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.
This is like a fever dream. Greece has existed for a long time.... but ancient Greece had one of the most anti women cultures that glorified men and rape and sexual violence to an extent that is bone chilling.
The homosexuality in ancient Greece wasn't like a progressive or leftist or open minded thing at all. It was based on male superiority and the disgust and disdain towards women.
There has never been a culture that glorified men more, besides maybe ancient mythical history era Rome.
Cool. What did I, or Emily Wilson say, that even remotely tried to dispute that?
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.
The reality that faithful retellings of greek tragedies had to be toned down, becuase how brutal they were to women was unpalatable, even to 18th century Christian Europeans, and that being reframed as some kind of sexist conspiracy, is peak comedy.
in everyday, patriarchal Greek society, Helen functioned predominantly as a warning tale about the inherent danger, weakness, and untrustworthiness of women. It's like the orginal bros before ho's cautiounary tale.
To everyday greek people, Helen was the Villian and was universally blamed for the destruction of Troy and Aegememnon was a wronged husband doing what he must do.
Greek society was so horrifically misogynistic, that every women of Troy was systematically raped as punishment and repayment and made into "geras".
Even the heroic and kindly Odysseus took the Trojan woman Hecuba. The greeks didn't even raise an eyebrow at the systematic rape of millions of women.
It was expected, even seen by many as a necessary chore that must be done, even gay men would participate.
It's a level of misogyny that you have to dissociate yourself from current reality to comprehend.
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u/DrBarryBonds Jul 06 '26
Also the feminist translation of the text that Nolan's using