Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I don't like engaging in generational whining but...what's with the trend of reverse-oedipal complexes in media these days? Mrs. FiveHour wanted me to watch The Hawk with her because she liked the first episode she watched. And it's fine for the most part, an inoffensive zany comedy with a solid cast of "Oh look it's Dr. Spaceman from 30 Rock?" in every role. But I'm confounded by the plot: at the opening of the pilot Ferrell is a kind of cross between Tin Cup and Jon Daly, a washed up drunken slob former pga star trying to find his way back to the tour, while his son is a tour pro on the rise. Within five or six episodes, dad has fought his way back to the tour (with a direct Tin Cup homage along the way), and son is frustrated that his dad is better than him and can't handle the competition.
And look I get it, Ferrell is the star people like and tune in for. But how did we get to the point where being just literally irrevocably better than your son was something we celebrated in media? Sure, you have some of the later John Wayne movies where the old timers were still tough, but taking McClintock as our example piece, it is implied and directly written into the script that he expects his heirs (his daughter and the college boy turned ranch-hand he wants her to marry) to grow into their greatness. It's a genuinely weird plot orientation, I have trouble thinking of past examples. Are there a lot of classic "Father is just literally better than his idiot Son at the same task they are both trying" plots that I am not thinking of?
The Odyssey sort of. It's obviously not the main plot point. But father seems way better than son at kicking suitor but.
Ages are funny among the Homeric Greeks, it's implied that Telemachus is not yet at full manhood though the timeline suggests he has to be about 21, while Odysseus is implied to be in his prime though he must be somewhere in his mid-forties to early 50s at least.
To some extent I suspect that the rise of firearms and peasant armies has permanently altered the perception of ages to modern men. Heroic-era warfare required a combination of physical strength, experience, and skill that peaks in the 30s; not at 18, which is the peak of the combination of endurance, stupidity, and raw courage that is ideal for firearms. Ancients thought of 20 year olds as barely fit for military service, in much the same way that only rare 20 year olds are physically mature enough for combat sports or the NFL, and thought that 35-40 year olds were still plenty fit to fight. While today we place 20 year olds as the ideal military recruits, and 35 is just barely legal to enlist.
The Odyssey does play into this trope somewhat, I agree, but it's pretty heavily implied throughout the Telemachy in the first four books that Telemachus is coming into his own, and will someday be a hero equal to his father. This is addressed in ancient days in the lost Telegony, in which Odysseus is killed by his bastard child of Circe, who then marries Telemachus. ((As a personal aside, reading Madeleine Miller's Circe there were a bunch of details, like Circe marrying Telemachus, that I thought had to be modern flights of fancy but were actually part of the mythological corpus))
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link