31 thoughts on “Troy: Fall of a City Brings the Patriarchy – With a Dash of Feminism

  1. Goddesses look quite young, surely Athena could be a bit older. Ageism is still an ism.

    1. Even with mythological beings where the mythology explicitly says they’re eternally youthful?

    2. ??? she’s a goddess. a virgin, maiden goddess it must be said, generally implied to be quite young, but of course, she can, and does, appear however she chooses

  2. Those elaborate beaded headdresses combined with loose hair makes me wonder how bad the tangles got when it cam time to remove them.

  3. Once, just ONCE, I would like to see movies/TV shows that are set in the Mycenaean Age dressed properly! Where are the flounced skirts and tight, breast-exposing bodices on upper-class women? The tailored kilts on the upper-class men? And…what’s with all the cowrie shells? Are they a DEW system so everyone knows you’re in the vicinity?

    Once. Just ONCE, could everything ever set in Greece NOT be costumed out of the “Classical, by way of Fortuny” period?

    1. You should check out the Age of Bronze comic! That adaptation actually depicted the Greeks in Mycenaean clothing very accurately.

      1. I adore Age of Bronze! I own the set of collected issues and am in awe of the research and artistry involved. The WHOLE back-sideways-upside down story(ies) too. I think I’ll go re-read them now; thanks for reminding me!

    2. Oh, thank God someone said this before me. The costumes are rubbish, aren’t they? Especially that ruff thing.

      I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Age of Bronze. Hottest. Agamemnon. Ever.

    3. Oh my god yes!!! not to mention a cinched was in during those times!! like i hate when they put the wrong kind of dresses on people in areas where types of that outfit wasn’t even out or introduced yet!! that’s like dressing the mayans in Khepresh crown just cause there’s a snake on it.

  4. I watched this, mostly because I wasn’t interested in the Brad Pitt version and I had time to kill. While I was indifferent to the overall historic accuracy mostly due to low expectations, it was fairly obviously not trying for that as much as it was trying to capture the spirit of the period that Homer drew, and the drives and motivation of the characters. Along those lines, it suffered from a bit of lack of background– there’s not much setup for the Greek characters apart from Odysseus. We never learn for example that Agamemnon’s family has a historic curse upon their name, which explains why Agamemnon keeps getting screwed by the gods.

    We do miss out on some of the more epic stuff from the Iliad, such as Diomedes fighting the gods themselves on the battlefield. But as far as the gods went, I thought they were integrated to a reasonable degree– capable of influencing the mortals, but ultimately fate falls as it is destined to, aimed by the hubris and flaws of the mortals.

    There’s a certain degree of demythologizing going on as well. Achilles’ proverbial heel, for example, is never really brought up though he references his mother dipping him into the Styx. He appears to believe his mother is a goddess, but it’s never confirmed one way or another. A subplot about a Greek spy in Troy gives the Greeks something of an unfair advantage that they didn’t enjoy in the original, but then they weren’t trying to depict a 10-year siege!

    Overall, I enjoyed it more than I was expecting to. The production quality was pretty excellent, the costumes were reasonable if not very accurate, and the writing and acting were decent. Quite good for a TV miniseries about a mythological event in the end.

  5. As I just saw this scene last night, AFTER writing this post, I am popping back in to say: THREESOME. Two guys and a girl! The guys get equal kissing time with each other as with the girl!

    1. Please tell me it’s Achilles and Patroclus, because I love it when they’re a couple.

  6. I’m not all hook by the show. Personally I knew this show gonna be bad to my taste even before the trailer was out cause movies or shows based on mythology never tend to be good. Remember Gods of Egypt?

    The clothing look good in some parts (like the second photo where the women were wearing proper peplos, especially the girl on the right). But other than that, the loose hair and the random headdresses look so disjointed and random, and the exposed cleavages are obviously not accurate. It makes it clear that the producers were using generalized idea of Ancient Greek clothing.

    I know this is based on a mythology poem…but c’mon i want to see some accurate Ancient Greek clothing just for once! sobbing into the corner Can you think of any films or shows that sets in Ancient Greece does that?

    Oh, and just for interesting info i like to point out and share. Even though i liked that the show is more focusing on the female characters, the women were already interesting and pretty feminist in the The Iliad that the show is based on. In the Illiad, Helen regretted eloping with Paris and actually told Aphrodite to fuck off when Aphrodite insisted Helen should have sex with Paris again. The goddesses, particularly Athena and Hera, take up like 50% of the gods’ role in the war. And Euripides wrote the The Trojan Women where he fleshed out the female characters to be three-dimensional. Sorry i’m rambling, but it’s nice to see some female characters written very rounded, especially coming from Ancient Greeks.

  7. I was disappointed that the portrayal of Achilles was so much removed from the original version (in the Iliad). I’m not talking about the character’s skin color; it was his being so cold and (most of the time) controlled. Achilles in the Iliad was a spoiled brat who went crying to his mother to complain when Agamemnon took Briseis from him. And they messed up one of the most emotional scenes in all of classic (or any literature) when Priam came to ask Achilles to return Hector’s body (a scene, by the way, that was wonderfully done in the movie “Troy”, because Peter O’Toole owned it and Brad Pitt managed not to be annoying) – Priam’s plea that Achilles remember his own elderly father waiting for him is totally left out, which eliminates the emotional bond briefly forged between Priam and Achilles. In this production, Achilles seems to have contempt for his mother and never mentions his father…

  8. The dress on the black woman to the left in the second photo looks pre-raphaelite, like straight out of a Rosetti painting. I like the dress a lot, but it doesn’t make me think ancient Greece! However, it’s one of the periods I’m less knowledgeable about, compared to the Victorian era, so I’ll also become less annoyed by historically inaccurateness on screen. I feel for those who’s into this period’s dress, with all of the fantasy garments on screen!

  9. I have been putting off watching this, and the pictures here dont make me want to watch it either…. Yes, I get that its important to make a visual distinction between the clothing of two people, located so far apart from each other snd Mycenean dress might be a bit too saucy for a show that’ll be aired all over the world…. But why did they have to portray Greeks wearing so much white, when its the first thing you learn is a myth when researching ancient Greek dress (that kinda goes for Egyptian dress too btw)?! I do like some of the headdresses, although the designs look a bit chaotic. The goddesses look like (at least on these pictures) like the ran away from the set of Xena. All in all, I think they could’ve done better…

  10. There is no reason for the Great Hair Pin shortage to effect the set. There is a wonderful youtube web series of instructional videos by Jean Stephens on ancient greek and Roman hairstyles. They show that most of the styles were sewn in place.
    Also not really feeling the Burning Man/Pennsic Bog dress/Tuchux costuming on the females.

    1. I love Jean Stephens. Her videos are awesome!
      I think she does more Rome than Greece, but she probably could help them with Greece if asked (and paid, I would hope). Greek styles look simpler than the elaborate Roman constructions.
      Also, there is plenty of iconography available from ancient Greece, so there really is no reason for the costumes to look like… well, like they do. Although I kind of like the headdresses. As fantasy costume, not in any way resembling ancient Greece.

  11. I’ve only watched a couple of episodes, but I’m wondering if the seemingly random body art on Aphrodite could be a tribute to her origin myth, wherein she was born from the seafoam created by Kronos’ genitalia (if memory serves) where it was tossed into the sea after his defeat?

    1. Nah you thinking Poseidon when his gentalia was thrown to a lesser ocean goddess for sex. Not sure why, but gods will be gods I suppose, which would explain the blue markings on her and how it really does look more like swimmer wear(?).

  12. Funny enough, the fact that the Spartan women are wearing all or mostly white is accurate. Aside from certain shades of blue and brown, Spartan clothing was mainly white due to their more simplicity lifestyle.
    Casual everyday clothing would often be single colored or designed accordingly to status on outer garments then decorated with either sea glass, stones, or more commonly sea shells while reserving the more colorful clothing for ceremonies and grand events)

  13. What’s with all the cowrie shells? In Ancient Egypt cowrie shells were symbolic of female genitalia which throws an interesting light on covering Helen with them.

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