orichalcum

But I thought I'd throw out for general discussion one of the main questions and themes I had for the first few weeks of the course.

Where does the recent cinematic and literary resurgence of the sacrificial hero, especially in "beefcake" historical epics like Braveheart, Titanic, Gladiator, 300, etc... arise from? These figures, almost entirely male in recent incarnations, fight bravely but eventually die in order to save their country/people and often rejoin their brutally murdered or violated family. As a result of their deaths, "freedom" is restored or preserved.

Is it:

a. an attempt to capitalize on the Christian men's movement, presenting a tougher warrior-Jesus figure? Is this the reason why the big strong men, after initially failing to preserve a status quo, get to reaffirm traditional male hero roles?

b. a look back to the great films of the 1950s like Spartacus and Ben Hur, perhaps due to some nostalgia for the good/evil dichotomies of that decade? (Of course, Spartacus is really Good-Communist/Bad-Capitalist, but lots of folks miss that.)

c. a shallow attempt to create action films that also appeal to women, who are thought to like more angst and tragedy?

d. invoking important themes of Western culture and mythology, going back to the Greeks and Romans (Achilles, Iphigenia, etc...)

e. none of the above - answer in comments.

f. all of the above?

EDIT:
g. all about Mel Gibson

N.B. Inevitably, there are a lot of spoilers in the comment thread now (which is a great thread; thanks!) If you don't want to know whether or not a protagonist dies in a film or tv show, this may not be a good thread for you to read. I cited the movies above partially out of carelessness and partially out of the thought that they were films whose endings were known to a very large audience. (I hate to tell folks this, but not all 300 Spartans make it out.. Also, the ship sinks.)

So, as some of you might remember, two years ago I was T.A.ing for a substitute Roman history professor and complained endlessly about how he never stayed on the syllabus and we were running weeks behind schedule. It seemed to me like a violation of the syllabus-contract with the students and it clearly confused and upset the students.

So now, here I am, teaching Roman Civ for the first time, three weeks into the course, and I'm a solid half-lecture behind, have been for three lectures, and I can't catch up. Tomorrow, theoretically, I'm supposed to lecture, in 80 minutes, on the 4 Macedonian Wars, the Roman conquest/annexation of the entire Greek east and Spain, the importance of a triumph and of military victories for Roman politicians, the domestic struggles between the optimates and the populares down to 70 BC, including the Gracchan insurgencies and the popular movements of Saturninus, Livius Drusus, and others, the Social Wars, the early wars of Pompeius Magnus, the civil wars between Marius and Sulla, the Spartacus slave revolt, and the importance of legal cases in the late Republic.

I feel like I'm on a treadmill and grabbing desperately for the handlebar. And the approach I have been taking, which is to go over many things quickly, clearly confuses the students. But you can't just drop out the late Republic.

Well, I have learned how to play the 120 students in Roman Civ like a musical instrument. When I want them to laugh, I say the words "sacred chickens."* When I want them to groan, I put up a slide with another list of important vocabulary terms they need to know like "Zama" and "haruspices." (Points for anyone who knows the significance of those two without looking them up, who isn't a classicist already.)

Meanwhile, I've been teaching Genesis and Sappho and the Odyssey in the History of Gender and Sexuality course. It's a quiet group, but it's got some very smart kids in it; one of the first questions was, "so how do Achilles and Patroklos fit into the traditional Greek lover-beloved male same-sex relationship model?" That's a question people have literally been puzzling over for 2500 years

I think the most "teachable moment" in Genesis came this point when I noted that, when the first woman is created from Adam's side, she doesn't have a name, just a pronoun, "she." She doesn't receive a name until directly after the expulsion and curse, when God tells her "and your husband shall rule over you." The first thing that happens post-curse is that Adam names her Eve, "the mother of all living" and then "knows" her. Naming is the first act of rulership, of establishing authority; Adam has previously named all the animals and established dominion over them, after realizing they were unsuitable as equal partners. He names her, and then he has sex with her. But Eve, interestingly, leaves Adam out of the equation in her first post-expulsion comment. "She conceived, and bore Cain, and said, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." Chlldbearing, for Eve, is the result of interaction between her and God, not her and Adam.

*Sacred chickens: According to legend, during the First Punic War in 249, the commander, Publius Claudius Pulcher, was carrying out the standard pre-battle practice of consulting the sacred chickens to determine the omens for the battle. This involved laying out grain on a grid and seeing where the chickens went to eat. In this case, the chickens refused to eat any grain at all, a terrible omen. Claudius Pulcher was infuriated by this and tossed the chickens over the cliff into the sea, saying, "if they won't eat, let them drink." He then engaged the Carthaginians and suffered a disastrous defeat, was tried for incompetence, and ultimately committed suicide, thus demonstrating the wisdom of following the advice of sacred chickens.

So, it seems clear to me that the Democrats are embarking on a clear Mother Strategy in terms of their representation and refiguring of their female political leaders. Hillary Clinton has begun using the phrase "as a mother" in her stump speech, Nancy Pelosi pointedly assumed the Speakership surrounded by her horde of grandkids, and Barbara Boxer today got into a spat with Condi Rice when Boxer said, in reference to the war in Iraq, "“You’re not going to pay any particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family.”

I think this is an interesting and potentially extremely effective ploy, for two reasons.

1. Mothers can be authority figures, even to fairly conservative men. Mothers are competent; they are "managers;" they don't get the anti-feminist rap of being unfeminine. Mothers can kick ass and take names and still have respect as women.

2. As A. pointed out to me, there's a long tradition of associating mothers with anti-war movements, going back to WWI. It's politically and socially acceptable for a mother to be against the war - to not want her children to die - in a way where it isn't for a father, or a single man or woman. Cindy Sheehan is a great example here.

I predict lots and lots of Mom-Leader rhetoric in the next two years.

So, Tuesday evening, amidst my feverish wanderings, I was also pretty bummed out about my first day back teaching after six months. My frosh seemed sulky and uncommunicative, my Powerpoint presentation messed up in my film lecture, and I failed to really sell Quo Vadis? to the engineering kids. And then I got home to babysitting negotiations and 36 hours or so of physical misery. And somewhere around there, I wondered, could I do this professor-and-mom thing? Was I capable of having a career and a young child at the same time?

But today, I managed to engage 13 out of 16 frosh in a sophisticated, constant lively discussion about the first three books of Plato's Republic, the nature of justice, absolute versus relative morality, and whether heroes and gods should have faults. I had to cut off the conversation due to lack of time. People were politely but passionately arguing with each other. And then I ran over to lecture on Spartacus and managed to wrangle discussion questions out of them too, and got them to think about the political nature of the film, and Communism, and so forth. Right. This is why I do this. I'm _good_ at this. And I made a bunch of 18-year-olds think about the nature of absolute morality today, and 65 other people think about the relationship between slavery and capitalism.

I may be new to the whole motherhood thing. Our babysitter may be better at feeding Mac carrots than I am, and even at making him giggle. But everyone's got to start somewhere on that front, and you know what? I'm a darn good teacher, and I can work this out. I got home and worked out an arrangement whereby our babysitter will also regularly clean our house. Cuz she's probably a lot better at that than I am. And frankly, the world's better off with me paying her to do that and me spending my time and energy writing, teaching, and spending quality time with my family.

Plus, I feel more like 80% of myself, despite bizarre stomach pains.