Speaker 1: Hello, this is Let's talk about Mitz Baby, and I
Speaker 1: am your host live here with arguably not arguably definitely,
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely the racist episode I've ever recorded, and oh
Speaker 1: what a joy it was today. I am joined by
Speaker 1: my friend and I would like to clarify that that
Speaker 1: we are friends. I did not inflict this upon a
Speaker 1: strange Cossie Carnegie. Cossi is a masters student at Cambridge
Speaker 1: and generally just an incredibly fun person. Being Australian helps,
Speaker 1: but it is also just Cossi who joined me to talk.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh everything. Boob cups were the beginning, and
Speaker 1: originally we're supposed to make it into the episode title
Speaker 1: until we got to the concept of Caribdis just being
Speaker 1: a gaping and hungry hole. Spoilers for some of the
Speaker 1: best parts of the episode. Oh my god. We had
Speaker 1: so much fun talking about the ways in which ancient
Speaker 1: male fear manifested in how they spoke about and visualized
Speaker 1: and generally understood women, from things like the fear of paternity,
Speaker 1: like what it meant that women could who the father
Speaker 1: of the child was, of the horrors all the way
Speaker 1: to Scilla and Chriybtis as I mean I've always, you know,
Speaker 1: been interested in them as women, but it had escaped
Speaker 1: me just how sexualized they are. Apparently I need to
Speaker 1: be looking at everything with a slightly hornier eye. I
Speaker 1: have learned my lesson, which is all to say, you know,
Speaker 1: this episode has a lot of sexual content. For once,
Speaker 1: we don't talk about assault. I don't think so that's something. Basically,
Speaker 1: the ancient Greeks were super horny and simultaneously super afraid
Speaker 1: of the power that women held, just just biologically, you know,
Speaker 1: the power of the uterus. I should say, they were
Speaker 1: really afraid of that thing. This was such a joy
Speaker 1: of an episode. If you can't already tell, I just
Speaker 1: re listened to it again and we had such a
Speaker 1: great time. That said, I wish i'd let Cossi talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more, but I was going through some
Speaker 1: stuff and this is how I handled it, apparently as
Speaker 1: Adhd went wild. I also just want to add a
Speaker 1: couple of clarifications for things that come up in this episode. First,
Speaker 1: I did mention the Medusa book that I am working on,
Speaker 1: and I said that it the call for short stories
Speaker 1: is still open. I don't believe that's true, but if
Speaker 1: you're interested in this Medusa book that is in the
Speaker 1: works by me and the reason I've been having my
Speaker 1: brain explode even more than usual lately, and also is
Speaker 1: featuring a ton of short stories. You can check that out.
Speaker 1: It's on flame Tree Press. It's still a ways out,
Speaker 1: but I think you can look into it if you
Speaker 1: are at all curious. I also want, speaking of Medusa,
Speaker 1: to add a clarification. There is a point where I
Speaker 1: talk about my least favorite Greek myth retelling books, like
Speaker 1: one of those anthology compendium like all quote unquote gree myths,
Speaker 1: and the author says some really dumb stuff about Medusa
Speaker 1: that remains dumb in super patriarchal and super misogynist. But
Speaker 1: one thing that both Cossy and I thought was like
Speaker 1: completely made up technically is not there is a reference
Speaker 1: in pseudo Apollodorus. It's like this fucking final sentence. Literally,
Speaker 1: it's like the entire story of Medusa, and it's like
Speaker 1: all of what we think and know, the normal stuff,
Speaker 1: and then the very end he's like, you know, some
Speaker 1: people say that actually she said she was prettier than
Speaker 1: Athena and that's why she was cursed, and like that's
Speaker 1: that's literally the whole of it. So it is still
Speaker 1: absurd to write that additional sentence into the actual plot
Speaker 1: structure of the Medusa myth. That is still absurd and
Speaker 1: contextually wrong and egregious, but it isn't technically coming out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. And on that note, let's just dive right
Speaker 1: in to the horniest episode of this podcast, just in
Speaker 1: time to finish off Women's History Month. We are looking
Speaker 1: at the threat of a horny woman Conversations Caribdis a
Speaker 1: gaping hungry hole, fearing the monstrous woman with Coty Carnegie.
Speaker 2: Do you needed to do like an intro or are
Speaker 2: you just gonna like intro me in the recording and
Speaker 2: be like, this is cozy, she's Australian and swears a lot.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the fucking show.
Speaker 1: I might cut that out and put it somewhere. We
Speaker 1: talked ton Athen's. We met it for the first time.
Speaker 1: That was so fun, even though we've known each other
Speaker 1: for like probably five or six years.
Speaker 2: I found I.
Speaker 1: Found one of the mugs, or you sent me one mug.
Speaker 1: I guess I forgot I even had it. I like
Speaker 1: was going through my cupboard the other day and I
Speaker 1: pulled it down. I was like, oh, this is so cute,
Speaker 1: and it just it's like some goddess on the front
Speaker 1: and then it just says Couzie's odysty on the back.
Speaker 1: But it was very cute. I was like, that was
Speaker 1: fucking years ago. You would have sent me that one.
Speaker 2: That was No, that was the Hessey mug. That was
Speaker 2: three years ago. Yes, that was three years ago. That's insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then I still have like the little branded
Speaker 1: condoms that like sometimes just like pop up somewhere in
Speaker 1: my apartment because I'm just like, you sent me enough
Speaker 1: that I'm just kind of like people.
Speaker 2: Just send me unsolicited photos of the condombs in their
Speaker 2: hands just in my DMS. I'm like, happy for your
Speaker 2: safe out there.
Speaker 1: Who I mean, I think that's the perfect introduction to
Speaker 1: generally having you on the show. Though of course, today's
Speaker 1: episode isn't about Code of Bos. We'll leave that as
Speaker 1: just a little a little easter egg for future recordings, please, yes, please,
Speaker 1: But like I feel like we were just sitting at
Speaker 1: dinner and I was like, you should come on my show.
Speaker 1: What could we talk about? And then you told me
Speaker 1: a whole thing that frankly I've forgotten most of, but
Speaker 1: I just remember thinking I would like to talk to
Speaker 1: you about this on the show and I could fit
Speaker 1: it into Women's History Month. And that is the extent
Speaker 1: of my memory on the topic. But like, have you
Speaker 1: written something recently? I know it was sexy. Do you remember?
Speaker 1: This is a very careful conversation. I'm keeping all of
Speaker 1: this in Okay, thank.
Speaker 2: God, I do remember. We were talking about what I
Speaker 2: wanted to write my thesis on and hopefully my PA
Speaker 2: and so what I was blathering on to you about
Speaker 2: was the connection between the female body and drinking vessels,
Speaker 2: and particularly like the way that they facilitate not only
Speaker 2: containment but also consumption, and how there's a sort of
Speaker 2: connection between the female body's ability to disrupt boundaries and
Speaker 2: kind of mess with everything, and that there's a sort
Speaker 2: of kind of appetite associated with the female body that
Speaker 2: can be kind of seen in the visual imagery and
Speaker 2: the vessels themselves. I think that is what got you excited.
Speaker 1: Heck, yes, and so it was. I mean, this was off, Mike,
Speaker 1: I think, But I'm just going to point out that
Speaker 1: it was particularly relevant that I just showed you my
Speaker 1: little cantheros that sits behind me while I record and
Speaker 1: which shows Circe having transformed a man into a pig
Speaker 1: and he's like holding a cup, just waiting for more.
Speaker 1: And now it feels even more relevant.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely relevant. And I think what I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk to you about was have you heard of Masstoy cups? No?
Speaker 1: But I based on the word I've got an inkling,
Speaker 1: and I would love to hear more. I love etymology.
Speaker 1: I feel like I can pick stuff out. I'm ready
Speaker 1: to be right.
Speaker 2: You know, you know what's going on. So it is
Speaker 2: exactly what you think it is. It is this breast
Speaker 2: shaped cup that they used to drink from, and it
Speaker 2: like it had a nipple on the bottom, like just
Speaker 2: a boob cup. They were like, I think, I don't
Speaker 2: know if the term boob cup has made it into
Speaker 2: scholarly journals, but if it hasn't, it should.
Speaker 1: Well it's going to be in the episode's title, so
Speaker 1: we'll get it started.
Speaker 2: Okay, boob cups. So they were these sort of incredible
Speaker 2: things that they would they would hold them in their
Speaker 2: hands and I would drink from them. And I mean,
Speaker 2: whether you want to think of it as like a
Speaker 2: very kind of erotic, suggestive, sensual thing or if it's
Speaker 2: just like calling doctor Freud. I don't know which way
Speaker 2: you want to slice it. I'm not presuming to you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not judging anyone. I don't want that horrible phrase.
Speaker 2: I'm not yucking anyone's young.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 2: I feel like I can't not address that just like
Speaker 2: a tiny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I okay. I'm trying to picture it.
Speaker 1: So is it kind of like a right on in
Speaker 1: that you think you look at it and you think, like,
Speaker 1: how would you set this down and have it not spilt?
Speaker 1: Because now I'm thinking of like a nipple on the
Speaker 1: bottom of a cup just feels incredibly impractical for like,
Speaker 1: I don't think this is gravity, but I don't do science,
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean, Sitting something down on
Speaker 1: a surface when it has a nipple on the bottom
Speaker 1: just feels like it's gonna be a little unsteady, which
Speaker 1: reminds me of like you know, when they drink out
Speaker 1: of like a goat's head in a or something, and
Speaker 1: you're like, how do you set that down? Do you
Speaker 1: have to chug it all at once? What do you do?
Speaker 2: I think so just visually, it's similar to a skiphos
Speaker 2: and I don't know if you can add some images
Speaker 2: yeap to this episode. But it's sort of this sort
Speaker 2: of size and it does, you know, exactly as you
Speaker 2: were saying, have that sort of weird nippled bottom, which
Speaker 2: does make it really impractical. But also some Pylexes had
Speaker 2: nippled bottoms. This was there's a whole thing with an
Speaker 2: ancient drinking vessels where they would give them kind of
Speaker 2: body parts, so vases would have you know, feet and
Speaker 2: lips and faces, and it's you know, they were very
Speaker 2: into the whole The vase has a body, but with
Speaker 2: the Mastoi cups and other cups where you couldn't really
Speaker 2: put them down. That sort of played into the drinking
Speaker 2: party or the symposium. So it was all part of
Speaker 2: the theater of it all and the kind of challenge
Speaker 2: of masculinity. And exactly as you said, would you have
Speaker 2: to chug the whole thing? I mean probably.
Speaker 1: Yeah, realistically just practically speaking, yeah, yeah, Like where are you.
Speaker 2: Do you nestle it in some dirt in the andron?
Speaker 2: Maybe keeping dirt.
Speaker 1: In their androns? Like I cut you off from saying,
Speaker 1: do you nexcel it in another person?
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't presume we know, we know they
Speaker 2: all got up to all kinds of shenanigans at the symposium,
Speaker 2: so god knows what they were capable of when it
Speaker 2: came to their drinking vessels. We have some harrowing visual
Speaker 2: images of Sata's doing unspeakable things to cups and jars.
Speaker 2: So it's not out of the realm. Yeah, Satus, what
Speaker 2: are you gonna do? But it's not outside the realm
Speaker 2: of possibility. Yes, everyone listening at home, please google Nasto cups.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh my god. Well, when we have a promo
Speaker 1: for this'll Mikila will certainly find pictures. I know that
Speaker 1: by this point she will have already searched and found them. Ah.
Speaker 1: But like I just I mean, that's a joy, that's it.
Speaker 1: I love the drinking tradition, but I also am so
Speaker 1: fascinated by like these connections with women in such like
Speaker 1: powerful ways. But then simultaneously and like I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, location wise, but I imagine so much of
Speaker 1: what we come from, what we have comes from Athens.
Speaker 1: That like, so they're just like doing all these things
Speaker 1: kind of in seeming reverence to women, but then they're
Speaker 1: also like, you don't get to be people though.
Speaker 2: I see, I mean I completely agree in that there
Speaker 2: are so many different ways to look at it, right,
Speaker 2: and you can look at it as a beautiful way
Speaker 2: of like enshrining the female body and worshiping the female body,
Speaker 2: but also if you flip that, isn't it just the
Speaker 2: most absurd form of objectification.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean I wish, trust me, I want
Speaker 1: to believe that it was all this.
Speaker 2: Oh, she's on a pedestal, she's on a pot, But
Speaker 2: it's like, no, you are not only an objecting this way,
Speaker 2: will drink wine from you. Welcome to ancient grace.
Speaker 1: It's like doing a shot where like out of a
Speaker 1: belly button, but like ancient Greek stuff us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, and more extreme.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because also like if we're talking symposia, then there
Speaker 1: would be minimal to know women involved who weren't you know,
Speaker 1: sex workers in some way, so like and you know,
Speaker 1: I mean hittera, I I think, get a bad rap,
Speaker 1: but like, are very fucking fancy, well off ladies who
Speaker 1: you know just were companions for gifts, and like, I
Speaker 1: think nothing wrong with that. In a world like Athens.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's probably the only way I would
Speaker 1: want to live, quite frankly.
Speaker 2: Truly, at those parties rather than stuck at home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Like I feel like if I had to
Speaker 1: pick a life, particularly specifically in ancient Athens, like one hundred,
Speaker 1: I want to be a freiny. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be just like a lady in the house, you know.
Speaker 2: A frenie would be oh right, that would be a moment. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it's without complexes, but.
Speaker 1: No, no, of course, yeah, yeah, I mean ancient grees. If
Speaker 1: anything is complexes, all shit, And sometimes we have to
Speaker 1: just find little joy in pretending that things can be
Speaker 1: simple and not quite so awful.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, if we could just rose colored glasses, the whole.
Speaker 1: Situation exactly, so okay, like other than the boob cups,
Speaker 1: Like what have you looked at in terms of like
Speaker 1: women's bodies and drinking or like any I mean, I
Speaker 1: just I love this idea so much. I'm also not
Speaker 1: going to pretend I'm not getting ideas for my novel.
Speaker 2: Oh no, that makes me so happy. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think what sort of got me thinking about this was
Speaker 2: looking at all of the myths and the imagery that
Speaker 2: depict female monstrosity and then right and then coupling those
Speaker 2: with all of the very very explicit images we have
Speaker 2: of Heteri in wild, unfathomable, seemingly physically impossible orgies and
Speaker 2: sexual situations from the symposium. And then I was sort
Speaker 2: of looking at those two sets of images, and it
Speaker 2: got me thinking that there might actually be something similar
Speaker 2: happening here. And then I wondered what that was, because
Speaker 2: the female monstrosity stuff has been looked at a lot.
Speaker 2: You know, we're talking about Madusa, We're talking about Skiller
Speaker 2: and Charybdis, We're talking about the Sphinx. You know, that's
Speaker 2: all sort of quite familiar stuff. But then when it
Speaker 2: comes to scholarship, oddly enough, the fantasy professors haven't been
Speaker 2: rushing to look at the pawn. I know, I know,
Speaker 2: not me down with a feather. And so in looking
Speaker 2: at those two sets of images, I was trying to
Speaker 2: figure out, you know, what they might be telling us
Speaker 2: about the ancient sort of imaginary when it came to
Speaker 2: the woman and the female body. And so then I
Speaker 2: was I started thinking about appetites and sexual appetites and
Speaker 2: thirst and then actual physical hunger. So if you compare
Speaker 2: the sort of hyper sexualized depictions of the hatter I
Speaker 2: with Charybdis, the gaping forever hungry whirl for I.
Speaker 1: Never thought of Charybdis this way.
Speaker 2: Really, she's my favorite. I think about her way too much.
Speaker 1: I me too, Like I actually wrote about her for
Speaker 1: a thing that I don't think is like beneficially announced.
Speaker 1: I won't say it, but like I got to write
Speaker 1: about her a little bit. Like I was given a
Speaker 1: list and just like asked to pick, and I was like,
Speaker 1: fucking Chrybdis, even though I was like, I don't know
Speaker 1: how I'm gonna you know, like there's not a lot
Speaker 1: to say. And now I realize I miss saying that,
Speaker 1: which was good. This is for kids, I think, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, leave that one out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I love her, like I think that she
Speaker 1: really is so interesting in that way of like she
Speaker 1: is like nothing but also fascinating and also like a
Speaker 1: she despite the fact that she is a gaping hungry hole,
Speaker 1: which now I'm thinking a lot more about.
Speaker 2: Like she's feminized. And then it's so there are so
Speaker 2: many connections here where like the feeling of arousal and
Speaker 2: kind of erotic emotion is so closely associated with liquidity,
Speaker 2: and Charrindis is in the ocean right and then you
Speaker 2: have Skiller, who has dogs coming out of her waist.
Speaker 2: Women were called bitches a lot in Age of Greece,
Speaker 2: and that was associated with their like hypersexuality and their
Speaker 2: sexual appetite. So it's like you have these two female
Speaker 2: monsters that men have to travel through, and they both
Speaker 2: have these kind of erotic, hungry, monstrous aspects. It's just, oh,
Speaker 2: lows my mind.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I love that. I just so much. You've
Speaker 1: forever changed my two of my favorite monsters because I
Speaker 1: don't really care a monster absolutely in a good way,
Speaker 1: Like I just think Skill and Chrybtis are so interesting
Speaker 1: generally with that even without that that, now I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with you guys. Yeah, because they're I mean
Speaker 1: me too, Like they've always been my favorite because they're
Speaker 1: just like this fun little duo where you like always
Speaker 1: have to it's always Skilla and Charybdis and Criybdis has
Speaker 1: always just been fascinating to me because it's just a
Speaker 1: fucking gaping whirlpool. But now, oh, now I have so
Speaker 1: many more thoughts.
Speaker 2: I think you honestly, in a day, I literally call
Speaker 2: them like a toxic pair of female friends. Like teammate
Speaker 2: makes the dream work.
Speaker 1: That's literally them, no, one hundred percent. They work together
Speaker 1: to kill everyone, and I love it for them.
Speaker 2: And they're horny and they're scary, yeah, and I love it.
Speaker 1: I never saw a lot of them is horny, and
Speaker 1: now I'll never forget it, and I just think, yeah,
Speaker 1: they are. They're so much more interesting.
Speaker 2: I think it's just when you read I think it's
Speaker 2: Eschylus who is talking about Clydemnestra, or it's maybe Homer
Speaker 2: talking about Helen, but calling them dog faced or bitches
Speaker 2: has like a clear reference. I think it's in Emily
Speaker 2: Wilson's introduction to the Odyssey, where it's a clear, clear
Speaker 2: pulling on their sexuality as part of you know, saying
Speaker 2: horrible things about them. And so then if you look
Speaker 2: at Skiller, it's like, oh, what's all this?
Speaker 1: Then yeah, okay, now I need I just want to
Speaker 1: know about all the horny women that I've never seen
Speaker 1: as horny because I've just been reading the wrong shit. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I like time to process. You're like, truly, truly
Speaker 1: this happens a lot, but it's rarely about something quite
Speaker 1: so joy fully weird. So I have I'm working on writing.
Speaker 1: I forget when it's coming out, but there is a
Speaker 1: call out for short stories about or featuring Medusa, like
Speaker 1: of any kind, just fiction. Generally. It's by Flame Tree Press.
Speaker 1: You can go look for it if you want to
Speaker 1: submit anything. But I am writing the like I don't,
Speaker 1: I forget what we're calling it, but like it's kind
Speaker 1: of an introduction, but it's like a very it's like
Speaker 1: almost thirty thousand words, so like it's going to be
Speaker 1: a good long introduction about Medusa as a character and
Speaker 1: her cultural history and like wow, you know, yeah, And
Speaker 1: I was thrilled to be asked to write it, and
Speaker 1: at least because it means that my name is associated
Speaker 1: with Medusa in any kind of way. But like I've
Speaker 1: been just at this point just doing some like really
Speaker 1: surface level looks into like I obviously know the ancient
Speaker 1: sources pretty front and back when it comes to Medusa,
Speaker 1: but I don't have as grade a grasp like her,
Speaker 1: oh you know, over the last thousand years, say, and
Speaker 1: so I was like looking for more kind of contemporary
Speaker 1: understanding of her. Uh. And I found this video on
Speaker 1: YouTube by the History Channel, and it is terrifyingly hot garbage,
Speaker 1: like just incredibly wild, like you know, it's it's most
Speaker 1: egregious thing is just the conflation of Avid with Greek myth.
Speaker 1: And this like the thing that people love to do
Speaker 1: of like telling a story that only Avid is evidenced
Speaker 1: for writing about and pretending like that's the Greek myth.
Speaker 1: And so there's all this stock of Greek myth, Greek myth,
Speaker 1: Greek myth, and then it's literally all the stuff that
Speaker 1: is exclusive to Avid, and like there's nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: Avid as a source, but it is, you know, cut
Speaker 1: and dry, not Greek myth. We don't have any evidence
Speaker 1: that like parts of that story you know, actually appeared
Speaker 1: in Greek myth. Blah blah blah. But like you know,
Speaker 1: they also had all these like male talking heads and
Speaker 1: one woman, oh well a couple of women. So that yeah,
Speaker 1: there's these all male talking heads who are just like
Speaker 1: going off about Medusa and saying these things that just
Speaker 1: sound like Freud, Like like they they sound like Freud's
Speaker 1: interpretation of Medusa, this idea that she was this you know,
Speaker 1: this feared monster where you know, men fear like a
Speaker 1: powerful woman. I'm trying to remember all what it was.
Speaker 1: I just I just remember being like shocked that it
Speaker 1: was like such psychologizing for a character like Medusa, who
Speaker 1: like objectively And this is why I'm bringing it up
Speaker 1: because I'm so curious her thoughts. But like, to me,
Speaker 1: the ancient Greek sources as we have them, and I
Speaker 1: would say, like the visual representations as well, do not
Speaker 1: give us any indication that Medusa was like a creature
Speaker 1: that was actively feared by men, Like you know, in
Speaker 1: in He See It, she's literally said to be like
Speaker 1: just you know, the only mortal gorgan. She suffered a
Speaker 1: woeful fate is the translation that I have completely memorized.
Speaker 1: And then and you know, Perseus killed her, But there's
Speaker 1: literally nothing about her being dangerous, causing any damage, even
Speaker 1: being monstrous or or like literally really any details about her.
Speaker 1: And if you go through the surviving Greek sources, like
Speaker 1: there's really nothing in terms of of her being a
Speaker 1: danger to anyone. Like the entirety of the story is
Speaker 1: that Perseus needed to bring back her head because you know,
Speaker 1: Polydectes wanted him dead and so it was like, go
Speaker 1: get me Medusa's head as a gift, and he just
Speaker 1: figured it would kill Percius. Like that's the whole of it.
Speaker 1: It's not like you know, like a lot of times
Speaker 1: people will talk about Medusa and they'll be like, well, she,
Speaker 1: you know, was terrorizing the lands and so like she
Speaker 1: needed to die. And I'm like, there's literally not a
Speaker 1: single line in a surviving Greek source that says she
Speaker 1: did any damage whatsoever, like while her head was on
Speaker 1: her body, Like sure he used it as a weapon,
Speaker 1: Like that's not on her. And I don't know what
Speaker 1: people are, you know, it's just fascinating to me. But
Speaker 1: these these men talking about it, who were scholars, were
Speaker 1: like they were definitely putting their own anxieties about women
Speaker 1: like into this History Channel piece about Medusa, because I
Speaker 1: was like, as somebody who knows the ancient source is like,
Speaker 1: absolutely not not to mention that a gorgan was then
Speaker 1: used as a protective like it's topic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that was exactly. I think two points to
Speaker 2: what you're saying. And the first thing I think that
Speaker 2: complicates exactly what you're saying about the written sources is
Speaker 2: it was you know, the simbil, the gorgon aeon. You know,
Speaker 2: it was a potrapeg and it was protective. And it's
Speaker 2: so difficult to trace back like how exactly that visual
Speaker 2: would have functioned because it was frightening. It was supposed
Speaker 2: to be frightening. It's on a Theenis shield, it was
Speaker 2: supposed to be scary. Yeah, you know, like that much.
Speaker 2: We though that much is you know, a part of it.
Speaker 2: So it's and then if we go into kind of
Speaker 2: the psychobabble world, which I personally love. So it's the
Speaker 2: Greeks taking something frightening and something scary and something that
Speaker 2: is feminine and feminized and putting it on their houses,
Speaker 2: on some of their drinking wear and kind of inviting
Speaker 2: a part of it in as a way of protecting themselves.
Speaker 2: So it's it's a very complicated thing. I think anything
Speaker 2: that just says she was just a monster and that's that,
Speaker 2: it's it's so one dimensional.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and I'm really fascinated by the idea that
Speaker 1: like for all we have, like everything you're saying about
Speaker 1: the gorgonion, I never know how quite to pronounce it,
Speaker 1: but like you know, on the shield on the you
Speaker 1: just like definitely meant to be scary, like all those
Speaker 1: gorgon faces with the tusks and the tongue out and
Speaker 1: the big eyes and all of this, like you know,
Speaker 1: absolutely meant to be scary and all of you know,
Speaker 1: in addition to what you're saying about eptropic. But like,
Speaker 1: for the most part, when it comes to those types
Speaker 1: of representations, like where it is explicitly a gorgan, it's
Speaker 1: often not like it. Like obviously the shield has this
Speaker 1: kind of mythological backstory of being Medusa's head, you know,
Speaker 1: once off her body, but outside of the shield like
Speaker 1: it is, and even like in Homer versus he Siad,
Speaker 1: the shield is just a gorgan. It's just a gorgan.
Speaker 1: Like the actual connection to that scary gorgon face being
Speaker 1: Medusa is not as explicit as people want it to be.
Speaker 1: And we also have like lots of pieces of pottery
Speaker 1: where she is depicted as incredibly human with like little
Speaker 1: bits of of like divinity, like the snakes for hair
Speaker 1: or wings, but she like is otherwise completely anthropomorphic. And
Speaker 1: I think the same for like the Furies are like
Speaker 1: that too, where they're like terrifying, but like if you
Speaker 1: actually see representation of them, they're just nice ladies with
Speaker 1: snakes in their hair and on their arms, like you know,
Speaker 1: And maybe it's just a nature of like Greek art
Speaker 1: and stuff. But it is always fascinating to me that
Speaker 1: very very often if a character on a piece of
Speaker 1: pottery is labeled as Medusa versus a gorgon, she actually
Speaker 1: looks incredibly sympathetic from what I've seen, and like often
Speaker 1: considerably less scary than this concept of a gorgon, which
Speaker 1: is so explicitly tied to both just like a gorgon
Speaker 1: and also her after her head was removed her from
Speaker 1: her body, And I think that just opens up so
Speaker 1: many interesting questions. A but like what they could have
Speaker 1: seen her when she was alive, because we have almost
Speaker 1: nothing about that. I don't know. I'm obsessed with Medusa.
Speaker 2: I mean, she's incredible, but I think I have to
Speaker 2: I have to confess some of my cynicism here when
Speaker 2: it comes to the sort of more anthropomorphic depictions of her.
Speaker 2: And there's that tiny little voice in my brain that's
Speaker 2: just like sexualizing monsters and like sahting women, you know,
Speaker 2: where it's like taking shifting the form from a kind
Speaker 2: of monstrous head or a monstrous body into something you
Speaker 2: can fuck, into something that you want to fuck. And
Speaker 2: you know the complexities of wanting to fuck a monster
Speaker 2: and there's all these horrible jokes about oh yeah, Meduica
Speaker 2: will get you rock hard, all of that blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: But but you know, the gaze of Medusa was supposed
Speaker 2: to be arresting and so presenting that kind of visual
Speaker 2: test where it's like, can you still pursue her? Can
Speaker 2: you still be attracted to her even when you're faced
Speaker 2: with the power of her gaze to you know, stop
Speaker 2: you right where you're standing. So, I mean, I would
Speaker 2: love to have the generosity and the like open mind
Speaker 2: to be like, ah, yes, maybe it wasn't all horrible,
Speaker 2: but just like her having like a tight little body,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, poor Meducer. I like, it's just a
Speaker 2: big cynical No.
Speaker 1: No, I think that's like that's incredibly relevant. I think
Speaker 1: for me, like I get I definitely and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to remember this when I'm writing this piece, Like I
Speaker 1: definitely do get too caught up in the textual sources,
Speaker 1: because I'm also interested in the fact that the textual
Speaker 1: source is for the most part in terms of like
Speaker 1: the most ancient of like Greek ones don't actually describe
Speaker 1: her as anything. They don't often even like use a
Speaker 1: word that like suggests monstrosity, Like she's quite sympathetic, particularly Inhesid,
Speaker 1: which is like funny because he seid it's like a
Speaker 1: pretty objectively shitty guy. Not a guy, but in terms
Speaker 1: of the poetry that we attribute to Hesiod, but like
Speaker 1: he literally is just like she was the only mortal Gorgon.
Speaker 1: She suffered a woeful fate after Poseidon like quote unquot
Speaker 1: lay with her, but like it's a word that is
Speaker 1: rarely used for consensual sex. And then Percy has killed her,
Speaker 1: and you know, and then she birthed children and that's
Speaker 1: like basically it in terms of Hesiod. Like the only
Speaker 1: thing he says is that the Gorgons were daughters of
Speaker 1: Forcus and Keto and that she was a mortal one.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, it's just interesting to me that they
Speaker 1: that there is also not like in the tech sources
Speaker 1: that I'm you know, most familiar with, there's not like
Speaker 1: a suggestion that she should ever have been feared or
Speaker 1: or like really even like a a an acknowledgment that
Speaker 1: her gaze was stony when her head was on her body,
Speaker 1: which I'm also just fascinated by, Like, and I think
Speaker 1: that it's just like a nature of like interpretation of
Speaker 1: like a broader thing, which is also what you're doing,
Speaker 1: versus like, yeah, staying maybe two in the weeds in
Speaker 1: in the text sources that do survive, but there's something
Speaker 1: in between, you know, Like I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: that she's just so she's just so interesting because she
Speaker 1: has like all these questions get opened up, and she
Speaker 1: is so kind of complex and weird. And yeah, like
Speaker 1: I won't make this all about Medusa, even though.
Speaker 2: I mean we because I want to. I want to
Speaker 2: broaden it out even more and then we can move
Speaker 2: on to something. But I think, I mean, and this
Speaker 2: is where I you know, I wish I knew more,
Speaker 2: and I would, you know, really like to know more.
Speaker 2: But I mean, have you thought much about whether she's
Speaker 2: a sort of amalgam or reinterpretation of a Near Eastern
Speaker 2: character or Gottness or something like that. I mean that
Speaker 2: because that might help explain some of the not like conflicting.
Speaker 2: But you know, we have the visual representations of her,
Speaker 2: we have her in the text. We have all these
Speaker 2: sort of different themes and different understandings of her that
Speaker 2: we're trying to understand at the same time. So like,
Speaker 2: where are the kind of roots of her and her characterization,
Speaker 2: because I mean, the Greeks, I'm not sure how much
Speaker 2: they invented completely off the bat themselves. I don't think
Speaker 2: it will be the biggest rate that they were like, no,
Speaker 2: not that, but let's like add a little bit of
Speaker 2: pepper and salt on top and then call it us.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's absolutely what they did for most things,
Speaker 1: let's be honest. And I think, like, I'm definitely going
Speaker 1: to look into that because I could see that being
Speaker 1: like maybe the visuals and I say.
Speaker 2: That that's exactly what I was thinking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I could see it being the visual aspects
Speaker 1: because she also one of the only things that we
Speaker 1: do know about her is that she lived in the West,
Speaker 1: which they do tend to give associations like like often
Speaker 1: if you know, if something is aware a text of
Speaker 1: source is aware of Eastern origins like or has some
Speaker 1: kind of particular connection, like, they'll often place them in
Speaker 1: that area, like I think of you know, like I
Speaker 1: just yesterday recorded, uh, just a straight reading of book
Speaker 1: two of this is Roman but Quintus of Smyrna's Fall
Speaker 1: of Troy, and you know it's all about Memnon, who's
Speaker 1: the king of the Ethiopians, and he's a child of
Speaker 1: Dawn and so like he literally comes from like where
Speaker 1: Dawn kind of they figured down kind of like hung out,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, like Medea is the daughter of
Speaker 1: the Sun, and so she is in the east where
Speaker 1: the sun comes up. And so it's interesting to me
Speaker 1: that like that Medusa is in the west because she
Speaker 1: like is kind of explicitly near the hesperities, so she is, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's much more explicitly in the west, which I think
Speaker 1: memnon yet like they've got him kind of in like
Speaker 1: West Africa as well for that same reason. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I almost wonder maybe there's like a West African connection
Speaker 1: then too, and then maybe we have that kind of
Speaker 1: association with that location. I'm gonna do some digging. That's fascinating.
Speaker 2: It was just something that came up in my mind.
Speaker 2: I was like, there's something here, Yeah, but I think
Speaker 2: it would make it all make more sense.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm using this conversation to help me try to
Speaker 1: write this piece because I'm hitting a wall. So thanks
Speaker 1: all around. But I want to hear more about monstrous
Speaker 1: women and also fuckable women and the convergence of the two.
Speaker 2: It's a big topic, and I would recommend have you
Speaker 2: read I think it's Anne Carson's Woman Desire.
Speaker 1: No, I have it, but I'm going to find that chapter.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Now, I'm obsessed with it and that's what's
Speaker 1: going to stay in as a response to have you
Speaker 1: read it? Yeah, No, I mean, I've just never. It's weird,
Speaker 1: I've never. I think it's just like access, right, Like
Speaker 1: I think, because I am not in the realm of academia,
Speaker 1: all of my access to these ideas that are beyond
Speaker 1: like just the words on the page tend to come
Speaker 1: from just like what I encounter, like talking to you
Speaker 1: or talking to anyone else. And I don't I think
Speaker 1: I am a little I mean, I know that I
Speaker 1: am generally like a little too in the weeds with
Speaker 1: the ancient sources sometimes because I do, I'm so interested
Speaker 1: in them as these things that survive and like what
Speaker 1: they say, you know, literally what they say that I
Speaker 1: often have trouble kind of breaking down what might be
Speaker 1: beyond it, not because I'm not interested, but just because
Speaker 1: like I don't, you know, like I don't have that
Speaker 1: that the sort of the things that come with studying
Speaker 1: that in that way that just like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like ideas beyond what is exactly surviving in the sources.
Speaker 1: And I all to say, I'm fascinated and realed to
Speaker 1: be having this conversation because like I just I mean,
Speaker 1: I'd never thought of Kribis as horny and now it's
Speaker 1: so obvious.
Speaker 2: But there are things that you just can't unsee. Well, yes,
Speaker 2: you're like, oh.
Speaker 1: My god, well when it comes sexuality and stuff, when
Speaker 1: like in terms of the ancient world, like you know,
Speaker 1: the people that have been providing us with this information,
Speaker 1: the translations and the like, you know, just all of
Speaker 1: it for the last couple hundred years are just like
Speaker 1: boring old white men and so like obviously that's changing now, thankfully,
Speaker 1: but it is still like a thing where you know
Speaker 1: what you're going to immediately find is going to be
Speaker 1: this like sanitized or or worse like anti woman nonsense,
Speaker 1: and so it is often kind of hard to find
Speaker 1: to see something that like is so intentionally kind of
Speaker 1: like I guess unmentioned because I can't believe that I've
Speaker 1: not heard of or thought of Scilla and Chribtis in
Speaker 1: that way before, because yeah, it's so obvious now and
Speaker 1: I fucking love it.
Speaker 2: So what's that phrase? What's that quote? You'll know this
Speaker 2: quote and where it's like the two worst kind of
Speaker 2: plights of men, like the say and waymen like like
Speaker 2: it's right there, it's right there. I can't remember, I'm sure,
Speaker 2: I'm sure we can find the quote, but it's right there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the connection between.
Speaker 1: Them big dangers man, oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like honestly the main dangers to men. And then
Speaker 2: also when thinking about Charybdis, I just kept thinking about
Speaker 2: vagina dentata and all of those you know it like honestly,
Speaker 2: and that's such a massive motif and symbol that you
Speaker 2: know isn't necessarily one hundred percent present in Greek mythology,
Speaker 2: but but it's not. They're kind of looking like cousins
Speaker 2: to me, like a little bit, yeah, like they're not twins,
Speaker 2: but like you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, I mean it's not a coincidence that most
Speaker 1: of the monsters in Greek myth are women. Like it's
Speaker 1: right there. And and I mean, yeah, Medusa having been
Speaker 1: sexualized over the years is fascinating. I do like in
Speaker 1: terms of what I like, I said, what I've seen,
Speaker 1: it's been it's been more recent like very much. Freud
Speaker 1: level pathologizing. So I'm, you know, more curious about the
Speaker 1: ancient world. But like I mean, Scilla and charybdis Circe
Speaker 1: being a temptress, Medea being a temptress, and those aren't
Speaker 1: even like the monsters. The fact that the furies are women,
Speaker 1: the fact that even the fates are women feels like
Speaker 1: monstrous in a different way like that like, oh, like
Speaker 1: the fate of men is determined by women. Like that's
Speaker 1: another horror kind of in itself. And I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about the slot good.
Speaker 2: I hope it haunts you, And I say that with
Speaker 2: all the love in my heart. I hope it haunts
Speaker 2: you in the way that it haunts me.
Speaker 1: It will, it will excellent.
Speaker 2: I think, with a lot of sort of female monstossy.
Speaker 2: And this is just another book recommendation for you. But
Speaker 2: The Monstrous Feminine by Barbara Creed is another really good one.
Speaker 2: But I think when we look at all of that
Speaker 2: and all of just sort of the examples you just listen,
Speaker 2: and even if we add sort of Helen of Troy,
Speaker 2: who looks out at the sort of field of battle
Speaker 2: and compares it to a sort of farm, and then
Speaker 2: we you know, we're thinking about the earth and the
Speaker 2: consumption of the earth, and the earth eating all these
Speaker 2: dead bodies. I think with female monstrosity, it's such an
Speaker 2: interesting kind of mirror or reflection of the female body's
Speaker 2: biological productive power. And so you have women being the
Speaker 2: source of life, and then how do you reconcile that
Speaker 2: with patriarchal power when women are the ones that are
Speaker 2: giving you children, women are the ones that are sort
Speaker 2: of knowing and being able to determine paternity. And then
Speaker 2: there's this really interesting kind of externalization of that reality
Speaker 2: into female monstrosity, and you're sort of just watching the
Speaker 2: ancient Greeks kind of battle with it intellectually because it's
Speaker 2: so irreconcilable with their power job show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, there's a reason why they acknowledged
Speaker 1: that the world started with a woman and then she
Speaker 1: was immediately subjugated by a man, immediately exact a man
Speaker 1: she created.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 1: But then also makes me think of and I always
Speaker 1: forget what source this actually comes from, but there's that
Speaker 1: that notion that the Trojan War took place because Guya
Speaker 1: was like too there was too much pressure on her
Speaker 1: and so they needed like a cat war.
Speaker 2: I know, talking about. But I can't remember where it
Speaker 2: comes from. Either it was like or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, like there were too she it was too
Speaker 1: heavy on top of her, the number of humans that existed,
Speaker 1: and so they needed that kind of like that such
Speaker 1: a deadly war to like make it better.
Speaker 2: That is just such a missed up premise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Like it's another it's like demonizing the woman, right, like, like, well,
Speaker 1: the truth they they haven't blamed the Trojan war on
Speaker 1: another woman enough, so like let's add one, Like it's
Speaker 1: not enough that it's fully Helen's fault, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that she had absolutely no agency in the whole thing,
Speaker 1: but let's also make it about Guya.
Speaker 3: Gold.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what to say to that. That's
Speaker 2: just maybe so sad.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's why I have a career. So at
Speaker 1: least there's that talking about that. How demonized women are
Speaker 1: for absolutely no reason in the ancient world, well in
Speaker 1: ancient Greece, very specifically, I mean, and it hasn't gone away.
Speaker 1: It makes me think there's a I'm sure I've mentioned
Speaker 1: this on the show before, but like I one of
Speaker 1: the first books of myth that I picked up when
Speaker 1: I started the show, Like you know, I was like
Speaker 1: years out of my degree and I really hadn't done
Speaker 1: any research for a long time. Also, I did my degree,
Speaker 1: Like this is wild how fast things change, but like
Speaker 1: we really didn't get to use Google a lot because
Speaker 1: it was not early Internet obviously, but it was still
Speaker 1: a long time ago. And like so I just feel
Speaker 1: like I didn't have a great grasp on like how
Speaker 1: to research and stuff when I picked up the podcast.
Speaker 1: And so I just like picked up a book that
Speaker 1: I found because it was just called The Greek Myths
Speaker 1: and it at the time, I didn't even really notice it,
Speaker 1: which is funny because I was using it to start
Speaker 1: my feminist podcast about Greek myth But like, there are
Speaker 1: parts in this book that was published in like two
Speaker 1: thousand and five that are like some of the most
Speaker 1: horrifically misogynist stuff I've ever read, like complete departures from
Speaker 1: the ancient sources in order to demonize both Medusa and Pandora.
Speaker 1: Those are the ones I always remember, like it's wild,
Speaker 1: like as if it's like at one point, this guy,
Speaker 1: Robin Waterfield, who is credited on the cover and then
Speaker 1: the inside cover, it's acknowledged that his wife helped him
Speaker 1: write it, but she's not on the cover. And in
Speaker 1: his section on Medusa retelling the story like one, not
Speaker 1: only does he in this book called the Greek Myths
Speaker 1: does he use Avid's story without acknowledging that it is
Speaker 1: not a Greek myth, but he also, in addition to
Speaker 1: using Ovid's, which has its own problems, he introduces the
Speaker 1: idea that that that Athena was angry that Medusa was
Speaker 1: prettier than her, or that Medusa bragged about being prettier
Speaker 1: than her, oh, which as yeah, exactly like your shocked
Speaker 1: face is it?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Where is exactly? It has absolutely no basis in the
Speaker 1: ancient sources, none, And it's just like this invention to
Speaker 1: make women even worse, like this idea that like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: in order for Athena to want to curse her, she
Speaker 1: would have had to say that she was prettier, because
Speaker 1: lady care whether another girl is prettier than them.
Speaker 2: But also this just drives me triple insane because it's like,
Speaker 2: if you reduce the value of women to what they
Speaker 2: look like, and then you get upset when they have
Speaker 2: feelings about what they look like like, right, what is expected?
Speaker 2: What is expected?
Speaker 1: Here, I really wonder why women ever worry about whether
Speaker 1: they're pretty compared to other women, Like it's not coming naturally,
Speaker 1: like you know, as somebody who was a teen, like
Speaker 1: fourteen in two thousand and two, I think is like
Speaker 1: an incredibly important date milestone, like just the early two
Speaker 1: thousands and the pressure placed on young women at that time,
Speaker 1: when Kate Moss is out there saying nothing tastes as
Speaker 1: good as pretty feels like, you know, this this stuff
Speaker 1: that we get blamed for, like it's just anyway, I
Speaker 1: think a lot about how broken I still am from
Speaker 1: just like being a teenager in the early two thousand.
Speaker 2: We had the whole thy gap thing runs through Oh
Speaker 2: Gogle when I was sixteen.
Speaker 1: That was fun, right, Yeah, that's our little yeah, that's
Speaker 1: our age gap, the thigh gap. And I do not
Speaker 1: envy you because I was old enough at that time.
Speaker 1: I was still definitely still influenced, but like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean we we just like it was wild and like
Speaker 1: the fat shaming on every single TV show that we
Speaker 1: had to watch, like there was just no way to
Speaker 1: get out of it, to get out of hating your body,
Speaker 1: Like you're literally raised from the time that you're like
Speaker 1: eight years old to hate multiple things about your body.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm mm hm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I respect all the women who have been able
Speaker 1: to get over it, but I am still trying and
Speaker 1: not going.
Speaker 2: Probably most women are in the trenches with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh fucking fascinating anyway, Oh my gosh. I've just like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think a lot about the fact that
Speaker 1: that the ancient Greeks did turn women into monsters, but
Speaker 1: I haven't thought about the sexuality involved.
Speaker 2: Well, I think just to just to speak about an
Speaker 2: earlier point you mentioned, which is, you know, when it
Speaker 2: comes to translation and when it comes to so many
Speaker 2: of the translations being you know, as horrific and horrible
Speaker 2: as they are, it's like that, on the one hand,
Speaker 2: is so unequivocally true and needs to be addressed. But
Speaker 2: I think as well, what I find and I'm sure
Speaker 2: you you know, really find this too. When you're dealing
Speaker 2: with the ancient sources, and when we're in the very
Speaker 2: privileged position of being able to engage with the literature
Speaker 2: and the visuals, you know that you do have to
Speaker 2: have an awareness I think of not projecting. I think
Speaker 2: we joked about rosy colored glasses before, whereas you know,
Speaker 2: I want to think it was this gorgeous utopia, but
Speaker 2: you also have to hold space for the reality it
Speaker 2: was a patriarchal society. You know, we know enough, we
Speaker 2: know enough to know that women buy in large, we're
Speaker 2: not having a great time, And so it's like, how
Speaker 2: do you kind of tread that line between reclamation and
Speaker 2: kind of looking at this stuff with a new, more
Speaker 2: empowering lens, whilst also not dismissing what we know of
Speaker 2: what was happening to these women. And I mean, and
Speaker 2: that's so difficult, right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, it's just so many things at
Speaker 1: once because like ill, yeah, and I mean it is
Speaker 1: what I love about looking at the ancient world, and
Speaker 1: what I particularly love about like the point that my
Speaker 1: show is at now in speaking about this stuff, like
Speaker 1: the ability I have now to talk about the context
Speaker 1: that I didn't have before when I was just like
Speaker 1: a random woman picking up a book at a bookstore
Speaker 1: without any idea. Like you know what, I guess really
Speaker 1: goes into men writing these myths, and by that I
Speaker 1: mean like rewriting the myths, because the book that I
Speaker 1: find to be so egregious is one of those ones
Speaker 1: where you know, like it's just called the Greek myths
Speaker 1: because a man went and like took down notes on
Speaker 1: the sources and then rewrote them. I mean, granted he's
Speaker 1: doing what I'm doing, but I'm really open about how
Speaker 1: fucking biased I'm being and the men are not, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and until you kind of realize what goes
Speaker 1: into the the retelling of these kinds of stories, like
Speaker 1: you really don't know that what you're getting is is
Speaker 1: nonsense compared to the ancient sources. But then at the
Speaker 1: same time it lacks this context of like it's wild
Speaker 1: because it's like I feel like the the modern pieces
Speaker 1: you pick up written by men tend to be in obviously,
Speaker 1: like you know, stuff in the last like five years
Speaker 1: and certain men. Obviously it's not the case, but like
Speaker 1: by and large, like you think that it's going to
Speaker 1: be worse, and then it is. But then at the
Speaker 1: same time, like the context then turns around and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: the context though, is the women also had a shit time,
Speaker 1: but the myths still weren't quite as bad as this
Speaker 1: modern man is making them out to be. But we
Speaker 1: have to keep in mind that, like you know, the
Speaker 1: I mean, especially when we're talking about Athens women had
Speaker 1: little to know freedom or agency at all, And I
Speaker 1: don't know, I mean, it's just like kind of constant
Speaker 1: sort of reminders of all of the different bits and
Speaker 1: pieces going into this stuff. But I also like to
Speaker 1: think about like the stories that the women might have
Speaker 1: been telling amongst themselves, or you know, I like to
Speaker 1: joke a lot about all the sex they probably were
Speaker 1: having with each other because the men didn't consider it
Speaker 1: sex and so weren't worried that, you know, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: like you know, they were just like keeping their wives
Speaker 1: locked up all together in a house all day and
Speaker 1: not letting them do you know, anything outside of it,
Speaker 1: Like you think they're not going to find ways of
Speaker 1: having fun like these women.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've seen all those parts of women with bread.
Speaker 2: Dildos are the ones that came.
Speaker 1: I mean also, yeah, like the the a lizbos, right,
Speaker 1: that's like the ancient word for dildo antient Greek word
Speaker 1: o lizbos. It's like, oh l s bos if you
Speaker 1: just google it, I know, google just as dildo a
Speaker 1: real big But I also did learn it from Assassin's
Speaker 1: Creed artisty. I will clarify that makes at one point
Speaker 1: you do go get a dildo that our chamiality is
Speaker 1: left in somebody's house.
Speaker 2: At least it was not in someone right.
Speaker 1: True, No, exactly, you don't know they you never.
Speaker 2: Know what's that that medieval myth or whatever it is
Speaker 2: about the sword. Okay, wait, I digress, digress, I digress.
Speaker 1: I always digress. That's the point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, oh no. I was just thinking about your
Speaker 2: point on translation, and I think, and this being completely
Speaker 2: frank with you, I don't think I one hundred percent
Speaker 2: have a grip on this. And I've been studying this
Speaker 2: stuff for seven years, but I think something that's so
Speaker 2: hard to grasp is that the myths themselves are being
Speaker 2: received and massaged and adapted over hundreds and hundreds of years.
Speaker 2: And that is something that does not get kind of
Speaker 2: fore grounded in the way that I think it needs to,
Speaker 2: because we're talking about, Okay, the ancient stuff is over here,
Speaker 2: and then the modern dudes are over here, and it's like, well, actually,
Speaker 2: the ancient stuff there was a whole bunch going on.
Speaker 2: Then when it comes to refracting and massaging these myths
Speaker 2: for different kind of cultural moments and different purposes, and
Speaker 2: that is such an important thing to understand, like how
Speaker 2: these myths were functioning over You know, you can't just
Speaker 2: kind of point to ancient Greece and be like that
Speaker 2: was all one thing, it happened over three years whatever.
Speaker 2: It's like, that's so far from the case. And still
Speaker 2: it like honestly kind of breaks my brain a little
Speaker 2: bit whenever I try and like contemplate it too much.
Speaker 2: But I feel like it's important to note when it
Speaker 2: comes to translation and different versions of mythology.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I'm so glad you brought that up, because
Speaker 1: I've been in the last couple of years. I know
Speaker 1: that I've become annoying in the way that I bring
Speaker 1: that up. I bring that up in like almost every
Speaker 1: episode though, because I also like, I can't guarantee that
Speaker 1: people have been listening to all of them. They just
Speaker 1: might jump in and I'm like, well, then I have
Speaker 1: to remind you that we are talking, like menim mom,
Speaker 1: eight hundred years in between all of these stories, and
Speaker 1: and when you just come at this from this casual viewpoint, yeah,
Speaker 1: you were. You see ancient Greece as a concept, You
Speaker 1: see Greek myth as a concept, as if there is
Speaker 1: this like canon of stories and everything is was becid it.
Speaker 1: I thought it was the word cannon.
Speaker 2: I thought I was like, there's one version of every myth.
Speaker 2: There was one version of every myth, and everyone agreed
Speaker 2: and it was super chill and easy and straightforward. Are
Speaker 2: you glad that it wasn't you this time rilled.
Speaker 1: And that you sounded just as like excited and annoyed?
Speaker 1: It is so both, and I think that, yeah, like
Speaker 1: unless you are deep in this stuff, like you're not
Speaker 1: getting that context and it's so important.
Speaker 2: And also again being like very candid with you, just
Speaker 2: because you're deep in it doesn't mean it's the easiest
Speaker 2: thing to understand hold in your mind. It is so difficult.
Speaker 1: All I ever do is talk about how confusing and
Speaker 1: fascinating it is, Like yeah, because it's it's both all
Speaker 1: the time, and I love it.
Speaker 2: All of the times, truly.
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, but I really I really want to
Speaker 1: know more about the like the idea you mentioned that
Speaker 1: they feared women's sexual appetites. I want know more about this.
Speaker 2: So bad, so bad, so bad so fear. I mean
Speaker 2: it's such a big topic, right, like fear no sexuality.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, can we can we have three hours?
Speaker 2: Are you wanting to kind of talk about I mean,
Speaker 2: I assume mythology and like maybe visual I'm just trying
Speaker 2: to I'm trying to pick some points here because.
Speaker 1: I absolutely fair. I mean, I don't I don't care
Speaker 1: necessarily to stick to mythology. I'm just fascinated by the
Speaker 1: the idea. But like, you know, if you have, like
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I wass just like understood that
Speaker 1: it would have been a thing, but I've just never
Speaker 1: thought about like evidence for it other than you know,
Speaker 1: just the general distaste they seem to have for women.
Speaker 1: I mean, but yeah, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a strong distaste, right, But I think there's
Speaker 2: also a huge amount of distrust women. And I think
Speaker 2: that and this is a very sort of one dimensional
Speaker 2: view of it. But what I have read over the
Speaker 2: years is that you know, patrilineal inheritance, when you can't
Speaker 2: be one hundred percent short of you know, the paternity
Speaker 2: of your kid, that won't be a problem like that
Speaker 2: is inter issue, like right, interm literally unfortunately in most cases,
Speaker 2: so harrowing. And so there's this there's this fear of
Speaker 2: how the female body can obscure paternity, right, like they
Speaker 2: could have your like a woman could have your brother's
Speaker 2: kid or you know, a random neighbor's kid or whatever,
Speaker 2: and probably there would be no way of you knowing.
Speaker 2: And so if your entire society is built on you know,
Speaker 2: you will have sons and it will all be lovely
Speaker 2: and they will inherit your house and no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 2: but your life could be messing around on you and
Speaker 2: you almost certainly have no way of knowing. So how
Speaker 2: do you within society find a way to sort of
Speaker 2: curtail that or address that? And it's like just you know,
Speaker 2: beat the shit out of them culturally when it comes
Speaker 2: to their sexual expression and just like put them in
Speaker 2: their tiny little boxes and hide them away. All of that,
Speaker 2: Like there was this huge societal pressure for the restriction
Speaker 2: of female sexuality. And I mean, for another bit of evidence,
Speaker 2: you have the separation between the wife and the hattirai, right,
Speaker 2: Like the htirai are the fun that drunk ones who
Speaker 2: will you know, take part in orgies with you and
Speaker 2: your boyfriends at the symposium, but your wife is at
Speaker 2: home looking after the grain and the kids and the whatever.
Speaker 2: And there's so much sort of separation in the literature
Speaker 2: as far as how you think of, you know, ancient
Speaker 2: sex workers versus ancient wives. They were constituted and characterized
Speaker 2: completely differently, so there's little room left for the kind
Speaker 2: of eroticism of the wife. And then if we take
Speaker 2: it back to like Helen of Troy or something, it's
Speaker 2: like we see what happens when a wifely person or
Speaker 2: you know, the figure of a wife expresses their sexuality,
Speaker 2: you know, or even just is an object of sexual desire.
Speaker 2: Like it seemed to be a really dangerous, dangerous thing.
Speaker 2: It's I feel like I just threw such random broad examples.
Speaker 1: That you No, I love it so much. I'm literally
Speaker 1: taking notes. I've just written down obscuring paternity. It's actually
Speaker 1: it's a great bank form that apparently I'm turning into
Speaker 1: a notepad.
Speaker 2: No, I just.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I also made me think of I'm trying
Speaker 1: to remember like the exact details. But I know that
Speaker 1: in Sparta they kind of, for a time at least
Speaker 1: like handled this fear of paternity by being like women
Speaker 1: can have kids with more than one man. Because they
Speaker 1: also were so obsessed with keeping it spartan and like
Speaker 1: keeping their bloodlines pure.
Speaker 2: Sounds very and I'm rewatching game of thrones at the moment.
Speaker 1: I mean, Targarians are spartans, let's be honest. Actually, like
Speaker 1: I feel like that, I feel like that works in ways,
Speaker 1: but like no, and I I've definitely, I want to say,
Speaker 1: I've thought about this idea of of enter Zeus, of
Speaker 1: of like the stories of the God's broadly fothering children
Speaker 1: by mortal women, Like that is just a it's like
Speaker 1: exemplifying there's a better word. That's not it it is,
Speaker 1: but not for what I want. But basically it's just
Speaker 1: like it's evidence for this fear. Right, It's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, like if you have to whether the child
Speaker 1: is yours, then at least you can think that maybe
Speaker 1: if it's not, then it it's Zeus's, you know, Like
Speaker 1: so it gives you like a divine out exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: like you know, if this is like a big fear
Speaker 1: of theirs, then of course they're going to introduce these
Speaker 1: stories that explain that happening. But in a way that
Speaker 1: takes the fault away from the man, you know, like
Speaker 1: not that it's you know, a man's fault broadly, but
Speaker 1: like it's clearly their fear. When I imagine it's not
Speaker 1: a thing that's like happening all that often like, but
Speaker 1: of course they're going to be afraid of it because
Speaker 1: they don't control that. And if you control everything, then
Speaker 1: the one thing you can't control becomes this like enormous boogeyman.
Speaker 2: To your point about that boogeyman, I would say that
Speaker 2: I think there might actually be another boogeyman in this instance.
Speaker 2: So it's not only about of paternity and issues of paternity.
Speaker 2: I think it might also be about the way female
Speaker 2: sexuality and feminine sexuality can prompt transgressive action on the
Speaker 2: part of the man. So they're worried about what they'll
Speaker 2: do and their kind of loss of agency and not
Speaker 2: being in full control of themselves and starting a war
Speaker 2: or you know, sleeping with someone they shouldn't, or any
Speaker 2: of the other things that are so richly demonstrated in
Speaker 2: all of the mythology. And so if you have that
Speaker 2: kind of fear of there's this certain part of life
Speaker 2: and this certain aspect of the woman and the female
Speaker 2: body and feminine erotic power, how do we deal with it?
Speaker 2: Because it poses this threat to civilization and stable order
Speaker 2: and family structure and political order and everything, everything and everything.
Speaker 2: What do we do oh, maybe we channel some of
Speaker 2: it into these wild feminized, hungry monsters that are just
Speaker 2: eating everyone. It sounded on hinge when I said it,
Speaker 2: but I'm standing by it.
Speaker 1: No, But I mean, like, yes, like it, but I
Speaker 1: mean they're all they're almost all women. Like Typhon is
Speaker 1: an interesting example, but I think he pretty openly embodies
Speaker 1: like natural disasters. So the idea that like that all
Speaker 1: the monsters are either like natural disasters or women is
Speaker 1: like kind of amazing, because even the gigantomic key like
Speaker 1: accounts for volcanoes, and so it's like literally any of
Speaker 1: the big bad, you know, divine kind of of fears
Speaker 1: they are if they're men. Trying to think of a
Speaker 1: male's the one, right, okay, but but he doesn't actually
Speaker 1: count because he embodies the fear of paternity.
Speaker 2: Just gets deeper. And so in the myths, what do
Speaker 2: you do with monsters? You defeat them, you overpower them.
Speaker 2: It is something that gets set up in the myths
Speaker 2: as something that can be thwarted or defeated, So you
Speaker 2: can defeat the temptation of the female body, you can
Speaker 2: defeat the monster's feminine in all of this mythology, so
Speaker 2: all these lovely men could just sleep at night knowing
Speaker 2: that it's all going to be okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean okay. Talking about the paternity stuff, like
Speaker 1: it leads me to just think of all the weirdest
Speaker 1: ways that Zeus impregnated, right, Like, you know, at first.
Speaker 2: I thought every time when I got upset every single time, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: the Swan's the first thought.
Speaker 1: But then then I went to Zeus and Dana Perseus's
Speaker 1: mom right shower of gold, and like, obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: golden chower a different context now, that's but what's really
Speaker 1: happening here, because like you know, the context for that
Speaker 1: story is that she's like locked in a tower because
Speaker 1: her father is worried. You know, there's an oracle that
Speaker 1: says her baby will defeat him, so she's locked away
Speaker 1: so that she cannot have a child. And Zeus's form
Speaker 1: that he takes is this like gold falling from the
Speaker 1: ceiling and just going straight up or vadge, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I like to think of it, It's like it
Speaker 1: feels like it has to be like a like a
Speaker 1: real like a like a mood, like like it has
Speaker 1: to be embodied in some kind of way. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think I think a lot about the shower of Gold,
Speaker 1: but how that like, you know, this this thing that
Speaker 1: is like it sounds more like a like a a
Speaker 1: fatherly fear in this patriarchal world of their daughter getting
Speaker 1: impregnated by some strange man. You know, it's like so
Speaker 1: regularly happened, but it's possible, you know that that like
Speaker 1: it embodies that. But then it's like, oh, but you know,
Speaker 1: even if that happened, well, I guess that's not a
Speaker 1: great thing for a Christius. But like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: Perseus in the end, this baby and he and he
Speaker 1: still tries to I mean, now I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: of basically, I'm just like thinking aloud with you right
Speaker 1: now because now I'm like, okay, well, you know it's
Speaker 1: he's Percius, so really ultimately he's a good thing, but
Speaker 1: like he does defeat a Christius. And so I'm just
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like there's so many there's layers
Speaker 1: to this fear because sometimes it's obvious what they're fearing.
Speaker 2: Well, and then in that instance, right, isn't it the
Speaker 2: fear of violating the like virginal female, because what that
Speaker 2: means for the social and financial standing of the family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like that. But then it's interesting because it's like
Speaker 1: it works out so that that's where my question mark
Speaker 1: brain is going, you know, like obviously the story of
Speaker 1: Perseus is good for Perseus and Dani in the end.
Speaker 1: So it's just interesting to me because it's like, well,
Speaker 1: is it providing a moral that then is like contradictory
Speaker 1: to this this idea of being afraid for your daughter's virginity.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just I don't know, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: It's ultimately affirming it or kind of giving some comfort,
Speaker 2: like just like a bit of a nice myth. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: sometimes it works out.
Speaker 1: It could be you probably won't.
Speaker 2: It probably won't, but maybe.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just there's just so many layers. Like
Speaker 1: I do. People often ask me like to kind of,
Speaker 1: I guess you put myself into the character and like
Speaker 1: answer questions like what would they feel or what would
Speaker 1: they think? And I fail at that always just miserably
Speaker 1: because I am I'm far too interested in the story
Speaker 1: itself and the purpose behind it, and I think this
Speaker 1: is great evidence for that, Like this is what I
Speaker 1: want to talk about, is like, but what's the story
Speaker 1: and what does it mean? Not the characters like, I
Speaker 1: love the characters, but I don't feel the need to
Speaker 1: like be in their brains.
Speaker 4: But I also show an awareness of how difficult it
Speaker 4: is to ever get to anywhere remotely close to being
Speaker 4: in their brains like that know anything, No, And that's
Speaker 4: such a difficult thing.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: There are so many sort of feminist retellings of Greek
Speaker 2: myths now that are doing exactly that right. They're you know,
Speaker 2: giving voices that are providing insight and all of that.
Speaker 2: But if you're trying to do that entirely based on
Speaker 2: the ancient sources like you need, you're fucked. You need
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot of imagination and creative license
Speaker 2: to begin to do that. It's you know, it's a
Speaker 2: very appealing thing. But is it necessarily possible if you
Speaker 2: actually tie yourself to the ancient source material. I don't know. Again,
Speaker 2: I'm wondering that's true. But I'm like, especially when every
Speaker 2: almost every source bar like two, are coming from.
Speaker 1: Men, well yeah, yeah, no, And I yeah, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because I it is. It's interesting for me talking to
Speaker 1: authors and stuff sometimes because like I understand that they
Speaker 1: have a version in their head of this character because
Speaker 1: you have to you create a version, but that inherently
Speaker 1: untethers it from the ancient sources. And that's fine.
Speaker 2: That's the perfect verb choice, like untether's it. That's that's
Speaker 2: exactly what it is, right, what is you? That's the
Speaker 2: perfect one for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to separate it. You have to make
Speaker 1: it a different thing. And I think you know, like
Speaker 1: that if if you are writing this stuff and trying
Speaker 1: to pretend or if you believe that you are keeping
Speaker 1: true to the characters, like I think you're doing a
Speaker 1: disservice to yourself and the book. Like I do think
Speaker 1: you have to separate that. Yeah, oh sad, And maybe
Speaker 1: it's a little bit more than what we need time wise.
Speaker 1: But I realized when we first talked about like how
Speaker 1: I barely remember it other than I just knew I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to you about it on the show,
Speaker 1: but you were you were just like just mentioned Madea
Speaker 1: and we'll go. And I realized we've not even gone through.
Speaker 2: But we have spoken about Madea, and we haven't spoken
Speaker 2: about Euripides back as far as fear of the female
Speaker 2: and female sexuality and female monstrosity, and if we're talking
Speaker 2: about the like kind of turning women into monsters because
Speaker 2: of their biological power. I mean, ding ding ding Medea,
Speaker 2: who not only murders a whole bunch of people, she
Speaker 2: murders her children. So you have the complete arresting of
Speaker 2: feminine biological power. And that is why she is the
Speaker 2: most hated and the biggest monster. And it is just
Speaker 2: And then I love that she just gets to write
Speaker 2: off in a chariot. And I don't care what anyone says.
Speaker 2: I know a canon isn't real, but her riding off
Speaker 2: on a chariot is canon to me.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's it is just as it has
Speaker 1: the exact same level of legitimacy as her killing her
Speaker 1: children because both were invented by Euripides.
Speaker 2: So true.
Speaker 1: I know that's so true, which I was gonna I
Speaker 1: was gonna bring that up anyway, because I'm fascinated by
Speaker 1: the idea that and I mean, it could it could
Speaker 1: be a source that we're just that we've lost, Like
Speaker 1: it could be that Euripides did not invent that detail.
Speaker 1: That's very possible. Same with the dragon chariot though, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea that like before Euripides, we didn't necessarily have this,
Speaker 1: this idea that she killed her children. I think that's
Speaker 1: really interesting and also, like is another good connection to
Speaker 1: the back eye, because I mean I could talk about
Speaker 1: Euipies for hours, so I will try not to. But
Speaker 1: like I like to think of of, like kind of
Speaker 1: why he would put that stuff in because of all
Speaker 1: the playwrights I know, like, and I say this with
Speaker 1: confidence despite the fact that I'll never talk to him,
Speaker 1: but I know that he was interested in women as
Speaker 1: people and as like complex and sympathetic and very real
Speaker 1: people though like flawed people. But yeah, I kind of
Speaker 1: I love that he kind of introduced that idea because
Speaker 1: I think it.
Speaker 2: I think it definitely adds something more. And like I
Speaker 2: do do you think that him you know, him being
Speaker 2: Euripides shout out? Do you think I know, I love
Speaker 2: him so much? But do you think him adding that detail?
Speaker 2: I mean, considering that women were so often wildly reduced
Speaker 2: to their ability to create children, and you know, motherhood
Speaker 2: was the whole thing that was their entire sort of
Speaker 2: source of value and all of that, and so by
Speaker 2: Euripides adding that detail, it kind of is this horrific,
Speaker 2: monstrous assertion of individual agency of a woman. But that's
Speaker 2: what it is. It's like her own feelings of rage
Speaker 2: and sexual jealousy and violation and betrayal a big enough
Speaker 2: and strong enough that they actually super scene her role
Speaker 2: as mother, and that is something we almost never see.
Speaker 2: The only other myth that's jumping to mind, is it
Speaker 2: a Philo, Philomela or no Procney.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's the two of them. Yeah, okay, so
Speaker 1: you've got those names.
Speaker 2: Okay, good. Yeah, I was like, am I about.
Speaker 3: To say, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, correct?
Speaker 1: No, And I mean, yeah, that's yeah, they're another good connection.
Speaker 1: But they're interesting too because they also really only survive
Speaker 1: and OVID, which is sort of like its own level
Speaker 1: of like interest, like in terms of those details. But
Speaker 1: I absolutely do think and now you've made me think
Speaker 1: it even more. I won't pretend that this was all
Speaker 1: my idea before you said all of that, but I've
Speaker 1: always seen like I've I've definitely spent a number of
Speaker 1: episodes on the show having to explain that I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that it's okay that she killed her children.
Speaker 2: Just no one is saying that. No, let's be really clear,
Speaker 2: we're not endorsing in fans, no, no, but.
Speaker 1: No, But like I do think that it is incredibly
Speaker 1: interesting because you can see that there is like an
Speaker 1: intention behind it, because he makes her sympathetic while she's
Speaker 1: doing it, Like you you understand her. You don't agree
Speaker 1: with her, but you understand why she feels like this
Speaker 1: is the thing she has to do. And that's what
Speaker 1: I find to be so fucking interesting about that play,
Speaker 1: but also just about euripities broadly, because I think that argument,
Speaker 1: like it completely it aligns with my thoughts on him
Speaker 1: and what I said earlier, which is just that like
Speaker 1: he makes women into people, flawed people, complex people, people
Speaker 1: who have thought processes that like we won't not everyone
Speaker 1: would agree with, and maybe it's bad to kill your kids.
Speaker 1: Like but at the same time, he's not introducing a
Speaker 1: villain in Medea. He's not introducing a boogeyman. He is
Speaker 1: introducing an interesting, complex woman who makes a horrific decision.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, he doesn't make her this like caricature
Speaker 1: of an angry woman. I think that she has become
Speaker 1: that in pop culture in a lot of ways since then,
Speaker 1: Like before I really knew the play, all I'd ever
Speaker 1: known is like, there's a woman in Medea who killed
Speaker 1: her kids, and you think, but like I even feel
Speaker 1: like Oh, I wish I could tell you what this
Speaker 1: is from. But there's definitely like a quote that lives
Speaker 1: in my head from a movie or something from the
Speaker 1: early two thousands where it's like she pulled a Medeia
Speaker 1: and it was like basically the idea of her going crazy,
Speaker 1: Like I think she became aligned with this idea of
Speaker 1: going crazy and killing her kids, when in fact, the
Speaker 1: play makes very clear that she is in her right
Speaker 1: and rational mind and she's making this decision, and that's
Speaker 1: so much more interesting than this like caricature a woman
Speaker 1: who goes mad and kills her children because it's the
Speaker 1: only way that women could do that.
Speaker 2: You know, well, I think there's you know, there might
Speaker 2: even be more kind of tension in that because exactly
Speaker 2: like in Euripides, particularly her every single.
Speaker 3: You know, line that she delivers is so considered and
Speaker 3: it's so thoughtful and so and you know, she's wailing
Speaker 3: off stage and all this she is she is very emotional.
Speaker 2: She's in a lot of you know, emotional pain from
Speaker 2: everything that's happening and everything that's being done to her.
Speaker 2: But you're exactly right in pointing out, but this doesn't,
Speaker 2: this isn't what she does is a very considered act
Speaker 2: or you know, a considered set of actions. And I
Speaker 2: think you know she is acting, you know, from a
Speaker 2: place of emotional pain, but not from a place of
Speaker 2: temporary insanity, because planning goes into every step of it.
Speaker 2: And I read this this article a few years ago
Speaker 2: which I found really fascinating, which was all about how
Speaker 2: Madea is kind of working within and drawing from this
Speaker 2: kind of outdated mode of Homeric honor. That so and
Speaker 2: it not only like doesn't have a place necessarily in
Speaker 2: you know, the time that Euripides was writing. So that's
Speaker 2: one kind of bit of separation, but it absolutely is
Speaker 2: not for women. You know, that's not something for her
Speaker 2: to grab a hold of and then use. But in
Speaker 2: so much of the language she's talking about, she is Achilles.
Speaker 2: Her honor has been violated, and she is going to
Speaker 2: rain down fury. And so that when you're looking at
Speaker 2: the characterization of Medea, and in kind of one hand
Speaker 2: you hold the sexual jealousy and the betrayal of the
Speaker 2: marriage bed and that, you know, which is in there,
Speaker 2: and then in the other hand you have this kind
Speaker 2: of she's this wounded, proud hero that you know, wants
Speaker 2: justice and wants balance, and that is especially when you
Speaker 2: look at the language. And again, I will send you
Speaker 2: this article because it's such an awesome take on her that,
Speaker 2: you know, there's so much more richness in that interpretation.
Speaker 2: Rather than oh she went thata shit, it's like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: she didn't. She is Achilles in the tent. She is
Speaker 2: Achilles dragging Hector's body around the wall.
Speaker 1: Troy like just gonna say that one like that is
Speaker 1: madea like.
Speaker 2: That's so much more true to Euripides and true to
Speaker 2: you know, all of the versions of her story. It
Speaker 2: seems like and again we have a woman being reduced
Speaker 2: and hugely oversimplified, where when you look a bit deeper,
Speaker 2: there's something so much more interesting going on. Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1: I can talk about my Daa for hours, like and
Speaker 1: he's just so interesting.
Speaker 2: We do we have time? Please?
Speaker 1: No, please please? I want to talk about the back guy, like.
Speaker 2: I mean, we have sex, we have sexuality, We have
Speaker 2: pentheus in all kinds of situations when it comes to
Speaker 2: his desire. We have the kind of bestial, hyposexual, animalistic
Speaker 2: monstrous women, you know, ripping animals apart and ripping people
Speaker 2: apart on the hills, like all of that. It's just
Speaker 2: right there. It's just sensational. Yeah, it's like, yes, you
Speaker 2: should all be women because when they get drunk, they're
Speaker 2: gonna rip your arm off.
Speaker 1: All of that. And I also think it's interesting that
Speaker 1: Dionysus is quite feminized, like you know, like he's I mean,
Speaker 1: I know, he's like very a he, but he's dressed
Speaker 1: like a main ad is an ear or like yeah, like.
Speaker 2: And then Pentheus is like.
Speaker 1: Yes kind of and then also he has Pentheus dress
Speaker 1: as a main ad to be torn up right, So
Speaker 1: like like I had a conversation years ago now on
Speaker 1: the show about like a non binary reading of Dionysus
Speaker 1: in back eye, but it also included this was with
Speaker 1: Emma Polly, and they had really interesting things to say
Speaker 1: from like a more dramatizing na like aspect of it,
Speaker 1: like they're a dramaturtch end I think a translator as well,
Speaker 1: so like just sort of everything going on there.
Speaker 2: But like.
Speaker 1: The argument was basically that both Dionysus and Pentheus have
Speaker 1: these moments where they can be pretty easily read as
Speaker 1: non binary. And I think and it's really interesting because
Speaker 1: like Dionysus appears like that pretty openly I think in
Speaker 1: the play. But there are these moments where you can
Speaker 1: kind of if you're looking for, like see Pentheus, like
Speaker 1: recognizing that in Dionysus and being really interested in it,
Speaker 1: and then that kind of transitions directly into Pentheus, you know,
Speaker 1: dressing as a woman to be torn apart. But I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's so many layers in the back eye, like
Speaker 1: the fact that there's like the.
Speaker 2: Heel of transgression and there's the heel of all of that,
Speaker 2: and then we're back to female monsters where it's like
Speaker 2: that which is simultaneously seductive and terrifying. That's that's the
Speaker 2: whole thing in my mind.
Speaker 1: Well, and in that case too, they're your family members,
Speaker 1: which is like adding a whole other level, Like, yes,
Speaker 1: ladies are monsters, but like even when they're your mom
Speaker 1: and your aunt, but also.
Speaker 2: If we want to get real psychoanalytical and weird with it,
Speaker 2: maybe especially when they're your mom. I yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, like the unpayable biological debt to the mother
Speaker 2: is something that patriarchy finds difficult to deal with.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's also.
Speaker 3: Like not.
Speaker 1: I mean it's I don't want to say coincidence, because
Speaker 1: I don't think it's either a coincidence or not one,
Speaker 1: but like it is relevant that this is happening, Yes,
Speaker 1: that this is happening in the city that will go
Speaker 1: on to house Edipus and Jocasta, like just another few
Speaker 1: generations down the line, like and of course, like when
Speaker 1: it comes to the plays, like there is something to
Speaker 1: be said for the fact that these are Athenians intentionally
Speaker 1: demonizing Thebes. But at the core, Thebes is the location
Speaker 1: of these myths, regardless of whether they appeared in a play.
Speaker 1: So I just think it's interesting, like Thebes is. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I have a soft spot for Thebes because
Speaker 1: I am deeply obsessed with Cadmus and Harmonia and the
Speaker 1: fact that they are both incredibly important and like really
Speaker 1: lacking in a lot of detail and like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of really really interesting things about them that I'll
Speaker 1: never stop thinking about. But like the fact the fact
Speaker 1: that this is like partly their family line is always
Speaker 1: really intrigued me too. But this idea of like the
Speaker 1: unpayable debt to the Mother, like I've never I don't
Speaker 1: think a lot about procreation because I hate children and
Speaker 1: the idea of pregnancy. I think it's utterly revolting. But
Speaker 1: thinking about it this way, it is very interesting.
Speaker 2: I just I think for me, it's it's something that
Speaker 2: comes up in a lot of psychoanalysis, especially like later psychoanalysis,
Speaker 2: and like, I'm not a huge fan of Freud, but
Speaker 2: I'm a fan of some people that came like thirty
Speaker 2: years later, and some women that came thirty years later
Speaker 2: and looked at some of this stuff. And so there's
Speaker 2: this very spicy take on don't I don't know if
Speaker 2: you'll find this as fascinating as I do. But someone
Speaker 2: wrote an article on the abject maternal in Eschlus's Agamemnon,
Speaker 2: and it was all about Clydemnestra and the kind of
Speaker 2: reversal of the sex act when she penetrates Agamemnon to
Speaker 2: murder him, and then the red blood spurts up on
Speaker 2: her and like fertilizes her. And I think that's where
Speaker 2: I was telling about the word ganos those all those
Speaker 2: weeks ago. But then they they focused on the image
Speaker 2: of the red rugs drawing Agamemnon back into his home,
Speaker 2: and they said it was like some sort of perverted
Speaker 2: umbilical cord like dragging him back to a tomb, and
Speaker 2: so it's the whole womb to term thing. It's really cuckoo.
Speaker 2: I know it's really cuckoo. I hold my hands up,
Speaker 2: But I mean it's interesting. It's interesting. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: that like a hundred holds up, but those kind of
Speaker 2: ideas of the female body and the connections drawn between
Speaker 2: the female body and the oikos or the household, and
Speaker 2: how the household was kind of a sight of a
Speaker 2: lot of these dangers, and these dangers are embodied in
Speaker 2: the women that lurk within the house. It intrigues me.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, no, same, I definitely have that super interesting.
Speaker 1: But I also just immediately makes me think, like that
Speaker 1: really gives a whole new meaning to the fact that
Speaker 1: we get the idea of rolling out the red carpet
Speaker 1: from that play.
Speaker 2: Is that where we get it from?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Oh yeah, Like it's already a fucked up phrase
Speaker 1: by the fact that the idea of rolling out the
Speaker 1: red carpet, that phrase fully comes originally from Agamemnon being
Speaker 1: welcomed home to his death.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know I've told that to other people,
Speaker 1: and it's a really lovely revelation. Yeah, because it is
Speaker 1: like so much less lovely by what I know, But like,
Speaker 1: I think that's way better the idea that we can
Speaker 1: also then read rolling out the Red Carpet into being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like this, because I also as you started talking about it,
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know, are you gonna go
Speaker 1: to like a period blood kind of situation? Like I
Speaker 1: think that's not that far from it either like just
Speaker 1: a full or like just yeah, like just a full
Speaker 1: birthing kind of analogy.
Speaker 2: Like it's so unhanged. It is so unhanged. But when
Speaker 2: you think about the fact that Pantheus is ripped apart
Speaker 2: by his mother, Yeah, lots about you know, issues of
Speaker 2: the maternal whether it's madea or you know, is it
Speaker 2: a gave. Is that Pentheus's mom? Yeah, yeah, or a
Speaker 2: gave or yeah it's let alone. Jocasta, dear old Jocasta.
Speaker 1: Oh Jocasta. How you mean? Well, it's so good.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna think about the fear of female sexuality
Speaker 1: and everything now, which is funny because I kind of
Speaker 1: already have, but like less specifically, I'm like constantly Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love being scary. I just love finding like, I mean,
Speaker 1: anything that you know, you know, we talked about like
Speaker 1: the complexity of anything being empowering for women in the
Speaker 1: ancient world. But I think regardless of the poor women
Speaker 1: back then, it is empowering now to learn this stuff
Speaker 1: to just like look back and be like fuck, you know,
Speaker 1: they were so afraid of women, like and in and
Speaker 1: it remains today men are so afraid of women and
Speaker 1: like power and agency and female emotion and rage and
Speaker 1: a kind.
Speaker 2: Of literal objectification and fragmentation of the female body into
Speaker 2: vessels like.
Speaker 1: Full circle.
Speaker 2: From and to like store wine, and like the jaws
Speaker 2: have nipples. Like it's just the archaeological evidence, let alone,
Speaker 2: like all of the votives of the female body and
Speaker 2: all of those figuring out and all of that. There's
Speaker 2: just this huge kind of breaking down of the woman
Speaker 2: and even like the weird sort of compartmentalization between you know,
Speaker 2: the wife and the hirai. And yes, they devoted a
Speaker 2: lot of time and energy to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well there's just so much, like I just I
Speaker 1: want I want to know it all, but it's just
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, we didn't even get to like all
Speaker 1: like the full level of the detail of porn, pops,
Speaker 1: porn pottery.
Speaker 2: Well, this is what I wanted to ask you, is
Speaker 2: like how I guess I have so many visuals. I
Speaker 2: have so many, but it's like, how do.
Speaker 1: We I don't know, I know, Yeah, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: only so many thing I can do with social media
Speaker 1: and people rarely see it. But like, maybe we need
Speaker 1: to figure out something for a future. Maybe we I
Speaker 1: mean I hate the idea of video, but we could
Speaker 1: try to do a video special, or maybe we tambleed
Speaker 1: with Erica and the three of us do.
Speaker 2: Something, do like a YouTube dream.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I'm not because eric is not afraid of
Speaker 1: video like I am. I just oh my, it's just
Speaker 1: like it's just so fucking interesting that this. I mean,
Speaker 1: I always knew they were afraid, but like, I love
Speaker 1: this extra level that you have bestowed upon me through
Speaker 1: these drinking vessels.
Speaker 2: Like you are. And once you see the connection between
Speaker 2: hyposexual women and monstrous women, it is so hard.
Speaker 1: To unsae scilla and chrimptis.
Speaker 2: Like my girls, girls, my ladies, just.
Speaker 1: A gaping, swirling hole. Just get lost in it, get
Speaker 1: lost in.
Speaker 2: It, get eaten by it. What a way to go,
Speaker 2: oh my god.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm perpetually like kind of walking a line
Speaker 1: for how much I share about the novel that I've
Speaker 1: been working on, like on the podcast because it's not done,
Speaker 1: and also like this is me trying to get used
Speaker 1: to the fact that I've written what I've written, but
Speaker 1: I am I think I'm just gonna like start wrapping
Speaker 1: this up by telling the listeners that when you and
Speaker 1: I met in person, I was like, I think you're
Speaker 1: the right person to help me with the fact that
Speaker 1: I really need an ancient Greek word because I've been
Speaker 1: reading a lot of romance novels and I needed I
Speaker 1: needed a more relevant one, and that's where this ganos
Speaker 1: word that you mentioned earlier comes in. This word used
Speaker 1: for like the spurting of agamem Non's blood when Clydemnestra
Speaker 1: stabbed him, and it's just so good. But I also love.
Speaker 2: Because I looked up on.
Speaker 1: Liquid gladness, I forgot about that. I feel like, you
Speaker 1: know what, Perseus does not use that definition, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad that you reminded me of it. When I clicked
Speaker 1: on it in Perseus, it was like only Agamemnon and
Speaker 1: it was just I forget what it was, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go find it again. Either way, liquid gladness is
Speaker 1: getting written down right.
Speaker 2: Yes, that fertilizes the planes. It's just so much, so much.
Speaker 1: This episode is fucking perfect. I just oh, okay, I know,
Speaker 1: tell you something. But after I wrapped up on the microphone,
Speaker 1: this was the greatest thing ever. Do you want to
Speaker 1: tell my listeners where they can hear and learn more
Speaker 1: from you?
Speaker 2: Please? Thank you so much for having me. I am
Speaker 2: Cozy's Odyssey on Instagram and Twitter and TikTok, and I
Speaker 2: have got this YouTube series that you can find yes
Speaker 2: over on our proper air productions. I've actually got a
Speaker 2: few more projects coming up this year, so keep your
Speaker 2: eyes peeled. I might wrote live into one. Yes, that's
Speaker 2: a threat.
Speaker 1: Please, I'm down.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so I'm on literally every platform. And thank
Speaker 2: you again for having me. This has been sort of
Speaker 2: as unhinged and joyful as I thought it would be,
Speaker 2: and somehow even more so.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you agree entirely. I both saw this coming and
Speaker 1: did not an exceeded expectations. But I will link to
Speaker 1: everything in the episode's descriptions that they can follow you
Speaker 1: and I'll just say that, yeah, like as causey's odysty.
Speaker 1: You followed me and messaged me like probably six years
Speaker 1: ago and we were both little babies, and it's just
Speaker 1: such a joy. It's so fun. And I mean we
Speaker 1: didn't even like talk that much in the in between,
Speaker 1: but just to let the listeners know, we met in
Speaker 1: person in Athens a couple months ago and it was
Speaker 1: just truly like we were just immediately old friends, which
Speaker 1: was very closely so comforting.
Speaker 2: I was like, yes, internet friend, real friends.
Speaker 1: For real, but it made this episode of far more
Speaker 1: joyful than it could have been. So so oh well, nerds,
Speaker 1: that was a joy, just truly, Oh my god, we
Speaker 1: had so much fun. So you can find more from
Speaker 1: Cossi on in the episode's description. I have linked to
Speaker 1: everything and check out Propoa Productions. They are doing some
Speaker 1: really cool stuff when it comes to video. And also
Speaker 1: the Erica that we mentioned is of course Erica Stevenson
Speaker 1: from moan Ink, who is putting out some really awesome
Speaker 1: content on YouTube, hence the joke about her not being
Speaker 1: afraid of video, and she's also involved with Propyle Productions.
Speaker 1: So check out everything that Cossi has done because it's
Speaker 1: wonderful and also like, I think you probably want to
Speaker 1: follow somebody who talks about boob cups like academically. You know,
Speaker 1: thank you all so much for listening. Let's not go.
Speaker 1: MIT's Baby is written and produced by me Live Albert
Speaker 1: Michayla Smith is the hermes to my Olympians is that
Speaker 1: what I say my brain has stopped working. Mickael's assistant producer,
Speaker 1: Laura Smith is the audio engineer and production assistant. The
Speaker 1: podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen on
Speaker 1: Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: just you know, a big thank you. On Tuesday, we
Speaker 1: should be starting the Bronze Age Collapse series, provided I
Speaker 1: can write enough of this Medusa book in time. If not,
Speaker 1: it'll just be the week later. I guess you'll just
Speaker 1: have to wait and see. I am live and I
Speaker 1: love this shit, even if it means that I've I
Speaker 1: don't know how I write so much. It's a thing.
Speaker 1: It's fun, but it is exhausting.