Speaker 1: Would you fucking eagle? I mean, eagles are hot, I think,
Speaker 1: and they're endangered and like it could be your only chance.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I spent a lot
Speaker 1: of my adolescents fapping it to Greek mythology, and I
Speaker 1: think I think you did too. No chance, no way, Um,
Speaker 1: I won't say it, no, no, deny. Oh. We are
Speaker 1: the muss goddesses of the arts and proclaims of heroes,
Speaker 1: heroes like Hercules. I like, Well, we have been visited
Speaker 1: by the muses and they have inspired us to talk
Speaker 1: about Greek mythology, which is I think like one of
Speaker 1: the earliest things we talked about doing on this podcast
Speaker 1: because it's something that we both are obsessed with, obsessed
Speaker 1: with and also just like is not in the culture
Speaker 1: as much as it should be, you know, like it
Speaker 1: is and it always has been. And I do think
Speaker 1: we'll we'll talk today a little bit about how um,
Speaker 1: Greek mythology is something that you know, artists are always
Speaker 1: coming back to, always like breathing new life into because
Speaker 1: of the universal nature of these stories. But we're really
Speaker 1: going to talk about it all, from Hercules to you know,
Speaker 1: Madeline Miller and everything in between because this is like
Speaker 1: a Virgin the show where we give yesterday's pop culture
Speaker 1: and in today's case, ancient pop culture. Today's takes. I'm
Speaker 1: Rostamu and I'm Fran Toronto. Something I'm always scared of
Speaker 1: is getting murdered in an Airbnb. Um. I'm not always
Speaker 1: scared of getting murdered, because sometimes I'm like whatever, I'm
Speaker 1: ready for the solid to be over. But airbnb is,
Speaker 1: I think are particularly chilling. And that's why I liked
Speaker 1: the premise of Barbarian, which friend and I just saw yesterday,
Speaker 1: because it does run with that idea of when you
Speaker 1: go stay at someone's house, you never really know whose
Speaker 1: house you're staying in. And also the people who own
Speaker 1: the kind of homes that are turned into Airbnbs don't
Speaker 1: even really necessarily know what homes they're living in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you haven't watched the trailer to Barbarian, you'll you'll
Speaker 1: get the premise immediately. But it's just so in real life,
Speaker 1: like it is a real thing that could happen to
Speaker 1: you when you book an Airbnb. And and now I'm
Speaker 1: terrified of airbnbs, And honestly, I just hope that this
Speaker 1: continues to irreparably damage Airbnb as a corporation. Like, I
Speaker 1: think that we should make more horror films and TV
Speaker 1: shows that make us scared of booking Airbnb. Okay, so
Speaker 1: for the Virgin spoiler alert, we're gonna talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about Barbarian here. So Barbarian is about a woman
Speaker 1: who rents an Airbnb. It turns out someone is staying there.
Speaker 1: It's built ours guard a k. A. Pennywise, who is
Speaker 1: really hot also terrifying. Yeah, I think he's hotter as
Speaker 1: Pennywise to be honest um, And he's like, oh no,
Speaker 1: it's fine, Like let's both stay here, and then some
Speaker 1: weird ship happens in the house. She goes to investigate,
Speaker 1: finds this secret basement that leads to another secret basement,
Speaker 1: another secret basement. Literally is like it's a comically scary hallway.
Speaker 1: It's like, actually, like something that could be so simple
Speaker 1: and so cliche in a canon of horror films, but
Speaker 1: like it's so well done and really scary. Yes, And
Speaker 1: the more I have sat with it, the more I
Speaker 1: have really liked it and thought it was a really
Speaker 1: good movie and really well done. The parts in the
Speaker 1: basement we're kind of reminding me of have you ever
Speaker 1: seen The Descent? I haven't, one of my favorite horror movies.
Speaker 1: It's so scary, and the scariest part of it to
Speaker 1: me is the claustrophobia of them being underground, not even
Speaker 1: really the monsters. I thought the lead actress was really good.
Speaker 1: She was very funny, and this was like one of
Speaker 1: her I mean, she's done a handful of horror and
Speaker 1: action of for but like, I think this was like
Speaker 1: such a moment for her. Yeah. And I liked that
Speaker 1: they introduced the Justin Long character, who was like a
Speaker 1: horrible person and is by the end of the movie
Speaker 1: more monstrous than the actual monster who is the monster
Speaker 1: of the film. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and without giving too
Speaker 1: much away, like something else that I love about that.
Speaker 1: I mean, aside from the fact that like they make
Speaker 1: this Airbnb like multi property manager seemed like a complete asshole,
Speaker 1: which like we need more representation for like asshole airbnb
Speaker 1: property managers. They they haven't had their they haven't had
Speaker 1: their do um. But the if you watch the trailer
Speaker 1: for the film, it sets you up to think that
Speaker 1: the movie is going to be one thing, and then
Speaker 1: the movie drastically changes twice and kind of almost switches
Speaker 1: protagonists for a moment, and um, I just think that
Speaker 1: that is something that I will always want to watch,
Speaker 1: what no matter the genre, like someone who is willing
Speaker 1: to break the form of a film and like Foura
Speaker 1: into something just because they really wanted to surprise the audience.
Speaker 1: Because on its face, it's a pretty simple premise and
Speaker 1: it's really just the way that it's executed that I
Speaker 1: think elevates it to being a very good horror movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like honestly slightly less simple. Um, we're on a roll,
Speaker 1: like in terms of scary movies this week, it's speaky season.
Speaker 1: So Rose had been telling me to watch X, a
Speaker 1: movie that came out how many months ago? It came
Speaker 1: out earlier this year. It came out in the spring.
Speaker 1: They shot it in New Zealand and had rented this
Speaker 1: farm for a certain amount of time, and I guess
Speaker 1: it took them not as long to shoot it as
Speaker 1: I thought they did. So t West or Tie West,
Speaker 1: however you pronounced his name and Mia Goth were like, wait,
Speaker 1: let's also make a prequel film while we have the space,
Speaker 1: and he and Mia Goth wrote it together, which is
Speaker 1: did they write it on Saturday. Did they just kind
Speaker 1: of figure out I think they. I think I think
Speaker 1: they wrote it during their their quarantine before filming, and
Speaker 1: it has now been announced there's going to be a
Speaker 1: third film. Max Sine um I. Maxine is the character
Speaker 1: that Mia Goth plays a X, the corn star character
Speaker 1: who survives. She's the final girly. I think it's a
Speaker 1: really good filmmaker muse situation where they they clearly work
Speaker 1: very well together, because I will say I really loved
Speaker 1: X when I watched it a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and then I loved Pearl even more. Yeah, okay, Mia
Speaker 1: Goth as a muse. I think it's the perfect way
Speaker 1: of explaining why both of these movies shine so hard.
Speaker 1: Um okay. So X is basically about a film crew
Speaker 1: that is shooting a porno. They want to rent a farm.
Speaker 1: The farm happens to be inhabited by two of the oldest,
Speaker 1: creepiest people you've ever seen in your entire life. They're
Speaker 1: so old that they look like corpses, and the movie,
Speaker 1: without revealing these like the older woman Pearl to you
Speaker 1: too far in advance, is able to build a dramatic
Speaker 1: tension that is like so weird and so specific and
Speaker 1: like fully reliant on like how eerie she looks and um,
Speaker 1: you know, but also how eerie she acts, because I
Speaker 1: don't think old people are you know, creepy in and
Speaker 1: of themselves, but Pearl throughout the movie wants the youth
Speaker 1: that these people possess. Like first, she tries to fuck
Speaker 1: like literally everyone there, and they're all like, you're disgusting,
Speaker 1: and so then she decides to kill them all except
Speaker 1: for Miagoth's character Maxine, who the creepiest scene in the
Speaker 1: movie is when she gets into bed with her Oh
Speaker 1: my god, it scared me. But also the movie I
Speaker 1: thought was also really funny. Brittney Snow, Britney Snow, you
Speaker 1: will always be famous Britney Snow tour. In this film,
Speaker 1: she was a revelation. Her cover of Landslide was amazing.
Speaker 1: Um kid Cutty was great. Also, that girl Jenna Ortega,
Speaker 1: who's in literally everything, was in this I thought her
Speaker 1: death scene was pretty satisfying. And the gag of the
Speaker 1: movie you don't know in advance um is that the
Speaker 1: protagonist of the movie, Mia Goth, also plays the old
Speaker 1: woman in prosthetics at the same time, so she is
Speaker 1: simultaneously the hero and the villain of the story, which
Speaker 1: I think is so brilliant and so Pearl. The movie
Speaker 1: is a prequel of the older woman's character Pearl in
Speaker 1: origin story and and finding out how she got to
Speaker 1: this point of being this woman who clearly has a
Speaker 1: life full of wasted dreams. And I thought, this is
Speaker 1: the kind of movie that we don't see anymore. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a deeply psychological thriller, character study. It's
Speaker 1: not even really a horror movie. It's not really that horrific.
Speaker 1: But I thought it was fascinating. I loved the way
Speaker 1: that they mimicked the technicolor movies of the wartime era.
Speaker 1: Mia Goth was transcendent um. The scene with the scarecrow, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that was That was crazy. A scene where
Speaker 1: she kills the guy and yells at him and she's like,
Speaker 1: she's like really, well done, so good and then her
Speaker 1: he's so hot. Um. And then of course Mia goths
Speaker 1: six minute monologue at the end, how did you know?
Speaker 1: Six minutes? Is it? Like people are talking about it
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Incredible And you know, we'll have to wait
Speaker 1: and see what Maxine is like. But this might be
Speaker 1: the kind of thing where the whole is better than
Speaker 1: the some of its parts, and the some of its
Speaker 1: parts are still really good. So I'm very excited to
Speaker 1: see how it all shakes out. We have a new
Speaker 1: episode of House of Dragon, and which holes were very
Speaker 1: important because it opened with older rain Era giving birth
Speaker 1: and then having to walk longer than I've ever walked
Speaker 1: in my life up all those stairs, um, having just
Speaker 1: given birth. This episode was really good. I really liked
Speaker 1: the introduction of the new actors. What I am finding
Speaker 1: with House to the Dragon, though, is that it has
Speaker 1: a serious pacing problem. It is moving through this stuff
Speaker 1: too fast. I keep seeing stuff on Twitter and on
Speaker 1: TikTok of scenes that were cut. I think we could
Speaker 1: have gotten so much more character development. I didn't like
Speaker 1: that we never got to see any interaction between Rania
Speaker 1: and Harwin Strong, who secretly her lover and the father
Speaker 1: of her bastard children. Um. But this show, it continues
Speaker 1: to be great and like it is Sunday night appointment television,
Speaker 1: and everyone's acting is incredible. I really liked the introduction
Speaker 1: of Emma to r C who plays older Ranira, and
Speaker 1: their non binary which I love to see, and also
Speaker 1: The actress who plays the younger Allison is queer, and
Speaker 1: even said in an interview that she played Allison as
Speaker 1: being in love with Rania. So I wow, that's so.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I as sometimes I hate like batty things.
Speaker 1: But when it's like the actor saying that, not like
Speaker 1: the creator like just trying for like pr or whatever, like,
Speaker 1: I love that. I uh, I will agree and also
Speaker 1: disagree about like the page Well, okay, I actually fully
Speaker 1: agree with you on the pacing thing. Um. I think
Speaker 1: watching this episode in particular, where we jump forward in time,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like, what's your rush, Like, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get seven more seasons? I don't think we That's the
Speaker 1: thing is. I think because they know of what happened
Speaker 1: with Game of Thrones, I think this will be a
Speaker 1: much more contained show, and I would imagine three. And
Speaker 1: I think what they're rushing to get to is the
Speaker 1: actual Dance of the Dragons, which is the Targarrian Civil War.
Speaker 1: And so most of the season so far has been
Speaker 1: spent setting up what's going to happen, because all of
Speaker 1: the action of the Dance of the Dragons, like the
Speaker 1: stuff that we're seeing happen now in the source material
Speaker 1: is like one line, it's like this person died, this happened,
Speaker 1: and most of the bulk of this is what happens
Speaker 1: in the actual war. And I understand why they're rushing
Speaker 1: because they know how soured people were on the way
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones ended. But that being said, what Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones always did so well with character development, and
Speaker 1: they have done a really good job developing these characters.
Speaker 1: It's just that they're doing it so fast, and I
Speaker 1: wish there was a little more room to breathe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the reason I almost like disagree with you was because
Speaker 1: I don't feel like the pacing is unsuccessful, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like I don't watching it. I'm like,
Speaker 1: even though it feels quote unquote rushed, like I don't
Speaker 1: watch it and feel like, oh, I don't really know
Speaker 1: who what this character wants are, Like, Like I don't
Speaker 1: really I really wish I had seen you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like it's it earns the pace that it gives,
Speaker 1: But I just think that it would be so much
Speaker 1: fun to watch a lot of the things that they skipped.
Speaker 1: I know, it's not that I don't like what I have,
Speaker 1: It's that I want more of a good thing. And
Speaker 1: also some things it's not that they feel unearned, but
Speaker 1: like the way this episode ends with Lena Valerian instructing
Speaker 1: her dragon to kill her because she knows she's going
Speaker 1: to die from childbirth. Like it's an amazing scene. How
Speaker 1: much more amazing would it have been if we had
Speaker 1: spent that much more time with that character and really
Speaker 1: understood what she and her family were losing. That being said,
Speaker 1: I'm addicted. I you know, we will be watching next
Speaker 1: Sunday as well. I really did not think I was
Speaker 1: going to get addicted to, Like I thought that Rings
Speaker 1: of Power was going to be my appointment TV. And
Speaker 1: lo and behold, this is actually satiating the thing that
Speaker 1: I want out of that show, which we're not. We're
Speaker 1: not going to talk about that brings rings era Well,
Speaker 1: we'll see. I mean, the thing about Rings of Power
Speaker 1: is like they could make seven episodes and I will
Speaker 1: watch them all. You know what I mean. But but
Speaker 1: you know, it's just not that good. It's not that good.
Speaker 1: Speaking of things that not that good. Um, we saw
Speaker 1: don't worry Darling, and that was that was that was
Speaker 1: a red herring transition because the gag of gags is
Speaker 1: I actually really liked it. Well, I mean there's nuance
Speaker 1: to that, there's nance to that. It's but I also
Speaker 1: kind of like did quote unquote, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that's how I felt when I left the theater. I
Speaker 1: think I felt the way I felt when I left
Speaker 1: the theater was the same as the guy that was
Speaker 1: in our theater. When the credits role the movie ends,
Speaker 1: there is two seconds of silence and you see a
Speaker 1: guy walking already exiting the theater before the like right
Speaker 1: as the credits roll, and he goes, what a piece
Speaker 1: of shit? It was like a lot of very funny.
Speaker 1: The whole audience left, but like that's but this is
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is that is very exemplar or of
Speaker 1: the whole thing around this movie. That guy did that
Speaker 1: for the lull. That guy did that to be a troll,
Speaker 1: And that is how everyone is interacting with this movie,
Speaker 1: which actually, if there wasn't all of this drama build
Speaker 1: up to it would have been perfectly fine. It's a
Speaker 1: perfectly fine film. It's also what I will say is
Speaker 1: I totally get what Harry Style said. It is a
Speaker 1: movie that feels like a movie. It's that kind of
Speaker 1: like go to the theater and watch a movie movie
Speaker 1: he spelled. It is like that. Okay. I think that
Speaker 1: the things that worked. Olivia Wilde's directing was very good.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful movie. The music is great. Some of
Speaker 1: the things that aren't good are the right script, the
Speaker 1: script which Olivia Wilde didn't write. I saw some interesting
Speaker 1: TikTok's which were about how this movie there. This was
Speaker 1: a story that Olivia Wilde brought and her writing partner rewrote.
Speaker 1: And in the original it's much less feminist, and um,
Speaker 1: the originals less feminist. Yes, the original does what I
Speaker 1: wish this movie had done, which is that you know
Speaker 1: much earlier in the story about the reveal which spoiler
Speaker 1: alert if you haven't seen, don't worry darling. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: can we back up actually, because like I um feel
Speaker 1: like despite the months of like controversy we've had around
Speaker 1: this film, no one actually knows what it's about. And
Speaker 1: like I think that if you don't know what it's about,
Speaker 1: it's basically like a kind of intention community called the
Speaker 1: Victory Project is living in a nineteen fifties esque kind
Speaker 1: of like community where the husbands go off to work.
Speaker 1: You don't really know what they're doing all day, and
Speaker 1: the wife stay at home, and they've all agreed to
Speaker 1: be a part of this constructed cultish community that is
Speaker 1: kind of in the middle of the desert. Question Mark
Speaker 1: and Florence, It's it's giving. Joshua Tree actually, like basically,
Speaker 1: Florence Pew carries the dramatic tension of this film by
Speaker 1: kind of starting to notice an investi the things that
Speaker 1: are like off or weird about this community. And that's
Speaker 1: basically which which is the inciting incident of this is
Speaker 1: that one of her friends in the community, played by
Speaker 1: Kiki Lane, has suffered what seems to be some kind
Speaker 1: of mental break And UM, I bring this up because
Speaker 1: the latest round of drama in all this is that
Speaker 1: Kiki Lane recently posted on Instagram that she was cut
Speaker 1: from most of the movie. Um, which is kind of
Speaker 1: fucked considering that she's one of the names on the
Speaker 1: poster and yet she hasn't been involved in any of
Speaker 1: the press, but she was used to sell this movie,
Speaker 1: and I do have to wonder if that's because she's
Speaker 1: the only notable black lead and so even though her
Speaker 1: part was cut down to almost nothing and very much
Speaker 1: kind of fills the stereotype of being the like magical
Speaker 1: black person who sets the white protagonist on their journey
Speaker 1: of self discovery. She was cut from this movie but
Speaker 1: was still used to sell it, and I'm glad she
Speaker 1: posted about it because when she did, I was like,
Speaker 1: you can tell that she was cut, Like there is god.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to get into the weeds to
Speaker 1: be honest, Like, as you said, this is the inciting incident.
Speaker 1: And there's a moment where Florence is like, my friend
Speaker 1: died spoiler alert, my friend, Like this happened to my friend.
Speaker 1: It's like, actually, like there's nothing in the movie that
Speaker 1: would suggest that you were friends, like really, like like
Speaker 1: she called, you were like a lot of things rather
Speaker 1: than being shown Yes, it's very stupid. Um, I felt
Speaker 1: like the ending is such a fart that I couldn't
Speaker 1: in totality enjoy what the movie was giving us. Well,
Speaker 1: they felt like it was so lazy and cliche and
Speaker 1: not earned. Well, this is going back to what I
Speaker 1: said before, which is that I really believe that the
Speaker 1: twist at the end of this movie, and spoiler alert
Speaker 1: again for anyone who hasn't seen it, what's revealed is
Speaker 1: that the victory Project is a simulation that has been
Speaker 1: created by like Jordan's Peterson esque in cells to trap
Speaker 1: women in and so their their literal partners. Well not always,
Speaker 1: because they do. Say when Harry Styles is out in
Speaker 1: the real world and is like getting into it, they're like,
Speaker 1: pick a woman who you have some kind of existing
Speaker 1: relationship with, so it could be you know, your girlfriend,
Speaker 1: your wife, it could be just like a friend of yours,
Speaker 1: and they're they're kidnapping these women and putting them in
Speaker 1: a simulation. The men have to care for these women
Speaker 1: and it's funny. So Fran sent me a voice memo
Speaker 1: last night asking me about some of this stuff, like
Speaker 1: how the women piss and ship in the simulations if
Speaker 1: you like the images, Like the simulation is literally like
Speaker 1: Harry Styles and Florence Pe laying in a bed with
Speaker 1: their like eyes applied open and like some sort of
Speaker 1: like you know, VR being like projected into their eyes,
Speaker 1: and it's like if they're laying there like their whole
Speaker 1: lives like, but but they're not, because that's the whole
Speaker 1: point is that she is. But he when he goes
Speaker 1: to work every day, that that's him live leaving the
Speaker 1: simulation and they asked him, will you be able to
Speaker 1: get a job to support this? Will you be able
Speaker 1: to take care of your wife? So I'm assuming he's
Speaker 1: going out into the real world every day to work
Speaker 1: some like stupid job, and then he comes home to
Speaker 1: his slave wife laying in bed and he probably like
Speaker 1: cleans her bedpan or her diaper, my god, and like
Speaker 1: what refills her food catheter? Like that's never explained. That's
Speaker 1: never explained. And this all goes back to my point
Speaker 1: I've been trying to make, which is that I think
Speaker 1: the reveal of the simulation would happen much earlier in
Speaker 1: the movie. And in the original script it does and
Speaker 1: you know, almost the whole film. So in the original script,
Speaker 1: the first time that Alice breaks through the portal, she
Speaker 1: finds out and then she goes back and kind of
Speaker 1: keeps figuring out more and more and like goes out
Speaker 1: again and comes back, and and I think that would
Speaker 1: have been much more effective, because look, this is very
Speaker 1: clearly uh kind of I'm not gonna say rip off,
Speaker 1: but heavily inspired by The Stepford Wives. And the thing
Speaker 1: about the Stepford Wives is that you know what's happening,
Speaker 1: you know what's happening in The Stepford Wives very early on.
Speaker 1: You know that there's something about robots, that the men
Speaker 1: are killing their wives, replacing them with robots, And the
Speaker 1: tension doesn't come from the reveal. The tension comes from
Speaker 1: this woman knowing what's happening and still making these choices
Speaker 1: and trying to save herself, trying to save her friends,
Speaker 1: trying to save her children. So I think that if
Speaker 1: the reveal had happened much earlier in the film, there
Speaker 1: would have been so much tension inherent in Florence trying
Speaker 1: to figure out not only how to save herself, but
Speaker 1: how to save the other women, trying to figure out
Speaker 1: why this happened to her, And I think it just
Speaker 1: would have been a much more interesting thing if the
Speaker 1: whole movie didn't hinge on the Oh my god, it
Speaker 1: was a simulation, because I think I think that's the
Speaker 1: least interesting part of the movie. It's if your movie
Speaker 1: ends in a and it was all the simulation, like
Speaker 1: go back to film school. I'm sorry, Like that is
Speaker 1: just not how movies can end. It's how movies can begin.
Speaker 1: Because yeah, because I think something that's much more interesting
Speaker 1: would have been. I thought Olivia Wilde was actually really
Speaker 1: good in the movie, and one of her best scenes
Speaker 1: was towards the end you find out that she's known
Speaker 1: about the simulation the whole time. She's the only one
Speaker 1: who's known, and she's decided to stay because her children
Speaker 1: have died in the real world and now she has
Speaker 1: them in the simulation. And I think so much more
Speaker 1: could have been drawn out of that if you knew earlier,
Speaker 1: and you could have spent more time with her and
Speaker 1: the implications of that, and like are there other women
Speaker 1: that know, or like what is the thing with the children?
Speaker 1: Like there should have been clues about her children dying,
Speaker 1: Like she should have mentioned something earlier in the movie
Speaker 1: about like them being fragile or like something like that.
Speaker 1: It's just there. There were a lot of missed opportunities.
Speaker 1: But all that being said, it's still a pretty good movie,
Speaker 1: and all of the drama surrounding it is just kind
Speaker 1: of stupid. I think, well, I'll say perfectly fine. First
Speaker 1: of all, the fact that it's like not the nineties
Speaker 1: and is in the present day. I guess in like
Speaker 1: the first three minutes of the movie, like it's literally
Speaker 1: the twist of like the village, And I was like
Speaker 1: this is like I thought maybe it would be to cliche. Um,
Speaker 1: the plane crashing that happens never explained, Like what was that?
Speaker 1: The Jemma Chan who's like loveling this movie but also
Speaker 1: kind of feels kind of cut from the movie, has
Speaker 1: a moment where she stabs Chris fine as you have
Speaker 1: no idea? Why no idea? Why is it because she
Speaker 1: also wants to escape? Is it because she was in
Speaker 1: charge the whole time? Like that would have been more
Speaker 1: interesting twist? And it's just this movie thinks that you
Speaker 1: care about the wrong things. Yeah, exactly. Then what the
Speaker 1: movie wants you to care about is not what the
Speaker 1: audiences I think care about. Um. And also Harry Styles
Speaker 1: was like fine as an actor. I actually would say
Speaker 1: the Harry Styles was wonderful and I really enjoyed him,
Speaker 1: and like I felt like he was one of the
Speaker 1: I thought, obviously Shyla buff would have been better. He
Speaker 1: would he would have been better because he would have
Speaker 1: sold the like doting husband at the beginning, But then
Speaker 1: he would have been incredible as the in cell. He
Speaker 1: would have been so believable as this loser, misogynist who
Speaker 1: would kidnap and rape his wife. That's also something that
Speaker 1: ever addressed. That's also something that's never addressed. And you know,
Speaker 1: Olivia Wilde for the past year has been talking about
Speaker 1: how feminist and empowering the sex scenes in this movie are.
Speaker 1: And now that we know what this movie is really about, Um,
Speaker 1: Olivia Wilde, those are rape scenes. So it doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter that the woman is the only one coming because
Speaker 1: she's being raped. So maybe stop like touting that as
Speaker 1: it being like a feminist reclaiming of sex scenes in cinema.
Speaker 1: And also, I mean, the one thing that Harry did
Speaker 1: not carry was when Harry styles as an insult you
Speaker 1: and I were gig it was very funny. It was
Speaker 1: fucking funny. Um. And I bet that's what his Harry
Speaker 1: looks like in real life, haven't I heard the two us?
Speaker 1: Oh there's a whole there's a conspiracy theory that he's bald.
Speaker 1: I will not believe it. But anyways, Um, I actually
Speaker 1: think Harry was really good and I don't really feel
Speaker 1: like that the dig on his acting was that earned
Speaker 1: because the character does have a British accent. The character
Speaker 1: is British. Yeah, the whole British thing was some kind
Speaker 1: of twitter red Harry yeah, although I guess he was
Speaker 1: American in the real world and chose to be British
Speaker 1: in the simulation. Oh is that because they asked him
Speaker 1: what nationality he wanted to be and he wrote British.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, that's interesting. Um yeah. I also wondered, like
Speaker 1: if something was changed during the production because Harry's American
Speaker 1: accent is like so bad, But like I don't know, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't. I felt it was perfectly fine.
Speaker 1: Not a movie to revisit. No, but Kate ber Land,
Speaker 1: you will always be famous. She's perfect Virgins. I know
Speaker 1: that podcasting is an auditory medium that you can't see
Speaker 1: us right now, but if you could see us, you
Speaker 1: would see that. Today, for our discussion on Greek mythology,
Speaker 1: Frand and I both thought we were going to get
Speaker 1: going to goop each other by each bringing our copy
Speaker 1: of de Laire's Book of Greek Myths, which is like
Speaker 1: the book that we all you know, it is a
Speaker 1: sacred texts foundational text and truly like is the genesis
Speaker 1: of this episode, and it's just so funny that we
Speaker 1: both were like, I have a surprise for you, bok
Speaker 1: that like a bunch of nerds like sucking nerds coming
Speaker 1: to school, like and as soon as we brought the
Speaker 1: book up. Also are amazing engineer Clay who's here shout
Speaker 1: out to Clay Um also recognized it. So truly, this
Speaker 1: book is omnipotent universal the culture. I think like if
Speaker 1: you were a kid, and if you were like a
Speaker 1: millennial kid, um, you know, this was something that was
Speaker 1: part of your you know, culture, it really was, and
Speaker 1: I think that, like, I mean, this was taught in
Speaker 1: my school actually, like we had a lesson on it
Speaker 1: in fifth grade, and I was like, I already read
Speaker 1: that book, Like I remember being like so ericant about it,
Speaker 1: but I definitely got this after seeing Disney's Hercules. And
Speaker 1: Disney's Hercules is for sure the thing that sparked my interest,
Speaker 1: and I guess probably our generation's interest with Greek mythology,
Speaker 1: which is what we're talking about today. I mean, sure,
Speaker 1: it's slightly predated by the Hercules TV show and it's
Speaker 1: spin off, Zena Warrior Princess, which also were very mythology,
Speaker 1: but I think we were we were a little too
Speaker 1: young for those, Like I didn't really watch I kind
Speaker 1: of watched Zena and I had a Zena action figure.
Speaker 1: At some point I had a Hercules video game for
Speaker 1: my Sega Genesis, so that was an ancient Hercules. The
Speaker 1: Disney movie, No, it was like it was the TV
Speaker 1: show video the video game for Sega Sega starring Kevin Sorbo.
Speaker 1: Horny Horny show. It was very horny. I mean, as
Speaker 1: was Zena. But Zena was lesbian horny. Yes, yeah, honestly,
Speaker 1: I mean lesbian cannon. I would say, like the most
Speaker 1: sapphic like kind of homoerotic thing that existed in that
Speaker 1: dan age, like Zena was, I think in lesbian culture
Speaker 1: at the time, like a mascot, like was emblazoned on
Speaker 1: you know, lesbian T shirts and paraphernalia and stuff like
Speaker 1: that that people would subculturally share in like wink wink. Also,
Speaker 1: Xena fan fiction was huge really at the time. Yes,
Speaker 1: I have heard this from fan fiction scholars. But um,
Speaker 1: for the purposes of this episode, I do think starting
Speaker 1: with Disney Hercules as the root of this lifelong obsession
Speaker 1: an interest is very important. Um, you know, Hercules was
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, but like kind
Speaker 1: of a flop in terms of Disney movies, because you know,
Speaker 1: this is sort of the tail end of the Disney Renaissance,
Speaker 1: which like when the classics ended. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Because
Speaker 1: so the Disney Renaissance of the nineties like really began
Speaker 1: with The Little Mermaid, which came out in eight nine. Um,
Speaker 1: But it wasn't until I was actually, um listening to
Speaker 1: a podcast about this the other a. You know, Disney
Speaker 1: movies really only existed to basically like create I p
Speaker 1: to sell merch off of um, And it wasn't something
Speaker 1: where Disney thought that they were like profitable in and
Speaker 1: of themselves. And it was only with Beauty and the
Speaker 1: Beasts huge critical and commercial success that Disney movies became
Speaker 1: something that were financially successful in and of themselves, and
Speaker 1: like Disney became an entity that wasn't just selling merch
Speaker 1: and theme parks, but like movies. So I guess that's
Speaker 1: how you get something like Hercules, which is obviously one
Speaker 1: of the Disney movies that's like supposed to be for
Speaker 1: boys for boys boys derivatory. Um, it's very you know
Speaker 1: because like princess movies are like about princesses. Clearly, Um,
Speaker 1: when you look at Hercules, it's very obviously to me
Speaker 1: supposed to be a sports movie like Hercules is supposed
Speaker 1: to be you know, a Nikes and analog for like
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's or like any of the sports heroes at
Speaker 1: the time, and that's very much seen in the movie
Speaker 1: and things like zero to Hero, which that song is
Speaker 1: literally all about, like the cultures celebrity around sports figures,
Speaker 1: which I think is like such a smart modernization of
Speaker 1: like the movie because it has that kind of Aladdin
Speaker 1: esque like wink wink, here's all this contemporary humor you
Speaker 1: can enjoy. Like, I just think that's so smart to
Speaker 1: think about Hercules as like the Lebron of his time,
Speaker 1: you know, or like that that he had that superstardom
Speaker 1: that turned into merch, which is really funny that you
Speaker 1: are mentioning that. You know, they were like Disney was
Speaker 1: trying to crank out movies to sell merch because infamously
Speaker 1: Jack Nicholson was supposed to be Hades in Hercules, and
Speaker 1: they ended up not giving him the role because his
Speaker 1: management demanded fifty of Hades merch sales, and instead of
Speaker 1: came James Woods, who is a pervert and a horrible person,
Speaker 1: one of the worst people on the internet truly, um
Speaker 1: but he and he did sound good. I like, obviously
Speaker 1: I loved all of the Disney movies that came before this.
Speaker 1: I love the Disney Princess movies, but Hercules really captured
Speaker 1: my imagination in a way that that the others hadn't.
Speaker 1: And I think with Hercules, the thing was like, yes,
Speaker 1: with the movies that are based off of fairy tales,
Speaker 1: like you can go back and read the originals, um,
Speaker 1: but there's sort of like a limited amount of source
Speaker 1: material to turn to. And with Greek mythology, with Hercules,
Speaker 1: you find out that there's literally like a whole culture
Speaker 1: to explore and all of these stories, bottomless pit of
Speaker 1: myths and sub myths and sub sub myths. Yes, and
Speaker 1: so this book, like Hercules, was the entry point for sure.
Speaker 1: And then Dolores Book of Greek Myths was you know,
Speaker 1: like the rabbit hole to go down. Oh yeah, And
Speaker 1: like you and I avid readers, like I remember reading
Speaker 1: this book like just blowing through it. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a picture book, but it still has a lot of text.
Speaker 1: But I remember blowing through it and being like, there
Speaker 1: has to be more books on Greek mythology, and there were,
Speaker 1: and there were, I mean, this is the one that
Speaker 1: makes it the most accessible for children, because you know,
Speaker 1: Greek mythology is famously very fucked up. Dark, dark, dark,
Speaker 1: which I think kind of leads us to one of
Speaker 1: the things I wanted to talk about as like an
Speaker 1: entry point in this discussion, which is how Greek mythology
Speaker 1: is different from other kinds of mythology, and how Greek
Speaker 1: gods are different from other pantheons and why culturally we
Speaker 1: keep coming back to them. And you know, obviously there's
Speaker 1: a lot of scholarship on this, and I think like
Speaker 1: the big thing is that the Greek gods act like humans,
Speaker 1: Like they have very human passions and vulnerabilities. They're like
Speaker 1: very petty and jealous, and they have all of these
Speaker 1: like interpersonal dramas, and their constly flying down from Olympus
Speaker 1: like rape and abduct somebody adult. There's so much like adultery,
Speaker 1: so much mess, so much like turning mortals into animals
Speaker 1: for pretty much no reason for from ye to cover
Speaker 1: up rape. Yeah, I mean, we we'll we'll get into that, um.
Speaker 1: But the darkness that you're getting out of Greek mythology
Speaker 1: and why I think it's different from other mythologies, has
Speaker 1: a lot to do with the fact that it predates
Speaker 1: the colonization of the world, right, it predates the popularization
Speaker 1: of Christianity, And so these myths existed at a time
Speaker 1: where there was no lexicon around same sex sex, right,
Speaker 1: there was no there was no like rape was fine, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: like having sex with boys was like totally chill, but
Speaker 1: like on top like in addition, as long as you
Speaker 1: were chill about it. Also, it must be said that
Speaker 1: there's no sort of like unlike the Bible, there's no
Speaker 1: like foundational text Greek myths, and a lot of these
Speaker 1: are folk tales that come from a lot of different
Speaker 1: cultures that were woven into the Greek like social cultural
Speaker 1: identity and like formalized into these tales. But like there's
Speaker 1: no definitive telling of all of them. And like sure,
Speaker 1: a lot of like the you know, like great play
Speaker 1: rights and like thinkers wrote down their version of them.
Speaker 1: People says Metamorphoses not a foundational text but one of
Speaker 1: the most known compilation. But they're still pretty loosey goosey,
Speaker 1: and the details really do differ from telling to telling,
Speaker 1: which I think is like why there's so much fun
Speaker 1: and why Greek mythology has really lent itself, so, you know,
Speaker 1: naturally to all of these contemporary adaptations, right, And I
Speaker 1: kind of think what is really beautiful and the thing
Speaker 1: that I was so attracted to about Greek mythology then
Speaker 1: and now is you know, obviously we look back at
Speaker 1: Greek times and there are things you're like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: not how we act today when it comes to like
Speaker 1: pedophilia or like enslaved people are like how women are treated.
Speaker 1: But like, in addition to the bad stuff, there was
Speaker 1: also just a really rich, beautiful hiddenism that like really
Speaker 1: UM injects itself into like all of these myths that
Speaker 1: make them so messy and such a joy to read
Speaker 1: because they're not beholden to the um colonist ideas of purity,
Speaker 1: purity morality. Yeah, like all the certain things, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of sucking, and there's a lot of it all
Speaker 1: is well sucking, fucking h drugs, drinking like orgies, like
Speaker 1: war like reality, yes, like killing, going create, like losing
Speaker 1: your mind to the point that you literally tear people
Speaker 1: to shreds, crazy parties, killing people like it's nothing like
Speaker 1: wars um anger like. And I think that that unfettered
Speaker 1: emotionality makes great stories, right, even if it's like crazy
Speaker 1: to read, You're like this is these are good stories
Speaker 1: and um, you know in comparison to other mythologies or
Speaker 1: when we think about like a Hans Christian Anderson, right,
Speaker 1: like those like the Little Mermaid o G. Little Mermaid
Speaker 1: or the O G. Cinderella, like those are really dark
Speaker 1: and also very Christian. Like the Little Mermaid. The whole
Speaker 1: thing with the original Little Mermaid is that the story
Speaker 1: ends with her turning into c foam because she doesn't
Speaker 1: have an immortal soul. And then she does get like
Speaker 1: lifted up into heaven and well she gets lifted up
Speaker 1: to like purgatory for two hundred years and then she
Speaker 1: finally gets to have an immortal soul and go to heaven.
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard that version, but yeah, it's all about
Speaker 1: the afterlife and Christianity, but it still has that the
Speaker 1: darkness of the you know, she was supposed to stab
Speaker 1: the prince and like doesn't she like there's something about
Speaker 1: cutting off her feet or something, and in Cinderella the
Speaker 1: sisters have to cut off their toes or whatever, like uh,
Speaker 1: you know, but like the thing about Greek mythology is
Speaker 1: that like it has the nastiness without the kind of
Speaker 1: like judgment of it, yes, the judgment. Yeah, and because
Speaker 1: and like also just like queerness and like gender fuckory,
Speaker 1: like so many gods, not in the Delarues version, but
Speaker 1: like in other versions of Greek myths, Like there's so
Speaker 1: much queerness and so much kind of like gender fuckory
Speaker 1: among God's heroes stories and all that jazz and Disney
Speaker 1: hercules to go back to, you know, the jumping off
Speaker 1: point is not explicitly queer, but like it's the queerest
Speaker 1: fucking story. I mean it should literally be called from
Speaker 1: Twink to Twine. A twink who doesn't know his biological parents,
Speaker 1: feels that there's something out there more for him, a
Speaker 1: community that he belongs to because he doesn't belong in
Speaker 1: this and then has like a sassy best friend who
Speaker 1: like doesn't really want to date him because she thinks
Speaker 1: there's like a little something off about him. He has
Speaker 1: a hairy mentor who like kind of wants to fuck
Speaker 1: another like older man who wants to suck him God,
Speaker 1: And but I remb member as a kid, I definitely
Speaker 1: caught onto that yearning, um that you know, there's something
Speaker 1: something wrong with me, Like I need to find something
Speaker 1: greater than myself and the possibility. You know. The I
Speaker 1: Want song to Go the Distance is, which is a
Speaker 1: beautiful song, way too short, way too short, and the
Speaker 1: interlude not the best song in the in the movie
Speaker 1: though that that is won't salam in Love, wont sam
Speaker 1: in Love of course, one of the greatest songs ever written.
Speaker 1: And also I will say with Go the Distance, the
Speaker 1: interlude makes it really difficult to do for karaoke. Um
Speaker 1: as well, It's kind of like, um uh, the song
Speaker 1: from Mowanna To, which is split up into like three
Speaker 1: different versions that all happen at different parts of the movie. Right.
Speaker 1: I need I need the kind of karaoke cut of
Speaker 1: Go the Distance because it's exactly in my vocal range
Speaker 1: and I can really nail it really like they should
Speaker 1: there should be a sort of part of your world
Speaker 1: version of it all together. Yeah, exactly. Um, but I
Speaker 1: mean Hercules is hot, Like let's say that, like I'm
Speaker 1: very horny for Hercules, as Meg is really hot to
Speaker 1: another sort of bisexual jumping off point. And Meg's like
Speaker 1: kind of self assuredness which we had never really seen
Speaker 1: in the Disney Cinematic universe before. In a female lead,
Speaker 1: and because she very distinctly says that she's not a princess. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: we hadn't seen a Disney, a female Disney character at
Speaker 1: that point who wasn't a princess. And like now in
Speaker 1: today in Disney, we have this whole sort of meta
Speaker 1: thing where we have these heroines who are constantly saying
Speaker 1: I'm not a princess, like literally in the movies, say
Speaker 1: things like that. And I think Meg was kind of
Speaker 1: the first version of that. She did it first, She
Speaker 1: did it first. She said she did it without the
Speaker 1: need to be like wink wink consumers, No, but she
Speaker 1: was but literally like I'm a damsel, I'm in distress,
Speaker 1: I can handle it, have a nice day like that girl.
Speaker 1: Let's watch it right after that, honestly. But the thing
Speaker 1: fortunately about that movie is I do know almost every
Speaker 1: word of that movie, like the dialogue and songs, and
Speaker 1: I it's really hard to not engage. And I think
Speaker 1: people that do that during movies are insufferable. Maybe, but
Speaker 1: I have to. I have to tell you. I think
Speaker 1: I've told you this, but I've never said it on
Speaker 1: the pod Hercules Disney. Hercules is in my bona fide
Speaker 1: top five like albums of films of all time. I
Speaker 1: got it. It honestly, at a certain point in my
Speaker 1: life could have been in mind. I love it, you know,
Speaker 1: I really love the Fates. They were very very important
Speaker 1: to me as a child's representation matters, it really does,
Speaker 1: you know. It's the James Woods of it all does
Speaker 1: make Hatie suck. But like Haiti's is such a good
Speaker 1: villain and so fucking funny, great amazing line reads, and
Speaker 1: a villain that you know is kind of the comedic relief,
Speaker 1: like we don't see that as much with other is
Speaker 1: Evelance before you know he because you have Ursula, but
Speaker 1: she's not comedic, you know, she's I mean, she's sassy.
Speaker 1: But like Hades is like every single line he has
Speaker 1: is a joke. Where Ursula it's like I'm fabulous and
Speaker 1: I have a few winky winks, which is scar to like.
Speaker 1: I think, you know all these queer coded villains, is
Speaker 1: Hades queer coded? I think I could, I could. There's
Speaker 1: certainly an argument to be made for it. I would think,
Speaker 1: I would say so personal. I think he wants to Hercules.
Speaker 1: I mean everyone wants to fuck Hercules. Hercules. Um, I
Speaker 1: mean honestly. But the uh the original story of Hercules
Speaker 1: I think is herk was born out of wedlock and
Speaker 1: Harra found out Athena fucking narc probably a Fenna is
Speaker 1: the cop of great She probably was like guess what
Speaker 1: Zoos did again? And like, you know, had Hercules banished
Speaker 1: or whatever? And actually now it's a ab all are
Speaker 1: about but like, actually, though, I mean there's another. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty Athena was the one that fucked over Medusa. Medusa
Speaker 1: was you know, raped and then um by Poseidon and
Speaker 1: then Athena was like, guess what happened, um, Medusa? Her
Speaker 1: body is desecrated, let's banish her. And then she was
Speaker 1: a priest. She was a priestess. Yes, oh I didn't
Speaker 1: know that, I um. And then she you know, and
Speaker 1: then SEUs was like or someone was like, your head
Speaker 1: is snakes now, like as punishment for being raped, well,
Speaker 1: most of Greek pathology is just women being punished for
Speaker 1: being raped, yes, and then covering it up and like
Speaker 1: either like saying something about it and being punished literally
Speaker 1: saying nothing about it and being punished, or being turned
Speaker 1: into animals or turning themselves into trees to escape the
Speaker 1: threat of being raised. I mean this is what um
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before in the on the podcast,
Speaker 1: and like we will get into a discussion of you know,
Speaker 1: like adaptations of Greek mythology. But Um Wake Siren is
Speaker 1: a really great book of short story is that are
Speaker 1: retellings of Ovid tales and they're basically it's basically all
Speaker 1: about sexual violence, um and and like those stories from
Speaker 1: a very contemporary perspective because like Greek mythology, like the
Speaker 1: women are treated horribly as women in that society were,
Speaker 1: and that book is like a kind of reclamation or
Speaker 1: nuancing of you know, stories that didn't have the historical
Speaker 1: context to nuance them at the time. You know, like
Speaker 1: that these conversations didn't exist. Conversations about rape didn't exist,
Speaker 1: Conversations about you know, Peter Asty didn't exist, conversations about
Speaker 1: like the word homosexual is a very new invention. Right. Also,
Speaker 1: even the term rape, like in classic tales, like does
Speaker 1: not always mean rape. Like like you know, like there's
Speaker 1: a very famous statue called the Rape of Persephone that
Speaker 1: depicts Haiti is pulling Persephone into the underworld, but like,
Speaker 1: based on various translations, it's rape, is not necessarily like
Speaker 1: always about sexual violence. Like sometimes it's about like a
Speaker 1: woman being kidnapped against her consent. And so the idea
Speaker 1: of rape and like it's sexualization is like kind of
Speaker 1: murky in in Greek myth but in basically like gods
Speaker 1: were always stealing these mortals away to do something with
Speaker 1: them against their will because to them they were just
Speaker 1: like pretty playthings. So you have something like the Guinea
Speaker 1: Maade story, right, and I was just like or like
Speaker 1: the rape of Io, who like gets turned into a bowl?
Speaker 1: Oh right, They're always getting turned into I mean that's
Speaker 1: literally what Ovid's metamorphosis about. It's about all of these
Speaker 1: different figures in Greek mythology who transform and metamorphosized, getting
Speaker 1: turned into different turned into Medusa's into swans, Peacock's trees, trees, spiders, yes, spiders,
Speaker 1: all that jazz. Greek mythology is very trans Which do
Speaker 1: you think are the hottest kind of god? Okay? So
Speaker 1: the god that I truly would want to fuck, and
Speaker 1: I have thought long and hard about this is Hephaestus,
Speaker 1: because you know someone who can fuck the goddess of
Speaker 1: love and like really throw it down, who also is
Speaker 1: like hammering metal in a smith all day, a working
Speaker 1: class himbo. Truly, that's who Hephaestus is, Like, that is
Speaker 1: the god that I want to suck. Who would play
Speaker 1: a Festus in like a modern day adaptation. It's kind
Speaker 1: of giving, like a like working class him It's kind
Speaker 1: of maybe not Adam Driver, because like Adam Driver's cast
Speaker 1: into everything, but it kind of because Adam Driver would
Speaker 1: suck Aphrodite, you know, like, but I also think like
Speaker 1: Hephaestus would be like kind of ugly, um, I mean
Speaker 1: out of Driver, it's kind of ugly. But the thing
Speaker 1: is if you can lay yeah, he's got shovel, I
Speaker 1: mean he can lay that pipe. I want to know
Speaker 1: what your other answers are, but I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: my my guests for you actually would have been argust
Speaker 1: This girl. I'm holding up a picture of Greek mythology.
Speaker 1: It's the guy, the guy who's covered an eye, the
Speaker 1: guy that that's covered in eyes. He's hot in this
Speaker 1: illustration too, if you want to google Argus de Laire's
Speaker 1: book of Greek myths. Um and then also, like I
Speaker 1: do think I would be into Hara because of her
Speaker 1: mommy vibe. Jealous mommy jealous mommy vibes like she would
Speaker 1: own my ass literally like fifty of like myths are
Speaker 1: just like Zeus cheating on her and her having a
Speaker 1: rage stroke and killing or transforming someone, And I would
Speaker 1: love for her to take that energy out on me.
Speaker 1: I think she. I would love to have Hara make
Speaker 1: me cry. Honestly, there is a a really good Hara
Speaker 1: adaptation somewhere because her a limited series. Yes, because every
Speaker 1: single story she's in is her as this shrew who hysteric,
Speaker 1: hysterical shrew who is so angry that she has to
Speaker 1: so angry about her husband or whatever. She would have
Speaker 1: dumped Zeus. She was the original before he cheats carry
Speaker 1: Underwood vibes. Yes, but there's something interesting about that story
Speaker 1: because there's Harry can't give up this relationship. She's also
Speaker 1: Zeus's sister because oh yeah, that's all, which is like
Speaker 1: literally when you think about when you think about the
Speaker 1: Persephone myth, Hersephonie is given to Hades, who is her
Speaker 1: uncle by her father, Zeus who is her dad who
Speaker 1: fucked her mom Demeter, who is his sister, So it's
Speaker 1: all in SSS. But with Harry, it's like she's trapped
Speaker 1: in this relationship, like she is the figurehead of all
Speaker 1: of Olympus, Like she can't leave her post. She just
Speaker 1: has to deal with this Zeus bullshit all the time.
Speaker 1: And I think that is like a really good story,
Speaker 1: you know. Okay, So who which which Greek god would
Speaker 1: you want to fuck? Or like, you know, rent an
Speaker 1: Airbnb and have a long weekend with, have a long
Speaker 1: weekend with. I mean, would you want to spirit you
Speaker 1: away to Olympus or to the underworld? When when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, I was horny for Apollo and actually
Speaker 1: one of my earliest I would say that, like Apolo
Speaker 1: has got such mean twink energy he is, and he's
Speaker 1: a mean god to like, he's not nice. What he
Speaker 1: did to Cassandra very petty. Wait what did he do
Speaker 1: to Cassandra? So Cassandra in the you know theron the
Speaker 1: Myth of Troy. You know, Cassandra is one of the
Speaker 1: daughters of Troy and like Apollo wants her and she
Speaker 1: rejects him, and so he places this curse on her
Speaker 1: that she will have visions of the future, but no
Speaker 1: one will believe her. Oh, is she the one that
Speaker 1: launched a thousand ships? No, that's Helen of Troy, Thank you. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Sandra is one of the Trojan Women, which we'll get to.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, we're jumping around so much, but I
Speaker 1: love it. Okay, So as a kid, I have a
Speaker 1: visceral memory rose of obviously you know when your kid,
Speaker 1: you like draw horny things like that that happens. And
Speaker 1: this book delares book of business. This book um really
Speaker 1: like you know, horned me up. And I have a
Speaker 1: visceral memory of drawing this kind of depiction of Apollo
Speaker 1: and then drawing these like chiseled abs on him, you know.
Speaker 1: And then I remember drawing it and finishing the drawing,
Speaker 1: and I then your mom saw you and then like
Speaker 1: and then like prayed over your body. Luckily it wasn't
Speaker 1: that well, I mean it did. I did. My horny
Speaker 1: drawings did get discovered. I remember crying about it and
Speaker 1: my dad being like, it's okay, like you you you
Speaker 1: beautifully portray women and men's bodies. I remember my dad
Speaker 1: saying something to that effect, like really weird, just trying
Speaker 1: to like kind of be like my kids school gardens,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know how to do that. That's how
Speaker 1: people have been like like dealing with gay stuff forever,
Speaker 1: Like it's just art. It's just art. That's what most
Speaker 1: of like Greek statues are. It's like all these men
Speaker 1: like men like wrestling each other and they're like, oh
Speaker 1: they were friends. Yeah. But I remember in fifth grade
Speaker 1: like looking at the drawing and being like and I
Speaker 1: remember I'm like over my on my bed finishing the drawing.
Speaker 1: I remember looking at it. I mean like, oh no,
Speaker 1: like this is like I'm horny for this, and that
Speaker 1: is going to be a problem, an ongoing problem for me. UM.
Speaker 1: But I haven't told this story on the pod before. UM,
Speaker 1: But this tattoo that I have of Apollo and High
Speaker 1: and synthas Um, which is another beautiful um twink abduction
Speaker 1: love story is my first memory of queerness, if not
Speaker 1: my earliest memory. Cane um basically as t l DR
Speaker 1: ver t l d R. It's a it's a really
Speaker 1: short myth um. You know, Apollo as he just want
Speaker 1: to do, falls in love with a twink named High
Speaker 1: and Cinthis and you know they love each other and
Speaker 1: they are you know as like gods do. And one
Speaker 1: day they decided to play discus and Apollo is like
Speaker 1: so toxic that he throws the disc is too hard
Speaker 1: and kills High and Cynthis upon impact, and Apollo is
Speaker 1: obviously forever time and then and Apollo is obviously devastated,
Speaker 1: and so he you know, creates the High and Scynth
Speaker 1: flower in his honor um. But I remember it's like
Speaker 1: I remember after finishing DeLay's Book of Greek Myths, I
Speaker 1: moved on too books without pictures, Greek myths without pictures
Speaker 1: and like, and I remember reading It's like it was
Speaker 1: like three sentences of a myth. It was like a
Speaker 1: long list of myth myths that I was reading in
Speaker 1: a bible, thin pages like textbook. And I remember reading
Speaker 1: like Apollo had a lover and his name was high
Speaker 1: Synthis and I was like his like what like? And
Speaker 1: it was very It was definitely something that stuck out
Speaker 1: to me. I think that might be a good jumping
Speaker 1: off point to start talking about some of our other
Speaker 1: favorite adaptations of Greek mythology um, which is definitely something
Speaker 1: that has, you know, stuck with me throughout my life.
Speaker 1: And I do think there is a cycle where every
Speaker 1: couple of years we get some new you know, text
Speaker 1: added to the cannon. And right now we are kind
Speaker 1: of in this renaissance of you know, these very contemporary
Speaker 1: retellings of these classic stories. Um, well, I don't. It's
Speaker 1: not a zance like there actually should be way more
Speaker 1: like it should be. There should be. It's actually not
Speaker 1: that many like it's kind of shocking how untapped A
Speaker 1: lot of this is, yes, but but you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: So I think some of the formative ones for me,
Speaker 1: like we'll get to the current day, but some of
Speaker 1: the formative ones for me, like over the years have
Speaker 1: been things like Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphosis, which we discovered we
Speaker 1: were both obsessed with huge I we did a performance
Speaker 1: of it at my high school that I stage managed
Speaker 1: question Mark, and it was like one of my favorite
Speaker 1: plays I had ever read. It was um for me
Speaker 1: when so I was a theater nerd and when I
Speaker 1: was auditioning for colleges because I wanted to go into
Speaker 1: an acting program, one of my audition monologues was from Metamorphosis,
Speaker 1: of course, um so for the virgins. Metamorphoses is a
Speaker 1: play written by Mary's Emmerman that basically adapts all the
Speaker 1: different like myths. Yeah, all the different exactly, and it's
Speaker 1: like so romantic and sexy and beautiful and like I
Speaker 1: think my monologue audition for it was Orpheus is but
Speaker 1: like that depiction of Orpheus and Euridicies myth is like
Speaker 1: one of my favorites ever because in the adaptation you
Speaker 1: have to see Orpheus making the crucial mistake of you know,
Speaker 1: turning around and looking back back at it and seeing
Speaker 1: the mistake over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: You know. The Orpheus and euridicy I think, really speaks
Speaker 1: to this thing that the Greeks did really well, which
Speaker 1: is tragic, you know, like something like Greek Greeks invented
Speaker 1: theater as we know it um. I was a theater
Speaker 1: kid in high school, and you know, Greek theater is
Speaker 1: one of the foundations of any sort of like theatrical practice,
Speaker 1: and it's like one of the first things that you
Speaker 1: learn about in theater school, both like when I was
Speaker 1: in high school and the theater kid when I like
Speaker 1: briefly studied acting in college before I realized it was
Speaker 1: lame um and the great thing about the Greeks, and
Speaker 1: like this carries on through the history of like storytelling
Speaker 1: and like obviously you see it and things like Shakespeare
Speaker 1: is this sort of like luxuriating in tragedy, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's very indulgent, Like these tragedies exist for that
Speaker 1: experience of like like pushing on a bruise, you know,
Speaker 1: like reveling in sadness. Um. So things like orpheus and euridacy,
Speaker 1: like you know how that story ends, like and it's
Speaker 1: been told a thousand times, um, but you just even
Speaker 1: knowing how it ends, like you you want to luxuriate
Speaker 1: and that feeling of despair. Um. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think you know this about me. But I very similarly
Speaker 1: studied theater briefly and then decided it was lame and quit.
Speaker 1: Did you know this? So I went to the DePaul
Speaker 1: Theater Conservatory for one semester, like because I graduated from
Speaker 1: high school and you know, I was a theater kid
Speaker 1: in high school, and I was like, theater is my
Speaker 1: community and helped me realize who I am, so surely
Speaker 1: it's what I want to do for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life, which is like in America, like why do
Speaker 1: we like pressure kids to think that they need to
Speaker 1: know what to do with the rest of their life
Speaker 1: when they are nineteen? Anyways, I went to the DePaul
Speaker 1: Feeder Conservatory and uh really, like like we we had
Speaker 1: to study like Greek tragedy, and I always thought the
Speaker 1: tragedies were so fucking boring, Like I mean, they are
Speaker 1: texted so and even like modern adaptations are boring, they
Speaker 1: are in are boring, but there's just something about them,
Speaker 1: like I get it. I my senior year of high school,
Speaker 1: I got cast in one of our main stage productions
Speaker 1: and I had a lean in it. Um. We did
Speaker 1: The Trojan Women by Euripides, and that is like it's
Speaker 1: trauma pore and it's like about the aftermath of the
Speaker 1: Trojan War and all of the leftover women and like
Speaker 1: these women whose lives have been ruined, their husbands killed,
Speaker 1: that they've been raped, their city has been torn apart um.
Speaker 1: I played Tolphibious, who's the Greek soldier who like throws
Speaker 1: Hector's baby off of like the walls of Troy. Um,
Speaker 1: my god, and it's so like at the time, like
Speaker 1: we thought we were doing the most groundbreaking contemporization of
Speaker 1: Greek tragedy that had ever been done. And now I
Speaker 1: look back and I'm like, oh my god. The parents
Speaker 1: sitting through that must have been like what the fuck
Speaker 1: is That's kind of something that I got to wear
Speaker 1: a cape, so that is a cape a cape or
Speaker 1: a cape let, honey. It is so funny though that
Speaker 1: like retroactively, we look back on these moments and like
Speaker 1: you think in the moment, you're like this is like
Speaker 1: so good, like this is actually good, like even though
Speaker 1: we're in high school, like this is so good. It's
Speaker 1: like no, it's not, like you're This is like you know,
Speaker 1: like an adaptation of like a Greek myth about like
Speaker 1: rape and motherhood. Like you and you as like you
Speaker 1: as a seventeen or eighteen year old do not have
Speaker 1: the emotional maturity to be able to bring this in
Speaker 1: a meaningful way. You simply do not. And also we
Speaker 1: had this like visiting teacher who directed it, who like
Speaker 1: had gone to n y U and so and so
Speaker 1: they like they brought all of these like sort of
Speaker 1: like you know, contemporary theater ideas to this production. And
Speaker 1: we did these like ritual quote unquote rituals on stage
Speaker 1: that we're like very like modern dance. And it was
Speaker 1: like what did you do to Like we were doing
Speaker 1: viewpoints work if anyone out there, and it's like this
Speaker 1: like thing we don't don't know, Yeah, I mean, if
Speaker 1: you know what it is, I'm sure really saying that
Speaker 1: was very triggering for you, and I like apologize, but
Speaker 1: also to deal with it. You know, I think part
Speaker 1: of honestly part of the way I feel about Greek theater,
Speaker 1: and I was like, this is boring is like partially
Speaker 1: how I feel about Shakespeare sometimes because it is actually
Speaker 1: really difficult for me to be like entertained by like
Speaker 1: Shakespeare as is Shakespeare, I feel totally different, you know,
Speaker 1: I know, I know you were were very different when
Speaker 1: it comes to the Shakespeare at all. But like the
Speaker 1: thing for me is that Greek mythology similar to Shakespeare
Speaker 1: is like I think the stories have less resonance in
Speaker 1: a contemporary world, but they did give us archetypes and
Speaker 1: story tools that have you know, formed and influenced our
Speaker 1: method of storytelling for centuries and centuries, you know. And
Speaker 1: like when I think about like Greek tragedy specifically, it's
Speaker 1: like we have you know, the like the term catharsis
Speaker 1: because of that are like um and things like um,
Speaker 1: you know, a Greek chorus, Like that's an idea that
Speaker 1: like you can see and like not even really need to,
Speaker 1: like you you under you immediately understand what's happening. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like as I was mentioning before, right now
Speaker 1: we are okay, maybe we're not in assence of you know,
Speaker 1: Greek Greek Greek tellings, but there have been over the
Speaker 1: past couple of years, especially in literature, a lot of
Speaker 1: very modern adaptations of Greek myths. Button. But I think
Speaker 1: the the difference with the trend now is that it's
Speaker 1: applying a contemporary sensibility but keeping it in the classical setting.
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking specifically of the Song of Achilles and Searcy,
Speaker 1: both by Madeline Miller. I think we are like split
Speaker 1: right down the middle where you're more of a Song
Speaker 1: of Achilles girly and I'm a Searcy. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: really says a lot about who we are women, you know.
Speaker 1: A big part of my ethos actually, just like the
Speaker 1: things that I want to make now are very informed
Speaker 1: by something that the books stood for, which was putting
Speaker 1: queerness into a story that it's traditionally excluded from. And
Speaker 1: like we just never get to see faggots or lesbians
Speaker 1: or trans people like pick up the sword, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. We see them, Um, we see their innteriority.
Speaker 1: We see their heartbreak, we see their oppression, we see
Speaker 1: like the systemic ways that they have like obstacles, but
Speaker 1: like we never get to see them like you know,
Speaker 1: kill the fucking dragon, rescue the damsel, pick up the sword. Um.
Speaker 1: And I felt like that was something that was really
Speaker 1: radical about Song of Achilles. And you know it also
Speaker 1: is very like especially radical, and that it's not even
Speaker 1: just like a retelling, Like it's not injecting queerness into
Speaker 1: a story in which queerness never existed. It's reclaiming queerness
Speaker 1: in a story that always was queer and was straight washed.
Speaker 1: And it totally reads very white a And also I
Speaker 1: mean this is this is a compliment, not a dig.
Speaker 1: Like it also reads like fan fiction, like it totally
Speaker 1: is fan fiction. I mean all Greek mythology adaptations are
Speaker 1: a fan fiction. Yes, but um, it's worth saying that
Speaker 1: Madeline Miller is a classics professor, so she has clocked
Speaker 1: you know, the ten thousand hours on this, which I
Speaker 1: think makes a lot of her work so much more compelling.
Speaker 1: Like I hadn't read her work in a long time,
Speaker 1: and when I picked sir s up this month, like
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, I forgot that she
Speaker 1: just knows her ship and she and she has a
Speaker 1: really I really like her writing style. It's very and
Speaker 1: this is also not a dig. It's very easy to read.
Speaker 1: It's very accessible, but still poetic, very poetic, dramatic, very melodramatic.
Speaker 1: I really prefer Sercy because like, I'm always going to
Speaker 1: be a witch girl writer, writer or die. Um, what's
Speaker 1: the story of we should actually for the virgins, clarify
Speaker 1: the stories of Achilles and sars Okay first, okay, So
Speaker 1: Searcy is about the goddess Cercy, who is like like
Speaker 1: often thought to be like kind of the mother of witches,
Speaker 1: like she in Greek mythology, like she is the classic,
Speaker 1: which I would say her in Hecate are kind of
Speaker 1: the two which figures in Greek mythology. Hecate is the
Speaker 1: goddess of magic. Searcy is a um daughter of a
Speaker 1: a river god I believe. Yeah, well she's a she's
Speaker 1: a daughter of Helios and one of his Sidon's daughters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he was just you know, sucking and fucking yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And Searcy is a big figure in Um the Odyssey
Speaker 1: because when Odysseus, Odysseus and his crew of men um
Speaker 1: you know, end up on her eye end. She becomes
Speaker 1: enambored with Odysseus, turns all his men into pigs um,
Speaker 1: and she and Odysseus are sucking and sucking um. And
Speaker 1: so the the novel Cercy is really about um, you know,
Speaker 1: giving this woman who only is um like a character
Speaker 1: in in other people's stories and specifically in men's stories,
Speaker 1: her own story and her own agency. Um. And it's
Speaker 1: about you know, her being this goddess who like kind
Speaker 1: of has no power of her own. And then like
Speaker 1: literally like invents witchcraft. Yeah, and like um in the Odyssey,
Speaker 1: which like we don't even need to talk about because
Speaker 1: it is like so boring, but like in the Odyssey,
Speaker 1: she is like a very minor character, Like she's a villain.
Speaker 1: Who isn't she vanquished? Like, isn't she's not vanquished? They're
Speaker 1: just kind of leave her yeah, um. And And so
Speaker 1: like the kind of expanding of this story the way
Speaker 1: Madeline Miller does it is she creates opposition between magic
Speaker 1: and the what what gods can do? And so the
Speaker 1: fact that she had power is like something the gods
Speaker 1: cannot get around. They can't do anything about her potions.
Speaker 1: They can't do anything about her manifest stations, her spells,
Speaker 1: like because you know, they don't know how to do
Speaker 1: magic basically, So it's very fascinating. Um Song of Achilles
Speaker 1: is literally just like a high school breakup story, but
Speaker 1: told through like the Trojan the Trojan, it's not even
Speaker 1: a breakup because they don't break up, just one of
Speaker 1: them dies. I mean they did kind of technically break up.
Speaker 1: Um uh. And Madeline Miller's telling of it is wonderful
Speaker 1: because Patrick Cluse is the protagonist and Achilles is a
Speaker 1: little toxic and I think super toxic. Yes, yeah, very toxic,
Speaker 1: because the whole idea of especially the way that Madeline
Speaker 1: Miller tells it, is like Achille knows that he if
Speaker 1: he goes to war, will die young, but he will
Speaker 1: die in glory and that is more importan into him
Speaker 1: than having a long happy life with his lover Patroclus, right,
Speaker 1: And and it's real and so much of Greek mythology
Speaker 1: is about knowing your fate before it happens and doing
Speaker 1: the thing anyway. Yeah, And like I think Achilles, like
Speaker 1: was he a demigod? Said he's a daughter of Thetis,
Speaker 1: who was one of Poseidon's daughters, and I honestly just
Speaker 1: like I was going through a breakup at the time
Speaker 1: and like had a really toxic partner when I was
Speaker 1: reading it, and like I just remember being like damn,
Speaker 1: like this like myth from centuries and centuries ago. Madeline
Speaker 1: Miller was able to render with an emotional reality that
Speaker 1: like I could access as a high schooler, Like it
Speaker 1: was just it's just so beautiful. Um, but I love
Speaker 1: I love that. I love her expansion of it because
Speaker 1: you know, Patrick Loose and Achilles relationship is never explored
Speaker 1: really in Greek mythology. It's just like their lovers and
Speaker 1: that was it. Yeah, well, well there's the big thing
Speaker 1: of Greek mythology is Achilles. Patrick Cliss again, like very
Speaker 1: much like Cercy, is just like a throwaway character in
Speaker 1: a larger story, Like you only get like Achilles, like um,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, like melodramatic outpouring of grief when Patrick
Speaker 1: Cliss is killed and it's what leads him to have this,
Speaker 1: you know, to kill Hector in this very like dishonorable way, um,
Speaker 1: and like leads to his death. And so it is
Speaker 1: nice to have that story like fleshed out and like
Speaker 1: to have this person who's like a footnote in history,
Speaker 1: given you know, all this agency and backstory and like death. Honestly,
Speaker 1: like Achilles was kind of giving like toxic masculinity top,
Speaker 1: and like Patrick Cluse was like Twinkie bottom, and like
Speaker 1: Achilles hated like his effeminiscy. I actually think Patrick Luz
Speaker 1: was the top. I don't. I don't, but that's like
Speaker 1: for for like Greek historical reasons, because obviously, like gay
Speaker 1: sex wasn't like frowned upon, right, like it was something
Speaker 1: like that was people would have sex openly and like
Speaker 1: it was totally okay to have male lovers, especially if
Speaker 1: you were you know, at war, right like like um,
Speaker 1: and so because they thought that it would like engender um,
Speaker 1: like better camaraderie on the battlefield if the person you
Speaker 1: were going to war with with someone that you cared
Speaker 1: about in this like sexual and like sort of romantic way, right.
Speaker 1: And so you know, classicists like they don't find like
Speaker 1: stigma and like you you around like gay sex stuff,
Speaker 1: but they do find stigma and judgment around penetration. So
Speaker 1: the receptive partner is at times throughout Greek mythology shamed
Speaker 1: for being the receiving partner. But part of the reason
Speaker 1: why why pederasty was like acceptable was because when you
Speaker 1: were pederasty is literally just like an adult man having
Speaker 1: sex with a young boy, which was extremely common in
Speaker 1: in uh kind of Greek mythological time, and it was
Speaker 1: sort of like a mentorship kind of thing. Yeah. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it was like my little toy. Sometimes it was a
Speaker 1: mentorship things. Sometimes it was like you're my companion, You're
Speaker 1: coming with me to war, You're gonna stay in my
Speaker 1: tent and like bear my cup and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So sometimes these our full relationship yeah, um, but it
Speaker 1: was that you know that these boys were never looked
Speaker 1: down on for being the receptive partners because they were
Speaker 1: not yet citizens, right, And so that's kind of why
Speaker 1: I think Patrick Louse is the bottom is because he
Speaker 1: was the not the one that was glorified and made
Speaker 1: the hero. Yeah, but like I get that that's like
Speaker 1: the mythological baggage of it. But like in the way
Speaker 1: I look at it, I think like Achilles, because he's
Speaker 1: such a hot shot on the battlefield, Like when he
Speaker 1: comes back to the tent at night, he needs someone
Speaker 1: who's going to suck his brain. He can so he
Speaker 1: can like unwind. That's that I'm writing. That's excellent, that's
Speaker 1: the vibe. I know that. I think this is true.
Speaker 1: This also could just be like a byproduct of having
Speaker 1: read a lot of fan fiction, but I think they
Speaker 1: did a lot of like thig fucking. That's I was
Speaker 1: literally going to say that there was intercural sex. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's what it's called. They would like that, they would
Speaker 1: that would be there, um, that would be their loophole
Speaker 1: around not being the receptive partner because also because I'm
Speaker 1: sure it was very hard to you know, keep clean
Speaker 1: when we were at war, yes, but because they would
Speaker 1: be ashamed for being a receptive partner. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's final, Just fuck your thigh gap and then we
Speaker 1: can like kind of you ever done that, that's a complation.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of times. Actually, one time, even
Speaker 1: even more unusually, someone fucked the crease of the back
Speaker 1: of my knee and it like happened. It happened like
Speaker 1: very organically. It's just kind of like I was spooning
Speaker 1: with someone and like he was I think taller than
Speaker 1: me and just kind of naturally like his dick like
Speaker 1: slotted in into like the back of my knee and
Speaker 1: he just fun and it was like weirdly really erotic.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and he did it to completion. Look at
Speaker 1: a crevices and crevices and crevice, the crevices crevicing. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like honestly, like I will say, I do
Speaker 1: like having sex with like just the ass crack. That
Speaker 1: is something that I have done to completion. Um or
Speaker 1: has been done to me to completion, but not a
Speaker 1: thigh gap. And now it's something that I maybe and
Speaker 1: I think like if you're squeezing the thighs together and
Speaker 1: like you you know, it feels so good to like
Speaker 1: rub between someone's cheeks, like you know, when it's like
Speaker 1: a sort of just the tip kind of situation. I
Speaker 1: was just about to say, it's kind of giving a
Speaker 1: just the tip vibe or honestly that kind of like
Speaker 1: I mean, Greek culture was very just the tip. There
Speaker 1: was I was reading before that there was a god
Speaker 1: of fertility called pre APIs who just had a giant
Speaker 1: erection all the time, and they I know, right, and
Speaker 1: there would be like little kind of like insignias of
Speaker 1: pre aps on like people's like dull wars to signify
Speaker 1: that they had like a strong man at the house,
Speaker 1: so like you where or whatever, which is like so fun.
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's like a um, a vagina version
Speaker 1: of that where it's just like a woman with a big,
Speaker 1: like enormous pussy. Do you feel I feel like that
Speaker 1: has to I hope so too. But considering you know, patriarchy,
Speaker 1: probably not, probably not UM. But the other thing is, like,
Speaker 1: you know, people would always have sex in public, people
Speaker 1: would always have um orgies. And in Greek times, like
Speaker 1: the men would carry around little sacks of oil, like
Speaker 1: little lube sacks, like just on their belts because they
Speaker 1: just always had to be ready, which is whack a doodle,
Speaker 1: But also just like I think paints a picture of
Speaker 1: like what sex was like during that time. UM, I
Speaker 1: think a lot about UM. Have you heard of this
Speaker 1: sacred Band of Thebes? Yes, for the virgins. The Band
Speaker 1: of Thebes was this army of three hundred soldiers or
Speaker 1: rather a hundred and deep pairs of male lovers that were,
Speaker 1: you know, in the lore, undefeatable because they loved each
Speaker 1: other so much. And that's and that's why we have
Speaker 1: the movie. Well, I mean, I'm pretty sure the guy
Speaker 1: who wrote three hundred has never credited the Band of
Speaker 1: Thebes as his inspiration because his version of the story
Speaker 1: is not the same like battle or myth of the
Speaker 1: Band of Thebes, but he literally rips off of the
Speaker 1: myth of the Band of Thebes and then takes the
Speaker 1: queerness out of it. But it's still pretty gay. It
Speaker 1: is still pretty gay, but the army is like explicitly homophobic.
Speaker 1: There's a moment in three hundred where one of the
Speaker 1: guys is like, oh, that boy lever or whatever, which
Speaker 1: like that never happened in Greek times, Like that was
Speaker 1: not how sentiment around men having sex with men existed.
Speaker 1: So it's like so ikey and stupid to me for
Speaker 1: like someone to like kind of pull out what could
Speaker 1: be the most interesting part of that story slash. All
Speaker 1: I'm saying is that I'm probably gonna adapt this, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna well, that was gonna be. That was gonna
Speaker 1: be My next question, Like, if you were going to
Speaker 1: adopt you know, a Greek myth or story or like
Speaker 1: a particular god or goddess or whatever into you know,
Speaker 1: a book or a limited series or a movie, what
Speaker 1: would it be? Forgive me? I have multiple answers. One
Speaker 1: of them would be a band of thebes. I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, three hundred soldiers sucking and fuckingto victory is
Speaker 1: an amazing and that should be the title. But it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a I mean, I've never actually read
Speaker 1: like a kind of textual reading of the myth or whatever,
Speaker 1: so I don't know actually what they did, but like
Speaker 1: it's kind of amazing to think about, like, you know,
Speaker 1: going to battle, slaughtering a bunch of people, going back
Speaker 1: to camp just fucking, just like sucking to get the
Speaker 1: adrenaline out of your system, and that gives you the
Speaker 1: energy and willpower to like go into the next battle.
Speaker 1: Like that's amazing. Um. I have written an erotic adaptation
Speaker 1: that is set in the modern day of Zeus and
Speaker 1: gay Meade that is going to be published in um
Speaker 1: a compilation like next year. I will send it to you.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's pretty I mean, it's pretty graphic. Um,
Speaker 1: it was so fun to make sure to keep my
Speaker 1: little um my belt sachet of lube. But in my
Speaker 1: act keep that thing. In my adaptation, You're gonna roll
Speaker 1: your eyes because it's so on the nose. In my adaptation,
Speaker 1: Zeus is like this, like you know, real estate, UM
Speaker 1: kind of mogul club owner who owns a club called Olympus.
Speaker 1: And Ganya Meade is a bottle boy twink that you know,
Speaker 1: he meets and usurps when it's when it's right, it's right. Um.
Speaker 1: So I'll send that to you. But my real answer,
Speaker 1: the thing that I literally actually have started to like
Speaker 1: write as something that, um, I would I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it could be a series, but it would also
Speaker 1: be a very good book, is Dionysus. He is currently
Speaker 1: my favorite. I mean, he's my favorite god. I think
Speaker 1: I think that you know, for the virgins, he's the god.
Speaker 1: Everyone says he's the god of wine, but he's the
Speaker 1: god of hedonism. He's the god of transnis queerness. He
Speaker 1: you know, was very gender fluid, um. And he you know,
Speaker 1: unfortunately had this like cult of like women who he
Speaker 1: you know, subscribed to his ideologies and like would rip
Speaker 1: people apart. And that's like the ugly story. But I
Speaker 1: think that there's an interesting version of that of someone
Speaker 1: who understands the transformative and addictive power of pleasure and
Speaker 1: uses that to manipulate a crowd. Um. And I think that, honestly,
Speaker 1: there aren't stories of Dionysius that are as queer as
Speaker 1: he is, you know, and I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: version of the you know, the enclave of people in
Speaker 1: his entourage that is like every all genders and everyone's
Speaker 1: kind of like fucking and indulging. Um, what about you,
Speaker 1: what would you adapt? Well? I, you know, I think
Speaker 1: my answer would have been a lot different when I
Speaker 1: was a teenager. Um, you know, looking at this book
Speaker 1: of myths that we have in front of us, the
Speaker 1: one that I was always the most drawn to was
Speaker 1: the Artemis story. And like when I was a teenager,
Speaker 1: I would have loved to do like a sort of
Speaker 1: I think Artemis has a big, kind of buffy energy,
Speaker 1: so that kind of like you know, young warrior girl
Speaker 1: kind of thing, like this eternal maiden. Um, that would
Speaker 1: have been really interesting. But well, for the versions, what
Speaker 1: Artemis story does the book tell? Oh, it's just like
Speaker 1: about Artemis and like the guy who's in love with her,
Speaker 1: who she turns into a deer. The guy watches her
Speaker 1: bathe non consensually, and then she catches him and she's like,
Speaker 1: you're a deer now, motherfucker. She's got us of the hunt,
Speaker 1: by the way, Yes, And like feminism question and the moon,
Speaker 1: but there's other moon goddesses. I mean, Salne also would
Speaker 1: be a great story, but like also some problematic like
Speaker 1: consent stuff there, But no, I mean my real answer
Speaker 1: is I think it's kind of expected, but it's also
Speaker 1: a thing that I can't believe has not been done,
Speaker 1: which is a Medusa retelling. And like I am going
Speaker 1: to be like kind of obvious and say, like I
Speaker 1: think it would be incredible to do it as a
Speaker 1: trans story, Like I think, like the idea of this
Speaker 1: woman being being raped and then like someone like tells
Speaker 1: on her, Like I think it's a retelling where Athene
Speaker 1: is a turf Medusa's trans um. But but I really think,
Speaker 1: like if I never get around to it, like that's
Speaker 1: I don't know how there hasn't been like a contemporary
Speaker 1: like reclaiming of Medusa as a feminist figure, because the
Speaker 1: only ways we've seen her are as a monster in
Speaker 1: someone else's story. And I do think I could do it,
Speaker 1: but I just don't have the sort of like scholarly
Speaker 1: like ability to really um research antiquity enough to make
Speaker 1: it the tail it could be not But maybe I
Speaker 1: could do one that's like more vibes well, I mean
Speaker 1: I I personally like when I when I've started to
Speaker 1: write about dionysis, I don't want it. I would never
Speaker 1: ever write ancient dialogue like I would never I would
Speaker 1: not I would be writing temporary dialogue. I would still
Speaker 1: want to set it in that time period, but I
Speaker 1: don't make who knows. Maybe after I finished my book,
Speaker 1: like that's the next thing I'll work on. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, I categorically reject the lexicon of get around
Speaker 1: to it, because I think it's something you need to
Speaker 1: do immediately. And Virgins, if anyone adapts Medusa before Rose does,
Speaker 1: we will find you and kill you. But also, if
Speaker 1: anyone up there wants to like option trans Medusa, hit
Speaker 1: me up, tell us what you thought about today's episode.
Speaker 1: We want to hear what your favorite Greek myth is. Yes,
Speaker 1: santag Us at Like a Virgin nine, please leave us
Speaker 1: a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps us so much.
Speaker 1: I'm your co host, Rose Damn You. You You can find
Speaker 1: me anywhere you want on social at Rose Damn You
Speaker 1: and I'm a friend. You can find me at France
Speaker 1: Squish go anywhere you want subscribe to Like a Virgin
Speaker 1: anywhere you listen to podcasts. Um rate us on Spotify,
Speaker 1: leave a comment on Apple Podcasts. Like a Virgin is
Speaker 1: an iHeart Radio production. Our producer is Phoebe Unter, with
Speaker 1: support from Lindsay Hoffman, Julian Weller, Jess Crane, Chitch and
Speaker 1: Nikki Etour until next week, See you later, Virgins. No chance,
Speaker 1: no way, I won't say no no it didn't. I
Speaker 1: oh