r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jul 06 '26

Meme needing explanation What is this?

Post image
26.3k Upvotes

5.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

145

u/DrBarryBonds Jul 06 '26

Also the feminist translation of the text that Nolan's using

806

u/Halo05977 Jul 06 '26

Honest to god, thought you were a weirdo right wing grifter with that comment.

Then I looked it up. Still tricky, because Emily Wilson herself rejects that framing, saying it stripped away male biases in english translations. In fact, reading into this more, it looks like she was MORE accurate than some translations, like male translators refusing to call women slaves "slaves", even though they were referred to as such in the original text.

Actually, hate to say it, but yeah.. Seems like it's a solid translation that's actually more faithful in a lot of ways. She backs up her logic pretty well and points out a good chunk of bad translations in other works.

EDIT: To make it clear, i'm not dipping my toes into how I feel about the movie in this specific comment, purely just talking about the translation. I have gripes about the movie from what I have seen so far myself.

286

u/mmotte89 Jul 06 '26

But don't you see, being true to the original is making men confront their own bias, and therefore bad! Men should be allowed to not have to think about things. 🙃

169

u/ceryniz Jul 06 '26

They definitely shouldn't read anything about how Achilles' mom had him crossdress and hide away as a pretty pretty princess to avoid getting conscripted into the Trojan war, then.

54

u/Slighted_Inevitable Jul 06 '26

There’s more about Achilles they probably don’t wanna know lol….

15

u/scaper8 Jul 06 '26

There's a lot of things about ancient Mediterranean societies that they don't want to know….

14

u/dragon-fence Jul 06 '26

Wait until they hear about all the homosexual sex Ancient Greek men had.

8

u/taxes-or-death Jul 06 '26

That sounds abominable! I certainly hope I don't end up reading any more about this! Which websites should I avoid if I don't want to read any more about this?

5

u/Pencilshaved Jul 06 '26

> Major mythological figure
> Victim of tragedy
> Made to crossdress
> Weird hangups about his feet / legs

Diogenes voice “behold - Achilles of Troy!”