Play One on TV

My 12-year old son informed me that he watched a movie adaptation of the Odyssey in his Literature class yesterday. He described it as “the movie version of the Odyssey but for real.” It took a second to decipher this as meaning “live action with real actors” as opposed to “animated.” This probably means he has finally graduated from filmstrips (or their 21st-century equivalent).

He admitted to being slightly ill over what he saw. I understood completely, as some of my earliest movie-related nightmares came from viewing the 1950’s-era Ulysses starring Kirk Douglas (hey, I was seven. Everything scared me. Lima beans scared me. Cut me some slack.)

I asked him which fateful scene was responsible for giving him the heebee-jeebees. Was it the evil Cyclops, Polyphemus, devouring Odysseus’ men until blinded by a burning spear? The bag of winds, blowing men hither and yon? The surprise attack of the cannibals? The escape from the monsters Scylla and Charybdis?

Nope. It was the fact that Odysseus’ men were turned into swine, and the only way he could turn them back was to sleep with the sorceress Circe. It was this tryst that he deemed “highly gross.”

Dismembered and devoured sailors? Uncontrolled gale-force winds? Raving cannibals? Multi-tentacled sea monsters? In my son’s world, none of these hold a tenth of the horror implied in a dalliance with a beautiful woman.

He’s further along than I thought - most guys learn this only after they start dating.