as people started to see it, all I kept seeing was all of these people just praising it for just being a good action movie and all this. And like, I think there, we should, there, there's nothing wrong with praising it as that. But I, what I never saw was anyone talking about, I mean, specifically the women, which I think was an actually quite an irresponsible decision. Like, it's not just like, oh, another movie that doesn't like women.

• 49:31Liv Albert?

  Like, I just think we need to be taking some of these things more seriously in our current climate. Um, and I was just disappointed to see nobody talking anything about that. And they were just like, it's a good old action movie. It doesn't get everything right. No, but it's a good, and it's like, that is fine. But when it comes to people in our field, and because these were primarily men, who I generally respect, who I was just seeing so much, and I was like actively trying not to look at it too. So I wasn't clicking into anything deeper because I was like, I'm just trying not to engage, because it really was like weighing on me as a woman in this field, thinking like, man, is nobody, does nobody think this is an issue? Like, it just was, it was hard, it was hard, mostly because I'm so entrenched in The Odyssey. I mean, it's been my favorite since I was a child, but on top of that, I've spent the last year and a half, like, writing my own and reading it like eight different times and, you know.

• 50:26Liv Albert?

  So it was just, I was like, kind of lost. And then I read Emily Wilson's review and felt like, huh, it was like my nervous system could calm down in a way that I was like, I didn't know I needed this, but I just needed to see that someone else felt like me about it. But it's just so, it's just interesting. Like, I understand why people take so many different things from it, and different, people have different priorities and all this, but it's just, it's, I don't know, it's fascinating to talk about, but so often it gets. Um, like really stifled, I think, particularly because of all of the like really, really unreasonable conservative backlash it got at the beginning because or like before it came out, right? Because then the people who were so upset that it was racially diverse,

• 51:11Liv Albert?

  then, you know, they made it so toxic that then if you were upset that like for me, I was upset about the women primarily, but also that there was no like, obviously Mediterranean people in the cast. And I think that like diversity means less if you are intentionally or otherwise excluding the people for whom the story is their historical culture.

• 51:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:36Liv Albert?

  And it's just interesting to see, but then you get lumped in with the same people who think it's bad because there are black people in it. And I'm like, I want the diversity, but I would like some also maybe one Greek person.

• 51:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, because I've been thinking about the whole no Greek actors cast and part of me understands the argument and part of me is not quite sure because the way the Odyssey, I'm not saying it belongs to any, I don't think these texts belong to a specific culture or country anymore because of ancient colonialism.

• 52:12Liv Albert?

  Totally.

• 52:13Speaker 03

  They had just traveled so far and so wide and they have been so foundational to multiple countries, um, cultures that I don't see it necessarily as being like full of Greece. And I understand the setting, but it is, it's a Hollywood epic film. So when they do diversity, it's going to reflect American diversity.

• 52:37Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 52:37Speaker 03

  So like, I, I understood. And the thing is, we do have Greek adoptions of the Odyssey already. Um, we have, I think there's a film, there's a TV series. Um, there was an animated TV show I didn't know about, but I was talking to, um, someone yesterday who's British Greek and she was like, yeah, I remember like fever dreams of watching this animated version of the Odyssey in Greek. And I was like, okay, so like,

• 53:06Speaker 03

  Greek people have adapted it and done it their way.

• 53:10Liv Albert?

  I just think to I, for me, and this is also based heavily in my like real love of the Greek people and culture.

• 53:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:19Liv Albert?

  I think, I think I agree with you, like on the surface of the expanse of the story and the way that it has, has transformed. And I think that if Greece had become a superpower, you know, I would also be like, no, we like that absolutely. But I think the way that modern Greeks, they're often treated as if they don't deserve to have that as their historical culture. And I recognize there's so much to say. Well, exactly. And, and there's also something to be said about the fact that like, if you, by setting this in ancient Greece as it is, and by using those words and things, like, I just think you have a, I think that it's not

• 54:04Liv Albert?

  a responsibility, but just like, I just think it would have been a more, just like, human, it, it just seemed to have, would have been like a nicer idea, even if it was just like, one of his sailors was Greek.

• 54:21Speaker 03

  One Greek actor.

• 54:22Liv Albert?

  We're gonna get the Hollywood stars totally. Like, I'm not

• 54:25Speaker 03

  All about the name.

• 54:27Liv Albert?

  Yeah, exactly. And I'm not pretending that that is not going to be the inevitability, but like, the choice instead to have them, Odysseus and his men at one point, speaking to the people who, anyone who knows the story well enough,

• 54:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:44Liv Albert?

  will know that the, they, the first place that they sacked the city is, is Mars. It's in mythical Thrace. And so, you know, it is a city of quote unquote barbarians. And the Odysseus and his men speak to those people and they talk about being Greek, but the people that they're speaking to speak Greek and they don't put subtitles or acknowledge that it's Greek. So to 99% of the audience, they're speaking some foreign language to these people who are calling themselves Greeks. And I think that choice made it even more troubling to me

• 55:27Liv Albert?

  because it felt like an intentional way to say, but you're, the, these ancient Greeks are not like Greeks today. They're not the same, even though you're still using the word. And it's something different to like, saying ancient Romans is different than saying ancient Italians, right? But we say ancient Greeks so intentionally and we use their language and we misuse their letters. So they look like something in English and all of these things to me, just, I just think it would have been more respectful, I think is the word I want to use. I think it would have been respectful to cast a Greek person. And maybe that's just my personal, but it just, I don't know. Again, like if the Greeks were

• 56:10Liv Albert?

  a superpower, if they were like a powerful country, if they were a rich country, if they were like, you know, that would be different, but like they were colonized so badly. It's not like they spent the last 2,000 years colonizing, right? Like, it, you know, so it's just, it, I don't know. I think there are con, contextual things that it just seemed to me a little rude to like base your entire movie on saying the word Greece like 8,000 times. And then they didn't even do a press thing in Greece. Like it just, and they filmed it there and they, you know, like, it was, it would be one thing if they had separated themselves from the Greece of it a little bit more, but to film it there and to, you know, use it like that. And then to not do anything just was like, I thought it was disappointing.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  No, those are fair points. I see, I see it a bit more now.

• 56:58Liv Albert?

  Yeah, like I understand, like, you know, it is still Hollywood, but it's just like, I think it just would have been nice. It's even different. Yeah. Like Italy is a more powerful country than Greece. Like they, you know, there's just, there's, there's, there's modern context that I think often gets like ignored because Americans are like, Western history is our history, you know? And so to me, that's all it's great of.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  Oh, the history side of things.

• 57:19Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God.

• 57:20Speaker 03

  I very much do not. And

• 57:21Liv Albert?

  The age of bronze is coming to an end.

• 57:24Speaker 03

  Our age of bronze is collapsing. It's like, there was, because that, those were the bits of dialogue I thought were silly.

• 57:32Liv Albert?

  They were very silly.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  I didn't mind dad and stuff. I had, people were getting so mad about that. I was like, I think that's interesting. It just, it was a bit jarring against some of the then more grandiose dialogue.

• 57:45Liv Albert?

  Exactly. And that's what Emily Wilson pointed out too, right? Fully, I think. It's like, I think you could just pick one though, because you're speaking, a lot of the time they were speaking colloquially. And then a lot of the time they were speaking very not colloquially, like the, our age of bronze is collapsing. Like, that's very different than dad, you know? My dad's coming back, you know? It was just sort of more like, yeah, continuity, maybe.

• 58:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think dialogue was definitely a weaker point. Again, I still really enjoyed the film. Um, but it was

• 58:15Liv Albert?

  One day.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  I, I wasn't expecting to.

• 58:18Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 58:19Speaker 03

  No, I don't think, you're not going to like it.

• 58:22Liv Albert?

  But I think maybe in a year I would hate it less. I would be able to be a little bit more open minded. Like, like I like Troy now, what it is.

• 58:32Speaker 03

  Yes. I genuinely really enjoy Troy. Again, I'm, I'm quite

• 58:38Liv Albert?

  Same, like for all its flaws, but like I enjoy Troy.

• 58:41Speaker 03

  It's like, I think a lot of it comes down to you, you don't need to enjoy a film. It does not have to be, you know, the, a perfect film.

• 58:52Liv Albert?

  Totally.

• 58:52Speaker 03

  It's like, it's like, and when, and when it comes to people picking like what their actual favorite film is, unless you're a film bro who's gonna be like, I like Shawshank Redemption or all Citizen Kane. It's like, no, that's not your favorite film. That's maybe a, like, for me, I'd say like, those are films, I see, not Citizen Kane. I thought that was boring. Uh, but like Shawshank Redemption, I thought that is a great film. This is probably one of the best films ever seen. But what's my favorite film? My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

• 59:18Liv Albert?

  Like, hell yeah. filmed in Toronto.

• 59:21Speaker 03

  Oh, was it?

• 59:22Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 59:24Speaker 03

  I love that.

• 59:25Liv Albert?

  Yeah, the second one they filmed near my apartment when I was living here at the time.

• 59:29Speaker 03

  Oh my God, the hype I felt when that second, I haven't seen the third though, a bit. I'm

• 59:33Liv Albert?

  No, neither. Yeah.

• 59:34Speaker 03

  But the second was all right. If you like the, it was just references to the first film. It was great. Anyway, but that's another example of a film using the letters, but at least that's by a Greek American.

• 59:47Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's true. They're allowed.

• 59:50Speaker 03

  They can do it. We maybe shouldn't.

• 59:52Liv Albert?

  Well, that's the thing though, right? And there are those things.

• 59:55Speaker 03

  It just looks a bit silly. I understand why they do it.

• 59:58Liv Albert?

  I think often when you use it, like for my Big Fat Greek Wedding, it's different too, because it's like all about Greek culture today.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Liv Albert?

  But when the age, when, when like, when English Hollywood use it, because they use it as, as a way that suggests that it's a dead language. And that's what I find to be yucky. Like they often use it and then people will defend it. Like it's ancient Greek. We can, it doesn't matter. Like it looks like an S. It's fine. It's like, but this is still a language that people use. Like imagine if, if a different language used a bunch of Latin characters to spell out something random, like we would find that if it was the culture like Hollywood, if it was as big and like monolithic, like that would be bothersome.

• 1:00:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's just hard to imagine because Latin alphabet is just in so many.

• 1:00:45Liv Albert?

  Well, like totally, exactly. It's changed and that's, but then that's the other thing too, is like Greek only has the one country using their alphabet. Just like, let them have it.

• 1:00:55Liv Albert?

  I don't know. I'm also like very defensive of the Greek people for good or bad.

• 1:01:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm getting that. But honestly, like, I think it's nice that you care so much. And like, you, it's clearly an important country to you.

• 1:01:08Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I see the connection with this thing that I love. And I also think it comes from being from a place that is so colonizer, right? Like,

• 1:01:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Liv Albert?

  I don't, I come from a place where my quote unquote, culture is just stepping on other cultures. Like, and I don't have, I don't have a family background that, that it goes knowingly beyond Canada. Like, my family is just very generational.

• 1:01:36Speaker 03

  Canadian.

• 1:01:37Liv Albert?

  Canadian. Yeah, my dad recently found out, he was like doing ancestry.com stuff and found out that my family has been here in French Canada, which I do think makes it slightly better, because the French colonizers were very quickly colonized by the British. Um, but, but I, my family came here in like the 1700s, which is like the earliest you can do without being indigenous. Um, but no, so I think that I also just feel like these cultures that have gotten kind of stepped on in such similar ways to the point where they have been forcibly removed from their modern people, I think, is just, it's, I think, it's unnecessarily removed.

• 1:02:17Liv Albert?

  Like, I think we could continue to, like, exist in the same realm of, of classics without, like, the removal of Greece as much as happens. So I just, you know, I make my money off their culture. So I figure at least I also, I mean, I do also care about it.

• 1:02:35Liv Albert?

  But, okay, I'm really curious about the masculinity stuff. I mean, generally, I'm thrilled.

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  Need to get back to, um.

• 1:02:42Liv Albert?

  But I'm generally thrilled. I'm so glad that you like it in this way, because it's also letting me like have a bit of a, a better time on, like, thinking about it in this side.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's not all gonna be horrifying.

• 1:02:54Liv Albert?

  No. And I will say, it's, it was really hard for me watching it because, like, admittedly, and I think this is the perfect place for me to finally, like, also say slightly nicer things. Like admittedly, when I, when it started, I was, I was really optimistic. I was like, okay, actually, like, I'm kind of getting these vibes. I don't hate the lack of color as much as I thought. Like, no, I'm, I'm feeling it. Why are they wearing so many layers? Okay, I can forget about, you know, all the layers and pants. Um, and the, the thing for me that unfortunately ruined it and made it so that I couldn't really try, like, enjoy the rest as much as I would have liked to, was the treatment of, of the women that I love so much

• 1:03:36Liv Albert?

  and that I know exist in one way in Homer. And then to, to see them, I mean, it was Helen specifically, right? Like, if you've listened to me talk, you know that. It was the seeing that he scarred Helen and made her into a battered woman and made Menelaus scary. Like, those things that, to me, were like, so unnecessary, like, so dangerous in a world where, like, violence against women is worse than ever. And I think to cast a woman as incredibly skilled as Lupita Nyong'o, but also someone who you knew would, like, no one could have reasonably thought that she would not get racial abuse by being cast as Helen.

• 1:04:20Liv Albert?

  Like, I think that if somebody pretended that they didn't see that coming, they're lying. And so I think it was irresponsible. Again, I think it was irresponsible to cast her and then to desecrate her character to that degree. Like, was just like so disappointing to me that I was like, oh, my God. And so it just made it hard for me to see beyond that. But like, I do objectively want to see beyond those things. I want to see the rest of it. So that's, that's just my workaround of saying, like, I'm very glad that you liked it. And I'm glad to, to talk about it in this more positive way.

• 1:04:56Speaker 03

  I mean, yeah, it, it feels weird now talking positive after like a very good point like that, which was.

• 1:05:01Liv Albert?

  No, I know. And but, but I think the thing is, is that I think all the points need to be made, which is why I'm glad to have the positive side too. Because, like, yeah, that's valid. Like, that part is valid, but also, like, a, a fair acknowledgement of the movie will, will not just focus on that. And, and I am curious too, like, the masculinity stuff again, like, I've, I asked you and then I derailed you.

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  Oh, I derailed myself as well.

• 1:05:27Liv Albert?

  It's so Hollywood. And then what is masculinity to Hollywood? And what is masculinity in the ancient world? And also, like, all of it is a construct that's meant to hurt men as well as hurting women.

• 1:05:39Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:05:40Liv Albert?

  Telemachus. Maybe we'll start light.

• 1:05:43Speaker 03

  Telemachus.

• 1:05:46Speaker 03

  I actually had so few thoughts on him. I thought he was, he was a bland character. I was not, I was not invested in.

• 1:05:52Liv Albert?

  Fair.

• 1:05:53Speaker 03

  Like, I, I enjoyed all the, I liked the Penelope, Penelope scenes and Odysseus scenes. The Telemachus stuff, I was a bit like, oh.

• 1:06:01Liv Albert?

  Honestly, though, that's kind of Telemachus.

• 1:06:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's just a bit bland. But I did, a couple of things I did know was, one of the interesting things is that very early on in the film, so soon after Telemachus is introduced, I think it's, he's, um, trying to go against the suitors in his first appearance. And then we cut to, and I called it obligatory fighting training to establish masculinity. Like, you have this scene of him practicing and, you know, being trained in sort, you know, and Eumaeus is there, you know, being like, you're doing this wrong, you're doing that wrong. Even though I'm blind, like, and I'm like, okay, so now you have this really like wise old guy as well. It was like a lot of tropes.

• 1:06:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:46Speaker 03

  Um, but I just thought it was very interesting to have that fighting training scene, because that's not, at least, you know, with Telemachus.

• 1:06:56Liv Albert?

  Certainly, yeah, not, and certainly not with Eumaeus. And we don't have, I mean, any, in, it's always been interesting to me that we don't have an interaction with Telemachus and Eumaeus until Odysseus is back. Because when we do, like, we get the sense that they're very close. Like, he basically calls him dad.

• 1:07:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:12Liv Albert?

  But it's, yeah, so it's, I mean, I do, I have to say, I liked generally what they did with Eumaeus's character. I do think it was, again, irresponsible to just pretend these people weren't enslaved. Um.

• 1:07:22Speaker 03

  Servant. They love that word, don't they?

• 1:07:24Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God. Like, servants who can't leave.

• 1:07:28Speaker 03

  But with Mia Goth's character, they did kind, they did kind of acknowledge it. When like Penelope's like, oh, my God, what? She's like sharing knowledge. Like, well, you know, she's going to be looking for a way out and a way up. And Tinus was like, did seem to make sense as like, who, out of him or Penelope, if you're an enslaved, but you'd go with him, I reckon. Because you see the tide's kind of shifting.

• 1:07:53Liv Albert?

  Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I did, I, I got up towards the end there. Honestly, I think I was so kind of caught up in my sadness over some of the women that I just really, I really wasn't even able to see the forest for the trees at that point. So I'm also glad to be reminded of.

• 1:08:10Speaker 03

  Like, there was some, they did, I think with women, they did try and include a few moments to kind of allude to the dangers of, you know, a society that's built on slavery, but also a patriarchal society like, um, that of the film. Um, so like Cersei seemed, Cersei seemed like their kind of nod at being like, men are dangerous. Like, women are often, like, can be victims of rape. And I was, I, I found a characterization interesting. But it's like, again, because she was not, um, like an object of desire for Odysseus, she was turned, I think, I mean, she wasn't called like a Baba Yaga figure on how it was like, that's what it was.

• 1:08:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:56Speaker 03

  But.

• 1:08:56Liv Albert?

  They turned her into Roman witches.

• 1:08:59Speaker 03

  Yes. But I like, I liked the physicality of it. I thought that was.

• 1:09:03Liv Albert?

  No, so did I.

• 1:09:04Speaker 03

  I was watching that pig.

• 1:09:06Liv Albert?

  It was Ovidian. That was.

• 1:09:08Speaker 03

  Or that was hard to watch. And all practical effects were, like, again, some great filmmaking. But I liked, so yeah, this is gonna have spoilers, obviously, for anyone watching.

• 1:09:17Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:17Speaker 03

  When she turns them back to men and she is saying, like, was it go back to your disguises, like, take on your disguises? And I was like, I really liked that. She's like, I've just revealed them for what these men were. And I thought that was, I thought it was interesting to have that kind of message of like, men are, like, can be really dangerous to women. And like, it, for me, it felt like she was very reasonable to be like, oh, these men have showed up. I know they're saying they're not gonna do anything. I don't know them. They, they could do.

• 1:09:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah. I, Cersei was, is one that I am like.

• 1:09:56Liv Albert?

  I find even harder, even harder to talk about, I guess, because I agree with you completely. Like, I think that, I think that what they tried to do with Cersei is interesting. And I think that if, if I didn't know the Homeric Cersei as well as I do, if I didn't know those scenes as well as I do, and again, like, I'm coming at this from having, not just read it multiple times in the last year, but especially with those scenes, like, I read them into a microphone like a week ago, like, it was very recent, very fresh in my mind. And so I, those are heavily impacting it. And also, honestly, my current state of like rage at the, the constant violence against women

• 1:10:40Liv Albert?

  that I'm seeing in the news constantly. Like, I also think, and I've been trying to figure out ways of like, I don't know, I'm, I want to do something on it in a bigger sense, but like, especially with the US and, I mean, they, they're just like raping women in their concentration camps and getting them pregnant, and that is barely on the news. And it's just this stuff, like, we are in this time when I think it's so particularly scary that I then overthink their choices. Cause I think on the surface, the Cersei character, and a lot of people have, have defended her to me. I think on the surface, she is, she can seem empowering because of everything you just said, right?

• 1:11:20Liv Albert?

  She is, there is this acknowledgement that men are dangerous, that, that, you know, their true form is pigs, these different things, like, and those are good. I think that to a modern viewer, without the con, the background, that was a good character and an attempt at some form of, like, yeah, empowering to women. But I think that when you compare her to the Cersei that Homer gives us, you end up kind of realizing the ways that this Cersei is intent, like Nolan Cersei is intentionally much more palatable to men.

• 1:12:04Liv Albert?

  Because the Cersei in Homer uses their lust against them, right? Like, the Cersei in Homer has these men show up outside her house. They see her inside, they say she's pretty, they call her to come out, like, and that's when the transformation happens. So the Cersei in Homer, to me, is a woman who knows what men want from her and is more than happy to use that to keep herself safe. Like, she uses her sexuality to keep herself safe. She uses men's sexualization of her, rather, to keep herself safe through this transformation, right?

• 1:12:49Liv Albert?

  Whereas in Nolan, much like, you know, all the other things he has Odysseus doing that make it just like a little bit less his fault, you know? Again, like, the men, the men go out in search, he tries to keep them back, which is hilarious because they literally lose lots and they cry and he forces him, them to go find Cersei in the book. But like, and so it just sort of, it takes away that agency from Odysseus, for one, but it also takes away the, the initiating pig behavior that is the men. The men in Homer are pigs because they want a woman's body for just the body.

• 1:13:32Liv Albert?

  But the men in Nolan are pigs because they're hungry. And those are two very different types of commentary on women's relationships with strange men, right? Like, this Nolan Cersei is Baba Yaga. She's scary, she's powerful, she's, you know? But as compared to a woman who intentionally uses the fact that men cannot control their lust around women, and that is meant to be our problem, she turns that on its head in a way that I love and had never even really conceptualized like that until I saw the alternative.

• 1:14:12Liv Albert?

  And then I went, oh, by removing all the sexual nature, like, you've removed this, this aspect of her power that I now see was incredibly important.

• 1:14:23Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:14:24Liv Albert?

  And again, that's all my preference, but like, I'm just, it was, it's interesting to me to think about it that way because I do think that on the surface, she was a good, like, adaptation. She was very different from Homeric Cersei, and there's obviously nothing wrong with that. But in terms of the choices that they made, I just think all of it just made it, everything just a little bit more palatable to men and just a little bit less about men's inability to control themselves.

• 1:14:48Speaker 03

  I mean, to be fair, she does, I have a line I wrote down where she goes, um, they rape, they pillage, they eat, they are pigs.

• 1:14:55Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 1:14:56Speaker 03

  So like, she is talking about, like, in the scene with the, you know, the conversation, she is being like, they would have done this to me, like, it would have happened. It's just, it's not, obviously, it's overt. I don't know if overt's all the right word, but it's not like in Homer's.

• 1:15:13Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah, I know, and it is, it's, it's all about, I mean, it's all about perspective too, right? And like, like, I'm coming at this from a place where I, I now also have spent way too much time just seeing deeper levels of like, the patriarchal oppression than I have in recent years. The timing is just, you know, the timing.

• 1:15:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is a time we live in.

• 1:15:42Liv Albert?

  Remember when I asked about masculinity and then talked about Cersei?

• 1:15:46Speaker 03

  We, this is, this conversation, it's like, we are bouncing all over.

• 1:15:51Liv Albert?

  Perfect, this is called ADHD. And such is life, such is life. But yeah, this, this, the, the sort of like nuclear family bit too, you brought up early, which obviously ties so, so much into the masculinity that they were trying to convey, like, I don't know, I'm generally interested in all of it. I found the scene where like, um, he was trying to really amp up the, the romance and the family dynamics, you know, where like, it was the flashback where Odysseus and Penelope are like all snugly in the-

• 1:16:22Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, in bed with the whole lighting.

• 1:16:25Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that was very interesting to me in a, in a way that I think maybe was convincing to be a, a regular audience.

• 1:16:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I think, I don't know if I have much more to say than the fact, like, the whole idea of this nuclear family and this man who is so in love with his wife is just such a key component, like, convention within Hollywood epic cinema, especially ancient world films. And it's, it's just a whole way of marking him as the protagonist of film. He's this moral figure in comparison with then the suitors, I would say, probably the villain, most obvious villains, and Antinous.

• 1:17:12Liv Albert?

  He was good, he was good.

• 1:17:14Speaker 03

  He was great, and he was really interesting. I've seen a lot of criticism about his costuming. And people being like, why is he in armor? Why is he in these furs? And I'm like, that's another convention. They're doing another thing from ancient epic cinema that goes back to sort of like Spartacus. You always have the morally corrupt villain in multiple layers of clothing. So Spartacus, and you'll usually have the, the protagonist is usually somewhat naked or at least like more exposed. So Spartacus, uh, in the 1960 film versus Crassus, who is a Roman senator, and he is obviously wearing a lot of, you know, robe and toga, and he's draped in fabric versus, you know, bare chested Spartacus.

• 1:17:59Speaker 03

  You get it in, um, Gladiator is a really key one. The final sort of, I mean, Commodus is always in, you know, these furs and extra layers.

• 1:18:12Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, and when he's wearing, you know, in the final scene, you know, the, the jewel with Maximus, where Maximus is again, you know, he's just in his armor, arms are out, like, you can see his body and his muscle, and this kind of like true, real, pure, honest masculinity through his, but like, the body is such a key component of expressing masculinity in these films. And so by covering it, it's a sign of weakness and it shows like engagement in like luxury. And that's associated with like moral corruptness. And so that's what is happening with Antinous. I mean, Troy, it happens again, Brad Pitt versus Agamemnon. Brian Cox is completely covered in loads of layers versus Brad Pitt, you know?

• 1:18:55Speaker 03

  Again, arms out, short skirt.

• 1:18:59Liv Albert?

  And so that's like- I've never noticed this, I'm obsessed.

• 1:19:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, so when I'm seeing people criticize, I'm like, but that's what, that's what this film, I think, does really well is visual references and intertexts. It is all about that. And so it's why for me, like, I think it's a really successful ancient, like Hollywood epic film. Um, because it does all these aspects, but I think in a way that for definitely, uh, an audience not super familiar with the ancient texts, but all, some who have like some knowledge also will enjoy. I think he uses them in an effective way that's enjoy, because I was trying to, I tried last night, I thought, oh, before the podcast, I'll try watch The Return.

• 1:19:42Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah, I haven't seen that, yeah.

• 1:19:44Speaker 03

  Oh, God, I got, I think I got like 20 minutes in, it was so, it was bad, it was bad. I was like, this is not an enjoyable film. The acting was bad, just filming was, I was just like, this is not great, so I didn't-

• 1:19:56Liv Albert?

  It's disappointing, because the, I think the casting, like, just the, I only know, you know, the two main cast, but they seemed so much better to me than Matt Damon and Hathaway, but clearly not-

• 1:20:07Speaker 03

  Gathering from that film, it plays into a very similar sort of idea of the male body as a sign of like moral superiority and heroism. So Ralph Fiennes in that film is very naked for a lot of the film. Like, first time you see him, he's naked. Him, I think when they do the scene with the bow at the very end, he is almost naked.

• 1:20:32Liv Albert?

  I mean, that's true to the text, because when Odysseus reveals himself, he strips everything off and he's like explicitly naked while he kills everybody, and I do love that.

• 1:20:42Speaker 03

  I think it's a pretty cool bit. And it, but it also happened to them work with this Hollywood convention. The male body is such like a crucial grounds on which masculinity is performed and embodied. That's like, and so it's why people will then look at Brad Pitt versus Elliot Page, and they're like, well, Brad Pitt's the right option, obviously, because he fits in with the conventions and the expectations of what the male body should look like in this, in these films. And Hollywood in general, really. Um, so yeah, I think that was everything.

• 1:21:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that was it with the like, the clothing and the costuming.

• 1:21:25Liv Albert?

  Yeah, you mentioned like a lot of just different like visual references and stuff. Or, or just like the other films, or I don't know, you mentioned something earlier, and I'm just curious what you flagged.

• 1:21:37Speaker 03

  I think it was costuming, references to artwork, um.

• 1:21:41Liv Albert?

  Oh, right, yeah, the.

• 1:21:41Speaker 03

  Like the eating of.

• 1:21:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:44Speaker 03

  Um, I'm trying to remember, it's just a lot of, I think, shot like visually, the shots like being at sea, et cetera.

• 1:21:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:54Speaker 03

  Are evocative of previous, um, adoptions.

• 1:21:57Liv Albert?

  And very Homeric.

• 1:21:58Speaker 03

  Very Homeric.

• 1:22:00Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:00Speaker 03

  And I think it was, it was just a lot about the whole spectacle. The film was visually like a lot.

• 1:22:07Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:07Speaker 03

  I didn't see in IMAX, which.

• 1:22:09Liv Albert?

  I was gonna ask, yeah. No, neither did I.

• 1:22:11Speaker 03

  Which I just, I'm, I hate that. I hate that he did it all in IMAX. I think it's pretentious.

• 1:22:16Liv Albert?

  Absolutely, it is. And also like I saw.

• 1:22:19Speaker 03

  To an extent.

• 1:22:20Liv Albert?

  No, a thousand percent.

• 1:22:21Speaker 03

  Or access it.

• 1:22:22Liv Albert?

  No, it's so elitist.

• 1:22:24Speaker 03

  Made me mad. That's something I'm like genuinely not happy about.

• 1:22:28Liv Albert?

  I've thought about it, because like I, I know I wouldn't like it again, but I would like to see it again from a perspective of knowing what I'm getting into so that I can be a bit more open minded. I would, but I'm not spending thirty dollars on it. Like, I'm, the first time I got to see it for free, which was great, but like, I'm not, and, and we saw, well, what I found out too, because I saw it in seventy millimeter, but not IMAX seventy millimeter. And I, I mean, I don't understand the differences, except that IMAX is always very big. That, that I get.

• 1:22:58Speaker 03

  Is that more square, like, so you're missing the top and.

• 1:23:01Liv Albert?

  Well, that's what I was gonna say, yeah, is that I learned sort of after I saw people comparing, comparing them. And yeah, if you don't see it in IMAX, you're seeing like half of the frames.

• 1:23:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:23:10Liv Albert?

  And that is so stupid, like that should not, we should not, that is so elitist, like on its face. That like, if you're poor, you see less movie, like, come on.

• 1:23:20Speaker 03

  All the waiting, I was like, I'm not waiting around. I was like, I wanna go on this podcast and finally talk about the film to live. Like, we've been trying to organize something for so long. I was like, I'm gonna go see it. Um.

• 1:23:31Liv Albert?

  Well, thank you for doing that.

• 1:23:33Speaker 03

  Oh, it's far, I had a great time. It was one of those like fancy cinemas, you know, where they bring the food to your.

• 1:23:38Liv Albert?

  Oh, nice. Yeah.

• 1:23:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I had a great time. Um.

• 1:23:41Liv Albert?

  Good.

• 1:23:43Speaker 03

  But I feel like even that wouldn't have made it great for you.

• 1:23:46Liv Albert?

  No, no. No, and then like, it was such an odd setting for me too, because I was going as like, I mean, I in, I introduced it to the theater.

• 1:23:57Speaker 03

  Why did they opt, because you work on.

• 1:24:01Liv Albert?

  Yeah. So that's like, there was just so many things at play here. So like, yeah, I, you know, have written The Odyssey for kids this year. The timing was very intentionally with the movie, so I was simultaneously promoting my book, which is also thankfully published by a big enough publisher that it's everywhere. And so like, I've just kind of been the Odyssey person, and I think locally in Toronto, I was like, The Odyssey, quote unquote, like not an influencer, but close enough that, that the one that they thought of. And despite the fact that I have been publicly incredibly pessimistic about this movie since the second it was announced, um, I got, uh, yeah, reached out to by the Canadian marketing people. And then

• 1:24:46Liv Albert?

  after I had already worked with them to like, we did a giveaway for tickets, and then I introduced the movie to the Toronto pre-screening. It was like, there was only one Toronto pre-screening too, at this theater, and I was just like in the front with a microphone being like, hi. And then afterwards was like standing outside being like, I hated it. Um, but yeah, it was just, it was a very odd thing to be like, wait, well, I get it. I'm your Odyssey person. So I guess here it is.

• 1:25:11Speaker 03

  You still don't have to pay.

• 1:25:12Liv Albert?

  But yeah, but it made it such a weird thing too, because then I was like on, I was like up at the front, and then I just had to like rush to my seat, and it was suddenly, it was playing. And so and then I, oh, it was just, yeah, it was just a very odd way to experience it. Glad it was free, but like.

• 1:25:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely sounds interesting.

• 1:25:32Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:34Speaker 03

  But, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, cinematic. I think as a cinema experience, it was amazing.

• 1:25:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah, agreed.

• 1:25:41Speaker 03

  I, I, and I've said, I've had a few people ask, should I see the film? And I said, yes, but genuinely only see, I think you need to see it in the cinema.

• 1:25:50Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Speaker 03

  Because.

• 1:25:51Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I can't imagine how much, like, it's not gonna have the same vibe on a small screen.

• 1:25:56Speaker 03

  It was visually overwhelming at times, like, again, I keep saying spectacle, but that is what it was. It was about spectacle. And he was and a huge component actually was the soundtrack as well, like Ludwig Görssen. Oh my God, like, the the Siege of Troy scene.

• 1:26:15Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:16Speaker 03

  I was like stressed as the music kept like increasing in tempo, like.

• 1:26:20Liv Albert?

  Ludwig Görssen's good.

• 1:26:22Speaker 03

  That, Matt, oh my God.

• 1:26:24Liv Albert?

  Did you know that he, like, this is niche, me being a dork, but like, I'm ninety-nine percent sure he got his start doing the sound for the show Community.

• 1:26:35Speaker 03

  Wait, no, I think I did know that.

• 1:26:37Liv Albert?

  Met Donald Glover, Childish Gambino, and then they started working together and became like best music pals. And then he went on to become like, does the music for like all of this epic shit. And I just love it because I love.

• 1:26:49Speaker 03

  Black Panther.

• 1:26:50Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:50Speaker 03

  Like.

• 1:26:51Liv Albert?

  I think so. He does amazing stuff. And I know, yeah, he works really closely with Childish Gambino.

• 1:26:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:56Liv Albert?

  But I've just, this is, as somebody who watched Community, like, went back at the beginning, it's been very fun to be like, oh, look at all these little connections. This very ridiculous show. Right? Good. Thank you.

• 1:27:08Speaker 03

  I mean, last, you know, obviously it goes down in quality, yeah, but pretty much everything does. But yeah, the music was again, it absolutely perfect for a film like that, an epic, but also I loved like the audio motif of like the thrumming bow. And that becoming like so tied to Odysseus. And I thought that was just very clever.

• 1:27:35Liv Albert?

  The, just speaking of the music, I, the one thing I do kind of wish they'd done is it is the.

• 1:27:40Speaker 03

  Sirens?

• 1:27:41Liv Albert?

  Well, the sirens were a problem. The sirens, the sirens were a problem. The sirens were just naked ladies on a rock.

• 1:27:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're like birds with faces, basically.

• 1:27:55Liv Albert?

  They're supposed to be birds, but these were just like naked ladies on a rock.

• 1:28:01Liv Albert?

  So that's a whole other thing. But no, I, the, the poet, I would, I wanted more from the bard. I didn't know it was.

• 1:28:09Speaker 03

  Travis Scott.

• 1:28:10Liv Albert?

  Thank you. I was about to have the wrong name. I didn't know. I, and so clearly he could have sung, like he, wait, what, I liked the, the, the initial idea of the like boom, boom, boom. But when then, when then it never turned into a song, I just, it was an odd choice to have musicians.

• 1:28:34Speaker 03

  Rap, I think. It wasn't, it was more like he was speaking rather than rapping.

• 1:28:39Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It was, it was very spoken word. It wasn't a song, like rap or otherwise, like that, I would rap is a great format for an epic poem. So it was just, yeah, it was more of just like boom, boom, boom. And then he'd say things. It was, I liked the, what it began to evoke, but then it just sort of, it just, it just didn't do enough, I think, for the poet of it all.

• 1:29:03Speaker 03

  No, agreed.

• 1:29:04Liv Albert?

  Yeah, just like cut off too early. Cause like, if you're gonna have a singer do this, let him, let him sing.

• 1:29:14Speaker 03

  Let him, let him perform, please.

• 1:29:15Liv Albert?

  Do the thing that he's there for. If you're gonna have a cameo, why is he not doing it?

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• 1:30:56Liv Albert?

  Uh, um, well, okay, from a just purely reception, I guess this is not what you would specialize in, but I'm curious about your thoughts. Like, what did you think about the removal of the nobody scene?

• 1:31:08Speaker 03

  I, so I disagreed with Nolan's in interviews when he said, because it's wordplay and it's in a different language, you couldn't do it. And I was like, well, I mean, I think you, because the word sounds similar in Greek. And I was like, but it still works outside, I think. You just don't know it's wordplay. You just think it's a trick, which is clever.

• 1:31:30Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 1:31:31Speaker 03

  So he was sort of saying, oh, it just doesn't work in English. And I'm like, but it does.

• 1:31:36Liv Albert?

  Everyone knows it works in English, though. Like, everyone knows it is the nobody or the no one scene. So clearly it does work in English. Otherwise, nobody would know it as the nobody scene. What do you mean it doesn't work?

• 1:31:47Speaker 03

  So I seen that and I thought that doesn't quite work. But I, I did get, again, it's one of those things, I'm like, I, I would have loved to have seen that. But to do that would have had to be quite a, a large episode and to have had more of the Cyclops.

• 1:32:04Liv Albert?

  And it would have made Odysseus look bad. And they were clearly not that interested in making him look bad.

• 1:32:09Speaker 03

  No, no, they need this to be like a monstrous figure who afterwards they suddenly go, oh, hang on, wait, he can talk? Like, oh my God, like, this is like a sentient, like, he's on our level. What? Um, which I guess kind of plays into the idea of like,

• 1:32:28Speaker 03

  Nolan's Odysseus is like harmful by accident, like he doesn't realize the full impact of his consequence, like the consequence of his actions. Like the, uh, the sea people thing where it's kind of like reveal, oh, but it was them. And you're like, which I thought I, I got from the moment they mentioned sea people. And it's like, we thought you were the sea people. That's why we ran away when you came to sack and pillage our village. And I'm like, well, yeah, like you are like, yes. I was like, oh, are they not the sea people? And this, because like that's what they're doing. So it's all like, he, he does harmful things and does it and afterwards realizes the consequences of his actions. Like the sea Detroit is like, he came up with the horse.

• 1:33:12Speaker 03

  And then he's horrified during the siege. And it's like, well, what did you think was gonna happen, mate? Like?

• 1:33:18Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that was the thing. It, a lot of people are, I think, defending it because,

• 1:33:27Liv Albert?

  I don't know, it just, it's so, it's so American, I think, is the best way to start with what I'm trying to explain is it's just so American. Because it is trying to make a commentary that war is bad. But it's doing it in the most absurdly American way possible by centering the veterans and not the victims. And centering the like general who feels a little bit of guilt after everyone dies, rather than the everyone that dies, right? And it's, so it's just, but then a lot of people came out of that being like, oh, great. Yeah, it was like a real anti-war sentiment.

• 1:34:09Liv Albert?

  And I'm like, I don't think that's true. What it was, was saying that war hurts Americans. Those wars, when Americans go over and then they kill millions of brown people, it hurts Americans. And isn't that sad? Like, that to me is what the, the message kind of is, if you break it down, like, because there was zero focus on the people harmed, other than Odysseus. There was no focus, I mean, and even in the ways, you know, that he did, he was clearly, clearly trying to use women to convey the harm of war. But at the same time, did it without any empathy towards those women? It was just weird. Like, it just, yeah, just this very American masculine way of saying like, sometimes we make mistakes.

• 1:34:55Liv Albert?

  Maybe we shouldn't have killed all those brown people, but it's too late now. We feel bad about it. Like,

• 1:35:02Liv Albert?

  and I just don't think that they deserve any props for that.

• 1:35:08Speaker 03

  I mean, the thing is, this is a bit of a trend in Christopher Nolan films, not necessarily the war is that, but like, a male character who has done wrong and is now racked by guilt and has to kind of learn to live with his, like Oppenheimer is absolutely.

• 1:35:24Liv Albert?

  Right. I didn't see that one, but yeah.

• 1:35:26Speaker 03

  Oh, well, yeah, you know, man creates nuclear weapon and realizes, oh, oh no, it was bad. People die like,

• 1:35:35Speaker 03

  I thought it was, that was again, that was, I liked that a lot less than I liked the Odyssey.

• 1:35:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah, fair.

• 1:35:42Speaker 03

  That was, but I did Barbenheimer and that was maybe a mistake. Yeah. We, we did Oppenheimer first and then Barbie, and that was the wrong way to do it. Cause I just felt numb throughout Barbie.

• 1:35:54Liv Albert?

  Oh yeah, fair. See, I just, I happily just did the Barbie.

• 1:35:59Speaker 03

  No, my friend and I got really into, we dressed up in everything. She was Barbie, I was Oppenheimer.

• 1:36:03Liv Albert?

  Oh my God, that's delightful though. That, that is worth it alone.

• 1:36:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then her husband came along. He, he was just dressed normally. So we were like, oh, you just can.

• 1:36:16Liv Albert?

  Perfect, perfect. See, and this is, I mean, this is just such a good reminder of like, I recognize that I am as bothered as I am because this is the Odyssey. Like, I'm not out here pretending, you know?

• 1:36:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:36:29Liv Albert?

  And also because I'm a Miss Andrus, but.

• 1:36:33Speaker 03

  Look, at least you own it. Like.

• 1:36:34Liv Albert?

  No, yeah. At this point, I mean, until men show me that they are worth being, worth trusting, I'm at, I don't know.

• 1:36:43Speaker 03

  But no, because for me, I am mu- much, much, much more familiar with the Iliad and sort of any reception of Achilles is like, I make like the ones I have like memorized. So I did have to go back to the Odyssey when we thought it was going to be about Elliot Page's Achilles and potentially receptions of Achilles in the underworld. So I was like going back through and I was just like, oh.

• 1:37:05Liv Albert?

  And really, oh, he's, yeah, he's got thirty seconds.

• 1:37:09Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, he comes back again in the end, you know, when the suitors are taken down to the underworld, like Agamemnon and is chatting with Achilles.

• 1:37:19Speaker 03

  So like, yeah, but in terms of like the Odyssey, I think the first time, last time I read it would have been like first or second year of uni.

• 1:37:29Liv Albert?

  So fair. Yeah. It's been a while since I read the Iliad. So it would be similarly like, I mean, I, it won't be, as I literally just started reading Emily Wilson's translation yesterday, and I need to get through it because of reasons that are on, that are not unrelated to me having published the Odyssey this year. Gee, I wonder.

• 1:37:47Liv Albert?

  But also, yeah.

• 1:37:48Speaker 03

  Girl, that's exciting.

• 1:37:49Liv Albert?

  Right? So cool. It's very exciting. Um, but no, the like, the thing is, and again, like I, I, I know the Odyssey like the back of my hand right now. Like, I generally know the Odyssey well, but right now I know it too well. And I did know that, like, going in, but I also, it's so hard, just, I don't know. I think in a different world, I wouldn't have seen it. And then I just would have happily not talked about it. But here we are. And people want me to, they ask my opinion and then still sometimes I get people annoyed that I gave it. So who knows? But here we are.

• 1:38:20Speaker 03

  Unless you give exactly what people want, sometimes people will be angry. That's something I learned from my stint on social media. Before I went viral, that was.

• 1:38:31Liv Albert?

  Oh, did you go? Oh, no.

• 1:38:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was just before our last podcast episode.

• 1:38:35Liv Albert?

  You must have told me, remind me.

• 1:38:37Speaker 03

  Um, what you said, it was, I shared a meme about Achilles, like what we thought his weakness was heel, what it really was twinks. And it was a picture of a twonk. And I knew it as a twonk and it went viral and people got mad. And I remember just being like, well, people telling me like, trying to explain ancient, like, understandings of gender and sexuality. And I was like, great news. Next week I have a podcast episode coming out. I know, I know a lot about Achilles and Patroclus. Like, I know this. Like, it was really good timing. But it, I found it so interesting to see like, social media does not allow for nuance. And also, like, if you. Do something slightly that people don't agree with, like say something even just slightly different from what they like, you are going to get jumped on.

• 1:39:20Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:21Speaker 03

  And it's utterly insane.

• 1:39:22Liv Albert?

  Now than it was before our last chat. Oh my God. Like, I, yeah, I'm like trying to step away from social media as much as possible. I posted a couple of things, like related to the movie, and that was a mistake, and I've had to turn comments off on both.

• 1:39:35Speaker 03

  Oh no.

• 1:39:36Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah. It's just, I mean, people are wild. I mean, I, but, but also like, I think they just want to argue on anything. So it's like, they'll find a post and then in like invent, bring in a separate argument. Like I about how I, you know, felt strongly that there should have been Greek cast. And, and somebody ended up getting into it with me being like, um, oh no, one person just, they just commented like, uh, great. Now say this about Troy.

• 1:40:08Liv Albert?

  And I was like, I mean, yeah, if it was 20 years ago, I would. But it's not 20 years ago. So what exactly is the point in me commenting on a 20 plus year old movie? Like, what do you mean? And it just turned into like, the guy was like, oh yeah, you're right. Well, I wasn't really talking to you. I'm like, well, you're talking on my post. So what do you mean?

• 1:40:30Liv Albert?

  Like, people were just so ready, like, do this about Troy. The movie came out in 2004. What do you mean?

• 1:40:37Speaker 03

  Liv, why are you not commenting about every single reception of the ancient world? Like, what are you doing?

• 1:40:43Liv Albert?

  I just, oh my God, I'm getting too old for social media. And like, I know it's objectively not true, but I'm, my nervous system is cannot take it. It's just so wacky. But it's, yeah.

• 1:40:55Speaker 03

  Wacky, but fascinating from like, just if you, if you're not the one experiencing, it's so interesting to see how people use it to spread ideas.

• 1:41:07Liv Albert?

  That's what makes it so hard because I also find it fucking fascinating, but I also sometimes have to exist within it. And it's that sort of clash that is the worst.

• 1:41:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:20Liv Albert?

  Okay. I want to, I mean, generally.

• 1:41:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. So we are, this is going to, this is such an interesting conversation because we are talking about so many different things. I'm like, what the hell are you going to?

• 1:41:31Liv Albert?

  I mean, I'm gonna just call it reception in Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, basically. Something slightly quippier than that. But I think that that ends up really good. I mean, for one, I haven't had a conversation about the, the movie at all yet. I've just posted a couple of my rambling thoughts, which are not the most productive. So I'm excited to have like a, a more open and sort of general conversation about the movie. This is perfect. But I'm also just fascinated in your insights as somebody who does come at it from the movie side. Whereas like, you know, I've, it, I'm not a movie buff generally, and I don't think of those kinds of things. And so it's really interesting to hear

• 1:42:12Liv Albert?

  the, the, the ways that you, like those connections you made. I'm really fascinated by the, like, layers of clothing bit. Because I did also find it kind of distracting at where all of his furs and his layers, but knowing that I'm like, oh, I'm fascinated by that.

• 1:42:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's like, I'm trying to just sort of remember like the other things that I found really interesting. Oh yeah. Like visual intertext. I can go back to another one. I remember. Um, so Penelope gives, um, Odysseus that brooch in the shape of a woman. And, you know, to remember him by, well, remember her by and stuff. And that's like a massive thing in kind of any war film. You know, where there's a love interest or ancient world ones, that sort of love motif, like the object that shows like, you know, the kind of a reminder of what they're fighting for. And it's in all sorts of films.

• 1:43:07Speaker 03

  Um, I'm just remembering in Troy, they do it a bit where, um, Achilles gives her, well, he has, uh, this necklace of Patroclus's.

• 1:43:17Liv Albert?

  Right. His cousin.

• 1:43:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. His, his little baby cousin.

• 1:43:24Liv Albert?

  Actually, sorry, just to derail very slightly again, but when you said earlier about the Telemachus scene with Eumaeus, how they were.

• 1:43:30Speaker 03

  I was just thinking.

• 1:43:31Liv Albert?

  Thank you. Cause when you said it, when you said it, where it was like that, that scene of them learning, my brain immediately thought of the scene in Troy, where it was so similarly like kind of unnecessary, meant to just sort of imply their relationship. But there's that scene in Troy where Odys, where, um, Achilles is teaching Patroclus and you're like, oh, good cousin. You're so much younger, my, you know, all that.

• 1:43:52Speaker 03

  And that's kind of what's happening with Telemachus. It's like, it, cause it's a training session. It's emphasizing his youth. And like, he is performing masculinity correctly, but he's not quite mastered it yet.

• 1:44:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:04Speaker 03

  Versus Odysseus, who is this expert, well, huntsman, um, expert with a bow, which is really interesting how they work with that because by ancient standards and in a lot of films, bows are kind of a cowardly weapon. So the way they managed to make it in the films, you know, because it's so integral to Odysseus.

• 1:44:24Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:24Speaker 03

  To make it seem very honorable way of fighting where he'll like does the thrum to warn the animals that he's near, but you know, I'm giving them a chance. But he'll do that like all the, and you're just like, Odysseus, don't like, he does, I think with polyphemas. And I'm like, don't, don't do that. That's stupid. Like you're so honorable and stupid. Like you're not this clever, deceitful man. But it's like, yeah, it's just very different ways of performing masculinity, like through your like military prowess and your ability as a fighter.

• 1:45:01Liv Albert?

  I hadn't thought about that before because yeah, you're right. Like the, the bow is so integral to Odysseus's, particularly the reveal at the end. But, but yeah, and I mean, to us, I think it makes sense because it is just this weapon of, of hunting primarily. And that, that is where it is coming from when it comes to Odysseus. But then in, in a Hollywood movie, you have to make it also the weapon part, right? Whereas like, yeah, Odysseus is probably not using his bow much in war. He's using it to hunt. It's, it's a more practical device. Because, and I hadn't made that, but the, the, the cowardly bit is so one point because Paris uses the bow. He's the coward because he uses the bow.

• 1:45:41Speaker 03

  He's eastern, he's a feminine, he's a coward. He's, you know, he, the only way he kills Achilles is with an arrow in those versions. And that's again, with the help of a god, like.

• 1:45:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:53Speaker 03

  The bow is not a particularly respected weapon by the ancient epic standards.

• 1:46:00Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:01Speaker 03

  You know, you want, they want like Ajax and Achilles who are getting right in the thick of it.

• 1:46:05Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Agamemnon. Curious at your thoughts, the Batman villain.

• 1:46:13Speaker 03

  Aura. It was insane. I was really, I, I thought he looked really cool. I know it was, it was.

• 1:46:24Liv Albert?

  It was weird, but he did look cool.

• 1:46:25Speaker 03

  I thought it was the spine. Oh, and I thought he looked amazing, really cool. I liked the character. I just thought it was very odd to make Agamemnon like this. Versus like any reception of him, he's not presented positively. He's not particularly positively depicted in the Iliad or any ancient texts.

• 1:46:48Liv Albert?

  Positive in this? Cause I kind of got the sense they were suggesting that like, because he was like Mr. War Monger, he should be the one to blame. But again, by the end, I feel like I had kind of blacked out. So I, I don't trust my interpretation.

• 1:47:00Speaker 03

  I mean, maybe positive's the wrong way, but you definitely feel like a respect towards him.

• 1:47:07Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 1:47:08Speaker 03

  And so I think you're not looking down at him as this like terrible leader.

• 1:47:12Liv Albert?

  No, that's true. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:47:13Speaker 03

  You know, petty, um, greedy, like in Troy, where it's like, you know, he's, he wants Briseus and all that, and like the Iliad.

• 1:47:21Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:22Speaker 03

  Um, and I don't think it mentions Cassandra. I can't remember if it mentioned Cassandra in the flashback. So that's again, what kind of making him a bit more palatable, like at least, you know, he's going home. Yes, he killed his daughter.

• 1:47:36Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:36Speaker 03

  But that's like, almost brushed over. Like there doesn't seem to be any dwelling over the horror.

• 1:47:42Liv Albert?

  No.

• 1:47:43Speaker 03

  Of that. And he comes back and it's like, he's betrayed by his wife.

• 1:47:48Speaker 03

  Which I thought was a really bizarre, I'm gonna be honest, I did not like casting Lupita Nyong'o as both Helen and Clytemnestra. I didn't think that made any sense. Cause I know, I know the film was trying to get at the idea that it's, it was portrayed like she was an excuse, which is quite a common interpretation. They did that in Troy. Agamemnon wants to get her back, but he's like in the Odyssey, he's an abusive, bad husband.

• 1:48:17Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:17Speaker 03

  Which is, you know, that's really an invention of Troy that Nolan's continuing.

• 1:48:23Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:24Speaker 03

  But Agamemnon in Troy is just, he's like, this is the perfect excuse to go after Troy and like,

• 1:48:29Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:30Speaker 03

  you know, get all this wealth. And I think the film was like hinting at that, but it also just kind of, it still doesn't make any sense. Why, when you think about like Helen, the whole, like all the suitors she had, why would they all have been clamoring for Helen if Clytemnestra is absolutely identical?

• 1:48:54Speaker 03

  Like, is it because Helen, is it because Helen had Sparta, but like Clytemnestra not have had Sparta? It just, it didn't really, so for me, I was like, just practically, I was like, I just don't quite get it.

• 1:49:06Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:07Speaker 03

  Um, but at least it gave us more Lupita Nyong'o, so.

• 1:49:11Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:12Speaker 03

  Which is not a bad thing.

• 1:49:13Liv Albert?

  I hadn't thought of that because like, yeah, the whole.

• 1:49:17Speaker 03

  So like, there were definitely like, it's the practicalities, like that, the giant's armor, like, why are they already wearing armor?

• 1:49:24Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:24Speaker 03

  Like, they wouldn't have just been chilling, wearing armor.

• 1:49:27Liv Albert?

  The one, the other thing I think that, just speaking of like, logic too, I feel like, I'm trying to think of how they tried to explain the fact that there's no king of Ithaca, because I have, I feel like they did kind of suggest, basically, I'm getting at, you know, they're in, in Homer, there is no like real clear explanation why, why there's no king and why like Penelope maintains control, right? And I know, I think of that because I've talked to, um, I forget who sadly, um, but I've talked to somebody who suggested that, uh, that

• 1:50:12Liv Albert?

  specifically because it's true of Helen, that Helen possesses the pa, the kingdom of Sparta, right? Like,

• 1:50:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:21Liv Albert?

  That, that kingdom passed through Helen, not through a man. That there is kind of a speculation that maybe that's the situation with Ithaca too.

• 1:50:30Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:50:31Liv Albert?

  That like, she can't, she's not allowed to do it on her own, but also like, Telemachus is not inherently king, because especially with how they present it in Nolan's movie, because when they show, um, the whole, the flashback, the like lovey dovey bedroom scene where they kind of seem to have sex right in front of their kid almost. That does kind of get suggested there because the kid's right there and then they seem to kind of bone, but details, details. My point really is that Telemachus there looked like a two or three year old. Which is then makes him inherently older, like that would make him like 23. Why would a 23 year old not be king?

• 1:51:14Liv Albert?

  And so I, I forget how they did it in the movie, but I, I seem to remember them giving some kind of excuse for like what it is that, that takes it away from the fact that it could be tied to Penelope, like the reason is that she has to pick a king or she has to pick, you know, a husband. And it's just interesting, but I, without me remembering how they did it, this is not a particularly helpful point.

• 1:51:37Speaker 03

  It's int, it is interesting though, but yeah, there, there's like moments where the logic doesn't quite work. Practically, I just don't understand some choices.

• 1:51:47Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:48Speaker 03

  But again, when you're.

• 1:51:49Liv Albert?

  Horse stuff too, like physically, how did they make that horse? Why does it look plastic?

• 1:51:52Speaker 03

  It's so, it's so, it's way too nicely made.

• 1:51:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah. How, nothing about it looked wooden.

• 1:52:01Speaker 03

  No, the horse, I, I know it was, it must have been because he wanted that shot of it coming out the water.

• 1:52:09Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:09Speaker 03

  Which, uh, yes, is a very visually cool shot.

• 1:52:12Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:12Speaker 03

  So I will say, as much as I prayed the visuality of the film and the spectacle of it, I do think at times Nolan may, not maybe, he over prioritized that over what actually like practicality and logic, but at the same time, for me, I, I didn't, I thought it at the time, but I still was able to enjoy the film.

• 1:52:38Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:38Speaker 03

  It was like, I was able to like compartmentalize and I think a lot of people would just be like, yeah, okay, that doesn't make sense, but.

• 1:52:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I mean, the horse to me was, it was very, like, I'm not, I'm not particularly like latched on to that from the myth. I mean, I just, mostly what I'm interested in is the modern obsession with the horse as compared to, to the ancient, which is that it was not a huge deal to them, like, but, but in the modern world, we are fucking obsessed with the horse.

• 1:53:05Speaker 03

  It is, it's just,

• 1:53:08Speaker 03

  it's so, I say visually significant, I keep using the word visual and talking about visuals, but I think it has become so associated with the Trojan War and that mythology.

• 1:53:18Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:53:19Speaker 03

  And it's come to kind of symbolize it.

• 1:53:21Liv Albert?

  Yeah. In this way that is fairly removed from actual Homeric texts and just in a way that like, I'm not complaining about that. I find it interesting. I mean, even in my book, the editors were really, they really wanted the horse in there. They really did. And so because it is mentioned in a story, within the story, I got it in there and I have a whole spread where we talk about the horse and then I say very explicitly in a top corner, because I have these little, all these little boxes that I got to convey like facts and different nerdy shit. And one of them, it just says like, not the whole story. And then I talk about how the horse is not actually in Homer and how it's all, you know, it, it primarily comes later. Yeah. So I was like, cause the kids can learn both. We can see the horse because everyone wants to see the horse.

• 1:54:04Liv Albert?

  And then they can simultaneously learn that the horse is not really in Homer all that much and definitely not in the Iliad.

• 1:54:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:54:10Liv Albert?

  But I mean, I, yeah, those kind of visuals are generally just interesting to me. I was curious if you have thoughts on the masculinity of the choice to, well, especially because of how earlier we were talking about Paris and how he is, you know, eastern and effeminate.

• 1:54:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:54:27Liv Albert?

  You might know where I'm going. Everyone's wearing pants and I, I mean, ob, obviously like, yes, there's no, there's not a huge point in arguing the anachronism of pants, but from like a nerdy classicist perspective, pants are of course very eastern, very effeminate and considered like a big no-no for the Greeks. And I understand you want to put them in it, but I'm just curious if you have thoughts because like, obviously in Troy, they very easily got away with portraying their Hollywood version of masculinity without putting them in pants. And so I was just curious, if you have thoughts on the pants?

• 1:55:09Liv Albert?

  And how often do you think about pants? And is it weird? I'm realizing now as a Canadian, me saying pants when pants to you means underwear.

• 1:55:18Speaker 03

  Well, the good thing is I have a lot of American friends, so I'm just.

• 1:55:21Liv Albert?

  I did at least not worry that you were thinking that I meant undies.

• 1:55:24Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 1:55:25Liv Albert?

  If they'd been wearing just undies, it would have been a lot more accurate than pants.

• 1:55:30Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, cause I, I will have to do like a disclaimer. I know I am not great at the costuming from the time.

• 1:55:41Liv Albert?

  Fair.

• 1:55:42Speaker 03

  Um, or like arc, like architecture, those aren't really, I, if I need to, I learn it, but in terms of the trousers, I don't know. I mean, cause obviously Nolan is definitely not thinking about eastern. And that

• 1:56:01Liv Albert?

  No.

• 1:56:01Speaker 03

  association between trousers and the east.

• 1:56:04Liv Albert?

  But at the same time, he would like, they're not associated with ancient Greece, so it's just interesting.

• 1:56:09Speaker 03

  No, I wonder if it's perhaps more trying to play a slightly, cause I would say it's a slightly gritty.

• 1:56:15Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 1:56:16Speaker 03

  Um, ancient world, um, you know, these, the palaces are not ornate, they are very bare bones. The, um, as Emily Wilson points out, the food doesn't look particularly appealing. This is not like an opulent, like extravagant um, society.

• 1:56:32Liv Albert?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:56:32Speaker 03

  It's quite plain and simple in a lot of ways. And I wonder if that's a way of kind of representing it.

• 1:56:40Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 1:56:40Speaker 03

  Or, or maybe as a way of differentiating between leisure and out of warfare. So Telemachus is often wearing trousers because he's not a warrior versus the men, you know, this is his crew, they're in, um, the skirts and that sort of traditional clothing.

• 1:56:59Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 1:56:59Speaker 03

  So I wonder if that's perhaps what he's trying to get at to show differentiate and also create this sense of like, this isn't

• 1:57:09Speaker 03

  the sort of extravagant, spectacular Greece we're necessarily used to.

• 1:57:15Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:15Speaker 03

  Spectacle comes more in the form of like the adventures.

• 1:57:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:19Speaker 03

  Rather than what's happening in Ithaca.

• 1:57:23Liv Albert?

  No, that does make sense. And I hadn't made that connection, but that would make sense too, because the, I think the suitors are wearing pants often, which would link up with that. No, okay, that, yeah, that makes sense. And I mean, I do, he's definitely clearly trying to go for like a gritty version and, and also like clearly, really, he, Christopher Nolan read a book about the Bronze Age collapse and he got a little too inspired, I think.

• 1:57:49Speaker 03

  Yes, he was really, yeah, fascinated by this concept of like the collapse of a civilization.

• 1:57:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:57Speaker 03

  Uh, especially one like the Bronze.

• 1:57:58Liv Albert?

  Civilization a lot.

• 1:58:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:08Liv Albert?

  Just interesting. Like, it just, it felt to me like a little banging me on the head with, like, an attempt at some kind of introspection for Western violence, but like, the most surface-level possible introspection on Western violence.

• 1:58:24Speaker 03

  I think, yeah, he wants to convey, like, dangers of our society and colonialism and warfare. But if he were to engage with it too deeply, it, it would be a very, it would just be a very different type of film to this epic narrative. I mean, just to have-

• 1:58:48Liv Albert?

  And he couldn't have filmed it on occupied, illegally occupied, colonized land, if you're trying to make that point.

• 1:58:55Speaker 03

  I will say, when I heard about that, I was absolutely just shocked. And I found that out after I seen the film. And I was just like, what is- Like, how can you be doing this narrative? And so it's, it's somewhat performative. It's in a way that I think you, you've said, it's, it's palatable for a Western audience.

• 1:59:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:14Speaker 03

  But that's a key sort of part of, like, Hollywood cinema. These big epics don't necessarily push you into states of discomfort about yourself. Because when I think, because I'm trying to think of, like, big films that have dealt with these themes and been very uncomfortable to watch and made us question.

• 1:59:35Liv Albert?

  They don't, yeah.

• 1:59:35Speaker 03

  They don't. They-

• 1:59:36Liv Albert?

  You don't get the money to do it, is the issue, right? Because especially in Hollywood right now, like, it's no longer the creatives that hold the purse strings. It is the corporations.

• 1:59:48Speaker 03

  I mean, yeah, it's been a while since it's been down to creatives. And I remember this is something like, I had to kind of like emphasize quite a bit in my thesis. It's just being like, this is ultimately an industry and it's called show business, the film. But like, it is a business. They are making money. And so while, two things can be true at the same time. Hollywood absolutely can be a shaper of, and film can be, can shape ideology and like attitudes in contemporary society. But they also must still appeal. So they're somewhat hindered. They have to do like both at the same time.

• 2:00:30Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:31Speaker 03

  So it's like, while, you know, we can have this diversity in the cast, you know, to an extent, you can't dwell on it too much. And while you can deal with the, you know, because that makes it even way too uncomfortable for modern audiences.

• 2:00:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:48Speaker 03

  Well, specifically, Western white audiences.

• 2:00:51Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah. No, and that's the thing. It's ve- it was just, and again, I'm not saying this as if I'm surprised, but I'm interested, I am actually legitimately fascinated by the ways that, that movies like this are used as Western propaganda, like, it, for good and bad. Like, I just think it's interesting. Because, yeah, to make this, he was clearly trying to, at least in some way, make a commentary on colonialism. And he filmed it, he filmed The Sack of Troy on occupied, illegally occupied land. And it's just like, the cognitive dissonance is so indicative of the West, right? It's like-

• 2:01:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:01:30Liv Albert?

  You think, you look at it, we look at it and think, like, how can those two things exist at one time? But like, that is the West, and very specifically the States, and like, now more than ever, right? It's this kind of neoliberal attempt to say, like, look, we're, we're better than some. You know, we're, like, I think, you know, it's, it's also like, in its own way, trying to be like, we're better than what the Republicans say we are right now. It's like, are you better than what you were, you know, under Obama, though? Like, no. Like, you know, it's just, it's fascinating from the perspective of some, like, being somebody who has been paying attention to the American imperialism for the last 15-plus years. Like,

• 2:02:15Liv Albert?

  it's just, it's, it is interesting. And, and, you know, like you said, that with the diversity,

• 2:02:23Liv Albert?

  I think that a lot of the choices in that respect were a bit of a show, a bit of a performance, right? Like-

• 2:02:32Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:02:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Because, because the diversity did not, in the end, get conveyed into, like, characterizations that mattered. Like, you know, Eurylochus, I don't remember the actor who played Eurylochus.

• 2:02:49Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:02:50Liv Albert?

  But, um, obviously, he was like, the most, like, the, the biggest non-white character, I guess. He wasn't a main character, but, you know. And he was quite underserved, especially as Eurylochus is like, quite a big character. He's quite interesting. There's a lot of times where he and Odysseus really, like, have it out. Um, and it's just interesting to me, like, I just think that they, there was a lot of, like, look, we made it diverse. Like, it was that, you know?

• 2:03:18Speaker 03

  And that's a real trend in sort of film and TV and cinema. It really, the casting, and so you, you've already mentioned, like, you know, the backlash, and there was like, not really anything being addressed. It's like, the actors get left to deal with themselves.

• 2:03:31Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:32Speaker 03

  And this is kind of what happened with Troy, Full of a City, the casting-

• 2:03:35Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:35Speaker 03

  -of dark-skinned black actors as, like, Achilles, which was the worst one.

• 2:03:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:40Speaker 03

  And the actor being left to deal with it himself.

• 2:03:42Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:43Speaker 03

  And sometimes that can come down to the studios just not want it, like, not allowing-

• 2:03:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:54Speaker 03

  -the production team to address these issues. So then it becomes, comes down to the actors. They don't want that to be the center of, you know, publicity.

• 2:04:02Liv Albert?

  And then they've picked a side. And especially in America right now, like, the money is in not picking a side.

• 2:04:09Speaker 03

  It's, it's very performative, and it is very obvious when you have these, a genre like Hollywood epic cinema, which is so traditionally masculine and associated with the US and, to an extent, Britain. Even films like the Italian Peplum, actually, maybe especially Italian Peplum films, are, these films are so tied to, like, white colonialism-

• 2:04:40Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 2:04:41Speaker 03

  -and whiteness in general. So if you look at, um, it becomes less obvious, I think, to an extent, because in these previous films, it was all about, like, the white male body on display and showing, like, the greatness. And they have, like, these supremacist undertones.

• 2:04:57Liv Albert?

  I think I don't know anything about these movies, except for what you told me last time. Everything is just slowly coming back to me.

• 2:05:02Speaker 03

  Coming back, like Hercules, um, the Peplum, Italian Peplum films about Hercules having white male bodybuilders. Um, and so the, these are like, kind of the foundational, um, sort of foundations of now, you know, 21st century Hollywood epic cinema. And it's never escaped that. Like, we still, it's always, you know, a white male character is the lead. And he's a family man, values, you know, Western, um, ideas of the nuclear family, you know, man, woman, um, upholds patriarchy. The women exist, and they can have these great lines, like Cersei in this film, you know, come back to your disguises and, you know, stay rapey and pillish,

• 2:05:47Speaker 03

  like, they are pigs. So, great lines, but it, it is always a bit shallow.

• 2:05:53Liv Albert?

  Mm-hmm. It's the performance. They wanted to give her a good line, because then they've done the thing. They gave a woman a good line.

• 2:05:58Speaker 03

  They tipped a box.

• 2:05:59Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Penelope had a couple of those, too. Like, there was, I forget which lines, but there was one she said-

• 2:06:04Speaker 03

  Something with Telemachus, yeah.

• 2:06:05Liv Albert?

  Yeah. She said something, yeah. She stood up to Telemachus once, and like, the audience cheered. And I went, oh, that was the point. That's what you wanted, even though the woman is so much bigger than this in the actual, like, 3,000 years ago.

• 2:06:19Speaker 03

  It's, it's one of these, just so interesting to see how cinema conveys these ideas. And, and so it is, it's shaping, to an extent, it's, it's like, shaping ideologies and attitudes by including diversity, but that's also, to an extent.

• 2:06:37Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:38Speaker 03

  Like, they could do more diversity in a film, could do less.

• 2:06:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I mean, the whole main cast is white, right? Look, the Eurylochus is not, is brown, which is great. I think he is, I don't, I want to get, yeah.

• 2:06:50Speaker 03

  But Helen is tiny.

• 2:06:52Liv Albert?

  Helen is barely there.

• 2:06:54Speaker 03

  I remember seeing an interview, yeah, I saw an interview of Lupita Nyong'o, and she, it was like, what would you say to Homer if you could go back in time? And she was like, I'd say, like, why don't you have any women? And I remember like, people being like, that's bizarre, there's a lot of women. And I'm like, well, yeah, okay, she, in the nicest way, Lupita Nyong'o, you have not, you cannot have read The Odyssey.

• 2:07:14Liv Albert?

  If this is all you've seen, then yeah.

• 2:07:16Speaker 03

  But you've, you've read your scripts, and you're thinking, and so this is a similar thing that happened with Troy, is people are gonna look at this and think, this is a very accurate representation, or this is what happened. And you have to be like, well, no, it's definitely a version. Um, I have had, like, a friend who saw it, and she loved it. And she sent me a photo, she'd got Emily Wilson's, um, copy, and said, obviously, I loved it. And I went, love that for you. Just a heads up, that's gonna be really different.

• 2:07:48Speaker 03

  That, there's gonna be stuff in there, there's gonna be characters, you're, you're gonna be like, what is going on?

• 2:07:52Liv Albert?

  You're gonna be like, wait, there's women and they say cool stuff? Oh, my God.

• 2:07:57Speaker 03

  He has sex with these women? Like, he's not a loyal husband? Like, he's kind of a shitty person, but-

• 2:08:04Liv Albert?

  But isn't that what makes him so damn interesting? Like, that's what I love about Odysseus. And I, yeah, I wasn't under any impression that we were gonna get, like, a truly complicated Odysseus, but I wish he was a little bit, he had a bit more agency in some of his decisions, because I swear they took away all his mistakes, or they made them like whoopsies, instead of him being like, I don't care.

• 2:08:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, like- Like the thrumming of the arrow shooting at a polyphemus becomes more moment of like

• 2:08:35Speaker 03

  silliness rather than hubris, which is one of his like, that's his like big flaw is he's so full of himself.

• 2:08:42Liv Albert?

  I mean, the, I, that's the thing too, is we, it's funny, cause it's like, I, there's so much of this that I wanted because it's in the work and it is interesting and like, yes, hubris is such an enormous part of Odysseus's character, but also with that hubris comes comedy and whimsy in a way that like, I can see Nolan was not interested in, but I'm,

• 2:09:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:09:07Liv Albert?

  I would love to see, because it just makes me think of like, not just the nobody scene, which is also fascinating, but the, you know, when they're running from polyphemus and they're like about to get away and he's like, hey, hey you, you should know that the guy who took your eye, my name is Odysseus, I'm the son of Laertes, I'm the king of Ithaca, like.

• 2:09:29Speaker 03

  It's like, Odysseus, shut up.

• 2:09:31Liv Albert?

  Yeah, truly, like, it's so entertaining that I just always think like, why are we not ever conveying these versions? Because like, that is, it's clearly entertaining. Like, it's fun, it's funny, like, that's an epic I would love to watch. It would be so like, it would just, and I get it, like, but it's just so, it's so funny to me, the way that those things can't seem to exist in one place in the modern.

• 2:09:58Speaker 03

  In a Hollywood, there's a real disconnect between an ancient epic poem.

• 2:10:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:03Speaker 03

  Like, I mean, any of them have funny moments.

• 2:10:05Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:06Speaker 03

  Aeneas, the race where like, you know, I think Nisus trips, falls over and he trips up this other guy, so his lover Uriahles can win. And then everyone's like, I got tripped. And Aeneas has to go like, okay, everyone gets a prize now. It's okay. Like, be happy. There's so many silly moments.

• 2:10:24Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:25Speaker 03

  But it's such a disconnect between this and ancient epic poems. And because they're so long form.

• 2:10:31Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:31Speaker 03

  They can include these moments versus an epic film. I mean, even with three hours, like Nolan could not include any, if he included everything, it would have been so even really superficial. And it just doesn't fit the tone that audiences have come to expect.

• 2:10:48Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:49Speaker 03

  Um, I think it'd be fun to see those expectations disrupted.

• 2:10:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:54Speaker 03

  I, Nolan was not ever, was never gonna be the director for that. You know who I think would have been a really great director?

• 2:11:01Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 2:11:02Speaker 03

  Guillermo del Toro.

• 2:11:03Liv Albert?

  Oh, hell yes, I would watch that.

• 2:11:06Speaker 03

  So, oh my God, that would have been, you would have had nobody, you would have had all these bits.

• 2:11:12Liv Albert?

  Him to get a mini series. That's what I want.

• 2:11:14Speaker 03

  Oh, he would do a great, and it would be funny. There would be funny moments.

• 2:11:18Liv Albert?

  It would be whimsy, it would be horrifying and whimsical. And that's what the Odyssey is.

• 2:11:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, that's one of the things, but then Guillermo del Toro is such, is not Hollywood epic cinema.

• 2:11:30Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:30Speaker 03

  And so, that's the thing, these films can, if you want these texts done right, quotation marks right, you need a completely different genre.

• 2:11:42Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:43Speaker 03

  And probably medium, you know?

• 2:11:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Well, and this is why, maybe this is like a silly way to wrap things up, but this is why I maintain, and, and having now seen The Odyssey, I stand by this, that for me personally, the most truthfully vibe wise, true to like Greek myth.

• 2:12:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:12:06Liv Albert?

  Most truthful adaptation is still Disney's Hercules.

• 2:12:09Speaker 03

  Hmm. I would counter with, oh brother, where art thou?

• 2:12:15Liv Albert?

  Yes, also good, also very good. I've only seen that once, I should see it again.

• 2:12:19Speaker 03

  I saw it during the module, uh, in my undergrad where I learned kind of I could do classics in film. That was one of the films we studied. And I was like, hang on, I can merge classics and, wait, this is a game. And then here we are, I've just won a PhD and I have no job prospect. So, thank you, oh brother, where art thou?

• 2:12:41Liv Albert?

  This is what happens when we fall in love with classics first. See, I watched The Odyssey mini series, which I want to re-watch, but I will always remember my, like, when I was like, in grade seven, our teacher like rolled it in a TV and had us watch it from like a VHS he'd taped from the TV. And oh, it was delightful. But no, I would, with Disney's, I just, I think it's like, it's so fun in a way that Greek myth is fun. It's weird in a way that Greek myth is weird. And, and like on its face too, just the actual myths that it associates with Heracles are like more accurately performed by him than most of the other Greek myth adaptations outside of like Troy and the Odyssey. But like, if

• 2:13:25Liv Albert?

  you think of like Clash of the Titans, or like The Immortals, all these different ones, like, most of those don't actually include stuff that those heroes actually did. It's just like all this weird invented stuff. And so that's what I like about Disney is cause I'm like, no, but at the very least, Heracles did do a good portion of those things. The bar is not high.

• 2:13:47Speaker 03

  Oh dear. I, I love this. Ending it with a, okay, everyone, Odyssey's pretty good, or really bad, depending on which of us you ask. And then either go watch Kern Brothers or Disney.

• 2:14:01Liv Albert?

  Go watch Disney's Hercules and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? And get yourself a good, that's a good Odyssey reception specifically though.

• 2:14:09Speaker 03

  Oh, that is, that is, George Clooney played Odysseus, like that was Odysseus. He had a gift of the gab. I think he kept calling it.

• 2:14:18Liv Albert?

  No, I need to re-watch that. I've only seen it actually before I got into like doing the podcast. So like, I had my classics degree, but it had been years and I wasn't using it. And I remember it was playing at like an outdoor theater here. And I went and watched it in a park with a bunch of my friends, which was delightful, but I need to watch it now with my, the amount of The Odyssey that lives in my head now.

• 2:14:39Speaker 03

  Yes. That would be really interesting.

• 2:14:42Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:42Speaker 03

  Next episode.

• 2:14:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:45Speaker 03

  Oh my goodness.

• 2:14:46Liv Albert?

  Well, okay. Um, I mean, I, yeah, I, this has been incredibly fun. I won't keep you for much more than two, over two hours that have already gone. Sometimes, you know, it's just, it's about getting different perspectives. So I'm actually very thrilled that this turned into just a chat about the movie because I, I think I needed it. I think my listeners needed it. I'm glad that you enjoyed it and have interesting things to say about that. I honestly think that like, which is why I am curious too, if I ever get the chance to watch it again. Because truly, like my feelings on the whole thing were too colored by the, the feelings I had about the female characters. And so now that I've like understood them, I think that I would be able to at least appreciate the

• 2:15:31Liv Albert?

  rest of it without the jump scare that was like the choices.

• 2:15:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, the women, they were never gonna be great.

• 2:15:41Liv Albert?

  No.

• 2:15:42Speaker 03

  And the thing is, so many characters in that film have been reduced drastically, like their role or cut out. And so it's just a shame the women, the female characters were also victims of this. Like my biggest gripe is I understand why like stuff was cut out and for time. And I think, you know, trying to keep the pacing right for the film. But with Calypso, I was, I found her baffling. I was like, I didn't understand what her motivation was for keeping him for so long. And she just was a, like a vehicle for, you know, narrative juxtaposition.

• 2:16:23Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:24Speaker 03

  And.

• 2:16:25Liv Albert?

  And also, they added a layer of her tricking him, drugging him.

• 2:16:32Speaker 03

  Yes, it was, and they kind of justify it like, oh, but she was, you know, trying to help him because he was injured. She didn't do it for so long. She was very, she was an odd.

• 2:16:44Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:45Speaker 03

  Female character in how she was depicted. So.

• 2:16:49Liv Albert?

  That was the thing. I think that if they had just been, like, if the women's characters had just, just been reduced, that's what I was expecting. What, what ended up making me like, was so jarring was the sort of, the, I mean, I think, I, I use the word abuses, but specifically for Helen, I think it's valid. Like, you know, cause it's not like, the Helen in The Odyssey is, is a strong woman. Like, if they had portrayed, if they had given Lupita the role of the actual Helen of The Odyssey, oh my God, what a queen. Like.

• 2:17:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think that's what I probably, I think that's the thing I would have liked to have seen most.

• 2:17:24Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:25Speaker 03

  Is Helen and Menelaus in a healthy, happy, loving relationship.

• 2:17:29Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:29Speaker 03

  Cause that's actually accurate. It disrupts the audience expectation from Troy. Um, and Troyfall of a city, actually, Menelaus is not a good husband in that. I mean, you know, Helen is driven to smoking opium in that adaption to get by. She's like, struggling.

• 2:17:47Liv Albert?

  I just don't know why we have to make these women abused. Like, it just felt like, you, like, put an abuse on a woman who is not historically abused, just feels like.

• 2:17:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think it all comes down to just markers of morality and having to really, it's such a big part of the, this genre, and they really want to make it clear to you. Telemachus, good. Odysseus, what a great husband. Look at this husband versus that one. It's like.

• 2:18:15Liv Albert?

  Just everything is a cost.

• 2:18:17Speaker 03

  All about like, here is your hero.

• 2:18:18Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:19Speaker 03

  It's like Troy, the film, they were often very like, you know, so clear, like this is the hero. To the extent Brad Pitt was like, oh my God, I couldn't get out of center frame. It was so obvious, like I was the protagonist.

• 2:18:32Liv Albert?

  Has he said that?

• 2:18:33Speaker 03

  Oh yeah. He said in an interview, he literally said, I couldn't get out of center frame, which was great for me, cause I'm including a lot of screenshots in my thesis. And he is center frame.

• 2:18:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah. That's so funny.

• 2:18:45Speaker 03

  Oh dear.

• 2:18:45Liv Albert?

  No, that's the thing. And it's, it's just hard. And like, the thing is, I'm too exhausted by all of those things coming at the cost of women.

• 2:18:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a fair, so I feel almost, it's maybe a sad thing that I'm so used to it because I'm, I explore the masculinity sexuality. I've, I see it just from this film perspective. I feel it a lot less, I reckon.

• 2:19:07Liv Albert?

  I used to. It's been recent years, I think. I'm too, I'm too in on the news of what is happening to women right now. And also mostly women of color, mostly in America. Like, there's just, you know, and then these, just these little, these little extra things that made it just the America of it all, especially living in Canada right now. Like, we're no fans of them. Like, they keep threatening to invade us. Like, they're actively talking about removing the vote for women. Like, it's, it, it, these are things that I just think, this is not the time when we should be having movies that come at the cost of women. It's just like, I'm just like, eh, so I just can't unsee it now. I'm at that point. But, yeah, I mean, there's part of me that wishes I saw it less,

• 2:19:51Liv Albert?

  because I think I would be a happier person in this current, in this current moment.

• 2:19:56Speaker 03

  You definitely would be happier, just a little less aware.

• 2:19:59Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. And that was never gonna be me. So here we are. But no, it was just, you know, I, it's, I, what I take away from it, thankfully, and, you know, every time I'm a little bit bummed about this movie, I'm just reminding myself that I published an Odyssey retelling that, while made for children, is a very true to Homer, like, a thousand times more true to Homer than what Christopher Nolan did. I didn't cut out any of the women. And, and it's colorful, like, the ancient world and all this. So it was like, okay, every time I am annoyed at this movie, I'm like, well, my book wouldn't exist without it. So.

• 2:20:36Speaker 03

  Yay.

• 2:20:37Liv Albert?

  Yeah. There was an accurate colorful adaptation of The Odyssey this year. It just happened to be my children's book.

• 2:20:44Speaker 03

  But we love it.

• 2:20:45Liv Albert?

  Exactly, exactly. Oh, the, yeah. What was my, oh, my brain has, had wandered off slightly towards the, I have to say, the fact that Zendaya wore, like, Persian artifacts.

• 2:21:02Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh, the premiere?

• 2:21:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:04Speaker 03

  That was insane.

• 2:21:05Liv Albert?

  Yes. Like, just if we're talking, just the Americanness of it all. Like, are you fucking?

• 2:21:09Speaker 03

  Oh, that was, that was so, because I remember seeing the outfit and being like, oh, my God, those look amazing. And then here they were, actual artifacts. And I'm like.

• 2:21:16Liv Albert?

  Iran, right now, with dubious provenance?

• 2:21:24Speaker 03

  And I'm like, oh, Zendaya, no. Law Roach, no.

• 2:21:29Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God. Like, I just, it's like the filming, like, filming a scene about a, a people being besieged, filming it on a land where the people have been removed forcibly from their homes. What are we, do we not see the connections?

• 2:21:47Speaker 03

  I think that's, this film, so enjoyable as a film.

• 2:21:52Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:53Speaker 03

  Absolutely. There are so many things to critique about it, quite rightfully. And it's just, it's just, there's so much that can be said about this film.

• 2:22:06Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:07Speaker 03

  Like, good and bad, I reckon. But.

• 2:22:09Liv Albert?

  Well, and I think can all be said.

• 2:22:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. I like it. It feels like you've been there to be like, and this is bad, and I've got, oh, yes, did not think of that. And then I go, and here's, here, but here's why they've done this, you know. But it's more like, you'll say, you know, here are all these atrocities going on, like, this is violence. And I'm like, but have you considered Anthony is wearing multiple layers as a reference to other films?

• 2:22:33Liv Albert?

  No, but this is good. This is a balance. This is why I, this is what I need, because otherwise I am just the person telling people all of the horrors all the time.

• 2:22:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can find, like, some positives. I, I wish I had, could see it again.

• 2:22:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:49Speaker 03

  Because I feel like there's so much I missed. Like, I hope people listening will kind of just get a bit of, like, the genre, maybe, and like, some of the masculinity, like.

• 2:23:00Liv Albert?

  No, I, I think this is, yeah, I think people are gonna really resonate with this. Not least because all I've done is, like, crazy ADHD, but so low ADHD ramblings. Like, they need something that's more cohesive. And I think we made a perfect balance, where you were like, here are, like, cool reception slash general thematic cinematic stuff. And I'm just like, here's all the bad. Yeah, exactly. Everything's awful. To the listeners, I just cut out a bunch of us just chatting with each other, because we just get along really well. So if that sounded a little clunky, that's why. But thank you so much for doing this. This has been so great. And I truly, honestly, am very appreciative to have, like, some positive things said to me about The Odyssey. I legitimately needed

• 2:23:44Liv Albert?

  it. And I think you made some really good points. And I am, I'm very glad to hear that people are liking it, because not everyone has to feel like I feel, and that's good.

• 2:23:56Speaker 03

  Thank you very much. Yeah. And I really have enjoyed hearing your perspective as well.

• 2:24:04Liv Albert?

  I'm glad you like having everything brought down and a little bit, just made a little bit more depressing.

• 2:24:11Speaker 03

  The world needs more depressing, you know?

• 2:24:14Liv Albert?

  Honest. What can I say? It's real.

• 2:24:19Liv Albert?

  No, but thank you so much. Is there anything you want to share with listeners about, like, where to read more from you, or if you are still in the realm of social media at all?

• 2:24:28Speaker 03

  Um, so I'm not on social media, but I do think my thesis is available, if anyone ever fancies reading that, on, like, UCL Discovery.

• 2:24:37Liv Albert?

  You remind me of, yeah, great.

• 2:24:39Speaker 03

  It's called hashtag no Homer, uh, receptions of the, I know.

• 2:24:44Liv Albert?

  I'm sure you told me that last time, but that is the fucking greatest. Sorry, I tackled through it. Can you say it again, so I won't tackle?

• 2:24:53Speaker 03

  It's fine. Uh, hashtag no Homer, receptions of the masculinity and sexuality of Achilles in 21st century popular media. And a good portion about it, of it, well, the film chapter is about Hollywood epic cinema and all the conventions. So you can see more concrete examples, if you're interested. I have a ton of memes in there as well.

• 2:25:13Liv Albert?

  Amazing.

• 2:25:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, so to talk about that, Song of Achilles, Hades, the video game, and Troy, Fall of a City, the TV show. I'll enjoy the film.

• 2:25:24Liv Albert?

  Well, and to the listeners, I've, I know I've, like, re-aired our episode recently, fairly recently. Maybe it was over Pride. I don't know. Anyway, there's another episode where we talked more about Achilles specifically, that we had another great time. So if.

• 2:25:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:25:38Liv Albert?

  Anyone wants to hear that, you should go check it out, too, because that was equally a delight. And thankfully, specifically, less of me going like, but here's the terrible thing that Christopher Nolan did.

• 2:25:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think as far as I know, Troy was not filmed on occupied, uh, illegally occupied territory. So, you know.

• 2:25:58Liv Albert?

  And isn't that a win? Wow.

• 2:26:00Speaker 03

  The bar is so low.

• 2:26:01Liv Albert?

  The bar, the bar is in the ground. My God.

• 2:26:07Liv Albert?

  What do I do? Thank you so much.

• 2:26:10Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 2:26:27Liv Albert?

  Thank you all so much for listening. Again, enormous thanks to Charlotte. We had so much fun. And in the moment, I didn't feel like I was so hogging the conversation. But I, listening back, I'm like, hmm, that's really, really what you did. But thank you, Charlotte, for powering through and for having a great time with me. I think it's just a fascinating conversation. I'm really glad to have other people's thoughts and opinions about the movie. You know, it really adds to mine. And also, I'm obviously so kind of consumed by my frustration about, you know, how he traded the women, that I haven't thought much about, uh, the masculinity take. But it's really

• 2:27:09Liv Albert?

  interesting to hear that perspective, particularly as someone who studies it from a much more objective place. And generally, it was so nice to have this conversation. So I hope you all enjoyed it. A quick update, you may have noticed there was a reading episode on Tuesday. There will be another reading episode next Tuesday, and another conversation after that. And then, uh, Michaela will be taking you all on a little history journey. We are just waiting for her to wrap up all the final pieces on her undergrad thesis, which is so exciting, and also means that when she's done, I have her to take on some more of the show. And we're hopefully gonna

• 2:27:51Liv Albert?

  get back to regular new episodes and the regular sharing the load between us and history and myth and conversations and so much fun. So stay tuned for that. Let's Talk About Myths Baby is written and produced by me, Liv Albert, and Michaela Panguish, who is the co-host and producer, uh, and the Hermes to my Olympians. And the podcast is part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network, where we are very slowly but resolutely trying to do great things. Have you checked out our other shows? I'll find a way to promote them better soon. Uh, and select music is by Luke Chaos. Thank you all so goddamn much. It really, it means the world to me.

• 2:28:30Liv Albert?

  Stay tuned for more. You're all very cool and nice. Oh, oh. Also, if you got this far, I'll, I'll announce it elsewhere later. But this is me just remembering in this moment, I have figured out how to put the signed bookplates on my online store. And so technically, my store is now open. I'm a little afraid of what it'll look like if and when people purchase things that I have to deal with the tariffs. But I think we have managed to figure out pricing so that it is possible. Um, for the stickers, the pricing is very reasonable, because I can send them in letter mail. For everything that is not a sticker, the pricing is a little bit off the rails,

• 2:29:12Liv Albert?

  because I have to pay enormous amounts of tariffs in order to send them into America. Um, and so I think we figured out alternatives. If you are not in the States, but in the States, just a warning. And maybe just buy a bunch of stickers, because then I can just put them in an envelope, and nobody will be the wiser. But primarily, these bookplate stickers, I've priced them as low as I can, just to offset the actual, like, envelope and stamp and the process of me bringing them in and everything. Um, but otherwise, I really want those to be accessible. If you've bought my book, you should be able to have a sticker. So I've tried to price them as low as possible, um, just enough so that I am not at a loss, because I currently do not have enough

• 2:29:52Liv Albert?

  money coming in to be at a loss. Um, so check that out if you're interested in. I will announce it better and more soon, mythsbaby.com/shop. I don't know. From mythsbaby.com, you'll find it easily, though. I am Liv, and I love this shit.

• 2:31:00Liv Albert?

  Enemy of My Dreams by Jenny Williamson is a historical romance novel set in the time of the late Roman Empire, where Alaric, a brutal Gothic warlord, and Julia, a Roman princess, with a love of good wine, team up to take down Rome.

• 2:31:17Speaker 04

  The much awaited sequel, Game of Thieves, comes out December 8. In this sequel, Julia and Alaric must overcome centuries of conflict to work together, or the turbulent riptides of rebellion and the demons of their past will tear them apart.

• 2:31:31Liv Albert?

  And now, for a limited time, when you preorder Game of Thieves through Burning Pages Bookstore, you'll get a signed bookplate and a free art print of one of Jenny's favorite spicy scenes from across the series.

• 2:31:44Speaker 04

  Get this amazing artwork only from Burning Pages at burningpagesnc.com/game-of-thieves. Don't wait. Order your copy from Burning Pages today at burningpagesnc.com/game-of-thieves.