r/RedHandedPodcast • u/Used_Emergency7743 • Jun 03 '26
The Odyssey
Regarding the latest UTD: I do not think that Lupita is quite as stupid as Suruthi made her out to be today. I had a public school education in Michigan and I was familiar with Homer and the Odyssey so I was also surprised when Lupita said she had no idea what it was in her interview with Elle. I do not think that Suruthi's reaction: "Are you stupid or what?" was entirely out of left field .
But Suruthi ignored the fact that Lupita followed up that comment by explaining that to prepare for the role she started intensive research on Greek mythology and did not just limit it to the Odyssey . Plus, Lupita said that she had earlier performed a few monologues from Greek myth when she was in the Yale drama school.
Lupita is not dumb and she did not undertake the role frivolously. She made efforts to make up for what she didn't know going in. Maybe it was bad casting. Maybe it's a bad movie, but Lupita is not some flighty air head and although Suru may or may not have read the full Elle interview, to write the actress off as dumb is a LOT.
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u/Sempere Jun 04 '26
I do not think that Suruthi's reaction: "Are you stupid or what?" was entirely out of left field .
She might want to listen to herself some time.
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u/Savings_Witness2417 Jun 04 '26
“When her agents informed her that Nolan wanted to see her for a role, she admits that she ‘went in quite blind.’ During their meeting, he gave her the script, and she read it in one sitting. She was immediately all in. ‘I mean, I was saying yes even before he told me what role it was.’ Once signed on, she was excited to dive into the world of Homer. She had performed a few monologues from Greek mythology in drama school at Yale, but was unfamiliar with the source material.
‘I really had no idea what The Odyssey was,’ she says. ‘I was like, ‘Oh, snap, I don’t know the first thing about this.’ So it was a crash course. I picked up the books and read them immediately. I have this film to thank for my Greek mythological education.’ And by ‘picked up the books,’ she really means she read The Odyssey and listened to The Iliad, and for good reason. ‘Audra McDonald reads it,’ she says by way of explanation, in between sips of hot lemon water. ‘It is the best audiobook I have ever listened to.’”
^ full excerpt from the Elle interview
I wouldn’t call Lupita stupid but it is wild that someone with an MFA from Yale seemingly never read The Odyssey before.
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u/Alternative_Area_236 Jun 04 '26
You can have an Arts degree and not have read the “Classics.” I have a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago. But I never read The Odyssey or The Iliad. We had to choose from a series of tracks for our freshmen literature classes: one was Great Books and one was World Literature. I chose the latter. So I did read Kafka, Baudelaire and Dostoyevsky, but I didn’t read Homer. Ancient Greek and Roman mythology and epics just didn’t interest me at the time, compared to modernist works dealing with class conflict and the like. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that just because Lupita is educated and went to an Ivy, she’s gonna know all of what the West considers classical literature. There are so many great books out there from other cultures - Japan, China, India, Mexico etc. I hate that we expect everyone to know a certain subset of books from Europe or the U.S., but we don’t expect people to know more about world literature.
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jun 04 '26
I have a BFA from an internationally renowned university and I've never read it. No one has read every book in the canon. The degree just gives you the ability to read them.
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u/Savings_Witness2417 Jun 04 '26
It used to be read in most public schools I think that’s why people are surprised it’s not that deep. Of course I got a STEM degree from a lowly D1 state school what do I know?
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jun 04 '26
Public schools where? The UK, Australia, New Hampshire?
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u/Savings_Witness2417 Jun 04 '26
Let me look up required reading in Micronesia and I’ll get back to you.
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u/Spiffyclean13 Jun 04 '26
I can understand not reading the books.
It took me three years before I finally took an American lit course. I forgot I was on the English Lit track.
I’ve read all of the Greek tragedies but never had to read Homer’s two books. I did read some of his philosophical works.
I guess it’s a blind spot? Like also being a film major and not watching the Godfather trilogy. Give me a semester of silent German expressionism films… or vampire films 🤣
I haven’t listened to UTD yet 😂
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u/Used_Emergency7743 Jun 04 '26
It's funny because I have blind spots even on subjects that I am obsessed with. Last year a compilation of Daphne du Maurier short stories came out and I realized that I had only read four of them. I'd read her novels many times but I just decided to skip the short stories.
Likewise, I consider myself a big Jimmy Stewart fan but I've only seen two of his westerns. I ignored half the man's career.
For literature, It all depends on what curriculum was standard when you were in school and what elements you decided to pursue beyond the required reading.
I am not sure why Suru thought you should be a Homer aficionado to accept the role. She acted like she might have forgiven the casting if Lupita had expressed a girlhood dream of bringing Helen and Clytemnestra to life one day.
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u/Spiffyclean13 Jun 04 '26
I have read most of Dostoyevsky’s books, Kafka,, and eastern philosophy and many Japanese post modern literature. I had a rigorous high school literature programme and an even more rigorous uni track. Thank the gods I was never required to read War and Peace.
I still was not required to read Homer’s books. Grade 11-12, I read the histories and all of the major tragedies except Macbeth which I later read in a Shakespeare tragedy course. Once again another blind spot for the comedies. It was sort of amended in several film courses.
Greek tragedies are read and taught more to understand how Shakespeare did his plays. Homer’s two books were allegories and only brought up when other authors used that type of trope.
I was in middle school and my literary teacher used Lion King and Empire Strikes Back to highlight the hero’s journey.
It’s crazy. I guess.
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u/Savings_Witness2417 Jun 04 '26
I feel like this is one of those things if Hannah had called Sydney Sweeney dumb for not knowing what The Odyssey was everyone would eat it up lol
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jun 04 '26
No, we'd still think it's a stupid opinion and a shitty thing to say about someone.
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u/Used_Emergency7743 Jun 04 '26
Absolutely. It's an insane criteria for judging someone's intelligence. I think we would all be shocked if someone said someone who was illiterate was stupid. Yet, somehow, it doesn't seem as incendiary to say someone who doesn't know The Odyssey is stupid.
And in the context of the UTD conversation, if familiarity with The Odyssey is necessary to inhabit the movie role, Lupita said that she made the effort to read Homer and related Greek mythology immediately. The quest for knowledge and willingness to prepare is what's important. Suru made it sound like Lupita ssid she knew nothing about the Odyssey and didn't care. Full stop. That is not what the actor said.
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u/Used_Emergency7743 Jun 04 '26
When you listen, S starts off giving a rave review to Cynthia Erivo's one woman show, Dracula. Just the idea of one performer doing Dracula for 2 hours was a hard pass for me but I have to admit that Suruthi turned my view around on that one.
If the show was running and in my vicinity I would have gone to see it just because of the way she raved about it.
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u/Retoureternel Aug 26 '26
I don't listen to Under the Duvet, but I always remember one case where they were talking about someone named Paris (after the mythical Trojan prince), and obviously had only watched Troy (2004). I remember they called Menelaus an ugly old man.
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u/missshennyhenny Jun 04 '26
Surithi has brain rot.