Movies We Dig: KAOS (live at CAMWS w/ Amy Pistone)
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Let's talk about myths, baby. Except again, kind of not really. I am your host, Liv. And just like a little while ago when I shared with you an episode from Sweet Bitters Season 3 in honor of them joining this brand new Memory Collective podcast network and all of the big and far too lofty goals that I have here with the Memory Collective,

We are now sharing another episode from another show that is part of the new network. This is Movies We Dig, hosted by Christy, Elijah, and Colin. And, well, you'll know Christy from...

many episodes of the podcast now christy studies medicine and women in the ancient world we love her but on the side christy has movies we dig which is a really fun podcast we didn't want to make it all too heavy and historical just people who are sharing this kind of stuff with the it

Important, important outside information. And Movies We Dig is really fun. They talk about well beyond movies now, but classical reception, reception broadly, reception of the ancient world. So movies, TV, books. I feel like they've not really done much in the way of books, but I also think they might be everything in that realm. And fortunately for all of you, they have just recently done a very special episode looking at...

Chaos. That's right, chaos! The thing you all want me to watch and I know I should but the problem is once 200 people tell me to watch it my brain puts this little lock on the door.

Anyway, I haven't watched it yet, but thankfully these guys are here to talk about chaos. I know there is so much to get into because honestly, that show, R.I.P., really got deep into the mythology. I may not have seen it yet, but I know that much and I know I've got to watch it. I'm going to watch it, I promise. But until then, here is an episode from Movies We Dig featuring...

Find more episodes of Movies We Dig wherever you're listening to this or via the links in the episode's description. And stay tuned because this is going to mean chaos is going to get talked about on this podcast, on Let's Talk About Myths, baby. It's coming. We're figuring it out.

Stay tuned, and until then, enjoy these three historians and archaeologists and their guests who are more of the same talking about Jeff Goldblum as Zeus, among other things.

Hello and welcome to Movies We Dig, the podcast about film, antiquity, and everything in between. I'm Elijah Fleming. I'm Christy Vogler. And I am not Colin, but I'm pitch-henny firm today. I'm Amy Pistone.

Thank you, Amy, for joining us. And we are sad Colin is not here. He's in Greece, though, so we kind of hate him. Yeah. No, he's doing fine. Yeah, he's fine. He's fine. We're going to talk about Greece, but we don't get to be there right now, so unfortunately. Yeah. So Colin and I started this podcast over the pandemic, as I think many grad students did start a podcast over the pandemic. Yeah.

Because we were living in separate states and, you know, did not have a whole lot of talking beyond our one little office rooms. We were both dissertating at the time and just really wanted to make more connections with each other.

ourselves with each other, we said, let's just, you know, chat and have people that we know come talk to us on Zoom. Let's do Zoom in a better way. And it really just came about as something that we did anyway. We would drink wine and watch movies and

Talk about them. And look at you now. Drinking wine and watching movies and talking about them. Exactly. At Camus. And we should mention that we have a very special audience guest today as our audience. Wow, that came out as...

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

And I would love you to talk a little bit about engaging the public via social media and why we as academics should be in that space, need to be in that space. Desperately need to be in that space. I did not plan this, but it worked out wonderfully. So a very, very recent study came out. Media Matters did an analysis and found that nine out of the top 10 online shows were

access are right-leaning. We found that substantial asymmetry in total following across platforms, right-leaning online shows had at least 480.6 million total followers and subscribers, nearly five times as many as left-leaning.

Our analysis, which looked entirely at shows with an ideological bent, found over a third self-identify as non-political, even though 72% of those shows were determined to be right-leaning. Instead, these shows described themselves as comedy, entertainment, sports, or put themselves in other supposedly non-political categories. And if you look up at the screen,

Sorry, listeners, you don't get to see my screen today. You will see a small infographic. Those dots that are red versus blue is the most popular online podcast, YouTube shows and whatnot. And you can see how overwhelmingly red it is.

This is a space that you do not have to be political in, but you are definitely a voice that needs to be present, especially when you value classics as being inclusive discipline. So, yeah, that is what we've been working on. And we learned something very surprisingly with our Spotify wrapped this last year. We are not...

apolitical on our show by any means. I think me and Laj both go on feminist rants quite often in our analysis of film and television. And we were very surprised to learn in our Spotify wrapped in December of 2024 that the people who listen to our show, they also gave us a list of what other shows they listen to, the number one being the Joe Rogan show.

And that felt weird for a moment. It's basically the same thing. You guys like to ask questions. We do. He asks questions. We're asking questions. We talk about ancient aliens. We're there for... Kind of. We do. Sometimes you guys look befuddled when someone says something you didn't... Oh, man, really? Whoa. So...

It's basically the same show. That's what I'm saying. But upon further reflection, the way that the, you know, what we talk about on the show, we spent two seasons looking at Rome exclusively. We are now looking at archaeology. And it's not too surprising that the audience that goes to Joe Rogan with interest in many, many different topics is more than willing to listen to what we have to say about it as well.

So I think it's actually imperative that we find more ways for people to get on YouTube, to get on podcasts, to get their research out, not in an academic conference setting where it can be really intimidating to come into these spaces.

But instead, sit down, have a drink, chat about a great new television show that came out or a horrible one, depending on the day. And it's, you know, our popular media is the touchstone for everyone. Like it's the best way to make inroads into audiences that we might not otherwise. All right. That brings me to Amy. I didn't know there were questions. I told you I had two. I had two questions and the rest of it was just going to go.

As a scholar, how do you prepare to come on a podcast to chat about something? Lol, perhaps. But also, why would you want to speak as a guest? You have been on our podcast three times now. Yeah. And we love having you. And what is your willingness to come talk about silly things with us? Yeah. How do I... I watch the movie and note some not terribly informed opinions about...

To be fair, when I come on your podcast, I don't have to know things. Like you guys bring actual knowledge and I serve as a useful idiot interlocutor about like, and film words. You guys know them. What are they? But no, I think in general, it's,

And students, I mean, my students love when we can, I can give them a podcast episode, right? It's a change of medium. It's accessible. It's conversational. It is much, much easier to consume than a scholarly article. And so, you know, I think the, depending on what the topic is, I've been on some podcasts like about the ancient Olympics and the development of modern sports where I'm doing a little more prep to make sure I get my years right and stuff. But yeah,

Yeah, I think it's not that different from prepping to teach, except it reaches a much bigger audience. Even things that I've written that like probably the most eyes on anything I've written was back when Eidolon still existed as an online journal. I wrote an article about mythological themed drinks that I invented at a bar one time. I have a brand. You hang out with Liv Albert, don't you? I sure do. And, you know, even that is only reaching so many people and that's about...

things I made the local bartender help me create. So I think it just reaches a much broader audience. And what we do, especially those of us in academia who are thinking a lot about the politics of the field, whether or not we explicitly flag it as a politics podcast topic, I think this is how we reach more people to talk about things like, hey, did you know that

statues had color on them. Did you know that this movie is actually like an interesting depiction of Persians or what have you, right? So I just think it's really important on that front. I will say, and then I'll stop. This is what happens when you give me a question. I asked you the question. This is what I wanted. So I referee football and I hang out with, it's pretty much dudes, mostly white dudes. And the number of times that someone will send me a podcast episode with something like, hey, do you know about this guy?

and, you know, Alcibiades, or they listen to a podcast about Medeo or about something. And it really is, even people who I may not necessarily 100% of the time agree with their politics, they're entering into this with curiosity. And I think sometimes in an academic sense, we can shut down that curiosity because we need to be

pedantically right or we need, it's just not a, it's not the way to engage people. But these are people who want to know more and when you point out like, hey, here's some interesting things maybe you didn't know about sexuality, about gender, about race, about depictions in movies of different demographics, right? It's, I think, I think that is a way that we reach a much broader audience and get them interested in a, a,

more correct and more, I don't know, value-laden way of engaging with the ancient world. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Because, yeah, I think my next sort of topic is how we might use podcasts in a classroom. And I totally agree that assigning a podcast to listen to instead of an article, it's like the chances of my students listening instead of reading, like, go up, like, 50%. Yeah. It really, the people in the past, you know. Yeah.

Are we allowed to say that you guys are going to be on a new podcast now? Yes. So, you know, you guys will be podcast network buddies with some of these other podcasts. But my students love, right, it's a way of people pitching their research in ways that are, like, accessible and fun. And it's, I mean, those are great ways, too. And, yeah, the chances of my students, if it's the 12th article, I've assigned them in a row. Yep.

oh, we're getting a little flagging results on that. Whereas like if we mix it up and there's a little YouTube video and then there's a podcast episode, like it's just much, much higher rate of engagement. And it's a medium they are used to and feel comfortable engaging with. Like they listen to podcasts. They may not read academic articles in their free time. So they feel much more comfortable like engaging with that as a medium. Yeah. I also appreciate them as like a creative and iterative medium.

genre, I guess. And I sometimes ask my students to make podcasts either with themselves or with each other, because I think listening to podcasts and even if it's not necessarily about the ancient world, even if it's about something far more political, it is still modeling having discussions, having interesting discussions, being curious and that curiosity being OK.

And so them getting to turn around and do that themselves has been really fun to watch because as I know people make fun of it, but it's like everybody has a podcast now. And it's like, yeah, because it's... Especially millennials. Especially millennials, yes. And it's because it's fun. It's relative... I don't want to say easy. It's relatively lower on the like...

commitment scale. We're making this look very involved. It does not have to be. Yeah, it doesn't have to be. To be fair, sound editing does seem complicated to me. This is another reason I really love coming on your podcast because I don't have to learn how to sound edit. I can speak to that. The experience of editing an episode I find equivalent to grading student papers is

It is very mind-numbing, except when you are editing audio, when you grade papers, you can listen to music or a podcast in the background. You just have to listen to your own voice for

Are you trying to encourage this for people to try it? I'm just saying it takes a special kind of person who's like, I like my voice. I can do this to do it. And I think editing is fun. Like once I get into it, once you get in the rhythm, you know, it's the, I don't want to start grading papers, but once you start going, you get through it. I just, because I feel like we're going to switch topics. And before I, before we do, I wanted to follow up on something you said, Lodge, that the

it models how to have conversations, but it also models what kinds of questions we ask about texts. 100%. I would say, like, especially for reception. I love being able to give students, like, if we're talking about, I assign...

Now it's weird because I got to talk about this movie, but before, the first time through on Rockulees, I love assigning that to my students because a lot of times with reception, sometimes the first instinct when you're writing a paper is, here's this text, here's that text, here's 10 differences I found between them, which is fine as a starting point, but it's not the end point. And I think having...

Having something I can point them to, like your podcast, that models the kinds of questions we ask. What is the...

Sure, that's an interesting thing that I don't think we have attested in the ancient sources. So what? Why add that? What does it gain the creator to put that in the movie or whatever? So yeah, I think just in terms of modeling the kinds of things one can do with media, I think having examples of people who are doing that well is incredibly valuable to me as a teacher. Yeah, definitely. I'm going to piggyback on that a little bit more because you talked about, we've talked about curiosity being an aspect, and I know that my experience is,

the classroom that I was always very saddened to have happen is have a student raise their hand and say this is probably a stupid question. And it's like no you are seeking information and I think there's something about public education that makes students not ask questions because the fear of not

Not having the knowledge, the fear of being wrong is penalized in many ways. Like that is kind of our academic grading system. And Amy's been doing a lot of work, I know, in her classroom. It doesn't have to be in our grading system. To change that. But like generally speaking, that is what a lot of people experience. And I like the idea of asking students to do a podcast episode together because you do have to talk. And a very great contribution to any discussion is just asking questions. Yep.

So I think that's a great assignment to have in mind as well for that reason. And I think the, I don't like, I mean, like I said, I don't know very much about film criticism in like a smart way. I just have random plot-based opinions about things. I don't know that much about like cinematography and diegetic music scores or whatever. Like I'm, I very quickly get out of my professional depth, but yeah.

Not to like pat myself on the back, but I do think it is useful to be able to show students something where like, I don't know, I'm trying. Like, yes, I'm coming in with my questions. I'm coming in. And like, I definitely say things that people are like, like when we talked about the Odyssey, we're talking with Homer, like, you know, Joel Christensen knows so much more about Homer than I do. Yeah. And I think it's good to model. Here's a thought I have.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm going to put it out there because that's how a conversation gets going, right? That's how we start a conversation is by...

putting something out there and then someone corrects it or yes ands it or whatever. And so I think like, I think all of that is helpfully modeling. Like I learn things all the time when I come, you know, when I talk to you guys or I learn so much. And I think getting away from that fear of looking silly or doing something wrong and instead getting to like, this is exciting. We get to be curious. We get to be playful. We get to throw some stuff out there and we don't need to be afraid of looking silly. Yeah. Yeah.

That it's totally okay to be wrong. Yeah. We're wrong all the time on our podcast. You're like, oops. But that it's also totally okay to disagree. Like we have like really run into a lot of brick walls and trying to convince each other of like the merits of this or that. And like, I still don't like animation. I'm sorry. They all hate me for it, but I,

Animation is not my thing. And I think, you know, that's just part of the things that we can prefer things as, you know, consumers of media. And having a disagreement is not like the end of the world. No. Sorry, not to counter that, but you don't like Disney's Hercules? Yeah, it's fine. I like it. Obviously, I like it. Me and Colin are also really into anime. So, like, we go hard for the animated stuff. No, I get, like, there are different styles. I just was curious about, like, that is...

Disney animated movies are like such a touchstone of people growing up media. I know. And I obviously loved it as a child and I do really appreciate it now. And I love listening to the music. I'm just not sure I want to like sit down and watch it for fun. Okay. Yeah. No, that's because it's fine to have differences of opinion. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's a really great... Like, we are authentically really good friends through the podcast. In fact, my friendship with Colin happened through the podcast. So it's... Yeah, that's a really cool observation that...

disagreements happen all the time and they can be amicable. It doesn't have to be this fraught debate like Flint Dibble going on Joe Rogan to duke it out with Graham Hancock. Now, it's great if you can do that. Sure. But that isn't what it has to be. I will say, though, I do appreciate Flint doing that because I think there are some lines that perhaps we should draw ancient aliens being one of them. Yeah.

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

Yeah. And I think, you know, there are people who argue, as we showed, like going to those platforms because that's where the listeners are. Yeah. I think there's a lot more to be said of building up more platforms, giving more options for people to get different viewpoints. And that maybe is the long term project. Maybe people who are very media literate.

can go and do that sort of thing. I know politically, Buttigieg, Buttigieg. I was like, where are you going with this? Who are we talking to here? I know. Buttigieg is really great about going on Fox News and actually just putting forth really eloquent messages that is going to a platform that's huge. Yeah. But at the end of the day, we need to build up our platforms as well. And we need to support each other's platforms, which is...

Why we're doing Mnemosyne, the memory collective, we want to work with more podcasts that have similar values and want to create content that is scholarly but accessible. Yeah. Okay. That's a great segue actually into kind of modeling perhaps an example of a discussion that we would have.

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

adaptations that take chances, right? And I think, and that don't try to stick too close to the content. And I think that it both

weaves together a lot of ancient content that I really like a lot, but it really puts some interesting spins on them. And that kind of dynamic interplay, I think, is something that I really enjoy in classical reception, to have something where it both makes me think differently about the source text, and it's fun to engage with on its own, and it isn't just the experience of reading the source text, right? I think sometimes we get hung up on, like, well, is this faithful to the book? And, like,

If I want the book, I will read the book. I want something that gives me something different, a different angle, a different perspective, a different whatever. And I think it did that in really beautiful ways. Yeah. Christy. Yeah. Just to reiterate the story of us. Sorry, I got excited. I know. No, no, no. Talking about chaos the first time because...

we knew about the production and how it had really struggled. And so initially we were not excited for its release. And then Amy saw it and Amy quickly emailed us being like, please, please, please. I think it was all caps. Like, oh my God, I want to call dibs on Chaos. I'm so excited to talk about Chaos. Yeah, and I'm like, well, I guess we're covering Chaos. I guess we're talking about Chaos.

- Sorry about that. - And oh boy, did I not regret it because it was wonderful the first time. And then the second time that we have watched it was in order to prepare for this panel, but it was also, we had the chance to go to a reception panel and Anastasia did a great analysis of the three mortal characters that have the same prophecy as Zeus. And it again made me rethink certain things about the show and watching it.

So it's always fun to go to more scholarly looks about how we can think about these shows, but then bring it back and be like, how can we talk about this in a really fun way? So as we're watching it the last few days, I keep seeing Zeus and I keep hearing Elon Musk in my head every time he's just having a crisis.

And that's kind of a new take. It's a new reality from when the show came out. I think we have even more observations of the show. That's why we weren't afraid to revisit it this time. Sure. And yeah, I think this is...

It's really sad that this is the only season that we have. Laj, go ahead and tell us your experience with it. And then I did want to kind of highlight a point of where the future of culture, the culture of the media is going. Yeah, yeah. I think I really enjoyed it the first time we watched it, like to a very surprising degree. I think I was not expecting how much I liked it. And on revisiting it, I just keep finding things that I like more and more.

And yeah, listening to the panel and the folks who even just like chatting in the hotel room watching it, having weird random thoughts has been really, really satisfying. And I very much dig chaos. And I almost don't mind that it doesn't have a second season. I know I want like all the storylines to wrap up and stuff, but I

then it can't get ruined. Like they can't fumble the second season. Yeah. They can't it up. Yeah. It's good. And it's going to stay good. And I feel like it's something that I can rewatch and really enjoy. Yeah. I think sometimes shows that get canceled before their time, there's the, like what could have been. Yeah. That becomes part of the show of like, man, like if, if Arrested Development hadn't gotten canceled and then, you know, whatever, but like the, or like,

if they hadn't made the movie, there was all of these questions about what could this have been? And I think sometimes, especially, people have put their heart and soul into working on a script for a season. And they're pitching it, and they're pitching it, and it never gets picked up. And then it finally does. And it's amazing, because they worked so hard on it. And then the second season, they're like, great, now you should do a second season, because people liked this one, and it was profitable. And the second seasons, because they have...

four to six months to do a second season, and they had eight to ten years working on that first season, right? So, yeah, I will grudgingly say there is something that, like, it remains a, this was so good, and what could it have been? And there's never the...

Like, we never have to deal with the potential of a second season that is not good. Yeah, that's going to undo all the good things. Gladiator 2 was just not good in a way that kind of, in some ways, I think, sort of taints the first... Like, now I'm just like, oh, Gladiator. That movie that the first one was, like, really transformative and did all these things, and it wasn't without fault, but... And then there was also that other movie that the only real strength of it was that there was some graffiti that was really funny, and...

Denzel was having the time of his life. And that should have been the protagonist. Yeah. Yeah. Our episode that we discussed, it was still up in the air if there was going to be season two. And I had a sinking, sinking feeling that,

Maybe it should have been indicative of a lot more things to come, but I had a sinking feeling that if Netflix hadn't quickly, like how well it was received amongst the audience that had watched it, if it hadn't already received word at the time that we were recording that episode, I had doubts that it would get a season two. And there's someone who worked in the industry recently

that posted something that I think is kind of indicative of those feelings were validated. They wrote, I was pitching a TV show last year and the feedback I got was that streaming platforms and networks were already prepping for a Trump win by planning to slash contributions from visibility for people of color. A lot of ostensibly independent cultural decision-makers

way more than zero anyway, were planning to comply in advance before Trump even got back into office. And I think streaming platforms, we've talked a lot about this, where there's this golden era where so many ideas, so many shows get an opportunity.

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

It's so good. And like, and like that's, thank you Sammy for that observation. That was wonderful. And, and it's like those little moments that you can't individually catch on your own through a single watch through, but doing it collectively as friends and communicating about it is such a,

improved experience and we try to replicate that with the podcast but that's after we viewed it right and we've talked to creators who put stuff on Netflix and the onus is on creators to promote their shows and to get the numbers the eyeballs and everything in order to have the story continue and I think it's really detrimental yeah it's really detrimental to these projects yeah it's

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

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

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

think I mean if you think about every single show that's been like a huge phenomenon recently right it's ones that are once a week yep it's White Lotus, Last of Us, Severance, Ted Lasso was a week by week one like there are all of these shows where you could like oh my god did you see that episode of that thing like Severance every week I'm talking to people about like oh my god that thing that happened or like oh I now I have more questions what are they gonna do

And, like, I think it does, as much as I love to binge a show, I think it actually hurts the experience because we're meant to consume media together. Like, I work on tragedy, so I'm, like, very much, you watch this traumatic thing together, and you deal with it together. Yes. And I think there is something that we really, something is lost when we always watch everything on our own. And it was, there was a weird almost...

I don't know. It wasn't a replacement, but during COVID, we would kind of watch things together, but separate, right? Yeah. And I think we don't even... Like, we don't have that anymore, which was kind of an experience of... We would have movie watch parties where we'd all start the episode at the same time. And I think we don't even have that, you know, now. Like, if a new show drops on Netflix and you...

binge all the arcane, right? Like it just comes out and it's a show, it's a great show and I know it's animated, but... It's so good. I'm just going to crawl under this table, sorry. Look, I know some people don't appreciate the beauty of animated art, you know, you just don't respect animators and the work they do, but that's fine. Crawls under table. But no, I think like, it's just a different experience of consuming media when it drops as one big bucket and you can't talk to someone after...

episodes are designed to kind of have a plot that like I mean most shows like it's there's a an arc for that episode it's not just a 12-hour story that you chopped up randomly like it's meant to have an arc for an episode and when when there's not a second to digest said episode like I do think

I feel like such a like, "Oh, back in my day, we watched one episode on the regular television every week." But like it kind of, it's something different, right? Yeah. It's a shared experience that I think we fractured as people in the United States and part of that is the fracturing of our media. I think really is involved in that in a lot of ways, so.

Yeah, I would just add that like the movie going experience is also kind of interesting in that regard. It's so different. It's very different. I've just started going to like a theater again fairly regularly because they serve alcohol at that one and it's fun. And I remember sitting to like a young woman and like the sound, the trailers start playing. She's like, oh, is it always this loud? And I'm like,

You don't get to, like you are all collectively have to experience the environment the same way. And I think there's some restrictions on like we, I talked to the Parlepinidis brothers who do "Blood of Zeus" and they asked us like, why do younger generations think like films are too long? Why is it difficult to sit through them?

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

Because, yeah, at home you can also sit and have something on the TV and also be on your phone. I mean, that's the thing that I think is such a difference when I am in a theater. Because, like, when I'm at home, like, I am looking at stuff on my phone. I am, like, making food over in the kitchen or whatever. And I'm not giving something my undivided attention. And, like, that's the biggest thing I notice when I go see a movie in a theater, which isn't that often. Like, I pay for enough streaming services. I'm like, I will watch it when it comes out. I'm the thing I'm already paying for. But, like...

I think it is that experience of, like, undivided attention. And it's very... There are almost no situations in my life where I am, like, giving something my undivided attention. And that is...

something that is both like not what I'm you know like I love having subtitles on because sometimes I can't hear what they're saying and you know they didn't speak clearly enough and they're mumbling and but it fundamentally changes the way you watch things yeah and I think that that shift from somebody was telling me that like the the youth are like watch so many things on the small screen and how that changes when you're watching things on your phone right like that's not what I don't know like

Scorsese or something is like making films for right it's not like it's it's we're not watching something on a big screen where you can see the detail you're watching something on like a phone screen and that's a fundamentally different consuming experience that like really does change the product that you're consuming when the medium is really changing like that yeah

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Anything, reception in general, feel free to ask. We are also quite savvy about starting to talk about some different things as well. Hello. Thank you so much for doing this live show. This is amazing. Thank you. So I was wondering, with regard to chaos, what you all thought about the casting, especially when you have the heavy hitter like Jeff Goldblum in the lead role of Zeus, and

I wonder if there's like a star power there, you know, especially with some other roles that he's played recently, right? Like the Wizard of Oz. And if any of that is maybe like...

Coming into like how you perceive him as a character and his characterization of the king of the gods. Yeah. Can I? Can I? Yes. I know you want to. I really want to. I know Colin had an issue with Jeff Goldblum being Zeus. He said he couldn't see. Yeah. Boo Colin. He said he couldn't he couldn't see past the Jeff Goldblum of it all.

And I get that. I do get it. I get that. But I also think he was perfectly cast as this kind of megalomaniac, kind of like frenetic...

Which is what he's been doing lately. But it is his thing. It's his total vibe. But the thing that really got me was just this casual cruelty that he has throughout the whole series where he like, you know, flicks his wrist and Prometheus is on, you know, chained to the rock or is sitting by the pool and he doesn't seem to care. And it's just these tiny little things that he does that I think really speak to what we see in Zeus as a character throughout Myth.

As someone who is so convinced of his own power, someone who feels very insecure about that power and has that sort of manic nature to him, but also just that absolute pure casual cruelty of don't really care about anybody else. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that was what's interesting. I mentioned that like I was just hearing Elon Musk all the time. Yeah. Yeah. But what's interesting when that cruelty is happening, he doesn't.

I think we imagine cruelty being loud and vicious. And he's just nonchalant, like torturing the tacita. Yeah. He's just using his normal speaking voice. He's like, I need this information. Oh, that probably hurt. And it's scarier because of that, because it does not...

it's not emotional, right? And yet everything he does, like he's the most emotional one there. It feels like even though when Dennis is killed, Dionysus tears up and we feel very like connected to Dionysus as like a real emotion. And it's like, actually, no, I don't want to call Zeus emotional. I want to just call him irrational and has nothing to do with actual emotion, actual caring. Yeah. Yeah, I think,

So I will, because I hadn't thought about the Wizard of Oz intertext there, but I think the, God, who does he play in the? Thor Ragnarok? Yeah, like the collector. Yeah. The game master? Yeah, whatever. Anyway, that's the guy he plays. And he has several of these roles that I do think it's really, seem like fairly face-blind, and I rarely recognize. He is someone that is recognizable enough that I recognize him between roles. My partner will stop things, but do you recognize that guy? I'm like, no. No.

He has a beard and he didn't have a beard last time I saw him. How would I recognize him? But Jeff Goldblum is a clear... And because he's had a run of these type of roles, right? Where it is this...

I mean, like, even the... He's doing commercials for, like, Apartments.com or something. And it's still, like... It's a similar vibe. Like, he has a vibe. Yeah. And having that as Zeus, I think, is, like... I'm sorry. I'm going to go on, like, a tragedy scholar. Do it. Please, please, please. But, like, this is such... Like, this is the Zeus that you see in Prometheus Bound. Mm-hmm. This is the Zeus who's not there, but you hear... Like, Prometheus is talking about this Zeus. And, like, I...

on this rewatch I am really into how they how they play with the Prometheus character because like that is such most of the time we see an established Zeus and he's scary and he's callous and he's he's all of these things but he's not I don't know what the word is like not insecure and like the the emotional I mean he is that as well in this but he's um like his his rule isn't secure right and

And you get this idea of, in the Prometheus bound, Zeus has just become Zeus. And we don't know how it's going to go, right? He's the third in a cycle of kings of the gods, and this could just be the next step before the next cycle. And you see this snapshot of a Zeus where you get, like, what kind of king is he going to be? What's he going to look like as a ruler? Right?

And I think between the, like, he thinks Prometheus is his best friend. Yeah. Like, that was such a wild detail that didn't hit me as much on a first watch. But on the second watch, he's like, he thinks Prometheus is his, like, one true friend. And Prometheus f***ing hates him. And, like, that's such an interesting detail that, this is the thing that I really love about reception, is that, I don't know, I use Circe as an example for this a lot, but, like,

That, like, yes, we think about reception as source text to the text that we're, you know, whatever, chaos or sourcey or whatever it is. But it works the other way too, right? It works, like, I can't go back and read The Odyssey. I can't go back and read Prometheus Bound without having this other perspective in mind. And, like, that way that it feeds back on the source text, I think, is so interesting. Like...

most of what we see Zeus in is not the Zeus of Prometheus bound. It's the Zeus of like, he's secure, he's comfortable. Like no one's going to really threaten his rule. There's always that like idea in the background that like maybe the next,

the next cycle of son overthrowing father, but it doesn't happen with him. But the Prometheus is that window into this particularly sort of tenuous state in his rule as king of the gods. And, you know, the next time I teach, like, I don't, if I teach Prometheus Bound, which I've been wanting to do for a while, like, I don't think I can not teach chaos with that because it's such an interesting inner text for that to think about, like, what is this depiction of a king who is this powerful,

It's fragile. Yes. Yeah. And I think it's that fragility that makes you think of Elon Musk, especially. Yes. And so like this is, this brings us back to the panel that we listened to. Yeah. Anastasia's paper where she was looking at the mortals who share the prophecy with Zeus. And it's, I think one thing that's interesting is it's the same exact prophecy and they all interpret it into their lives differently, which goes back to something the fates say towards the end of the series of like,

It's only as real as you believe it to be real. It's like you could just ignore it and it could just not actually impact your life or you can incorporate it into your identity. Like every person has an individual prophecy and they read something into it about what happened during their lifetime. And I thought that was really interesting. And so Anastasia's paper really focused on like how the three mortal characters that have the prophecy are

are, I want to use a gender other. So they're not, yeah, there's something, they're not traditional in their gender performance in any way. And that allows them to disrupt the traditional story to gain agency over their own stories, which isn't,

really cool interpretation. And I wanted to juxtapose that against what is happening with the gods. And it's really interesting that Zeus, the beginning of this fragility, is he understands the first line of the prophecy, a line appears to be an aging line, like this possibility that he could age out of this patriarchal role that he holds. And he very much is representative of the patriarchy.

And I think it's interesting that you have Hades, his brother, that appears very frail in comparison and still has a sense of morality in certain ways, like a sense of responsibility, even though he's kind of given into the whims of Zeus for this whole time.

It seems to me like Zeus is very fearful of becoming what Hades is, and he literally lashes out at Hades. But at the same time, you have the young man in Dionysus who wants the approval of his father, who wants a more

responsible role, a more powerful role within the family. And on the one hand he's trying to do things. He does commit an act of cruelty in a very casual way by removing a shopkeeper's mouth. Yeah. Her ability to speak.

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

Dennis. Dennis, or it will be cruelly taken from him to force that conformity, to enforce that idea of the ideal masculinity. And we're left at the end of the series of the season with Dionysus holding a bottle of meander going up to the palace to meet Ari. And we very much are left with this decision. It's like, will he give in to the cruelty? Will he become the new patriarch of

based on the model that his father has given him, or will he challenge it? And I think that's like the one outcome I really want to see. I really wanted to see what was going to happen with Dionysus. And again, it's like this is an observation that would not have happened without more conversation, more academic conversation about the show overall, which is why it's fun to be in these spaces. Yeah, because I think the...

The reversal of multiple myths is something that I certainly missed on my first watch and talking about all three of the mortals as actually gaining more agency in their stories because the big one is Orpheus and Eurydice and how it's very much a Eurydice-focused story and she gets to decide, she gets to choose, and she says, no, I don't want you, Orpheus. She says, f*** you, basically. She says, f*** you.

Which is brilliant. And it was one of my favorite ways that that story has ever been told. But the fact that Ariadne and Canaeus also have reversals in their stories, that they also...

create much more agency and get to choose. So yeah, I loved having that discussion. I think the fact that Canaeus in traditional myth actually embraces what we might call the toxic masculinity of becoming a ruthless warrior versus in this one, Canaeus

is loving and caring of Fotis, of Riddhi, of his mom, even though he even feels betrayed by his mom, he still truly believes that she loves him. And it's, we could argue that that final scene, all of the care that he showed for those people, it flashes through as his mother is brought back, which is, oof, it's so good. It's really good.

I, I just, I like, okay. First of all, you mentioning Fotis, I'm like, I was rewatching with like, my dog was next to me on the couch as we were watching. Like, it's like, but what about my dog? And like, divers don't get dogs. Like, let the dogs love water. Let them have a dog. Yeah.

But yeah, it was like one of the things that over the years, like, you know, there's some texts that like we teach over and over and because like the text hasn't changed, but I've changed over the years. Right. And like, I, I see myself in different parts of, of some of these texts. And one of the things that in my reading of the gods over the years and Homeric stuff or in tragedy or whatever, it's,

that there is something, like, nothing means anything if you live forever, right? And, like, I don't know. I was raised on talk everlasting. Like, it's a very, like, things don't have meaning. Your decisions mean nothing because you're going to live forever. Everything will happen eventually because you live forever. And, like, none of your decisions have meaning. And when we get, like, in Iliad 1, we get the cut from, like,

These incredibly costly decisions. And then we pan to the gods and nothing, they don't care. They're having a party and they're laughing and they're drinking. And like, and on some way, I think there is a sense that obviously like, you know, gods are powerful and be cool to not die and have sad things happen to you or whatever. But like, I think there's also this sense like gods can't grow. They can't learn. They can't change. They can't grow because they are forever. And they're static, right? We've like, we have gods, you know, even if you're like,

Apollo and you're in like a permanent F.E. of status you're you still don't grow you're you're in a coming of age age and you never change that and I think the idea that like humans can grow and like that is our decisions matter because they make like do you go back with Orpheus or do you say no I don't want to do that and like

Whatever Hera decides, what does it matter when you're the gods? But I think that that idea, and I think we should get an ancient text, but it also jumps out to me a lot when we see modern receptions, of the ability to make decisions about who you become. And for the most part, the gods don't ever have that, and that is something that is...

Right? Like, I think there's a sense really, like, kind of under the surface in Greek mythology of, I mean, not that what we have is better than the gods exactly, but kind of, right? That there is something, you can impart meaning to something because of the temporality, because of the fact that eventually...

eventually this goes away. A decision has lasting consequences and you don't make that choice and you make this choice and your life is changed. Yeah. I think we see that with Dionysus at the end in his conversation with Persephone where Persephone is like, you caring about that kitten actually...

is a strength and maybe you should embrace your humanity. And I think that's why at the end we see him holding the bottle of meander water and he gets to choose, is he going to embrace his divinity and the role that his father might place for him in his patriarchal structure or will he embrace his humanity and give up the immortality? Hear me out because I know you're like, that's the one decision I wanted to see played out. And I actually really, to draw on what you said, there's like,

I like that we don't know. Yeah. Like, that is one of those things of, like, because isn't, like, isn't that kind of, not to be, like, super meta and whatever about this, but, like, isn't that kind of the question we all...

face of like do we become the the systems and the patterns that have harmed us whether that's I don't know getting a position as a tenured professor do I impart the kinds of shitty things that were done to me as a student about like hazing through my my qualifying exams and or do you not do you reject the system right like I don't know why apparently I'm just gonna have this be therapy now but I could talk to my students about like as I

As a former pick-me girl growing up, like, I feel like there's a lot of, like, I really understand that kind of internalized misogyny thing. And, like, the decision to, like, do I keep doing that? It's profitable. Like, that is a thing that you can trade on of being a girl who's not like the other girls. Yeah. Or do you take a different path in your life? And, like, I think we all on some level, like, is it gender? Is it race? Is it sexuality? Is it whatever? Like, do we perpetuate the systems that we are impacted by?

Or do we choose to do something else with a meander water? And, like, so I like that it leaves it open. If we're not going to get, like, conclusion of all the stories in a perfect five-season arc, like, I like that it leaves that. It was supposed to be three. Was it three? Yeah. But a perfect three-season arc? Or do, like, if we're not going to get all of that and hear the whole story as it was designed from the start, I like that that question is open. Yeah. Because, like, I don't know. The...

possibility there it kind of I like that yeah actually I yeah this is Sammy friend of the pod um what's funny is I was watching it literally with you guys and I still didn't see like Dionysus holding the meander water and looking at the palace and as like a decision between those two things which like with the knowledge of you know

everything that had happened that obviously does make sense. But my first understanding of it was like, he was going to give it to Aerie or something. And so my, my like understanding of the storyline as it could have gone was like crazy different. It sounds like than what you guys and, and I think Riley, obviously, but like, but I think that's what's fun about leaving it open in the end because, and that's what's fun about reception, right? That's what's fun about our individual prophecies is we interpret it to mean it

what we want to and we present evidence for why we think that interpretation makes sense, but we can't ever definitively say, yeah, that's what's going to happen, which is kind of cool.

Hi. So I'd love to talk a bit about the Trojans. I know while I was watching the show, I was happy I was watching at home because that was the thing that I kept wanting to pause or talk after an episode and wonder where is this going to go? What's going to happen with Ari? And just what the ramifications are of Stainax being alive and all of them living the way that they are now. So...

And that storyline is even more poignant today than, again, when it came out a few months ago in terms of their migrant population that have experienced, like, they're asylum seekers. That was just where I'm late. I'm throwing it up to someone to keep going. No, I think you're right. Like, I think the current context really highlights

in a way like it makes that reading much more salient of like okay this is like um who was it was it Andromache maybe or

I'm trying to remember who, maybe it was Hakiba, was saying like, you know, like the city that adopted you. And she's like, what kind of parent adopts a child and treats them like this? Like, you think we should be grateful for, you know, we're in a segregated society, we're being treated terribly. And I do think that, I mean, especially after like recent news articles about who should be grateful for what. And like, it's hard not to read those echoes into like, oh, yeah,

Yes, demanding that someone be grateful for their not as bad as it could have been treatment. It just hits different now than it did two years ago or whatever. That actually reminds me. So I very much felt okay with it only being one season, but the more you guys are talking about it, especially with the Trojan side of things, Prue had the Trojan mark, and she was so...

Yeah. But also, like, conforming. I mean, she was very much by the book and everything was, you know, you were supposed to follow the rules and do as you were told. And she seemed generally happy to do so. But that doesn't seem at all similar to... But she was also dead. Yeah, that's an interesting question. Did Prue die in the fall of Troy? Yeah.

And how does like a society that's thriving and functioning, what might that look like versus once your society's collapsed, now what does that look like? And we see the survivors. We see Hecuba and Andromache and Astyanax. And they're, I mean, the whole...

catalyst for everything going on is the monument to the gods has been piled full of shit, right? And it's in defiance of the authority, which comes at a great cost of people who have already paid a great cost.

And I'm not sure where else I'm going with that. But I think that's really a really good observation that Peru is probably before in a functioning society. They describe Troy as being like a great city and everything like that. We still don't really know what happened to it exactly other than it fell. I get like Babel, like Tower of Babel vibes from it almost.

And I really like that they chose to keep Stainax alive. I think I hadn't seen that happen before, and it was kind of like...

What if he didn't actually die? But then he just kind of dies again. And so it felt like this heartbreak all over again. And I think we see that in Andromache. And I think that was a way to really pull back that horrific part of that story to a more modern setting. There's an interesting with the Stionics too, because even when he dies, we see him again in the underworld. And he has not mummified again.

- Nothing? - Yeah, his soul wasn't actually extracted. It had to be manually extracted. It couldn't go through this system they've set up. And I think that's interesting. I think that's a question we have with Canaeus too. Why can Canaeus go into the nothing and break free of that process? And Canaeus' interpretation of his own prophecy is like, I live in defiance of the gods because of who I am.

So maybe there's something about maybe the defiance of the order. Fate, yeah. And fate is what allows you to actually get this chance for renewal. Yeah. I think... Sorry, I have a couple of disconnected thoughts here. But the first is we're on the topic of like it does seem...

The people who can really, really change things, it seems like not just in terms of sexuality, but also especially maybe in terms of sexuality, it's a lot of queer people. And I wonder if there is a sense of the non-normativeness of I'm already not, this system wasn't built for me and I don't have to play by its rules and that that has something to do with, because that's one of the things we talked about last time. I love the...

I don't like the casual queerness of the show that like, there's not a very special lesson. There's not a burying your gaze. There's not like, there's not all these tropes about like, it's just like, yeah, I don't like, it's just part of the story in a way that isn't putting a real spotlight on like, and look, we've made this character gay. Isn't that a thing? Like, it's just, it's just there in a way that I think is really, that was one of the things I loved about it. And I wonder if there's something to,

I don't have to play by your rules because the rules were never made for me.

I have one other, I'm sorry, I know you're about to say it. To go off that, I saw something really similar with the fates, and I think there's a question we have about the fates and the furies of whether they're part of this system of the meander water to gain this immortality, or if they're even, they're removed from it somehow. So that question's in the back of my mind, but the final episode where Zeus decides he's going to defy his fate by killing them, and they fully embrace it. And it's like, try it, mother f***er.

Let's see what happens. And what I liked about that message, especially because they are all very much gender nonconforming, trans, non-binary actors that are in these roles, they come back.

So the patriarchal structure as represented by Zeus that tries to destroy these entities, these individuals that exist will always exist no matter what the patriarchy does against them. And I thought that was like a really cool subtle message at the end that I only picked up on the second watch. So well until I mean until you mentioned like the Aesthetic stuff like I hadn't thought about like how queerness functions in that like

Want to shout out, like, what happens when we come together and talk about things with other people? Like, I hadn't noticed that at all, but, like, thinking through the way that there is, like, queerness operates in kind of, like, I don't want to say, like, a superpower, but it kind of is, right? The ability to navigate a world that wasn't made for you is something that can also help you survive that world, right? Like, that you have developed the tools that you have to have to survive, and...

Yeah, I don't know. The other thing I was saying with Prue, I had wanted, like, this is, I don't know, man, this was, like, years ago in some different political crisis. Like, there's just a, it was something I saw on, like, Twitter, and it just has really stuck with me about that there is no amount of, like, siding with whiteness, siding with patriarchy, saying that we'll save you. You know, maybe you'll be the last one, you know, if you're constantly, like, selling out, selling out everybody else for the patriarchy, and you're on board, and you're playing by all the rules, like,

that will not save you at the end of the day. You are still expendable because like, and for, you know, for Prue, like it doesn't matter. Like, did that help you? Did that help you not die that you were playing by all of the rules? Clearly not. You're in the underworld now. So I think that idea of like, there isn't, there isn't an amount you can comply that is, is going to protect you from a

Oppressive systems like it ultimately will the system will still get you if you even if you try and play by all the rules Yeah, I think it's interesting too because the idea of compliance and she there's mom's tree was like you didn't get in trouble for like this thing and I think it's really interesting because she kept talking about how like she kept applying to be a diver kept applying like she follows the rules there and then she finally gets it and then really sits down at the table like this tables for divers like oh I am one so you just got here and

And it's like this idea that, oh, it's because of her dedication, her compliance, she finally got this role. But it literally is like a middle finger to her. It's like, no, we just need more divers. And yeah, so Prue is a very interesting character. And also unresolved, right? She was buried without a coin in this universe. And so I'm wondering what

I'm just thinking way more about Prue now. I did not, like, I have never until, like, Sammy, until you mentioned it, like, I did not, I don't know, like, Prue's just, like, an NPC that's just, like, there for whatever so that, like, Canaeus and, like, all of these other people can have...

have contrasting. She's just a foil to like cool people who have cool stories. And yeah, I've never thought about her. Yeah. Especially detail before. Like I love this. Yeah. She definitely feels like a character that could have had like a surprising storyline down the line. Yeah. Well, especially if like at the end,

When Andromache and Aerie are like, help me rebuild Troy, I feel like it was really setting up for something to go back and talk about the Trojan War and talk about what happened to Troy and why are these people refugees? Why are they in Crete? How did we get there? Why haven't we rebuilt Troy? And maybe that would have given us...

I don't know, just more of that background. I do, now that I'm just chewing on things that you all have surfaced here, like, I think, and maybe this is, again, just the political moment we're in, but the way that the Greeks destroyed Troy, right? Whatever happened, presumably the Greeks destroyed Troy if we're basically in the canonical world that we associate. And, like, to have destroyed a place and then treat the refugees like shit is...

not an entirely foreign concept like how did you stable it destabilize an entire region and now we're entirely sympathetic to the people of that region like yeah what must that be like and so like i think that like i just think it's really interesting to think about like you could i mean i you know we don't the world building outside of of crete and olympia is we we don't know what that looks like right i think it's it's interesting like you could have like you

Why hasn't Troy been rebuilt? You wouldn't have to have this system of refugees and, you know, the segregated kind of system if not for that you destroyed their home. And now you're mad they're here when you took away their home. Yeah. Yep.

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

become prophetic. And I feel like the show kind of did that. I think a lot of our media does that in hindsight, right? Like when you're epimetheist and you're like, huh. Interesting. Maybe, did I make a mistake? Couldn't be me. But no, I think the, I mean, this is one of the things when we talk about like, is Euripides a feminist? And like, no, probably. I don't know. I mean, I don't know the guy, but like,

fact that you can see a feminist message in Shakespeare in European and whoever like doesn't mean that the author was a feminist it means that the author more often than not is an astute reader of human the human experience right and you are putting elements of the human experience into a story that like I will see something different than like I'm sure what I get out of

I don't know, Taming of the Shrew isn't what Shakespeare intended, but I don't particularly care about that. But when they have things to offer to people, I think it is a testament to being a really astute reader and understander of the human condition such that

you are writing well-developed characters. You are giving, like, there is room for really interesting character development because you wrote a character, even if you don't have a lot of sympathy or understanding of what it's like to be, I don't know, like, Cersei, right? Like, there is room for a rich character there, even though, quote-unquote, Homer doesn't, like, explore that, right? And I think in a similar way, like, I think people who tell a really good story, there is this room for other roles

and other interpretations and other lenses on it because if you can understand how humans work, even if you do, like you can describe and you can replicate even if you don't understand. And I think that's what gives some of these things staying power that they were created by people who like got humans on some level. Yeah. Yeah. This is more of a question,

I guess kind of more directly something that you said earlier, Amy, and I mean, we've all kind of discussed it or you guys have anyway. It's my question. Back off. You commented that you really like it when reception pieces and film and things like that take risks and don't follow the original storyline to a T.

But one of the things that was talked about earlier was about trying to make sure that people are understanding the original meaning and the original truth behind things. And it is always just kind of an interesting juxtaposition, even just as students, too. When you have a student taking an exam or trying to learn about something from antiquity, the balance between the adaptation and appreciating that as an art while also still staying informed about what the original version was. And I just was curious about that.

How that's something that really any of you kind of handle as you go about embracing the reception and the modified pieces while also still trying to keep an anchor on what the original source was to appreciate the changes. Yeah, can I take a first crack at this? I have so many thoughts on this topic. So I will say, so I've done, well, actually, especially there's people in the room who do like receptions in modern media and antiquity and media studies and things. I've done a fair amount of work with like,

like fan fiction as a framing device for thinking about all kinds of literature, but the way that we write ourselves into the story and we read ourselves into the story at all times. Good Lord, Christy. It's a screw top. Also, if anyone has one. Help yourselves. We also have plenty. We got little cups here.

I have never once discussed media with them while not having a drink, so I wasn't about to start today. But no, I think there's... God, now I'm going to screw this up. Old Futures, I think, is the book. Alex Lothian. God, I could be wildly misquoting that or misciting this. But anyway, they talk a lot about fan-ish affect and the way that when I encounter media in a fan-ish way, like the orientation of a fan...

And that is an epistemology. I don't always know if I'm using special philosophy words in the way that special philosophy people want me to, but it's a way of approaching a text, right? It's a way of reading a text of...

I am a fan of this. I like it. And my liking of it is going to inform my reading because I want to give it the benefit of the doubt. There are texts I don't give the benefit of the doubt because I don't like them. And I've decided at some point in the past I don't like them and I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt, right? And I think that's how we all operate with media. Like, I don't like

the person who made that like I don't know there's things he's done that are fine but like I don't particularly like Zack Snyder so I'm not going to give him a more generous reading than what I have to when I when I encounter a text whereas there are there are creators that I adore their work and even when something seems like I don't immediately like that how can I how can I salvage that right and but I think any kind of fanish affect is really different from how I read as a scholar I

Which is very different from... I'm a literary scholar, and I have a good friend. I'll shout him out. He's been giving me a lot of attitude lately, so I've been telling him I'm not going to cite him when I talk about things that he's done that are good. So Zachary Hertz, who works on a sort of different things, and he's a historian. And he does not love reception the way I do. And he is not really a fan of myth retellings. It's not his thing. And some of it is, as a historian, he...

thinks differently about where his allegiances lie. He owes something to the people. He owes something to the historical events in question. And he recently wrote an article about Elagabalus and about like, if we want to read Elagabalus as a trans icon, we are taking at face value people who hated him, right? And that that isn't like doing justice to this person.

I read literature most, like I read literature from a literary perspective and I'm not thinking about what I owe to the people. Like I don't care what I owe to Euripides, nothing. I owe him nothing. And I'm much more thinking about the meaning that we make when we encounter these texts and they're different, they're different orientations to the content, right? And so anyway, this is a really meandering way of saying, I think it's useful to distinguish what those differences are, right? Like I, one that comes up a lot and,

I don't know exactly where I come down on some of these, but I'm sure someone will have thoughts. Hades and Persephone retellings, right? Do you tell it as a romance? Do you tell it as a story of trauma? Do you tell it as... What is that story? And you can read the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, and it's not a romance, right? And it is nonetheless an extremely popular retelling for romance novels these days. And I think...

There are a lot of texts where I'm like, anybody, no one owns this, like whatever, the Odyssey, anyone can do whatever they want with it. It belongs to all of us and none of us and do what you want with it. And I had to kind of think of a little bit about why I balk at that when it comes to telling Hades and Persephone as a romance. Why do I think that's a problem when I don't think it's a problem to fundamentally retell something else? And like part of what I think it is, is, and then I'll go, yeah, sorry.

I think part of what it is is that it is a question of what does the retelling do? You're not married to the original story, but it's good to know what the original was in vague terms. What is the story that we are kind of looking back to in a general sense? What is the vibe of Hades and Persephone that is in the air now for people who don't want to go read the Homeric Amnitamator and get the story from our oldest attested source?

But then when we tell a story of kidnapping and sexual violence and we tell it as actually it's a romance, you just don't know it. That is a harmful narrative, right? The like, oh, well, it looks like rape, but it's not. That is a harmful narrative as opposed to, oh,

oh, it looked like this person was cool, but it turns out he's a liar is not as harmful. You know, like, I don't know, different retellings of Odysseus. Like, we're not doing a lot of harm when we imagine he's more deceptive or less deceptive or more earnest or less earnest. There isn't an active replicating of harmful rhetoric. And so I think, sorry, this has gotten really off track, but I think the idea of, like, it's worth seeing the ancient, like, seeing the original, seeing the retelling of

And recognizing that those can do different things because I think like responsible, thoughtful, critical media consumption is incredibly important. And I think reception is one of the best ways to like practice and learn that. If you're a parent or share a fridge with someone, Instacart is about to make grocery shopping so much easier. Because with family carts, you can share a cart with your partner and each add the items you want. Since between the two of you, odds are you'll both remember everything you need.

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This podcast is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics, presenting On Swift Horses, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter, Diego Calva, and Sasha Kaye. Muriel and her husband Lee are beginning a bright new life in California when he returns from the Korean War.

But their newfound stability is upended by the arrival of Lee's charismatic brother Julius, a wayward gambler with a secret past. A dangerous love triangle quickly forms. When Julius takes off in search of the young card cheat he's fallen for, Muriel's longing for something more propels her into a secret life of her own, gambling on racehorses and exploring a love she never dreamed possible. On Swift Horses opens April 25th only in theaters. Get tickets now at onswifthorses.com.

No one's kicking us out. We're fine. Well, I actually just wanted to bring it back to chaos for a moment because also... Thank you. Thinking...

Oh yeah, the thing this was about. I have two quick things. First of all, I'm very salty that Demeter was not at all in chaos. Yeah. And Aphrodite was supposed to call Zeus daddy. Yeah. Messed up. Also, the second thing, thinking about, I guess, especially films geared towards children, but just reception and how it sort of,

what you said about how it informs like differences from how we are to how the original text was perhaps received.

I guess, what can we pull from chaos? Like, what's our favorite sort of takeaways for things that seem necessary for the moment now? Yeah. That's like the final, perfect final question. I mean, sticking the landing, right? I'm up on some bullshit about like cyborgs and stuff. Thank you for bringing us back.

My biggest takeaway from Chaos, and I think why I'm sad to not see the story continue, is because it was a story about challenging, actually challenging these patriarchal structures that have been around forever, giving us something. Like, it was violent. It was horrifying. I came away from it hopeful. I watched Gladiator. Interesting.

And there are people who can watch it and be entertained. And it's like, I don't get stuck on the historical inaccuracies. I get stuck on the fact that the final speech about the dream of Rome that Lucius presents is not to the people of Rome. It is to the military and the Praetorian Guard. Hmm?

So you're saying you are not entertained. I am not entertained. I'm horrified because I also don't think it's wrong. It is prophetic. And I hate it. I hate that I feel written out of the story. Yeah. And... Like, I think... Have you seen Gladiator 2? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you have. Obviously. Yeah, yeah. But, like, I think that the idea of what happens to the dream of Rome between the first one, which is, like, ambiguous and...

You can read your own political dreams into the dream of Rome because it's never defined. And I hadn't noticed the part about how it's to the pro-tour. I love that observation because I just never clocked that. But Gladiator 2 is so poorly defined. It's trying so hard to say something and it just...

It doesn't say... It's trying so hard to make a political statement. We're not leaving it ambiguous because the times call for... I don't want to be misunderstood. Here's the f***ing point. But it's not good, right? It strikes me as... I went to Berkeley for undergrad and I encountered many, many people who...

potentially under the influence of some sort of substance would like have these ideas that they would say like was the deepest thing you've ever under like ever encountered and like it's just not that deep and like that's what gladiator 2 was for me if someone be like dude dude can

Can you imagine? And like the premise, sure, great. I love the premise. You absolutely fumbled everything about the execution. And like, I feel like that is the sort of like the dream of Rome just gets absolutely screwed up in the sequel. Yeah. And that's why I think chaos, which, which feels like an unfinished message, uh,

And it still ends on like a horrifying note almost. But again, because what the people manage, what the characters manage to achieve in that season gives me hope. It gives me this message of hope.

We can fight these structures as individuals in our own ways. We can find ways. Even being ourselves, right? Just being ourselves. Not even changing anything about us. Just maintaining who we are. And that's maybe the most important part of it, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that I really like...

I always come back to the Orpheus and Eurydice of it all because I think there's so many variations of that story. Some of them that I really love, like we've talked about Hadestown, which I think is a beautiful musical. It's one of our favorite pieces of Potme. It's spectacular. And it's like, it says so many things and it does its own, you know, variation of so many relationships between people and gods. But like, even in that story, it's,

They don't, Orpheus and Eurydice love each other. It's like this, I don't know, like perfect storm that it's still, we're like maintaining the lines of Orpheus and Eurydice love each other. And it's this horrible thing that happens to them. And what does he say? Like, it's an old story. It's an old story. And I love, again, that chaos happens.

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

And it's one that I feel like a lot of students can latch onto because of this unrequited love. And that's something that everybody goes through, even if you're a little teenager in high school and being like, my crush doesn't like me back. But you feel that, right? You feel that sort of rejection, that loss, that hopelessness. But that's why it's an old story, right? That's why we all feel that way. And I truly love that chaos was like,

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

climb out of that dumpster. And Eurydice comes first. She is the first one who climbs out. She's the first one walking through that tunnel. And Orpheus is behind her. And she's the one who says, like, look at me. And he's like, I don't want to because... It'll end. It'll end. And so it's using...

that same context, that same use of the story that we know in a really beautiful, wonderful new way. And so I think that's one of my favorite pieces to talk about. Like when you were recounting that scene, like legit got like shivered. No! It's so good. When we watched it again, I was like tearing up. I was like,

What we think of as a love story. Yes. Right? Like, just really fast. Because, like, so the thing that first drew me to classics as a discipline, which is just, like, such a weird thing for this to be why I'm a classicist. Right. I was in a Greek mythology class, and we were reading Medea. And I was coming off of a rough breakup with a guy who was a real douchebag. And there was a guy in the back of the class. Like, I remember I was up in the front because I was that kind of student who was, like, right in the front. And...

Like he says something to the effect of like, well, you know, like sometimes women are just crazy and oh boy, did I not handle that well. And I mean like a whip around and, but like, I'd never had that kind of passion for like my engine. I was an electrical engineer or a sorry, chemical engineer at the time. And I'd never once been that invested in any conversation I'd ever had in my engineering classes. And like, that was a big moment for me of like,

I don't know if I can, like, do this for realsies as a career, but, like, I feel like it says something that I care this much about this content because I don't care this much about my chemistry classes or my physics classes or whatever. But, like, what we see is a lot, like, that is such a mature, like, it's, like, sometimes it doesn't work. It's not, like, not everything is a fairy tale and, like,

That's a story worth telling, too, about the... It's okay. Like, you can be friends with your ex because you're adults, and sometimes people grow apart, and that happens. Like, and I don't think me at 18 would have liked that story. Sure. But, like, me at, God, what am I, 38, 39, something like that? Like, me at this age, like, I love the moments when you see someone teach a text, and you just see them in the text. Yes. Like, I had a professor in grad school who...

He taught, we were taught just a snippet of the Aeneid. We were reading the part with like those games and stuff. It was a sports class. And so he's giving people the background of it. And he talks about how like his framing of Dido and Aeneas was something like, it's not how anyone had ever framed it. Like he's there and he's with Dido and he's so happy. And like, he just, he has someone that he can come home with from a long day and have a glass of wine with and just be himself. And he has to give that up.

And, like, it's such a... Not a close reading. Might not, like, you know, support, but, like, it's that moment where you see where someone sees themselves in a text. I can remember these snapshots of, like, where I saw... I had another professor who was talking about, like, Achilles' experience in the Iliad of...

you've been told that this is the way that things work. And then you realize that it's not. And the things that people told you as values and things that are real and things that are true are not. What do you do? Of course you throw a fit. Of course you go sulk. Your entire worldview is falling apart. So anyway, I think when we talk about what constitutes a love story, these kind of, I don't know, at times melancholy and modern love stories are really...

Interesting. Anyway, the thing that I like the most about... This is the worst way of possibly answering the question, but I like how it... I always read, like, as gods are to heroes, kings are to normal people. That's the kind of metaphor that we think about mythologically, what are our heroes doing? And...

Like, that's such a hierarchical structure, and it's such a time where the division between your normal people and your heroes or your mortals and your gods, like, if we think about, like, wealth inequality or power structures, like, is bigger than it's ever been. I love a story that says that it doesn't have to be that way. Yep. Because Greek literature never tells us it doesn't have to be that way. Yeah. The gods are what they are, and they will be that forever, and you better get your shit together or you're going to be smited, right? Mm-hmm. And, like...

a story that gives us you're talking about the hope right like a story that gives us that hope that like actually maybe the mortals can make choices that that change the the outcome for the gods that's I don't know that's a story we need right now I think yeah yeah it's the story that we need and that's why I'm upset that we don't get it

Well, we have this. Yep. Yeah. We do have this. And with that, I think we have to wrap it up. I know. I know we can talk forever. I think I should write the book out of here. So quick wrap up. Special thanks to our live audience today. Thank you for your questions and comments. Special thanks to Amy for stepping in and being our first host, guest host in a while.

Since me, practically. Yeah, probably. And to Sammy Cronin for helping with the setup and being our Vanna White in this situation. We hope to do this again in the future. Finally, special thanks to our listeners. None of this would be possible without you. Please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe if you like what you hear. And if you want to learn more about our plans for the future, follow us on social media under the handle at MoviesWeDig.

Or check out our website at movieswedig.com. Thank you and ciao. Bye. Thank you guys so much. Thank you guys. It was such a fun conversation. It was.

This podcast is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics, presenting On Swift Horses, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter, Diego Calva, and Sasha Kaye. Muriel and her husband Lee are beginning a bright new life in California when he returns from the Korean War.

But their newfound stability is upended by the arrival of Lee's charismatic brother Julius, a wayward gambler with a secret past. A dangerous love triangle quickly forms. When Julius takes off in search of the young card cheat he's fallen for, Muriel's longing for something more propels her into a secret life of her own, gambling on racehorses and exploring a love she never dreamed possible. On Swift Horses opens April 25th only in theaters. Get tickets now at onswifthorses.com.

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