Ancient Greek Warriors in Modern Reception
Module 2 focuses on modern receptions of Ancient Greek warriors and wars, especially the Trojan War (end of the Greek Bronze Age; this war may or may not actually have taken place) and Persian Wars (early 5th Century BCE). Because ancient warfare was carried out, for the most part, by men only and in grinding hand-to-hand battle, modern popular pre-digital and digital receptions have tended to pick up on and glorify the (hyper-)masculinity involved in ancient battle. Some ancient versions of the Trojan War, however, feature the famous Amazons, the female warriors (most likely historically from ancient Scythia) whose leader, Penthesilea, was slain (in Greek literary and material culture accounts) by Achilles not long before the war ended. The Amazons and their modern equivalent, Wonder Woman, therefore feature towards the end of this Module, even though they are not strictly “Greek.”
Module 2, then, focuses primarily on (hyper-)masculinity, and features some of the ideological baggage that tends to accompany that phenomenon, especially in regard to gender expectations. But since warfare tends to characterize the enemy as “other” and barbarous, alongside masculinity runs a focus on what Edward Said has called Orientalism.
Our primary source for the Trojan War, apart from archaeology, is Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and other epic works – such as the extant fragments of the Epic Cycle, Virgil’s Aeneid, and so on – that feed off those two central works. It is essential, therefore, to understand the nature of the medium in which Homer composed those works, that is, Spoken Word, which is explored in 2.1. Then in 2.2 other evidence for the Trojan War is examined in order to offer a reasonably “accurate” picture of the state of our knowledge about the historicity and/or mythical status of the war. Notable also is what many have referred to as Homer’s “cinematic” use of language, a vividness of expression that has facilitated the large number of receptions of the Trojan War in visual media, especially film and TV.
Module 2.2
Module 2.3 then examines two recent receptions of the Trojan War: the 2004 movie, Troy, by David Benioff (writer) and Wolfgang Petersen (director), and the British-American TV miniseries, Troy: Fall of a City, the brainchild of Executive Producer Derek Wax. Analyses of the two receptions raise a number of significant themes with wider significance for modern and digital receptions of the Classical World. Both receptions were significantly enhanced by digital (CGI) technology while retaining a strong basis in physically enacted scenes in front of the camera. Moreover, both receptions feature hypermasculinity although in differently nuanced ways.
The 2004 movie was hugely popular but also strongly criticized, while the TV series was praised by critics but fared less well in terms of audience ratings. The 2004 movie has been critiqued as a typical product of commercial cinema with Brad Pitt (as Achilles) too often in the centre of the camera frame. The principal men in the movie, handsome and heroic, are very much in the tradition of earlier “blockbuster” movies in the pre-digital era, even if they are drawn after the revisions of the “new” peplum Gladiator (2000), a film (featuring significant CGI) that revived the blockbuster movie based in the ancient world. Many aspects of Homer’s account were changed, but what is more important is the rationale for those changes and whether or not the film was a quality product. On this score, many have rated the movie low on the scale. The TV Series deliberately aimed to distance itself from the movie thematically and stylistically and generated controversy for casting black actors as Zeus, Achilles, Patroclus, and others … as if ancient heroes and gods could only be portrayed as white. The controversy highlights how receptions of the Classical World are always shaped, consciously or otherwise, by ideological norms and biases.
The other major war involving the Greeks – in popular culture receptions, at least – was the war against the Persians in 490 and 480-79 BCE. Especially popular in receptions has been the role of the Spartans in the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE. Module 2.4 examines some of what is known about the Spartans and their unique social setup, and module 2.5 outlines the battles fought in the war between the Greeks and the Persians. Modern pre-digital and digital receptions have tended to highlight the hypermasculinity of the Spartan warriors, especially Frank Miller’s 300 comic (1998) and Zac Snyder’s 300 movie (2007), examined in module 2.6. The movie was modelled closely on the comic in terms of aesthetics and plot, and both featured bucket-loads of blood splashed all over the viewing frame. The comic and the movie also feature an Orientalist depiction of the Persian men as unmanly, ruled by their women, and generally barbarous when compared to the freedom-fighting and near-naked Spartans.
Module 2.4
Module 2.5
Module 2.6
Module 2.7 then turns to warrior women in the ancient world, first offering for consideration as models a number of Greek goddesses, then moving to the Amazons (now thought to have existed historically in and around ancient Scythia) and a few other female warrior models. After a general consideration of the reception of warrior women in modern popular culture, this last section of Module 2 examines depictions of the warrior woman as Cleopatra, Xena Warrior Princess, and finally the “Wonder Woman Phenomenon,” and in particular the recent Women Woman movies starring Gal Gadot. A question that is examined in these receptions is the extent to which they have been shaped and contained within the normative parameters of the cinematic male gaze.
Recommended Readings
- Tigges, Wim. “A Woman Like You? Emma Peel, Xena: Warrior Princess, and the Empowerment of Female Heroes of the Silver Screen.” The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 50, No. 1, 2017, pp.127-46.
- Beigel, Thorsten. “With Your Shield or On It: The Gender of Heroism in Zack Snyder’s 300 and Rudoph Mat’s The 300 Spartans”. In Renger, Almut-Barbara and Jon Solomon, eds. Ancient Worlds in Film and Television: Gender and Politics. Brill, 2003, pp. 65-78.
- Proch, Celina and Michael Kleu. “Models of Masculinities in Troy: Achilles, Hector and Their Female Partners.” In Renger, Almut-Barbara and Jon Solomon, eds. Ancient Worlds in Film and Television: Gender and Politics. Brill, 2003, pp.175-93.
- Berlatsky, Noah. “Introduction.” In Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948. Rutgers University Press, 2015, pp.3-12.