Note: I am hoping to add an occasional newsletter around the topic of teaching Greek Mythology appropriate for world language, social studies, and ELA teachers. Teachers, let me know if this newsletter is helpful in this area and/or what you’d like to hear on this topic.
After listening to the first episode of the “Classically Trained” podcast (nice work, Allison and Julia!), I finally got up the gumption to watch some of the first episode of Troy: Fall of a City, which the podcast reviews.
I’ll confess: modern film interpretations of Greek Mythology tend to turn my stomach. It’s very much like having one’s favorite book turned into a movie. Disappointment almost always rules the day.
But I was intrigued because of the podcast, and specifically the Judgment of Paris section of it.
So I watched a bit of that episode.
My stomach turned. As the podcast hosts said, “It was so bad.”
But I do think that the way the Judgment is scripted and acted can be instructive.
Before all else, it’s important to say this episode isn’t a version a teacher can show in a K-12 classroom. It’s almost gleefully R-rated.
Next, a quick review of what the Judgment of Paris is.
Paris is a prince of Troy who was fated to be the cause of his city’s destruction. His mother, queen Hecuba, got wind of his future through a dream and the king, Priam, and she decided to leave him on a mountainside as a baby in a bid to cheat that fate.
But, as often happens in Greek Mythology, someone found Paris and saved him and raised him as a cattle herder.
Just as Paris is becoming an adult, he is approached by Hermes, the messenger of Zeus, who gives him the task of judging between three goddesses. This is a whole other back story that you can read about here.
Anyway, Paris is asked to award a golden apple “to the fairest,” which in Greek is kallistei. More on that a little later.
Is it a beauty contest? For a lot of reasons, I don’t think so.
First of all, there is no reason for Paris to be considered a good judge of beauty. He’s been raised in a dusty, dirty profession that the show’s set decoration depicts in all its scruffiness.
Everyone looks like they need a shower badly.
Second, why these three goddesses? All goddesses are beautiful. If you think about things logically (never a good idea with Greek Mythology), Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, just has to win by default. There isn’t a criterion for judging this type of thing.
On the podcast, the hosts said Paris had been chosen because he was considered “kind of a good dude.” But there must be a lot of good dudes in the world, right?
In the Netflix show, Paris does manage to ask “why me?” as he is surrounded by strange beings after being lured into a thicket of woods by a stray calf.
Hermes says, “It’s just a game.”
Stomach. Turns. It’s not just a game. Or if it is, the stakes are very high.
Anyway, in the original story, each goddess approaches Paris individually and offers him a bribe for choosing her. Hera, goddess of royalty, offers him kingship. Athena, goddess of battle strategy, promises to make him a battle leader. Aphrodite, for her part, offers the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife.
In the Netflix show, Hera says he will make Paris “the most powerful man alive” and Athena says he will make him “the most admired man on earth.” Only Aphrodite sticks to the original “beautiful wife” script.
(Here it is to be noted that for some reason the show cast a tall, slender, stunningly beautiful red-headed woman to be Aphrodite, whereas Hera and Athena are smeared with black lipstick, clad in animal skins, and spend most of the scene scowling. For me at least, these two seemed much less appealing than Aphrodite’s Tolkien-esque medieval fantasy British Isles white lady princess. Maybe this says more about me than about the show.)
But in fact Paris is not judging who is the fairest goddess. He is choosing the most attractive life. Kallistei in Greek doesn’t just refer to physical beauty. It’s also about what is the right thing, the good thing, maybe even the noble thing.
It’s crucial that in the Netflix show Hera and Aphrodite change their gifts from life paths to qualities of individual fulfillment. This makes their gifts into basically the same thing as Aphrodite’s: self-indulgent, narcissistic fantasies. That evens out the choices into something where Aphrodite’s seductiveness wins the day, and the scene blurs into a very modern, conventional moment of a privileged white man doing whatever gives him the most pleasure.
The original Greek story, on the other hand, offers a clear choice between a life of responsibility centered on others and a life of individual pleasure and status.
The fact that Paris is a prince and has freedom of choice enhances and foregrounds the choice, but it is a basic thing that all young Greek men faced, even if only notionally.
And ancient Greeks clearly, consistently valued centering one’s life on others, especially family and city, over individual gratification.
Paris choosing Aphrodite when he is fated to destroy his city is like a big, screaming siren (or claxon, if you don’t want to use a Greek-myths-derived word) that is warning princes (and Greeks in general) to stay in their prescribed lane.
Be a king or a battle leader first. Consider your own pleasure later. As my students say, “If you are a king, you can choose anyone you want for your wife.”
From my perspective, it is a good principle to look at Greek myths from the point of view of respect for family, city, and divinities. Lots of Greek stories, in my experience, involve protagonists who are actually not interested in being outstanding heroes, but in their heart of hearts simply want to return to the family.
Another topic for another day.
If you are interested in a lesson for middle schoolers around this topic, let me know. I would be happy to share it.