you remain nameless after all

Now I've found Hickey's striped socks too! Breton stripes - Hickey is dressed in the latest French fashion (fisherman's French fashion).

malgendering is a form of transphobia wherein a transphobic person uses their victim's correct gender to harass or demean them. it is meant to be the inverse of misgendering, where a transphobe uses the victim's incorrect gender to harass or demean them.

misgendering towards trans women can be as simple as "youre a man." but malgendering is more insidious, like someone saying "you really are a girl" when she makes a mistake in order to insult her intelligence. the phrase "you really are a girl" is positive when removed from the context of the trans woman making a mistake and the transphobe's sarcastic tone that implies shes stupid in an misogynistic way.

if a trans man does something like standing up for himself against an unfair situation or asks for better accommodations/treatment, and a transphobe wants to use that to imply he is selfish and entitled, they might say "trans men really are men" which again, is a true statement on its own. but in the context of the situation, its clear the transphobe is using the stereotypical worst qualities of men to insult and undermine someone's very identity.

malgendering can be any severity of harm, just like misgendering. my mom slipping up in the first months of my transition and accidentally calling me "she", and a bigot shouting "YOURE A WOMAN YOULL NEVER BE A MAN" at me are both examples of misgendering, but one is much worse than the other and its the same with malgendering. being told "trans men are the men of the trans community" as an insult is annoying and rude but not a big deal. however, right now ICE is torturing trans men in concentration camps by forcing them to do pointless and grueling labor. and when they become exhausted, theyre told "I thought you were a man. if youre really a man this should be easy for you" these are both examples of malgendering. one is a microaggression, the other is literal torture.

dude.

1. Every time we meet a woman or enslaved individual that, y’know, had some semblance of agency in the text, Nolan has just… removed that? Circe’s commanding presence & how she genuinely overpowers Odysseus? Gone. Helen actually stealing the show in Book 4 where she walks down into the room and controls the conversation re: Odysseus & Troy? Gone. Utterly Gone. Lupita Nyong’o gets 0 chance to speak on her own terms and its actually so depressing. Athena doesnt get to do ANYTHING it was actually shocking. Telemachus is instead accompanied by Real Mentor for fuck knows how long. Athena is the one who pushes him to leave in the first place??? But not in Nolan’s adaptation ifg 😭 Also I’m genuinely unsure here but it seemed like Circe & Calypso’s divine status was… nonexistent?? They’re both goddesses but apparently not to Christopher Nolan 🫤

And this treatment extends to Odysseus’ slaves, specifically Eumaeus & Eurycleia (eurynome & philoetius not appearing in this goddamn film ifg). Almost every action taken by Eurycleia in the Odyssey is attributed to someone else in Nolan’s adaptation, she gets 0.2 seconds of screentime, its actually absurd. I think she has two lines in the whole movie. Eurycleia. Odysseus and Telemachus’ nurse. The woman who canonically organizes the doors to be locked during the suitor’s slaughter? Who canonically helps secure Telemachus’ provisions for Pylos? fuckin. Not There. And Eumaeus (who literally perfectly models xenia to a disguised Odysseys while living in extreme poverty) notably Does Not Get To Do That in Nolan’s odyssey, instead he’s like. injured I guess? I’m so fuckin confused as to why that happened, it just made the plot more convoluted. Medon is also just not there at all. Medon who is actually the fuckin best?? My underestimated king??? Where Is He.

2. oh my god everything abt the scene with Polyphemus makes me want to claw my eyes out (except maybe his eye? that looked kinda cool idfk). yknow how polyphemus appears, speaks to the crew, and they let their guard down? how the polyphemus episode represents the world outside of greek customs like xenia? how he fucking talks to them? he talks to them and his neighbors? yeah. in Nolan’s odyssey, there are no neighbors. there is no existential mirror/cyclopean foil to ithacan society. there are no other cyclopes. He doesnt even fucking talk 😭😭 <- i mean he gets one line but the audios so distorted that without captions i had no idea what he said

3. Anticleia reunion scene? Nonexistent. Laertes? Nonexistent. Allegedly still around. Sir Not-Appearing In-This-Film. Book 15 reunion between Telemachus and Odysseus? Nonexistent. Reunion between Odysseus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius? Not there. The fucking marriage bed scene? The goddamn marriage bed? NOT THERE. screams into a bag

4. ODYSSEUS “DIDNT WANT TO RETURN HOME” 😭 they keep fucking saying this over and over again too and. No he very much did. No home means no guaranteed kleos guys. his sons life is in jeopardy but Ok christopher shitlan do whatever the fuck you want, i guess

5. every time i heard them say “our civilization is collapsing” or “they say the peoples from the sea are attacking” or “our age of bronze is ending” not only did i feel my soul die a little more inside but i also kept thinking “man, this sounds a lot like the white supremacist belief in ‘western civilization’ just superimposed onto a falsified image of the late bronze age” and thats because It Is.

strange decisions:

1. boar scar apparently occurred when odysseus was an adult???

2. elliot page’s sinon gets one helluva backstory which i guess was kinda cool if you ignore elliot page getting brutally slaughtered in the first 30 seconds of the movie? not sure how to feel about that

3. travis scott kept showing up randomly which was like. fine i guess? genuinely im not sure what the difference between him & phemius was supposed to be. i didnt even see phemius. tbf i was taking notes this whole time so maybe i missed him? but travis scott shouldve just been phemius idfk why he wasnt

4. The Phaecians are just not there guys and i have no idea why. odysseus’ wanderings are being narrated to calypso?

5. the crew mutinies at scylla instead? odysseus tries to sail towards charybdis??? this was a bizarre sequence

6. no nestor or peisistratus. somehow telemachus sails to the 100% inland palace of menelaus. who needs a chariot when you’ve got a Boat i guess

7. half of my notes just say “what happened to show, don’t tell” because the amount of exposition made me want to slam my head into the wall

highlights:

1. anne hathaway and tom holland had a very good dynamic, i feel like they really captured some of the tension between penelope & telemachus, ie penelope running the house for 20 years and still assuming some of that authority vs. telemachus trying to grow up/assume control of the household/establish his own kleos. loved that dynamic tbh. one of the better parts of the telemachy sections

2. lupita nyong’o was great in the uh. 30 seconds she had on screen. im so serious helen was fucking robbed in this movie

3. himesh patel fucking carried every scene he was in on his Back

4. rare cicones appearance

best of david walmsley 30 marathons in 30 days