Speaker 1: Well, hello there, this is Let's talk about mits baby,
Speaker 1: and I'm your host live here with a very special episode.
Speaker 1: As we get deeper into December, and I play a
Speaker 1: little more fast and loose with the structure of my episodes,
Speaker 1: that's a good example of it. Today. Today I am
Speaker 1: back with the wonderful Alexandra Sills who joined me back
Speaker 1: in October for an episode on gladiators in the Greek
Speaker 1: world and how deeply fun and weird and like kind
Speaker 1: of nerdy they were in the grand scheme of gladiators.
Speaker 1: And when we recorded that episode, we also recorded a
Speaker 1: little something more an episode diving into the portrayal of
Speaker 1: gladiators on screen. Yes, I focused basically all of my
Speaker 1: knowledge on the Stars Spartacus series, as I both love
Speaker 1: it and have seen the gladiator focused episodes of that
Speaker 1: series many times by this point thanks to Jen and
Speaker 1: Jenny of Ancient History fangirl shout out. But Alexandra, well,
Speaker 1: she actually studies gladiators, so she talks about other famous
Speaker 1: on screen fights to the death, like the very Obvious
Speaker 1: Gladiator and the new one that's being made now which
Speaker 1: features a ridiculously white actor playing an ancient real guy
Speaker 1: who was from North Africa and Syria. Good times, Hollywood
Speaker 1: has come so far the sarcasm is coming across here
Speaker 1: right anyway. Aside from that absurdly whitewashed bit of casting,
Speaker 1: we talked about just how gladiators are portrayed on screen
Speaker 1: versus what we know about the very real peace people
Speaker 1: who competed in these competitions, people who did it because
Speaker 1: they were enslaved and forced to, or because they'd gained
Speaker 1: their freedom and they still wanted to fight, or because
Speaker 1: they just felt like it in the first place. Plus,
Speaker 1: while we talk a lot about the fun side of
Speaker 1: gladiators on screen, and by that I do mean ridiculously
Speaker 1: cut in attractive men primarily Australians, honestly, and how nice
Speaker 1: they look fictionally tearing apart another nearly naked man in
Speaker 1: the arena. Let's be honest, it's such a Roman topic
Speaker 1: that that is what I focus my attention on. I
Speaker 1: won't pretend to be better than that. But before we
Speaker 1: get into talking seriously about gladiator portrayal and very not
Speaker 1: seriously about hot half naked dudes on screen, just a
Speaker 1: reminder that you have just a little longer to submit
Speaker 1: your questions, requests, comments, literally whatever. For the new year,
Speaker 1: Q and A episode. Head to mythsbaby dot com slash
Speaker 1: questions and submit before December twenty seventh, and I will
Speaker 1: do my best to get to everyone's submissions, and thank
Speaker 1: you to every everyone who has already submitted. I have
Speaker 1: some great things to work off of. I love when
Speaker 1: I get particularly once where I'm like hmm thrilled somebody
Speaker 1: asked that cannot wait to answer, So send me more
Speaker 1: of those, won't you. This is episode two forty two,
Speaker 1: half naked dudes and lots of blood gladiators on screen
Speaker 1: with Alexandra Sills to the listeners, Alexandra and I had
Speaker 1: planned to talk about these gladiators and then at one
Speaker 1: point I just sent like a frantic DM being like,
Speaker 1: what do you know about Star Spartacus? Could we talk
Speaker 1: about it? And uh, yeah, you were keen, and so
Speaker 1: thank you because I'm just so fascinated by Star Spartacus.
Speaker 1: But also we're going to turn it into more of
Speaker 1: like gladiators generally on screen, because I think that's super
Speaker 1: interesting and like, I've seen Gladiator but it's been a while,
Speaker 1: but I really I've seen Star Spartacus seasons one and
Speaker 1: two a lot so I'd love to know. I mean
Speaker 1: we talked a little about how they have they have shields,
Speaker 1: which is accurate, which is.
Speaker 2: Here, yes, the shields.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, I want to know, like what they
Speaker 1: do right, what they do wrong? What does Gladiator do
Speaker 1: really wrong? Because I imagine there's a lot more wrong
Speaker 1: and Gladiator and then got Any and everything.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Star Spartacus when it first came out, this
Speaker 2: was before I started researching the Spectacle, and I kind
Speaker 2: of wrote it off as like a three hundred knockoff.
Speaker 2: I mean, it looked like it was trying to be
Speaker 2: three hundred, which already had that kind of fascist aesthetic
Speaker 2: thing going on. And I thought, but you know what,
Speaker 2: I started watching it again because now that I researched Spectacle,
Speaker 2: I watch everything that's got spectacal in it. For instance,
Speaker 2: did you know that there's an episode of the Smurfs
Speaker 2: that has a Gladiator episode?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Now I know, thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's brainy Smurf as well, it's not even
Speaker 2: like one of them. So you know, I watch all
Speaker 2: of these sometimes it's like forcing myself to watch these.
Speaker 2: So I thought, oh, I'll watch the Star Spartaca series
Speaker 2: again and Obviously I'm not gonna be happy with all
Speaker 2: of it, but I am obviously aware that it's an entertainment.
Speaker 2: So to be honest, I could talk for half an
Speaker 2: hour about the opening scene.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's here's my problem with how I went about it,
Speaker 1: and we can blame like, I only know of Spartacus
Speaker 1: through Jen and Jenny because they were They're really big
Speaker 1: on Rome in the way that I'm just like obsessed
Speaker 1: with Greece, and so like the silly origin that I
Speaker 1: just think says a lot about both my friendship with
Speaker 1: those ladies and agent strupangirl, but also like Spartacus generally,
Speaker 1: is that we talked one time but ended up. It
Speaker 1: was like in the height of the pandemic when everyone's
Speaker 1: like kind of locked down and we got really drunk
Speaker 1: over FaceTime and became friends. And then they immediately transitioned
Speaker 1: into we want you to watch Stars Spartacus with us.
Speaker 1: But what they wanted to do was go chronologically, so
Speaker 1: to the listeners like, oh yeah, yeah. So so they
Speaker 1: start like the first season of Spartacus, it introduces Spartacus
Speaker 1: and all of these you know, characters and everything. But
Speaker 1: then during the second season, the actor who was playing
Speaker 1: Spartacus was diagnosed with cancer, sad, and so they created
Speaker 1: a prequel series instead to like replace it. So what
Speaker 1: we did was watch the prequel series first, which introduces
Speaker 1: Ganicus but also is ridiculously violent, like a little bit
Speaker 1: more so than Spartacus, or like more of like it's
Speaker 1: joyful in the violence because and so like the very
Speaker 1: first episode of that, I know it ends with the
Speaker 1: guy getting peed on after he gets beaten to a pulp. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I wonder I forget, like how the actual first
Speaker 1: I guess the first episode of Spartacas starts with like
Speaker 1: more of the Spartacus of it all, and like how
Speaker 1: he gets to be enslaved. So I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: remember because I always watch it Ganicus first. That was
Speaker 1: a long winded introduction, uh, but suddenly my basis for
Speaker 1: the show. But all to say, like, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I don't know what tell me everything. I don't even know.
Speaker 1: I'm just rambling now.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I think what's really interesting with any time
Speaker 2: you tell Spartacus is that the elephant in the room
Speaker 2: is Stanley Kubrick and.
Speaker 3: The original I have to say, I.
Speaker 2: Mean I have and there's actually not a lot of
Speaker 2: glatatory stuff in it. I think there's only two gladiatorial
Speaker 2: fights in the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, it's more about the rebellion itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, So I think it's really difficult because that
Speaker 2: film was so iconic, it's really difficult to retell the
Speaker 2: story without calling back to that version. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: the first time we see Spartacus is he's in chains,
Speaker 2: and the first time you see nineteen sixty KK Douglas,
Speaker 2: he's in chains. So this time you see him, he's
Speaker 2: chained up, and eventually you work out he's chained up
Speaker 2: underneath your amphitheater and he's about to go and fight.
Speaker 2: And what I think is really interesting here. I mean,
Speaker 2: the nerdy thing that I thought is that amphitheatre shouldn't
Speaker 2: be their mate. It's not been built yet, details details
Speaker 2: such a nerd. But the capular amphitheater was built by
Speaker 2: Augustus and then rebuilt one hundred two hundred years later,
Speaker 2: So the actual Spartacus died one year before the first
Speaker 2: stone amphitheater was built in Pompeii. Interesting, so if you
Speaker 2: see any version of Spartacus in a stone amphitheater, it's wrong.
Speaker 2: So I mean, I noted that, yeah, being pedantic, But
Speaker 2: what I thought was really interesting was the level of
Speaker 2: detail that star Spartacus go into, whereas other gladiatorial screen
Speaker 2: stories don't. So whereas I first kind of wrote it
Speaker 2: off as this hyper glorification of violence soft pornography, the
Speaker 2: level of detail that they cram in there is really
Speaker 2: really commendable, even.
Speaker 1: Just like the show generally, Like, I do think it
Speaker 1: comes off like that, like it really wants to be
Speaker 1: three hundred And it would have given me real red
Speaker 1: flags too if it wasn't introduced to me the way
Speaker 1: it was, which was like too feminist yelling about how
Speaker 1: it's good. But like yeah, because it really gives that off.
Speaker 1: But not only like the detail that I can't wait
Speaker 1: to hear about, but also like it is it's quite
Speaker 1: kind to women, like the women characters are badass and
Speaker 1: also like violent and dark and like, I don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do think that it is. It's a much better
Speaker 1: quality show in a lot of ways than I think
Speaker 1: people give it credit for if they haven't you know,
Speaker 1: like actually kind of sat down and watched it all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it suffers from trying to do too
Speaker 2: many things at once. So, for instance, the dialogue is
Speaker 2: all quite elevated dialogue, but the pawn is very pornographic. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the details are there, but then they're trying really hard
Speaker 2: to attract the three hundred brows, and I think they
Speaker 2: haven't managed to. Personally, they've done a great job, I think,
Speaker 2: but for me it's a little bit disjointed. But what
Speaker 2: they really have done, which I thought was brilliant, is
Speaker 2: I've looked at gladiators on screen from all genres. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, famous characters who have acted as gladiators on
Speaker 2: screen include, but are not limited to, Captain Kirk, Doctor
Speaker 2: Who Thoor, and the Incredible Hulk. There is the Hungry
Speaker 2: Games obviously, Brainy Smurf, Homer Simpson, Archer Fry, and doctor
Speaker 2: Zoidberg from Futurama. You know, they're all of these glad
Speaker 2: gamer Thrones, Dungeons and Dragons. The new film that has.
Speaker 3: An arena scene.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that Star Spartacus is the only one of
Speaker 2: I think twenty six of these examples, including science fiction, fantasy,
Speaker 2: all of these the only ones to include queer relationships.
Speaker 2: Gladiators in queer relationships, and yeah, I mean in the
Speaker 2: first series there's a little bit of you know, bury
Speaker 2: your gaze happening, but particularly in the prequel series, and
Speaker 2: then it's not quite as.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: It is a little bit burier gays in a prequel series,
Speaker 2: but then when you get into the later series, there's
Speaker 2: some really beautiful queer relationships between these men. And out
Speaker 2: of all of these you know, progressive shows, stars, which
Speaker 2: is Tits and Swords, is the only one to show
Speaker 2: a really beautiful queer relationship.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, that's that.
Speaker 2: I think they really do need a random applause for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's really true. And like I was thinking
Speaker 1: about the barrier gaye aspect because like it, it's there, definitely,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to, like, you know, try to
Speaker 1: defend anything. But at the same time, like I feel
Speaker 1: like it's not I don't know, I feel like maybe
Speaker 1: it's not as egregious as like it definitely could have
Speaker 1: been more so because it is still in service to
Speaker 1: one of the characters, you know, like it it's in
Speaker 1: service to the plot and to the romance or of
Speaker 1: like I'm thinking Barka and like, yeah, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting. I hadn't thought about it that way,
Speaker 1: but it's it's like there but also like I don't know,
Speaker 1: makes sense, and then also like leads him to having
Speaker 1: other relationships which are also valuable. You know. Does that
Speaker 1: mean like yeah, yeah, it's it's difficult to explain fully,
Speaker 1: but yeah. I hadn't thought about that way though, And
Speaker 1: it is huge to be in a show like that,
Speaker 1: like three hundred. It's like, you know, three hundred is
Speaker 1: like the straightest, straightest thing ever. Yeah, it's about the Spartans, whereas.
Speaker 2: There's there's a reason there's certain type of.
Speaker 1: That film, right, Yeah, yeah, and I do think that
Speaker 1: Spartacus almost was like, yeah, they were kind of almost
Speaker 1: like we don't want that type. We don't we're not
Speaker 1: looking for the three hundred audience, and we're going to
Speaker 1: make that very clear because not only is their queer relationships,
Speaker 1: but they're like really lovely.
Speaker 2: Like beautiful relationships.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're really well done and really believable.
Speaker 2: And men showing emotions, yes.
Speaker 1: In a setting like gladiators.
Speaker 3: So it's there's so much there.
Speaker 2: I mean, even some of the minor characters in the
Speaker 2: Stars Barska series show a wider range of emotions than
Speaker 2: Russell Crowe doesn't gladiate it and I know that. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was amazing in that film and he deserves the Oscar,
Speaker 2: but he didn't exactly run the gammut of emotions in
Speaker 2: that film.
Speaker 1: Friendships too like friendships in there, Yeah, both romantic and not.
Speaker 2: And because there's there's a thing that I've noticed in
Speaker 2: gladiatorial stories is that the antagonist needs two types of friends.
Speaker 2: The one that's kind of obedient sidekick, and sometimes this
Speaker 2: is the same person, sometimes it's a separate person, and
Speaker 2: then there's the other guy who dies a violent death
Speaker 2: to show that they're in a dangerous situation but so
Speaker 2: that the protagonists can live. And a lot of gladiatorial
Speaker 2: stories on screen it is very much fridging. You know,
Speaker 2: they're there to die in a horrendous way so that
Speaker 2: you can think, oh, few, my guy didn't die. But
Speaker 2: I think in Spartacus they really do have a lot
Speaker 2: deeper characterization to the supporting cast than Gladiator, and even
Speaker 2: I'd say even the Hunger Games. Really the films the
Speaker 2: books maybe not, but the films of the Hunger Games,
Speaker 2: some of the characters there, they're supporting characters that are
Speaker 2: not as deep as in this Star Sparkut series, which
Speaker 2: is you know, tits and swords.
Speaker 1: But both also the male nudity they do not shy
Speaker 1: away from, like like, there's an enormous amount of that
Speaker 1: show that I think is pretty strongly through like female gaze,
Speaker 1: like yeah, or like just yeah, it's very not straight man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right there. And of course this
Speaker 2: goes back to though gladiators in ancient Rome were huge
Speaker 2: heart throbs. There's a piece of graffiti in POMPEII and
Speaker 2: it might have been written by the guy himself to
Speaker 2: you know, like pick himself up. It might have been
Speaker 2: written by a fan, but he puts I'm the one
Speaker 2: who makes all the girls sigh. And then there's a
Speaker 2: story about a wife who's who's run away with a
Speaker 2: gladiator even though he's got you know, califlower and a
Speaker 2: broken nose and scars all over his face and things
Speaker 2: like that, saying why would she run away with him?
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking seriously, Yeah, I mean Gladiator for me
Speaker 2: came out when I was fifteen, and it's a very
Speaker 2: important age for a girl. And you know, not muscil Crow,
Speaker 2: theone it's always been hardened for me, big old German
Speaker 2: blonde guys. I don't know what that says.
Speaker 3: Bad, I try don't think.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I don't know if Gladiator I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: remember with it. I also came out when I was
Speaker 1: came on tw thousand and one.
Speaker 2: Right, two thousand, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, twelve. Yeah, I feel like I was just like little,
Speaker 1: little younger. I remember watching it though in like a
Speaker 1: it was basically like an art history kind of class,
Speaker 1: but it was supposed to the ancient civilizations and our teachers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I would have been like sixteen.
Speaker 2: So so this is where I think Spartacles is better
Speaker 2: than Gladiator on and a couple of them are like,
Speaker 2: you know, minute details that only someone as near idea
Speaker 2: as me would care about. So for instance, helmets. Spartacus
Speaker 2: uses helmets because they had helmets on nearly all of
Speaker 2: the time. Spartacles has shields, which again really important piece
Speaker 2: of kit. You mustn't leave your shield behind. You can
Speaker 2: do massive amounts of deal damage with it as well
Speaker 2: as defense. Take your shield. But also, yeah, it does
Speaker 2: show the nudity, which isn't it is an important aspect
Speaker 2: because is it highlights the skill that you needed as
Speaker 2: a gladiator if you've got your six pack showing and
Speaker 2: most of them wouldn't have had six packs. Sorry, I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: you know, do you remember that Pompei film with Kit
Speaker 2: Harrington is Milo the Gladiator and he's coming out looking
Speaker 2: like he's got like zero percent body fat. I'm thinking
Speaker 2: he's not going to have the energy to do a
Speaker 2: fifty anyway. Yeah, you've got this amazing body. Having it
Speaker 2: on display shows how skilled you need to be with
Speaker 2: defense with your shield, because if you're wearing a massive
Speaker 2: breastplate like Maximus is, of course you can take as
Speaker 2: much damage as you want. There's no risk there. Part
Speaker 2: of the part of the danger of a gladiator fight
Speaker 2: is that they're so exposed behind the shield, So yes,
Speaker 2: you need your shield in Gladiator they're all wearing tunics
Speaker 2: all the time, and Maximus just goes through. I think
Speaker 2: there's one fight where he kills six people and I
Speaker 2: counted it something like thirty two seconds. And I know
Speaker 2: they make they're making a point there that he's he's
Speaker 2: accepting the role, but he was refusing to fulfill it
Speaker 2: in the way that they want him to by providing
Speaker 2: the spectacle. But I think what's really great about Spartacus
Speaker 2: is that they show much after match that is man
Speaker 2: on man equally matched, and they do have that level
Speaker 2: of skill. In gladiator, you get a lot of clanging
Speaker 2: sounds sword on sword, plang clang, clang, clang clang, and
Speaker 2: they just hit each other's swords for however long the
Speaker 2: scene lasts, which is not exciting. It wouldn't have it
Speaker 2: wouldn't have worked, and the Romans wouldn't have been very
Speaker 2: impressed with it. I think in Spartacus they go more
Speaker 2: out of their way to show some actual technique. And
Speaker 2: I don't know who was the choreographer on the series,
Speaker 2: but they've done a great job in showing that actually,
Speaker 2: you've got this kit on, this is what your kit is.
Speaker 2: You can't just clang clang clang. It doesn't work. You've
Speaker 2: got to find ways around it. I mean, occasionally they've
Speaker 2: fallen into the trap of oh, I'm going to do
Speaker 2: this big old move because it looks good on screen
Speaker 2: and it was used in a video game or something,
Speaker 2: so people are going to go world when they's it.
Speaker 2: But generally their matches are really good. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2: But what I really hate about Sparsacus is the spectators
Speaker 2: because they are seen to be screaming and blood their
Speaker 2: see the women are so into it that they don't
Speaker 2: realize that their tits are hanging out. It's it's showing
Speaker 2: the spectators to be mindless, bloodthirsty morons, when actually that's
Speaker 2: not the role of spectacles. It's to think about mortality
Speaker 2: and masculinity and strength and courage and imperialism and mercy.
Speaker 2: Is not just to see someone bleed. If you want
Speaker 2: to see someone bleed, you can do that anywhere in Rome.
Speaker 2: To be honest, what they're going to see is the
Speaker 2: skill and the masculinity. And that's I think where Spartacus
Speaker 2: the series for me, has the best fight scenes out
Speaker 2: of all gladiatorial screens so far films, TV, Spartacus has
Speaker 2: got the best one mm.
Speaker 1: Hmm there And this is like my lack of knowledge,
Speaker 1: like observation, but they also seem to have a pretty
Speaker 1: decent grasp on the the imperial imperialism aspect, like the
Speaker 1: way that a lot of the different gladiators come from
Speaker 1: so many different parts where they would have been enslaving people.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of like there's a lot more diversity
Speaker 1: in that enslavement, but still yeah, because.
Speaker 2: They were coming from all corners of the empire and
Speaker 2: beyond mm hm, and you've got them all. They did
Speaker 2: live in the same place, in confined spaces, and it
Speaker 2: would have been the case that, especially in towns that
Speaker 2: weren't big enough to have too gladiatorial familiar you would
Speaker 2: have to fight the people that you're living with, and
Speaker 2: how do you deal with that? How do you confront
Speaker 2: the fact? So one brilliant scene that Spartacus does really,
Speaker 2: really well is Varro, the guy that signs up to
Speaker 2: get his infant sons and money the Auctuariti, and he's
Speaker 2: killed at party on the whim of a fourteen year
Speaker 2: old aristocrat. That scene is perfect because he has to
Speaker 2: accept his death with dignity. That's what he's been trained
Speaker 2: to do. He is absolutely right to say that Spartacus
Speaker 2: will be punished if Spartacus doesn't kill him. It absolutely
Speaker 2: was the case that, on a whim, your best friend
Speaker 2: could be the one to kill you, and you had
Speaker 2: to deal with that in the way that was expected
Speaker 2: of you, which I can't imagine. It must have been
Speaker 2: so hard. It's taken some serious brainwashing. But again, one
Speaker 2: of the things that that series does so well is
Speaker 2: that all of these people were living in close confinement
Speaker 2: with each other, but that the e Ludus, the building
Speaker 2: that they were all living in and training in, wasn't
Speaker 2: just gladiators. That show shows the trainers, the doctors, the cleaners,
Speaker 2: the cooks. It shows that it was a huge, huge
Speaker 2: machine of different people producing these shows behind the scenes,
Speaker 2: living together and having to negotiate such the strange profession together. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think in other shows, the other shows and fields,
Speaker 2: they don't go into that so much. It's all, oh,
Speaker 2: well that that guy's bad because he's from this area
Speaker 2: of the empire, and I like this one, and that's
Speaker 2: that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems more like surface level, like just what
Speaker 1: I remember a radiator is very It's like like, yes,
Speaker 1: his like kind of you know, enslavement is the point,
Speaker 1: but it also like like I don't want to say
Speaker 1: glamorizes it, but it doesn't show like I guess I
Speaker 1: should say that what I took from Spartacus particularly, I
Speaker 1: mean in different ways between the first and the second season.
Speaker 1: You know, the first season shows the horror like of
Speaker 1: being in a situation where you are enslaved to be
Speaker 1: forced to do that, and then I think the second
Speaker 1: season shows the different side of it, which is equally interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, Ganikis is enslaved and he is forced to
Speaker 1: do these things, but then he gains his own freedom
Speaker 1: and he does get a satisfaction out of it. Like like,
Speaker 1: I could see Ganikiss being one of the people that
Speaker 1: you talked about, you know, in our longer episode about
Speaker 1: the Gladiators, is like I could see him having an epigraph,
Speaker 1: you know, about how proud he is of what he did,
Speaker 1: whereas Spartacus wouldn't. Like it shows the kind of two
Speaker 1: different sides that yeah, could be, because you know, there
Speaker 1: are some people who embrace their life and embrace what
Speaker 1: the skills that they, you know, have have gained from
Speaker 1: this and like take pride in it, and then there
Speaker 1: are others who are like, I'm doing this because I
Speaker 1: have to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's there's a great scene with Ganikus is
Speaker 2: his death scene, which is where he's one of the
Speaker 2: people being crucified along the Appian Way and he it's
Speaker 2: it's left kind of open whether he's hallucinating through you know,
Speaker 2: being crucified and is all his oxygen's disappearing, or whether he's,
Speaker 2: you know, in his final moments, he imagines himself back
Speaker 2: in the arena with thousands of people sharing his name,
Speaker 2: and that's he smiles on his way out. And I
Speaker 2: think it's it's it's brilliant in its own little way
Speaker 2: because it kind of gives these men the pride that
Speaker 2: too often we try and take away from them with
Speaker 2: our kind of new Christianity has spread over the Western
Speaker 2: Now we're all, you know, moralistic, even if we're not
Speaker 2: particularly Christian. That kind of wouldn't hurt fly kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: with Ganicus, he was he was an artist in his
Speaker 2: own way, which is an odd way to think about
Speaker 2: it to a modern perspective, But this is how you've
Speaker 2: got to think of them, is they consider themselves very
Speaker 2: skilled tradesmen. And I can absolutely see that that's that's
Speaker 2: the kind of way that he'd want to go out.
Speaker 2: He's on a cross, but that's that's the way he
Speaker 2: would have wanted to go out. M hm, thousands sharing
Speaker 2: your name.
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like this show is very aware of
Speaker 1: what it's doing too, because like, even just as an
Speaker 1: like watching it, you know, you you go through kind
Speaker 1: of so many different things because like the spectacle that
Speaker 1: they put on when people are in the arena is
Speaker 1: like incredible to watch and you do, like you can
Speaker 1: understand how it would have been to be watching that,
Speaker 1: you know, in the ancient world. But then at the
Speaker 1: same time you have to see the parts of their
Speaker 1: lives that were horrific, but you also get to see
Speaker 1: the parts where they were able to make something that
Speaker 1: they could be proud of amidst a life that maybe
Speaker 1: they didn't choose. And then but they also give you
Speaker 1: the depth of like like you develop a real love
Speaker 1: hate relationship with the you know, with Battiatis who like
Speaker 1: owns everybody and his whole family. Like, I think that
Speaker 1: they're very aware of making a show that's like you're
Speaker 1: gonna love these people, you're gonna hate them, You're gonna
Speaker 1: be really uncomfortable. Like there's just so many different kind
Speaker 1: of things at play, and maybe I'm giving them a
Speaker 1: lot of credit. I don't know, but like it's quite
Speaker 1: enjoyable in that way. You do kind of get to
Speaker 1: see so many different bits and pieces.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what I really liked with Batti Artists was they
Speaker 2: emphasized with him how gladiators would be considered by the
Speaker 2: people owning them, So you see him care for them
Speaker 2: not necessarily out of human compassion, because that's not his way,
Speaker 2: but because they are investments.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: And I think that one of the and it thankfully
Speaker 2: it's becoming less of a prevalent myth. Now, the myth
Speaker 2: that was running rampant that gladiatorial fights always were fought
Speaker 2: to the death, which we know isn't true. You probably
Speaker 2: had anywhere between a one in five and a one
Speaker 2: in ten chance each time he went out of leaving dead.
Speaker 1: That's quite low, I would based on what I've learned
Speaker 1: through the myth of being to the death. I think.
Speaker 2: The beginners, obviously your chances were higher. But the better
Speaker 2: you became, and the more famous she became, and the
Speaker 2: more experienced she became, you began to be a draw yourself.
Speaker 2: You know, your name and lights, so it was worth
Speaker 2: keeping you alive so that you could keep making your
Speaker 2: boss money. And I think Spartacus that series really does
Speaker 2: show that he is viewing them, and again not because
Speaker 2: he's a humanitarian, but you know through a financial lens,
Speaker 2: he's thinking, how can I get these guys to make money.
Speaker 2: I need to look after them in a certain way
Speaker 2: to make sure they're fighting fit. And this is why
Speaker 2: you've got scenes with the doctors and the medical teams.
Speaker 2: We know that gladiators did have the best medical care.
Speaker 2: A lot of money was spent on the medical care.
Speaker 2: They were given a specific diet to keep them fighting fit.
Speaker 2: Not a particularly rich diet, shall we say, but it
Speaker 2: gave them exactly the amount of fuel that they needed
Speaker 2: to do the training. And what I really like about
Speaker 2: the series is that it shows how much of a
Speaker 2: commodity a gladiator could be through batty artists, the way
Speaker 2: that he talks about them financially, the way that he
Speaker 2: talks about buying them, selling them. Is it worth doing
Speaker 2: this with this one? How long should I keep this
Speaker 2: one alive for? And that I think it hits home
Speaker 2: with him. I'm keeping this one alive because he keeps
Speaker 2: Spartacus alive longer than some of his friends want him to,
Speaker 2: because he knows that it's going to be a good show,
Speaker 2: and a good show earns him money. So it does
Speaker 2: demonstrate perfectly why you don't kill your gladiators fifty percent
Speaker 2: of the time. You need them to rise up those
Speaker 2: ranks and become superstars, and by doing that you need
Speaker 2: to keep them well trained, which they do. You can
Speaker 2: see he's got a trainer. They even train well like
Speaker 2: they do in the artistic depictions that we have. They
Speaker 2: would train by hitting a big stick. It's so silly
Speaker 2: a big stick, I like a tree trunk. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: you would, you would try attacking it. We know that
Speaker 2: we've got it in art so they've got that right.
Speaker 2: So I think more than any other series Gladiator it
Speaker 2: goes into a little bit with Proximo, but Spartacus really
Speaker 2: does go well into the territory of it's a business enterprise,
Speaker 2: which I think gets lost in some other translations that
Speaker 2: would see it more as just you know, a blood
Speaker 2: bath mm hmm, capitalism, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think it's so much more interesting
Speaker 1: to see those aspects too, because otherwise, I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: it's a bloodbath, but also so like you just kind
Speaker 1: of get stuck on, you know, turning like heroizing the
Speaker 1: main character like in Gladiator, Like it just becomes a
Speaker 1: bit more I don't know, Like, I think it's more
Speaker 1: interesting to examine I mean, surprise, surprise. I think it's
Speaker 1: more interesting to examine the ancient world of it all
Speaker 1: that all the different aspects that went into something like Gladiators,
Speaker 1: all the bits and pieces the very real life, you know,
Speaker 1: of everyone involved. It's so much more interesting to look
Speaker 1: at that stuff and see how everything would work together
Speaker 1: and where things would clash, and and just to kind
Speaker 1: of see all sides of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's interesting, isn't it. Because Batti Artists
Speaker 2: and his rival, it always comes down to money mm hmm.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly how it was. So, for instance, the
Speaker 2: person owning the gladiators in this case Bati Artists would
Speaker 2: rent them out to the person putting on the show,
Speaker 2: and that would be at a fixed rate depending on
Speaker 2: what type of gladiator, what rank they were, So the
Speaker 2: more experienced superstar ones could charge a hell of a
Speaker 2: lot more than the beginners, and if they left the
Speaker 2: arena alive, that was their fee. If they died, the
Speaker 2: person renting that gladiator not only lost what we would
Speaker 2: consider the deposit, he would have to pay the owner
Speaker 2: in this case of Patiatist, the full worth of that
Speaker 2: gladiator as compensation, So he's essentially buying the whole gladiator
Speaker 2: if they die. So when you see scenes of gladiators
Speaker 2: like Maximus or Spartacus just plow through ten opponents in seconds,
Speaker 2: it all starts to become so expensive to become too
Speaker 2: expensive to be real. Yeah, because no one, no one
Speaker 2: would want to spend the money buying six eight, ten
Speaker 2: gladiators to die in thirty seconds just because some upstart
Speaker 2: has a point to prove. That's the kind of thing
Speaker 2: that gets you whipped back at the Ludus if not
Speaker 2: immediately executed. It all comes down to money.
Speaker 1: What a surprise, shocker, It was different now, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it goes to show as well that the.
Speaker 2: More famous Spartacus becomes, you see that his life and
Speaker 2: the Ludas becomes a little bit richer, gets a little
Speaker 2: bit of a nicer place to sleep, gets treated nicer
Speaker 2: by the staff. It's all entirely plausible that you'd want
Speaker 2: to keep your celebrities happy. And part of that meant,
Speaker 2: I mean it didn't work, did it, because Spartacus's we know,
Speaker 2: wasn't very happy.
Speaker 1: Famously yeah, a famously unhappy with his lot.
Speaker 2: But and this is actually, this is one thing that
Speaker 2: Spartacus does very well, and it links straight back to
Speaker 2: Stanley Kubrick Sparscus because the Stars series shows him in
Speaker 2: the very first episode as being more military militarily talented
Speaker 2: than the Roman. The Roman ignores his advice, it all
Speaker 2: goes horribly wrong. Blah blah blah blahlah. Sparsacus is enslaved.
Speaker 2: This is important because in the nineteen sixty version, the
Speaker 2: novel that it was based on and the screenplay were
Speaker 2: both written by prominent American communists, and they were following
Speaker 2: in a long tradition of making Spartacus some kind of
Speaker 2: communist messianic figure, right, and the studio executives and to
Speaker 2: a certain extent, Stanley Kubrick himself, went ah, we can't
Speaker 2: do this because we're going to get in trouble with
Speaker 2: the with the authorities. They're going to whop us in prison.
Speaker 2: So slowly but surely, over the course of that film
Speaker 2: being made, every reference to Spartacus being a credible threat
Speaker 2: to the Roman Empire was taken out. So the real
Speaker 2: Spartacus fought in I think nine battles, and they don't
Speaker 2: show a single one in that film apart from the
Speaker 2: one where he fails. Huh, So none of his victories
Speaker 2: are shown. The screenwriter had to fight with the studio
Speaker 2: executives to have them mention any of the victories so
Speaker 2: that film, because they were so scared of presenting a communist. Wow,
Speaker 2: essentially emasculated him completely into someone who you think, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's he's not a credible threat. You never see him
Speaker 2: doing anything threatening. But the Stars series shows all of
Speaker 2: these battles. They show you that he has got this
Speaker 2: tactical mind, that he can organize the battle, that he
Speaker 2: is a man of the people. I don't think it
Speaker 2: would be fair to call the ancient Spartacus a communist
Speaker 2: or an abolitionist of slavery. There's no evidence that he
Speaker 2: wanted any of that. I think the evidence is that
Speaker 2: he wanted to escape if he could take a lot
Speaker 2: of people with him, that's great because there's strength in numbers.
Speaker 2: But it's not because he wanted to destroy the institution
Speaker 2: of slavery. There's just no evidence for that. So he
Speaker 2: was not a revolutionary. He just understood that he was
Speaker 2: more likely to escape if he had a lot of
Speaker 2: people backing him up. But I think one thing that
Speaker 2: is important that the Star Sparsaket series has done is
Speaker 2: to re return him as a credible military threat, because.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 2: You know, he really was a credible threat, and the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties they were too scared to show it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't know any of that, because I haven't
Speaker 1: seen that one. Yeah, that's so nineteen sixties and also
Speaker 1: so American broadly, oh yeah, but especially American in that time.
Speaker 1: But I mean the way America is still just so
Speaker 1: entirely afraid of the very concept of communism is.
Speaker 3: Hilarious.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's really that's really interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I mean I will give them props of that.
Speaker 2: They show the battles, they show you him winning, and
Speaker 2: obviously they've got a series rather than a film, so
Speaker 2: they've got more time to show it. But it's not
Speaker 2: like Stanley Kubrick didn't have the budget. There's there's a
Speaker 2: reason that he didn't put Sparskus winning any battles in
Speaker 2: the movie. Yeah, but here, you know, they show him
Speaker 2: and he really really frightens the Romans and he did,
Speaker 2: so that's that's really cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really love that.
Speaker 1: I I just wish that it had they hadn't had
Speaker 1: a change actors. But yeah, it's it's not it's not
Speaker 1: the same.
Speaker 3: That's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad to know that. And I also though, like,
Speaker 1: as we've already gone over our little planned time, but
Speaker 1: I would love to still hear a bit more about
Speaker 1: the what your thoughts are on the new Gladiator and
Speaker 1: potential new Spartacus if.
Speaker 2: You've got Yeah, so Ridley Scott, for reasons unknown to
Speaker 2: anyone but himself, YEP has decided to do a sequel
Speaker 2: twenty three twenty four, Well it will be twenty four
Speaker 2: years later, which has prompted stars to talk about rebooting
Speaker 2: their series. And there's also a third there's a third
Speaker 2: Gladiatorial series on its way, which is Roland Emerick is
Speaker 2: making a series called Those About to Die, which there
Speaker 2: is not a lot of info about, so cautiously optimistic
Speaker 2: about that one. The issues that I have with the
Speaker 2: Gladiator too are for a start, they're whitewashing the cast.
Speaker 1: That's what I was gonna say. That's the only thing
Speaker 1: I know is that which is the most okay. So
Speaker 1: there's only one that I heard of because I think
Speaker 1: it was so egregious, like the person was from like
Speaker 1: the real person was like Carthaginian or something, and they
Speaker 1: have like the whitest actor.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they've got Caracala and his father was from
Speaker 2: Leptis Magna, which is in northern Africa, and his mother
Speaker 2: was Syrian, and they've got him being played by oh
Speaker 2: I think it was going to be that guy, the
Speaker 2: Irish guy. Oh no, yeah, it's the guy from Stranger Things.
Speaker 2: And then his brother is equally you know, even paler,
Speaker 2: if that's possible. The reason that I've got an issue
Speaker 2: for this is that, like three hundred, the movie Gladiator
Speaker 2: has its own special little fan club of people with
Speaker 2: certain ideological views. And there's already a problem with whitewashing
Speaker 2: antiquity to fit in with this idea of the West
Speaker 2: being the inheritors of this pure civilization. And if you
Speaker 2: start whitewashing the crap out of a dynasty that were
Speaker 2: very much not white, I think that's it's just giving
Speaker 2: ammunition to the wrong people who have let's basically got
Speaker 2: enough ammunition as it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the idea that we're still doing that in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, that's the most horrifying thing, because you're right, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like the ancient world, particularly Greece and Rome already have
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of white supremacy tied to them bye
Speaker 1: bye why supremacist, but also by these like long standing
Speaker 1: ideas of whiteness that even put on them. So yeah,
Speaker 1: like taking a character that's got North African and Syrian
Speaker 1: roots and making them so white, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean milk pale, just like.
Speaker 3: The Palist person. Imaginable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean they're filming in Malta. I don't
Speaker 2: know how much SPF they're going through with that cast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3: They're all it's wild wild.
Speaker 1: I learned about that casting and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: the guy standerd things cool. And then I saw somebody
Speaker 1: tweet about because I didn't just didn't know where Caracalla
Speaker 1: was from. But then they were like, yeah Syrian and
Speaker 1: North African.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that might have been me tweeting. Actually, I've
Speaker 2: been very was it.
Speaker 1: Was either you or like, I mean, I'm on a
Speaker 1: very leftist classics part of Twitter.
Speaker 3: Thank fu.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a reason I'm there where they are, damn right.
Speaker 1: I got threatened with communism the other day and I
Speaker 1: was like, please me with a good time, truly. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's yeah, I mean it's horrifing that that is
Speaker 1: still happening as well.
Speaker 2: The thing is gladiatorial stories, and this goes for swords
Speaker 2: and sandals as well as other genres that it's led
Speaker 2: out into. Has a real problem with how they talk
Speaker 2: about race. Star Spartka is less so, but it's it's
Speaker 2: not perfect in that a lot of the characters of
Speaker 2: color amongst the gladiatorial ludus are what we would call
Speaker 2: the black buddy sidekick, or sometimes referred to as the
Speaker 2: magical negro. Claire Greenhouse has done a great chapter on this.
Speaker 2: She's listed all of them and how they all fit
Speaker 2: into the same tired tropes that again go back to
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixty film where it's released in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2: So you've got this the black gladiator Drabba, who decides
Speaker 2: it's better to die than to live enslaved, which might
Speaker 2: have been a really strong message in nineteen sixty, But
Speaker 2: here we are, all of these years later, and you've
Speaker 2: still got the black gladiators being sacrificed left, right, and
Speaker 2: center and being treated like subservient to their white body.
Speaker 2: What frustrates me with Gladiator two is that they are
Speaker 2: bringing back Juba. He is recurring now. He is the
Speaker 2: only member of Maximus's Ludas to survive the first film.
Speaker 2: All of the rest of them sacrifice themselves to give
Speaker 2: Maximus enough time to get away. Juba is the only
Speaker 2: person that manages to escape, and he says at the
Speaker 2: end and now we are free, I will see you
Speaker 2: in this life and what the next? And you think,
Speaker 2: who's we There's none of you left, right, Yeah, you're
Speaker 2: all dead. But more than that, he is the one
Speaker 2: that talks to Maximus about the importance of family, homeland.
Speaker 2: He is the one that buries Maximus's little figurines of
Speaker 2: his wife and son, talks about meeting them in the
Speaker 2: afterlife and you see you. But at the end of
Speaker 2: the last film, he is the character that is the
Speaker 2: hope for the audience standing because he's the only person
Speaker 2: who's not an aristocrat who survives the film, right, and
Speaker 2: you get the idea that now he is free, so
Speaker 2: he's going to go back to Africa and find his
Speaker 2: family and his children, his wife that he's spoken about.
Speaker 2: But then they're bringing the actor back for the sequel.
Speaker 2: So what does that say. It says that he hasn't
Speaker 2: managed to achieve freedom. He hasn't got back to his homeland,
Speaker 2: he hasn't reunited with his family. He's still crushed under
Speaker 2: the Roman wheel. So that's really fucking depressing. Sorry, I mean,
Speaker 2: I love the actor. I think he's brilliant, but that
Speaker 2: that is pissing in my corn flakes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I would remember Gradator now because I just
Speaker 1: don't even I don't even remember.
Speaker 3: Most of the plot, I think the last time I
Speaker 3: saw it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's I mean, yeah, it also just generally
Speaker 1: I'm curious how they're going to handle the whole plot
Speaker 1: given everything you just said, you know, even aside from
Speaker 1: the ramifications of bringing back a character like that, like
Speaker 1: it just I don't know. It doesn't seem like a
Speaker 1: movie that was at all in need of a sequel,
Speaker 1: let alone one twenty four years later.
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing is is if you're going the
Speaker 2: historical route, which I highly doubt because I don't think
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott's ever read a book about ancient room.
Speaker 1: I mean, Maximus wasn't.
Speaker 2: A real person, no, could you believe it naming everybody
Speaker 2: max So Lucius isn't supposed to have survived, neither is
Speaker 2: his mum, who is also coming back. Lucius did have
Speaker 2: a surviving brother who was murdered by Cara Calla I think,
Speaker 2: or one of the Severans murdered him. So either they're
Speaker 2: going to kill off Paul Meskal or I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe they'll have him be the one that kills
Speaker 2: Caracalla because Caracalla was assassinated in a very exciting way.
Speaker 2: He was having a WII at the side of the
Speaker 2: road and got stabbed whilst he was pissing. So I
Speaker 2: highly doubt Ridley Scott's going to put that in. So
Speaker 2: either they're going to have a film called Gladiator Too,
Speaker 2: which has hardly got any gladiators in it. I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's going to be a fucking mess.
Speaker 1: Such a mess if you based your entire movie on
Speaker 1: freeing gladiators and then you make a second one called
Speaker 1: Gladiator Too, Like, what are what is the point?
Speaker 3: What are you doing here?
Speaker 2: I mean, they've got bigger problems because I mean they've
Speaker 2: got to somehow explain that Maximus died so that they
Speaker 2: could bring the Republic back, and now they've got to admit, oh,
Speaker 2: he didn't bring the republic back. It's still Emperor's oopsie.
Speaker 2: Your hero died for nothing. Oops. So that's embarrassing. I've
Speaker 2: got no idea why. I mean the film. I love
Speaker 2: that film, not as a fascist. I have other reasons
Speaker 2: for liking the film.
Speaker 1: I don't know that you had to say that, but
Speaker 1: I appreciate.
Speaker 2: I mean, I do I really do.
Speaker 1: I would have assumed and I would hope that if
Speaker 1: you're on my show, you're just not a fascist.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm very much not a fascist, but a
Speaker 2: lot of fascists like the film. So yeah, Unfortunately it
Speaker 2: is getting to the point where you've got to kind
Speaker 2: of clarify it sounds like three hundred yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't think it needed a sequel. I highly intend
Speaker 2: to get some journal articles, maybe a conference paper or
Speaker 2: two out of it, so great benefit. The Star Sparska
Speaker 2: series is also going to be difficult to reboot simply
Speaker 2: because yes, there were survivors. We did see a hell
Speaker 2: of a lot of them be crucified along the Appian Way.
Speaker 2: That's accurate. However, the ones that escaped over the mountains
Speaker 2: were all hunted down over the next year by Pompey
Speaker 2: and also crucified and murdered in their thousands. So again,
Speaker 2: really fucking depressing.
Speaker 3: Probably a great show.
Speaker 2: It would literally be ten episodes of people living in
Speaker 2: the woods having to wipe their ass with leaves and
Speaker 2: get hunted down by Romans. There's no happy ending. Slavery
Speaker 2: wasn't stopped, gladatorial combat wasn't stopped aristocracy crunching people under
Speaker 2: their heels. That did the stops. I don't know. You
Speaker 2: could do another prequel maybe, but I think the really
Speaker 2: important thing to note with the Spartacle story, and they
Speaker 2: do follow history quite closely, there was never a single
Speaker 2: gladiator uprising after that. Either people were too oppressed to
Speaker 2: do it or they were too as we've seen, you
Speaker 2: could it was perfectly possible to be content as a
Speaker 2: gladiator with your fate, so there wasn't another uprising. So
Speaker 2: if you're going to do another series, it's either going
Speaker 2: to be about people being massacred, or maybe they could
Speaker 2: do a series where Spartacus's ghost goes to Greece where
Speaker 2: there's loads of call gladiators. You aren't miserable all the time, you.
Speaker 1: Know, that would be fine.
Speaker 2: You could get me as a historical consultant on that one.
Speaker 2: I work from, you know, really cheap cheap. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not looking forward to any of it, simply
Speaker 2: because I mean, I don't I don't understand that they're
Speaker 2: going to have to dig themselves out of so many
Speaker 2: holes for both ones. So my money is on those
Speaker 2: who are about to die because well simply because I
Speaker 2: don't know anything, so I can't get to test about
Speaker 2: it yet.
Speaker 3: Gotiously optimistic.
Speaker 2: I think the important thing is there have been gladiators
Speaker 2: on screen since we've had screens, and if anything, after
Speaker 2: Kubrick and after and after Ridley Scott, it's shown acceleration.
Speaker 2: So you've got them in science fiction, fantasy, dystopian, comedy,
Speaker 2: paradi smurfs, you've got them.
Speaker 3: I'm going to find that hilarious.
Speaker 2: I can't believe it myself now. And I think the
Speaker 2: recent Dungeons and Dragons movie, which had a fantastic arena sequence,
Speaker 2: I think, if that's such a fun movie.
Speaker 1: Brilliant movie, really underrated. I feel like I didn't hear
Speaker 1: anybody talk about it.
Speaker 3: It's very good.
Speaker 2: I mean I could talk about that movie for hours
Speaker 2: just about that. That scene shows that with imagination and
Speaker 2: modern CGI, you can make arena scenes ever more bombastic.
Speaker 2: So I don't think gladiators are going to leave our
Speaker 2: screens anytime soon, away from swords and sandals, but they're
Speaker 2: still going to be there often. I mean, we've seen
Speaker 2: them in Game of Thrones, We've seen them everywhere. They
Speaker 2: are everywhere.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the four, Oh my god, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Cork. Cork is brilliant, what a character, truly, and
Speaker 2: you know, you know what I really loved about that
Speaker 2: is this is gonna stund so dirty. The Hulk had
Speaker 2: his helmet on the detail people the detail.
Speaker 1: I mean, that movie is one of the best Marvel
Speaker 1: movies ever.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not a huge Marvel fan. I watched
Speaker 2: it because I knew it had a gladatorial scene in it,
Speaker 2: because I did a paper that's coming out soon actually
Speaker 2: about gladiators in Hollywood. It's coming out in a Melita
Speaker 2: Classica volume nine. And you know, I go through all
Speaker 2: of these shows and talk about what they've got in common.
Speaker 2: And that's the only reason I watched that film. So
Speaker 2: I had to get my friends to expect, why is
Speaker 2: Thor doing that? Who's this guy?
Speaker 1: The best part about that movie, though, is I feel
Speaker 1: like it's such a departure from most of the Marvel
Speaker 1: that came before it, which is why I like it
Speaker 1: so much, But also like would be probably easier to
Speaker 1: be kind of thrown in because it's really absurd compared
Speaker 1: to most others, including the other Thorp movies, Like it
Speaker 1: doesn't really fit in a great way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it has a similar sense of
Speaker 2: humor to the Dungeons and Dragons on amongst Theves.
Speaker 3: Yes, definitely, yeah.
Speaker 2: And I really hope that turns into a franchise.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, me too. No, it was wonderful, But
Speaker 1: like when it comes to the Thor, it's it was
Speaker 1: just so Tayka with That was the key to it, right,
Speaker 1: it was like the first one he did, and then
Speaker 1: of course he planned and it's just like it's that's
Speaker 1: what it is.
Speaker 2: It's like, that's why.
Speaker 3: Hilarious and wonderful and yeah.
Speaker 2: And you know, I mean going back to the Greek gladiators,
Speaker 2: I think if anyone takes them to the screen, it
Speaker 2: needs to be typ Oh my.
Speaker 1: God, could you imagine, like it could be like what's
Speaker 1: his amazing pirate show?
Speaker 2: But like oh yeah, yeah, you can have your you know,
Speaker 2: really overly serious movies with Maximus in the West, but
Speaker 2: we'll have Tiger in the East.
Speaker 1: Yes, making our flag means death. But gladiators like it
Speaker 1: could be so queer and silly and fun.
Speaker 2: But with Greek gladiators, I've got like casts, ideal casts
Speaker 2: already running through my head. And again I would work
Speaker 2: so cheaply as a historical consultant. I'm just saying I
Speaker 2: would work for cookies if necessary. Just give me a call. Ah.
Speaker 1: I'm also going to correct in case somebody wants to
Speaker 1: yell at me. I know that he isn't making our
Speaker 1: flag means death. He's in it, and I know it
Speaker 1: has different creators, the vibes.
Speaker 2: I just know that I enjoyed it. I thought that
Speaker 2: was that's happening.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a reason he's in it because it
Speaker 1: has some very similar vibes to him. In any case, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a new goal. I just want more than anything,
Speaker 1: and this comes up on the show all the fucking time.
Speaker 1: I just want a movie about the ancient world that
Speaker 1: is accurate in its absurdity, because there is so much
Speaker 1: wonderfully magnificent absurdity to work with in the ancient world,
Speaker 1: and instead, every time Hollywood packs it up, they either
Speaker 1: make it like overly serious to the point of unrealistic,
Speaker 1: or they like Clash of the Titans it where they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's mythological and weird, but none of it's accurate, even
Speaker 1: though everything Perseus actually does could make for an incredible
Speaker 1: movie with all of the same action and fun and
Speaker 1: silliness without making like a fucking heard of pegasi or
Speaker 1: like having pegasust go I am to Medusa, like I
Speaker 1: just I just want some accuracy.
Speaker 2: Do you know? There is one inaccuracy though, and all
Speaker 2: of the Gladiators shows have it, and I will never
Speaker 2: ever complain about it is braces. The men always wear
Speaker 2: the braces on their wrists, and I will never ever
Speaker 2: complain because I have a theory right that braces on
Speaker 2: men is like corsets and lingerie on women. I can
Speaker 2: see that in that they are designed completely purposeless, apart
Speaker 2: from to highlight a particular body part that looks particularly
Speaker 2: good on that gender. Right, that's their sole function. Braces
Speaker 2: are like corsets for men. Because you think about all
Speaker 2: the films Brad Pitt and Troy and Eric Banner and Troy,
Speaker 2: they've got the braces.
Speaker 1: I can see them. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think Cavil wears braces when he was Theseus, wasn't
Speaker 2: he in the film?
Speaker 1: We don't talk about that. I mean, absolutely nothing about
Speaker 1: it actually resembles Theseus and Theseias is still garbage.
Speaker 2: It's Henry Cavill, so I'll give it past.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure and they look great.
Speaker 2: Yes, James Purefoy in Rome. Where's braces better than any
Speaker 2: man I've ever seen? So I don't care how many
Speaker 2: gladiators wear them. Gladiators didn't have them, but you can
Speaker 2: stick them on whomever you like and it will make
Speaker 2: them look hotter. It's magic. It is magic, magnificent, just
Speaker 2: put everyone.
Speaker 1: The perfect way to wrap it up. I don't know
Speaker 1: what bracers are hot, even if they're inaccurate.
Speaker 2: My mum is going to listen to this, I mean
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for doing this one too. This
Speaker 1: was so much fucking fun. Oh it was. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Do you want to tell my listeners again where to
Speaker 1: find more? Or I can also just copy what you
Speaker 1: said in the last episode.
Speaker 2: You can find me on pretty much all social media
Speaker 2: as Beloved Voices. I am currently contributing to Bad Ancient
Speaker 2: and Working Classicists. I've got a couple of articles coming
Speaker 2: out that will probably be linked somewhere on my website,
Speaker 2: which I'm sure you can provide a link to, because
Speaker 2: I can't remember what well that you are relis. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm around, I'm everywhere.
Speaker 1: Because it's brilliant. Thank you share those things. Yeah, any
Speaker 1: working classes and stuff to you.
Speaker 2: I just yeah, I mean, I am so proud to
Speaker 2: work for those two.
Speaker 3: They're wonderful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, Nerds, thank you so much for listening. It
Speaker 1: was so fun speaking with Alexander about this. Just diving
Speaker 1: into the representations of gladiators in a fun and silly
Speaker 1: kind of way is fascinating. The ways that the ancient
Speaker 1: world is portrayed on screen for good and bad, even
Speaker 1: when it's rome. Gladiators specifically hold our attention in a
Speaker 1: way that so much else from the ancient world just
Speaker 1: like doesn't. Obviously, there's so much to unpack about why
Speaker 1: that is, but they remain a fascinating topic and one
Speaker 1: where we actually have a number of really interesting examples
Speaker 1: to look at when talking about the realm of gladiators. Plus, well,
Speaker 1: it was really just fun to ramble about all I
Speaker 1: know about Star Spartacus, because frankly, it's a lot. It's
Speaker 1: a good show. Rip Andy Whitfield. All right, I'm going
Speaker 1: to end the episode on a review from one of
Speaker 1: you amazing listeners. As always, this comes from a user
Speaker 1: called p fun one in the States. A hidden Gem.
Speaker 1: So glad I found this gem of a podcast. It's
Speaker 1: become my obsession as I have recently found Greek mythology fascinating,
Speaker 1: and Live does a great job sharing these with wit
Speaker 1: and humor. I must listen. Thank you so very much.
Speaker 1: I'm going to not comment on how American spell humor,
Speaker 1: but it just perpetually looks weird. Let's talk about Miss
Speaker 1: Baby has written and produced by me Live Albert MICHAELA.
Speaker 1: Smith is the her means to my Olympians. My assistant producer,
Speaker 1: Laura Smith is now the production assistant and audio engineer.
Speaker 1: Maybe she needs a mythological names. Select music in this
Speaker 1: episode was by Luke Chaos. The podcast is part of
Speaker 1: the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen on Spotify or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Help me continue bringing you the world
Speaker 1: of Greek mythology and the Ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron,
Speaker 1: where you will get bonus episodes and more. Visit patreon
Speaker 1: dot com slash Myth's Baby, or click the link in
Speaker 1: this episode's description. Thank you all. You're the best man.
Speaker 1: This is fun and nerdy. What a cool job I have.
Speaker 1: I am Live and I love this shit.