Speaker 1: Hey, Hi, it's your old buddy Alley Ward, your old
Speaker 1: weird dad, wearing corduroy pants, coming to you from a
Speaker 1: hotel room in Portland, Oregon, overlooking a bus stop in
Speaker 1: a variety of dumpsters.
Speaker 2: But in this episode will all be transported to Rome
Speaker 2: and a small theater in Texas, and Mesopotamia and the
Speaker 2: underworld and the Amazon and Detroit. Because mythology, let's talk
Speaker 2: about myths. There are two things. There are sweeping epic
Speaker 2: tales that transcend time and culture, and then there's also
Speaker 2: weird schoolyard lies like tongue kissing will make you pregnant.
Speaker 2: For this episode, we're focusing on the sweeping epics. So
Speaker 2: where does myth come from? Well, in short, it's Greek.
Speaker 2: It means story or word, so narratives. Now, before we
Speaker 2: meet our ologist, I do want to tell you a
Speaker 2: story about this lady who makes a podcast and every
Speaker 2: week she would creep into a cave also known as
Speaker 2: her closet field laundry and read all of the magical
Speaker 2: reviews that beautiful elves with ears would leave her and
Speaker 2: it would make her so happy, and like a clarion call,
Speaker 2: it would make the podcast go up in the charts
Speaker 2: and alert everyone in the land to listen. So what
Speaker 2: I'm saying is I creepyr reviews. I read every single
Speaker 2: review you guys leave and it makes me so happy.
Speaker 2: Thank you so so much. And every week I like
Speaker 2: to read a review that just tickled me a little bit,
Speaker 2: just tickled me. This week's review, Lance Jegerson says, good pod. Hi,
Speaker 2: it's a very good pod. It starts off casual, it
Speaker 2: then says I literally changed my major to become a
Speaker 2: science teacher because of this podcast. It's amazing, like it's
Speaker 2: what get it.
Speaker 3: So thank you for the reviews. I read them all.
Speaker 2: Also, thank you to everyone throwing magical coins into my
Speaker 2: patreon dot com slash ologies well and supporting the podcast,
Speaker 2: and for buying merch atologiesmerch dot com. There's so many
Speaker 2: cool shirts and hats and pins and totes, so that
Speaker 2: goes to support the podcast. Okay, back to myths. So
Speaker 2: I hadn't started releasing any episodes of Ologies yet. This
Speaker 2: is last year. One day I went to the La
Speaker 2: Zoo to meet up with episode two's primatologist. If you
Speaker 2: listen to that episode, you know the story. It's a
Speaker 2: little embarrassing on my part, but it ends well. But
Speaker 2: while there I met a friend of a friend who
Speaker 2: is married to a mythologist. She's like, you're look a morologists.
Speaker 2: I got a mythologist and my reaction was like, holy shit, yes,
Speaker 2: mythology is an ology.
Speaker 3: I didn't even think about that one.
Speaker 2: So I had this guy in my list for almost
Speaker 2: a year before sitting down with him, and it turns
Speaker 2: out he's like a really big deal. He has a
Speaker 2: PhD in mythology and he's written books on narrative structure
Speaker 2: and has worked with like Morgan Freeman and Juliet Roberts
Speaker 2: and Matt Damon and Paul McCartney and Denzel Washington and
Speaker 2: a bunch of other people that I'm probably not even
Speaker 2: listing right now. Anyway, He's great. He's very passionate about
Speaker 2: myths and he works in the movie business to make
Speaker 2: them better. So we exchanged emails for like a million months,
Speaker 2: and then finally I went to his house. It was
Speaker 2: Super Bowl Sunday, and I was like, I'm so sorry
Speaker 2: that I scheduled this on Super Bowl Sunday and he's like,
Speaker 2: I don't give a shit, and I was like cool.
Speaker 2: And his house is filled with all of this crazy
Speaker 2: movie memorabilia and antique projectors and gramophones and wax cylinders,
Speaker 2: And I think I spent a good forty minutes before
Speaker 2: we even started recording just trying not to touch expensive
Speaker 2: antiques in his house. So he and his wife Katie
Speaker 2: are amazing. They welcomed me in. We went to his study,
Speaker 2: and then we sat down to talk about myths and
Speaker 2: Joseph Campbell and Star Wars and how while Disney ruined
Speaker 2: cautionary Tales for Little Girls and the Underworld and Elvira.
Speaker 2: So please get ready to fall in love with mythology
Speaker 2: and narrative structure all over again, while also learning some
Speaker 2: very valuable lessons about yourself and your own human psychology
Speaker 2: in the way that you tell your story to yourself.
Speaker 1: In the world.
Speaker 2: Who boy with mythologist John Booker.
Speaker 4: It's pronounced Booker, but it's spelled b u c ch
Speaker 4: e er. My ancestors did me no favor with that.
Speaker 4: It's been one of the banes of my existence. So yeah,
Speaker 4: it's John Booker, And I'm so sorry. I just I
Speaker 4: feel like I have to apologize for my name.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you did, because I was like, when is
Speaker 2: he going to apologize for how his name is pronounced,
Speaker 2: because this is really upsetting to me. My last name
Speaker 2: is pronounced. Now you are a.
Speaker 3: Mythologist, I am a mythologist. Does your business card say that?
Speaker 4: Actually?
Speaker 3: Does it does?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: At what point did you get to call yourself a mythologist?
Speaker 4: I went after my doctorate in mythology that at that
Speaker 4: point you get to call yourself a mythologist when you
Speaker 4: knock that PhD in mythology out. The pacifica graduate institute
Speaker 4: in Santa Barbara is one of the only places in
Speaker 4: the world that you can actually get a doctorate in mythology,
Speaker 4: and that is where the Joseph Campbell Libraries exist, which
Speaker 4: is one of the reasons I chose to go to
Speaker 4: that school because I really was interested in this guy
Speaker 4: named Joseph Campbell, who I had heard about from this
Speaker 4: guy you probably haven't heard of named George Lucas, up.
Speaker 2: And comer in the year nineteen seventy one. George Lucas
Speaker 2: was in a bunch of personal debt, which always makes
Speaker 2: me wonder, like I wonder what he was buying. I
Speaker 2: like to think he was spending the money on like
Speaker 2: yoga classes and too much Doctor Pepper. But anyway, that's
Speaker 2: probably what I would spend it on. But he started
Speaker 2: writing a movie about a Jedi warrior, which was okay,
Speaker 2: Universal Studios, right, it was like yeah, no, sorry, loser.
Speaker 2: So the story goes that Lucas revisited some of Joseph
Speaker 2: Campbell's works about mythology, He tweaked the script, sent another
Speaker 2: draft to twentieth Century Fox and they were like, yo,
Speaker 2: this is tight, and George Lucas is now worth five
Speaker 2: point three billion dollars thanks Joe Campbell.
Speaker 4: Few people went and saw the movie, and now we
Speaker 4: sort of looked to Joseph Campbell as being one of
Speaker 4: the spiritual fathers of Star Wars. But it also opened
Speaker 4: up a lot of people's imagination to the role of
Speaker 4: mythology in our current society, which I think is super interesting.
Speaker 2: Give me a little bit of a one oh one
Speaker 2: on Joseph Campbell, because I feel like I didn't know
Speaker 2: who Joseph Campbell was until I moved to Los Angeles
Speaker 2: and started dating screenwriters, and then there's a lot of
Speaker 2: the bookshelves are like mostly Joseph Campbell. But can you
Speaker 2: give me a little bit of a primer on what
Speaker 2: his deal was and why he suddenly was like, this
Speaker 2: is how you tell a story.
Speaker 4: Yes, Joseph Campbell was a academic guy, but someone who
Speaker 4: never got a doctorate, but someone whose curiosity became an
Speaker 4: utter passion about why different cultures around the world had
Speaker 4: told the same stories when they had never come in
Speaker 4: contact with each other. So I'll give you an example.
Speaker 4: Every culture in the world has a flood story about
Speaker 4: how the whole earth was flooded and things started over.
Speaker 4: Most of us in Western culture, of course, associate that
Speaker 4: with Noah and the Bible. But every culture has this
Speaker 4: flood story. And Joseph Campbell began to look at that
Speaker 4: and noticed, actually there were stories of floods that predated
Speaker 4: the Hebrew scriptures. And we see this in Amazonian culture,
Speaker 4: we see this in Greek culture, we see it in
Speaker 4: Roman culture, Asian culture, all over the world. For some reason,
Speaker 4: there was some need in human beings to have a
Speaker 4: story that people pointed to that was about the whole
Speaker 4: earth being flooded.
Speaker 3: Where does a where does the hit movie water World
Speaker 3: come in?
Speaker 4: That is a great question, because that is our modern
Speaker 4: retelling of the flood story. And I think we can
Speaker 4: see how far things have come now that we've got
Speaker 4: Kevin cost on the job. Really, is their need ever
Speaker 4: again to tell that flood story? I think not.
Speaker 3: It's a new new testament.
Speaker 2: Water World was the nineteen ninety five Kevin Costner flick
Speaker 2: that was essentially Mad Max meets Burning Man in the
Speaker 2: open ocean, and it was the most expensive film ever
Speaker 2: made at the time, one hundred and seventy five million bones,
Speaker 2: yet it scored only forty two percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Speaker 2: Now the production remains a myth in and of itself.
Speaker 2: This is it's a tale of Hubris teaching us all
Speaker 2: not to spend seventy five million over budget. Ever, ever,
Speaker 2: one throw shade at your movie before it even comes
Speaker 2: out and then make fun of it for years. It's
Speaker 2: very applicable to all of our lives.
Speaker 3: I think it's not. Are these stories mostly cautionary tales?
Speaker 2: Kind of like you know how you dream and in
Speaker 2: your dream your narratives are usually rehearsals for terrible things
Speaker 2: to come, So when it happens in real life, you're like,
Speaker 2: I got this out of this in dream.
Speaker 3: Is that kind of what myths are?
Speaker 4: Well? This is an excellent question, and it's also a
Speaker 4: question that you kind of have to unpack for a
Speaker 4: bit because it's interesting you bring up dreams because a
Speaker 4: lot of myths are actually based on dreams or they
Speaker 4: occur in the context of a dream. And this is
Speaker 4: what connects mythology with depth psychology.
Speaker 3: Quick definition.
Speaker 2: I just looked up depth psychology is the study of
Speaker 2: unconscious mental processes and motives, especially in psychoanalytic theory and practice.
Speaker 2: So it's deep psychology. I tried to look up if
Speaker 2: there's a field of shallow psychology, but I think that's
Speaker 2: just like brunch.
Speaker 4: And that's one of the big reasons people study mythology
Speaker 4: is understanding the psyche of people that tell these stories.
Speaker 4: So with depth psychology and dreams, we can We've determined
Speaker 4: that when people have a dream, usually every character in
Speaker 4: your dream is you. So if you even have a
Speaker 4: dream about your parents and something weird happening, there's some
Speaker 4: aspect of that dream where every character is you. So
Speaker 4: your mother, that's some part of you that's playing that out.
Speaker 4: Your father, that's some part of you that's playing that out.
Speaker 4: So Joseph Campbell was one of the first to begin
Speaker 4: to connect that idea of mythology and psychology and begin
Speaker 4: to figure out, you know, there are these stories that
Speaker 4: exist all over the world, perhaps because people are having
Speaker 4: the same dreams and having the same experiences in their head,
Speaker 4: which really began to open up a lot of curiosity
Speaker 4: and other people to say, huh, I wonder if that's true,
Speaker 4: because I'm guessing you and I have had some of
Speaker 4: the same dreams. If you ever had that dream where
Speaker 4: you feel like you're falling and right before you hit
Speaker 4: the ground, you're like.
Speaker 3: Ugh, yep oh. And then there's the tooth dream or
Speaker 3: your teeth fallout.
Speaker 2: And then I have this dream a lot where I
Speaker 2: will find a new room in the house I live somewhere,
Speaker 2: and then I'm.
Speaker 3: Suddenly like, whow I have another rumor? Who empty? Is
Speaker 3: that a thing?
Speaker 4: That's a thing? So psychologists and mythologists would say that
Speaker 4: is usually our psyche that is wanting to open up
Speaker 4: some new area of our life or some new area
Speaker 4: in your experience that you should begin to let your
Speaker 4: own curiosity seek out. Okay, what new areas do I
Speaker 4: need to go into because there's something inside me that
Speaker 4: is wanting to explore something new.
Speaker 2: So what was John's entree into mythology? How did that big, heavy,
Speaker 2: dusty door creak open?
Speaker 4: When I saw Raiders of the Lost Arc, I determined
Speaker 4: that was what I wanted my life to be. Really,
Speaker 4: but I grew up in the oil fields of East Texas,
Speaker 4: and archaeologist was not anything that people really did for
Speaker 4: a living. So, you know, I got involved in technology
Speaker 4: and film and television and all sorts of other types
Speaker 4: of storytelling, but really my heart was going back to
Speaker 4: Raiders of the Lost Arc and seeing Indiana Jones travel
Speaker 4: around the world and not just solve mysteries, but come
Speaker 4: in contact with the ancient stories and relics and symbols
Speaker 4: that had existed for thousands of years and bringing interpretation
Speaker 4: to those things.
Speaker 2: So he kept this name Joseph Campbell, bandied about by
Speaker 2: screenwriting googers, and he started to go down rabbit holes
Speaker 2: reading his work. And then he found out Campbell's library
Speaker 2: archives were in Santa Barbara and that the Pacific Graduate
Speaker 2: Institute offered a PhD in mythology and archaeological connections to mythology,
Speaker 2: And he was like, whoa dude. He probably had a
Speaker 2: more eloquent reaction, but you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: And I thought, this is as close to Indiana Jones
Speaker 4: as I may ever get in my life. So I am.
Speaker 4: I really do believe whatever we end up pursuing in
Speaker 4: our lives, if it's our passion, it probably goes back
Speaker 4: to something very young within us. And for me, it
Speaker 4: was going back to this little movie theater in downtown Tyler,
Speaker 4: Texas that had broken seats and smelled like mildew. But somehow,
Speaker 4: in the darkness among strangers, I was transported to another
Speaker 4: world where a ventures took over my life, and I
Speaker 4: knew I wanted my life to be full of the
Speaker 4: sort of adventures I was seeing playing out in this
Speaker 4: waking dream on the screen. Wow.
Speaker 2: When you obtain a PhD in mythology, your life may
Speaker 2: entail travels to places such as Italy, Greece, Malta, which
Speaker 2: is an insanely tiny island off the coast of Sicily
Speaker 2: that I just looked up in Dubai, where you may
Speaker 2: help infuse the ancient stories of mythology into amusement park
Speaker 2: exhibits and other cool stuff and so on. At least
Speaker 2: if you're John Booker, who I imagine has to stable
Speaker 2: extra pages into his passport, which is the best problem.
Speaker 4: To have so my interest in mythology, or sort of
Speaker 4: my brand, has become connecting the ancient stories, archetypes, and
Speaker 4: symbols of the past with our modern cutting edge technology
Speaker 4: and augmented reality, virtual reality, immersive storytelling.
Speaker 2: When it comes to myths, Greek myths, Roman myths, why
Speaker 2: are they so similar?
Speaker 3: Which came first? And did you get hooked on.
Speaker 2: Mythology as a kid at all in that way classic
Speaker 2: mythology I did.
Speaker 4: I loved classic mythology as a kid. I had no idea.
Speaker 4: We just really studied Greek mythology when I was a kid,
Speaker 4: but I had no idea that you could actually somehow
Speaker 4: involve a career in that. While I still love Greek mythology,
Speaker 4: I really have come to appreciate mythology that predates Greek mythology,
Speaker 4: and this is the Babylonian and Sumerian mythology. I'll give
Speaker 4: you one very, very brief example of what I think
Speaker 4: is one of the most powerful stories, and it originates
Speaker 4: in the Lower Mesopotamian Valley with the Samerians. But I'm
Speaker 4: going to give you just a taste of the Greek
Speaker 4: version of it. And the Greeks called this myth the
Speaker 4: story of Demeter and Persephone. Okay, and what it was
Speaker 4: is persephones one day out she's gathering pomegranates and she's
Speaker 4: having a great time. She's out with her girlfriends. They're
Speaker 4: just walking around enjoying the Greek life, and all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, out of nowhere, Hades comes up from the
Speaker 4: underworld writing a cherry. It snatches up Persephone, takes her
Speaker 4: back down to the underworld and keeps her.
Speaker 3: What a dick move.
Speaker 4: What a dick move. So her mother, Demoter, she's livid.
Speaker 4: She she can't believe this would happen. She's sort of
Speaker 4: a thing going on with Zeus. So she goes to
Speaker 4: Zeus and she's like, hey, I'll tell you what, if
Speaker 4: you want to keep enjoying the fruits of my labor,
Speaker 4: you're gonna go and send somebody to get my daughter
Speaker 4: out of Hades. Zeus was really loving the love he
Speaker 4: was getting from Demeter, and so he said, all right,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna send my messenger down to go and get
Speaker 4: Persephonie out of Hades. So he sends his messenger down
Speaker 4: and the messenger tries to negotiate a deal and they
Speaker 4: work out this of this deal where she's going to
Speaker 4: spend part of the year up with her mother and
Speaker 4: part of the year down in the underworld. Now, they
Speaker 4: tell you later in the myth, actually that Persephone kind
Speaker 4: of enjoyed being the goddess queen of the underworld. That
Speaker 4: she got to kind of dig being the badass down
Speaker 4: in the underworld, so she didn't really mind going back
Speaker 4: for three months of the year. Now she would go
Speaker 4: back to the underworld for three months of the year
Speaker 4: her mother demit her goddess of the harvest, she would
Speaker 4: have her heart broken for those three months. She wouldn't
Speaker 4: allow the grass to grow, she would allow it to
Speaker 4: get very cold. And this was how the Greeks explained winter.
Speaker 4: Oh man, Yeah, so, but that originates with the Samarians, right,
Speaker 4: they're telling a version of that story long before the Greeks.
Speaker 4: So in some ways myths are ways to explain things
Speaker 4: about the world that we don't really know how to explain.
Speaker 4: And so as we develop science and things like that,
Speaker 4: sometimes myths go away. But I think what we lose
Speaker 4: even when we develop better science, is we lose sort
Speaker 4: of the archetypal meaning of what it means to go
Speaker 4: away down to the underground. Do you ever go to
Speaker 4: a city and it's like, I'm just going to go
Speaker 4: to all the salty bars in this city, and I
Speaker 4: just kind of need a low down, dirty experience here
Speaker 4: in this city.
Speaker 2: Right when I need to do that, I wear more eyeliner.
Speaker 2: I'm just like, look at me, look at me.
Speaker 3: I'm so dark, Hollie.
Speaker 4: We have so much in common. It's just crazy to
Speaker 4: me how much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, it reminds me of Elvira. How she's played
Speaker 2: by Cassandra. She's probably three months in the year she's Elvira.
Speaker 2: The rest of the time, she's just a redhead eaten
Speaker 2: sushi in Hollywood, you know what I mean. So Elvira
Speaker 2: Mistress of the Dark is according to some articles I
Speaker 2: read about her, and I read more articles than I
Speaker 2: needed to because I just couldn't stop. But she is
Speaker 2: solidly booked for Halloween season engagements September through November, three
Speaker 2: months of the year.
Speaker 3: People.
Speaker 2: The rest of the time, she's a gentle Kansas born,
Speaker 2: redheaded woman named Cassandra Peterson who's a vegetarian, loves watching
Speaker 2: Netflix and singing. I'm telling you, I read a lot
Speaker 2: of articles about her.
Speaker 4: Can I also just quit tell you the mythological origins
Speaker 4: of Cassandra, Yes, because that is a name that we
Speaker 4: get from Greek mythology, and it's interesting in our day
Speaker 4: and age, especially because Cassandra very beautiful woman, right, one
Speaker 4: of the gods. Yeah, he starts hitting on her, Okay,
Speaker 4: starts hitting on her, and she's not having it. Because
Speaker 4: she's not having it, he decides to up the anny
Speaker 4: and give her a special gift. He decides to give
Speaker 4: Cassandra the gift of prophecy. She's going to be able
Speaker 4: to tell the future. She's still not having it. She's
Speaker 4: just not gonna get with this guy. This god spits
Speaker 4: in her mouth. Not cool, not cool, spits in her mouth,
Speaker 4: and it curses her tongue that when she speaks prophecy,
Speaker 4: no one will believe her. So she's this woman in
Speaker 4: Greek mythology that has the ability to tell the future,
Speaker 4: but the curse is that no one will believe her. Now,
Speaker 4: I think that's a super super important myth for women
Speaker 4: in our culture right now that they identify greatly with that,
Speaker 4: and women have felt that way for thousands of years,
Speaker 4: So I think that's a really important myth.
Speaker 3: That's just like old timey gas lighting. To the extreme.
Speaker 2: You can say that again, So tell me the basic
Speaker 2: arc of a story, because I think once you start
Speaker 2: kind of cracking open, like the Joseph Campbell the mythology box,
Speaker 2: you start to realize every story is the same story,
Speaker 2: same pattern. It's almost like a song. It's got a crescendo,
Speaker 2: it's got an ending, it's got a beginning.
Speaker 3: What is a story? What are these patterns?
Speaker 4: So even before Joseph Campbell began to identify this, we've
Speaker 4: got our friend Aristotle who tells us that every story
Speaker 4: should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And
Speaker 4: even though we're like, yeah, this is really revolutionary at
Speaker 4: the time, right because nobody's telling stories in three acts
Speaker 4: and this is a big deal. Now, what becomes important
Speaker 4: about three acts structure, having a beginning, a middle, and
Speaker 4: an end is that it sort of sets up this
Speaker 4: idea that psychologists have determined is why stories are how
Speaker 4: we see the world, and that is that the way
Speaker 4: storytelling structure works in some ways mirrors the way the
Speaker 4: human brain solves problems. Huh yeah, So in a story,
Speaker 4: a good story, we basically have somebody. This is important.
Speaker 4: Try telling a story without a character really tough. To do.
Speaker 4: But we have to have somebody who wants something. It's
Speaker 4: really not a very cool story if it's somebody who
Speaker 4: just sets around all the time eating cheerios. They have
Speaker 4: to want something, they have to want to get up
Speaker 4: from where they're doing and go after something. Right, So
Speaker 4: somebody that wants something and then someone or something standing
Speaker 4: in the way of that. So here's an example. There
Speaker 4: was once a story guru that said a cat lying
Speaker 4: on a blank that's just a scenario. But a cat
Speaker 4: lying on a dog's blanket, now that's a story. Because
Speaker 4: we have somebody who wants something in someone standing in
Speaker 4: the way of that, there's conflict. So conflict's an important
Speaker 4: part of a story. And that was what myths were
Speaker 4: so good at, was taking these unconscious ideas and feelings
Speaker 4: and actually putting them into stories that we could see
Speaker 4: and experience.
Speaker 2: You know, I've often thought and I used to study Latin,
Speaker 2: and in Latin we had to learn a lot about
Speaker 2: the myths. There's like who else you can talk about.
Speaker 2: But I remember thinking, the way that we look at
Speaker 2: celebrities is so much like the mythology back in say
Speaker 2: Roman and Greek times. So someone is a demi God,
Speaker 2: and I feel like we put celebrities as like half god,
Speaker 2: half human fallible. They have an assent, they have a rise,
Speaker 2: they have a hubris, they have a fall. What role
Speaker 2: do you think celebrities play in our modern mythology or
Speaker 2: do you think we play that out all in movies.
Speaker 4: No. I think celebrities very much are archetypes that we
Speaker 4: need within our psyche and within mythology itself. And part
Speaker 4: of that is because there are certain things that we
Speaker 4: have moved away from ritualistically in society. So there used
Speaker 4: to be this idea in ancient cultures of the Greeks
Speaker 4: would call it the pharmacos. This was basically the person
Speaker 4: we're going to sacrifice every year. Oh boy, yeah, so
Speaker 4: this would be the person. We're going to put all
Speaker 4: the bad things and all the sins on this person
Speaker 4: and go sacrifice them to the gods and say, hey,
Speaker 4: let us slide on everything. We're gonna, you know, sacrifice
Speaker 4: this person. And we see this in cultures all throughout
Speaker 4: the world. So this idea, by the way, that word
Speaker 4: pharmacos is where we get the word pharmacy or medicine.
Speaker 4: It's a soothing of the gods, you know. So now,
Speaker 4: of course, we don't sacrifice people anymore, but we kind
Speaker 4: of do. Look at a Paris Hilton, look at a
Speaker 4: Kim Kardashian. We build those people up, we praise them,
Speaker 4: and then there seems to be an endless amount of
Speaker 4: joy taken at sacrificing those people's reputation who they are
Speaker 4: as people, and we create an archetype out of them
Speaker 4: that we need in order to feel better about ourselves.
Speaker 4: We need to sacrifice that part of us that's vain,
Speaker 4: We need to sacrifice that part of us that is
Speaker 4: shallow and substanceless. And we put all that upon these
Speaker 4: celebrities and we enjoy. We build them up, and then
Speaker 4: we enjoy seeing them taken down, and then we always
Speaker 4: love a good comeback in the end as well.
Speaker 2: Do you think that that follows story structure kind of
Speaker 2: like is there is the beginning their ascent? Is there
Speaker 2: like an inciting incident? Like what are some what are
Speaker 2: some bare bones of stories that we see in our
Speaker 2: everyday life and in movies when you talk about a beginning,
Speaker 2: middle end, like what has to be in a story?
Speaker 4: So Joseph Campbell talked about this when he talked about
Speaker 4: the hero's journey, and in the hero's journey, we basically
Speaker 4: have this hero or this man or woman who decides,
Speaker 4: you know what, this world that I'm living in in
Speaker 4: my small village or town or city the normal world,
Speaker 4: and that can be whatever it is, but the normal world,
Speaker 4: I need something I can't get here, And so there's
Speaker 4: this acceptance of the call that the hero decides, I'm
Speaker 4: going to leave everything I know to go out after
Speaker 4: this thing. And Campbell called it a boon or an elixir,
Speaker 4: some sort of magic medicine, you know, that they would
Speaker 4: go after. And so then they would go after whatever
Speaker 4: it is they're going after. They would fight dragons, and
Speaker 4: there were enemies and gatekeepers and all these people to
Speaker 4: keep them from getting what they were after. But then
Speaker 4: when they got it, it wasn't enough just to get
Speaker 4: their hands on it. It was very important to the
Speaker 4: story that then they returned back home and brought the
Speaker 4: elixir back to where they started, back to the people
Speaker 4: at home. I think this is something that we often
Speaker 4: forget in stories today. We often want to end a
Speaker 4: person's story with the accomplishment of the goal because we
Speaker 4: live in a very capitalistic society that is very much
Speaker 4: all about just getting what you want, and that's the
Speaker 4: whole point of life. But actually, societies before ours believed
Speaker 4: that the experience of wonder was much greater than even
Speaker 4: the experience of success, and wonder could only be experienced
Speaker 4: by bringing back the elixir, bringing back whatever you had
Speaker 4: learned on the journey, bringing it back to others who
Speaker 4: needed that information and that experience, And in that an
Speaker 4: endless wonder was put within you because you could always
Speaker 4: share your experiences and the lessons that you learned. And
Speaker 4: I think that is something that our modern storytelling tends
Speaker 4: to in its efforts to be efficient, we try and
Speaker 4: cut that away. But again, when we go back and
Speaker 4: look at myths, that was always an important part of
Speaker 4: the story, was bringing back what you had learned or
Speaker 4: what you had gotten.
Speaker 2: Now, when people call on you, do they say, I'm
Speaker 2: writing a script, I'm developing a series. Help me figure
Speaker 2: out where the holes are, help me figure out how
Speaker 2: to make this flow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it's different almost with every project, but
Speaker 4: that happens a lot where a production company or a
Speaker 4: writer or a studio will call up and say, hey,
Speaker 4: we've got this project. We know there's some problems with it.
Speaker 4: We're not exactly sure what they are or even how
Speaker 4: to fix them. Could you come in and take a look,
Speaker 4: And I am always happy to go and do that.
Speaker 4: Sometimes though, people will be developing a show that is
Speaker 4: around some really specific part of history that has some
Speaker 4: sort of mythological connection. And by the way, I should
Speaker 4: mention that mythology is not just confined to the Greeks
Speaker 4: and Romans and those sort of typical myths that we
Speaker 4: think of. I did deep work on the mythology of
Speaker 4: Hinduism and Islam and Buddhism, Sufism, Christianity, Judaism. You know,
Speaker 4: all of our religious traditions are mythological in nature as well.
Speaker 2: John will consult on TV shows and films that have
Speaker 2: like religious or mythological connections, or he might be in
Speaker 2: the writer's room for say a show that takes place
Speaker 2: in ancient Rome, so he can give some context to
Speaker 2: Roman stories. So it's not just like people from the
Speaker 2: valley wearing togas and stuff.
Speaker 4: If you're trying to tell a truthful story that relates
Speaker 4: to our culture today, you sort of have to use
Speaker 4: the psychology of the way people think today, but you
Speaker 4: also have to be true to the history. So you
Speaker 4: have to find a middle ground psychologically between the motivations
Speaker 4: people understand today and the history of what was happening
Speaker 4: at the time. You know, the way that men and
Speaker 4: women interacted, the way that children and you know we're treated.
Speaker 3: And they're like, how can we make Caligula likable?
Speaker 2: And you're like, well, he kills everyone, like he sexually
Speaker 2: assaults farm animals.
Speaker 3: It's like, it's gonna be a hard sell.
Speaker 2: Lest you think I'm being hyperbolic, please do give Caligula
Speaker 2: a Google So, thank you Wikipedia for informing me that quote. Once,
Speaker 2: at some games at which he was presiding, he ordered
Speaker 2: his guards to throw an entire section of the audience
Speaker 2: into the arena during the intermission to be eaten by
Speaker 2: the wild beasts because there were no prisoners to be
Speaker 2: used and he was bored impeach much. So, can you
Speaker 2: tell me the difference between a story, a myth, a fable,
Speaker 2: a parable?
Speaker 3: What's the difference?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question. Actually, thank you. So let
Speaker 4: me start actually with a fable, because I think that's
Speaker 4: a really interesting place to start. One of the more
Speaker 4: common fables. Most of us have heard of Esop's fables,
Speaker 4: and we know fables like the Tortoise and the Hair,
Speaker 4: for example. Most of us are familiar with that story,
Speaker 4: and we know sort of the meaning of the story is,
Speaker 4: don't get lazy, because you know, even slow and study
Speaker 4: wins the race, and you know if you nap with
Speaker 4: the finish line, the turtle will eventually beat you. We
Speaker 4: don't really have the correct understanding of how fables work
Speaker 4: today because we tend to think of ourself as one
Speaker 4: character and then whoever is in opposition to us as
Speaker 4: the other character. The people who would hear the story
Speaker 4: of the tortoise and hair the hair would understand fables
Speaker 4: were actually meant to describe two sides of the same person.
Speaker 4: So inside you there's a tortoise and there's a hair,
Speaker 4: And it's not meant to say, Ali, you be the
Speaker 4: tortoise and not the hair. It's actually meant to say,
Speaker 4: inside of Ali is a tortoise and hair, and it's
Speaker 4: going to be up to you to negotiate, navigate. If
Speaker 4: you're going to sometimes let the hair get all the
Speaker 4: way up to the finish line, this part of you
Speaker 4: then may defeat that part of you. But they were
Speaker 4: meant to be psychological ideas that took place inside of
Speaker 4: people as opposed to morality tales, so that's sort of
Speaker 4: what a fable is. A myth, on the other hand,
Speaker 4: is usually a long story that does not have a
Speaker 4: traditional Hollywood happy ending. It's a story of a journey.
Speaker 4: It's usually a road trip of someone going someplace. But
Speaker 4: it also incorporates in mythology stories of humankind's interaction with
Speaker 4: the other, or what we call the other. Sometimes that
Speaker 4: means gods, sometimes that means supernatural monsters, sometimes that means
Speaker 4: all sorts of other beings, but much of mythology is
Speaker 4: about us encountering the other. It was this child psychologist
Speaker 4: in the seventies, Bruno Bettelheim, that wrote this book called
Speaker 4: The Uses of Enchantment, and it was basically talking about
Speaker 4: how childhood myths about monsters are really important for a
Speaker 4: child's development because when we think we're going to scare kids,
Speaker 4: when we think we're going to scare children by telling
Speaker 4: them about monsters, they don't learn how to deal with
Speaker 4: the most important monster they'll ever face, the one that
Speaker 4: lives inside of them. So this is one reason there
Speaker 4: are all these wonderful theorists that talked about the importance
Speaker 4: of fairy tales. There was a woman named Marie Luise
Speaker 4: von Franz who did incredible work about the psychology and
Speaker 4: importance of fairy tales, especially in women, that it's very
Speaker 4: important that young women have certain fairy tales that they
Speaker 4: hear when they're younger, because it actually prepares young women
Speaker 4: for certain experiences. One of those fairy tales is the
Speaker 4: story of Little Ridinghood, Little Red Riding Hood.
Speaker 2: It's like, beware, there's dudes out there who want to
Speaker 2: each you and kill your grandma.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 3: That's yeah, I mean it's legit, it's legit. But so
Speaker 3: many fairy tales.
Speaker 2: Peace. Yeah, So like I have you go back and
Speaker 2: you watch like a lot of like Disney movies, and
Speaker 2: you're like, this is all just like a weeping, frail
Speaker 2: woman who gets swept up by a prince, and you're like,
Speaker 2: how is a modern feminist?
Speaker 3: I look at that and I'm like, don't be that
Speaker 3: garbage your children.
Speaker 2: So, like, how do you reconcile the change in society
Speaker 2: with these really well worn myths and stories.
Speaker 4: First, you have to recognize that Disney really messed up
Speaker 4: fairy tales. Okay, yeah, disneyfied fairy tales are not anything
Speaker 4: I'm a huge fan of. Really, yeah, fairy tales before
Speaker 4: Disney got ahold of them were very adult in nature,
Speaker 4: and they were very violent, and they involved all sorts
Speaker 4: of things that we today would say is non appropriate
Speaker 4: for children. So you, I think, have to expose your
Speaker 4: children to the truth of real fairy tales and not
Speaker 4: a disnified version that does make every woman to be
Speaker 4: helpless and a princess that is waiting to be saved.
Speaker 4: That Let's go back to red riding Hood for a second.
Speaker 4: That's originated with this Bavarian folk tale called the story
Speaker 4: of Grandmother. It was the first time and really there
Speaker 4: are some feminist theorists that feel like it was actually
Speaker 4: a story that was told to young women about dealing
Speaker 4: with their oncoming puberty and minstation that the whole idea
Speaker 4: of red riding Hood had symbolism, you know, about menstruation.
Speaker 4: But also if you go back to the story of Grandmother,
Speaker 4: the wolf in the bed that portraying the grandmother asked
Speaker 4: the young woman to strip off all her clothes and
Speaker 4: get completely naked in the bed with her, and that
Speaker 4: the girl in the story is old enough that she
Speaker 4: would have at that time, she wouldn't have thought that
Speaker 4: was her grandmother, right, she would have seen this is
Speaker 4: a wolf dressed up as my.
Speaker 3: Grandma, goddamn dogging a bonnet.
Speaker 4: Right. So in the story, part of the nuance and
Speaker 4: the teasing out of that story is that sometimes young
Speaker 4: women are also attracted to giving themselves permission to get
Speaker 4: in bed with the wolf and see how far that
Speaker 4: experience would go. And in that story of the grandmother,
Speaker 4: by the way, there's not a hunter that comes in
Speaker 4: and kills the wolf. The wolf eats the girl and
Speaker 4: she is killed. Savage. Yeah, it's savage, but it's also
Speaker 4: a story that I think has much more truth to
Speaker 4: it than the guy coming in and saving the young
Speaker 4: woman from the wolf.
Speaker 2: And like Hans Christian Andersen, Little Mermaid was brutal right
Speaker 2: side note. In the original Hans Christian Andersen version of
Speaker 2: The Little Mermaid, the prince falls in love with another
Speaker 2: princess and marries her, and the Little Mermaid, per a
Speaker 2: sea Witch's spell, is supposed to just die of a
Speaker 2: clinically broken heart. She's like, sorry, sorry, lady, but her
Speaker 2: sisters get a knife and have a plot to murder
Speaker 2: the prince and bathe her dumb, useless new human feet.
Speaker 2: She traded in his blood so she can get a
Speaker 2: flippers back, but she can't go through with it because
Speaker 2: she's in love with him, so she just turns into
Speaker 2: sea foam. She's like, man, this sucks. Also, there's like
Speaker 2: no talking lobsters. So these fairy tales before we kind
Speaker 2: of americanize them were cautionary tales.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: And so now getting back to fable, myth is story
Speaker 2: and parable what are those?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so a parable is typically a way of approaching
Speaker 4: the world through story. That's binary. A parable is meant
Speaker 4: to teach a very simple, black and white lesson do this,
Speaker 4: don't do this. OK, be good, you know, don't be bad.
Speaker 4: So we see parables, especially you know, like in the
Speaker 4: Bible and places like that, where morality is of the
Speaker 4: chief utmost importance. So parables really deal in the realm
Speaker 4: of morality. A story is really over it's sort of
Speaker 4: this arching umbrella that we put all these different things under.
Speaker 4: It's really interesting. There was a famous author that once
Speaker 4: said everyone seems to know what a story is until
Speaker 4: they sit down to write one. We all sort of
Speaker 4: know what a story is, but it's tough you know,
Speaker 4: for us to sometimes differentiate these things, and so we
Speaker 4: sort of loop all these things under the realm of story. Myths, parables,
Speaker 4: fairy tales, all these things. We sort of put them
Speaker 4: under the umbrella of story. But I think there's value
Speaker 4: into teasing those things out, just like a few moments
Speaker 4: ago when we talked about the idea of a fable,
Speaker 4: you know, taking place inside of oneself. But at the
Speaker 4: end of the day, I don't know that it's you know,
Speaker 4: the public's job to be educated on all the n
Speaker 4: nuanced differences between these things as much as perhaps the
Speaker 4: storyteller's job in knowing what sort of tools they're using
Speaker 4: to craft, what their intention is in the audience, and
Speaker 4: then the person who's listening to their story. That's where
Speaker 4: I think. I don't know, Ali, I take telling stories
Speaker 4: super serious.
Speaker 3: I know, I love it.
Speaker 4: I do, and I think it's a big responsibility. I
Speaker 4: feel like it's a calling. I feel like Detroit in
Speaker 4: the fall of last year just appointed first city in
Speaker 4: the US appointed a chief storyteller. What And it's this
Speaker 4: guy in Detroit, an African American guy that's a brilliant
Speaker 4: journalist and writer and storyteller and he has taken on
Speaker 4: the task of trying to change the narrative about Detroit.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I love this so much.
Speaker 2: Side note, my sister lived in Detroit for a decade,
Speaker 2: so I've always had a soft spot for Detroit history.
Speaker 2: And the city's chief storyteller is Aaron Foley. He's an
Speaker 2: author in his thirties, and he hates the word gritty
Speaker 2: like your sister in law hates moist. He says, quote
Speaker 2: by forever branding Detroiter's as gritty, were put in the
Speaker 2: position of being pitied over, bleeding hearts all over the place,
Speaker 2: suddenly feel the plight of Detroitter's, which is a good point.
Speaker 2: Aaron Foley wrote a book called How to Live in
Speaker 2: Detroit Without Being a Jackass, which, let's be honest, was
Speaker 2: written for chicks like me because I'm like a jackass
Speaker 2: and I have dreams of living in an old Detroit Victorian,
Speaker 2: so a point taken. Also, this book bears this gold
Speaker 2: and green cover script that it takes you like half
Speaker 2: a second before you realize it's an homage to Werner Soda.
Speaker 2: This book is very much on my reading list now,
Speaker 2: so thank you Erin. If there's an ology about Detroit?
Speaker 2: Can we please talk about it? For anyone who has
Speaker 2: wanted to write, I feel like in all of us
Speaker 2: is a struggling writer, every single person.
Speaker 3: I feel like, if you really.
Speaker 2: Got them and had them lay out bare bones, what
Speaker 2: do they want? Everyone wants to write and create something.
Speaker 2: What advice do you give people who are starting to
Speaker 2: write a story but they have blocks because they feel
Speaker 2: like they can't do it, or they don't know where
Speaker 2: to start, or they don't know if their.
Speaker 3: Voice is important? Like what is the first step?
Speaker 4: Yeah? That is such an important question, because I think
Speaker 4: you're right. I think almost everybody has some desire to
Speaker 4: express their story in some form or another. And the
Speaker 4: first thing that a person needs to know is that
Speaker 4: no one else has ever told your story before, and
Speaker 4: that the world is not complete without your story. Nobody
Speaker 4: can tell your story like you, And it's so key
Speaker 4: to your own development as a person to have other
Speaker 4: people bear witness to who you are in your story
Speaker 4: and to be able to speak honestly about your experiences
Speaker 4: and what you've been through and who you are. This
Speaker 4: is very key to our own journeys as human beings.
Speaker 4: So the first thing that I think people have to
Speaker 4: do is give themselves permission to tell a story. It
Speaker 4: doesn't have to align itself with your personal history to
Speaker 4: the tee. Sometimes we change facts and we move things around.
Speaker 4: The key is tell a story that's true. Don't try
Speaker 4: and tell me a story about what you've heard other
Speaker 4: people say is true. Tell me a story about what
Speaker 4: you've experienced and learned to be true yourself, because that
Speaker 4: will resonate with people no matter who they are. It's universal.
Speaker 4: We want to hear people speak from a true place.
Speaker 4: So if you give yourself permission to tell that story,
Speaker 4: the only other thing you have to do is the
Speaker 4: hardest thing about writing is getting your button a chair
Speaker 4: and actually doing it.
Speaker 3: What advice do you have for writer's block or writing anxiety?
Speaker 4: You know, here's what I do. A couple of years ago,
Speaker 4: I was standing in line at the Coffee Bean and
Speaker 4: I was working on a project, and I was there,
Speaker 4: like I think it was like five point thirty six
Speaker 4: o'clock in the morning. Damn, yeah, I know, I was
Speaker 4: at coffee being I needed coffee, But there were all
Speaker 4: these screenwriters setting in there working on their writing, and
Speaker 4: I'm guessing they had to be at work by eight am.
Speaker 4: So they were in there doing it then, and it
Speaker 4: struck me, if there's a long line in Hollywood of
Speaker 4: people waiting to have their shot, those people deserve to
Speaker 4: be in line ahead of me. They're up doing this
Speaker 4: in the morning, and Ali, I didn't like anybody having
Speaker 4: an excuse to be ahead of me in that line.
Speaker 4: So I decided to start getting up every morning and
Speaker 4: writing at six am. Wow, And you know what, it
Speaker 4: has become one of the most rich parts of my
Speaker 4: life because my brain's not fully on yet, so they're
Speaker 4: that that filter and that that part of me that says,
Speaker 4: you can't do this, or you can't say that, or
Speaker 4: you can't tell none of that is engaged yet, and
Speaker 4: so the most pure parts of my imagination are coming
Speaker 4: out on the page. And I'll be honest with you,
Speaker 4: nobody calls me at six in the morning. I intentionally
Speaker 4: don't open my email. And it's sort of like the
Speaker 4: dessert I get first thing in the morning that when
Speaker 4: I go to bed every night, I feel like, no
Speaker 4: matter what happened the rest of the day, I got
Speaker 4: something done that day because I got some writing done.
Speaker 3: What time do you go to bed?
Speaker 4: I go to bed. Now you're gonna laugh. I go
Speaker 4: get in bed about nine or nine thirty.
Speaker 3: That's dope.
Speaker 4: And I read for an hour to an hour and
Speaker 4: a half every night, because you cannot, in my opinion,
Speaker 4: become a great writer without becoming a reader. You have
Speaker 4: to read.
Speaker 2: That was one of my questions is how many books
Speaker 2: a year do you read? That was literally one of
Speaker 2: my questions I wrote down. I was like, let's see
Speaker 2: how many books? Is lover done?
Speaker 4: Honestly, I try and read a book a week. It's
Speaker 4: also one of the things that I think is super
Speaker 4: important is to read things that are outside of your interests.
Speaker 4: I'll be honest with you. I've become super fascinated right
Speaker 4: now with Times Square culture in the late seventies and
Speaker 4: early eighties.
Speaker 3: Seriously, Times for New York, Times Square.
Speaker 4: New York just that, I mean Thistle period.
Speaker 3: Pre Juliani clean up, Heroin atics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, long before HBO did the show The Deuce. This
Speaker 4: was really interesting to me, and I, by the way,
Speaker 4: strongly believe in psychotherapy. I go to a psychotherapist every week,
Speaker 4: and she and I have talked about this at great length,
Speaker 4: and there are some real reasons I won't bore you
Speaker 4: with of why that is important. But I'll give you
Speaker 4: a hint. We talked a few minutes ago about Demeater
Speaker 4: and Perciphony. Perciphoni's need to go to the underground. That
Speaker 4: is a mental underground for me to go to. It's
Speaker 4: an underworld that is far enough removed from my daily
Speaker 4: existence that I can sort of psychologically play about what
Speaker 4: would it have been like to have lived in that
Speaker 4: neighborhood at that time when morals were thrown out the window,
Speaker 4: and when there was there was a rawness, you know,
Speaker 4: to society. So you know, six months from now, I'll
Speaker 4: be onto something else. You know, for a while, I
Speaker 4: got super super interested in how refrigerators work. But let
Speaker 4: your curiosity go nuts, you know, read about something that
Speaker 4: you have no connection or use for. In bringing it
Speaker 4: all back to Joseph Campbell, he said he had this
Speaker 4: really famous phrase that was follow your bliss.
Speaker 2: Right. I did not know that that was a Joseph
Speaker 2: Campbell quote until I started researching for this episode. I
Speaker 2: kind of a little digging before I came here, and
Speaker 2: I was like, wait, I thought that was like an
Speaker 2: Instagram quote. I didn't know that follow your bliss was like.
Speaker 2: And I listened to a whole interview about that and
Speaker 2: was just I was shook, clinically shook.
Speaker 4: I love it, but that that is there if you
Speaker 4: really dig into that idea of following your bliss, it's
Speaker 4: not even followed just what makes you feel good or
Speaker 4: what makes you happy. That word bliss, when you begin
Speaker 4: to unpack it, it really is what makes you feel fulfilled,
Speaker 4: like your life has meaning and that you have purpose
Speaker 4: and what you're doing. And I think for me, when
Speaker 4: I really got deep into Joseph Campbell, I really determined
Speaker 4: what my bliss was and I was able to encapsulate,
Speaker 4: but encapsulate it in a single phrase, in a single idea.
Speaker 4: And for me, my bliss is helping the world tell
Speaker 4: a better story. That is what I'm here on this
Speaker 4: earth to do is to help people, individuals, cultures, countries
Speaker 4: tell a better story. I'm in the business of saying,
Speaker 4: whatever your story is, you could probably enjoy a slightly
Speaker 4: better story. There's a better version of your life that,
Speaker 4: with some sacrifices, with some things that you are interested
Speaker 4: in pursuing, could actually make a better story for you.
Speaker 2: Do you find that with people that a lot of
Speaker 2: times we are kind of slaves to our own narratives.
Speaker 2: That changing your narrative, what you say about yourself, what
Speaker 2: you say about your life, changes the outcome of it.
Speaker 4: PSH. I think that is so important, I really do.
Speaker 4: And I think what we tell people about our lives,
Speaker 4: it's a great window into what we already think and
Speaker 4: sort of where we're going.
Speaker 2: Really quick, where does mythology fit into superhero culture?
Speaker 3: Because I know your wife is amazing. I met you
Speaker 3: through your wife.
Speaker 2: She works for DC and you do consulting on superhero movies.
Speaker 2: Where where are we with superhero movies? And also just
Speaker 2: a quick touch on are we going to be seeing
Speaker 2: like Wonder Woman, Black Panther, like flipping the script on
Speaker 2: who is doing the saving and things like that.
Speaker 4: That's I you know, I grew up with superhero movies
Speaker 4: and I love superhero movies. Even if you look back
Speaker 4: through the history of comics and you look at the
Speaker 4: way that superheroes have changed in our modern era, superheroes
Speaker 4: typically changed to fit whatever psychological needs that we have.
Speaker 4: Is a culture, so Superman was very important to the
Speaker 4: nation's psyche as we were fighting Adolf Hitler that we
Speaker 4: felt like we can take down anybody. We're strong, you know,
Speaker 4: this idea of truth justice in the American way, it
Speaker 4: was very important. We needed that at that time. So
Speaker 4: whenever somebody can step in and provide an answer, provide
Speaker 4: something that helps us deal with what's happening psychologically in
Speaker 4: the world, we gravitate towards it. Well, we're facing different
Speaker 4: problems right now, and so I think the rise of
Speaker 4: Wonder Woman, the rise of Black Panther Man, those are
Speaker 4: super important to where we're at right now as a
Speaker 4: culture because we've seen the that, especially this last year,
Speaker 4: the way that women have been treated and our culture
Speaker 4: has risen to the top and it's not covered up anymore.
Speaker 4: We're having to deal with that as a culture. We're
Speaker 4: having to deal with how violent we've been, with how
Speaker 4: mean spirited we've been, with what bullies we've been, and
Speaker 4: at the same time, women are dealing with having been
Speaker 4: through the experiences on the other side of that. And
Speaker 4: so I think Wonder Woman was a very very important
Speaker 4: character for the cultural psyche, not only of women, but
Speaker 4: of men as well.
Speaker 3: What about Black panther I think.
Speaker 4: We're going to see the same thing there with all
Speaker 4: the Black Lives Matter issues that have risen in the
Speaker 4: last year or two with racism being another issue that
Speaker 4: we were confronting as a culture. So I think the
Speaker 4: future of superhero movies and superhero stories really depends on
Speaker 4: what problems we are willing to face in our culture.
Speaker 4: Because I'll tell you this much, if we don't confront
Speaker 4: a form of evil when it arises, if we we
Speaker 4: just shush it away, it always comes back, just with
Speaker 4: a different face. And we've seen this with the way
Speaker 4: that women have been treated. We've seen this with racism.
Speaker 4: When we don't deal with it, it just comes back with
Speaker 4: a different face. And I think we're finally ready maybe
Speaker 4: to deal with some of those issues in ways that
Speaker 4: maybe they're not going to come back at least like
Speaker 4: they have before, right, you know.
Speaker 3: I think one thing that probably the part of the
Speaker 3: angst of the last year or so.
Speaker 2: Especially politically, is that it feels like the end of
Speaker 2: the movie ended in the middle of the second act.
Speaker 2: It feels like, oh wait, what, Like it feels like
Speaker 2: there was something to overcome, and then the credits rolled
Speaker 2: and you're like, wait, this is the end? Wait who
Speaker 2: won You know, not to pull it much, but I
Speaker 2: think people who have listened to this well where I stand,
Speaker 2: but like it does feel like, oh shit, no, we're
Speaker 2: supposed to someone's supposed to like a he's supposed to
Speaker 2: fall off a boat or something.
Speaker 3: And then you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Well, And I grew up in East Texas, and one
Speaker 4: of the things that I grew up with was the
Speaker 4: idea of the compost pile, which, for those of you
Speaker 4: who didn't grow up out on the rural routes of
Speaker 4: our country, a compost pile is a place that you
Speaker 4: take the leftover food and all the things that you
Speaker 4: know you don't want to burn in the trash barrel,
Speaker 4: and you put them out in a pile, and animals
Speaker 4: come and they eat from those things and bugs, and
Speaker 4: it's it's gross, it's nasty, but it actually is a
Speaker 4: significant important part of the ecology of the earth. And
Speaker 4: it also is what generates life because what happens is
Speaker 4: the maggots and the flies and the gross insects come
Speaker 4: and they eat off this compost pile, and then the
Speaker 4: the rats and the mice and stuff come and eat them,
Speaker 4: and then the wolves and it goes on up the
Speaker 4: food chain and it's the way that life is regenerated.
Speaker 4: And Ali, I think what we're seeing right now, especially
Speaker 4: in the American political system. I think we're seeing the
Speaker 4: grossness of the compost. I think in order to see
Speaker 4: new life be regenerated into something new, that the process
Speaker 4: of death and decay. It's gross to look at. And
Speaker 4: we're having to look at the grossness of the death
Speaker 4: and decay of certain types of fascism and chauvinism and racism,
Speaker 4: and we have a front row seat to it, and
Speaker 4: so for us it looks disgusting and gross and will
Speaker 4: it ever end? But I think what we're actually seeing
Speaker 4: is the process of life regenerating in the final gasps
Speaker 4: of some of these things that we've dealt with long time.
Speaker 3: WHOA, So this is just like earwigs eating a saggy biscuit.
Speaker 4: That's exactly what this is. I feel matter well, I
Speaker 4: think it's the hope we can also sort of take
Speaker 4: with us in dealing with those things, because otherwise, I'm
Speaker 4: going to go to in and out Burger and I'm
Speaker 4: gonna order like twenty burghers and twenty shakes and just
Speaker 4: eat myself to death because what else is there? Right?
Speaker 4: I mean, let's just all eat and get fat and high.
Speaker 4: If there's not something better.
Speaker 3: If there are missiles headed our way. Okay, I am
Speaker 3: going to ask you some questions from as cool? Is
Speaker 3: that cool?
Speaker 4: Of course?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, so many.
Speaker 2: But before we take questions from you, our beloved listeners,
Speaker 2: we're going to take a quick break for sponsors of
Speaker 2: the show. Sponsors. Why sponsors, You know what they do?
Speaker 2: They help us give money to different charities every week.
Speaker 2: So if you want to know where Ologies gives our money,
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Speaker 2: questions from our patrons and who are awesome. So if
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Speaker 2: they can ask questions to theologists.
Speaker 3: I've set up. It's a pretty high, pretty high price
Speaker 3: to pay twenty five cents an episode.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 3: My heart is cheap.
Speaker 2: Matt Bruckner wanted to know Joseph Campbell overrated or rightfully enshrined.
Speaker 3: I think we know the answer to.
Speaker 4: That one absolutely.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: I don't agree with him on everything, by the way,
Speaker 4: but you don't have to agree with somebody on every
Speaker 4: single thing in order to recognize the value of their work. Okay.
Speaker 2: Al Martinez, Greek and Roman mythology were among my favorites
Speaker 2: in grammar school.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, there was not a question. That's okay, though,
Speaker 3: that was good. I'm like good, yeah, yes.
Speaker 2: Zoe Teplick wants to know what are some of the
Speaker 2: most persistent myths one that appear in various cultures throughout history.
Speaker 3: I know you mentioned the flood, Yeah, the flood.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you another. And it takes a lot of forms,
Speaker 4: but it's the idea of someone who's mistreated rising from
Speaker 4: their station. Every culture on the earth today has some
Speaker 4: version of the Cinderella story. And so that story of
Speaker 4: someone who is mistreated, who has a difficult beginning in
Speaker 4: life somehow rising out of the station that they're in.
Speaker 4: We see that play out time and time again throughout mythology,
Speaker 4: and I think there's a reason for that that in
Speaker 4: our psychology, we need to believe that things can always
Speaker 4: get better, right.
Speaker 3: I think that's why we like a vicious clap back
Speaker 3: on Twitter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're like, it's a tiny, tiny little man, such
Speaker 2: an art form, I know. Oh Al Martinez did have
Speaker 2: a question. He said, Okay, Greek and Roman mythology are
Speaker 2: the two best known in the Western world. Which one
Speaker 2: precedes the other or influences the other most? Which is
Speaker 2: a great question. Who can first?
Speaker 4: The Greeks. Greek mythology is the elder of those, and
Speaker 4: the Romans adopted many of the Greek myths and then
Speaker 4: changed the names of the gods, you know, occasionally would
Speaker 4: change the story up a little bit also, but we
Speaker 4: can't discount the importance of the importance of the Roman myths,
Speaker 4: because even the Greeks, you know, took a lot of
Speaker 4: their myths from the Babylonians and the Assyrians. To answer
Speaker 4: this question, the Greeks definitely predated the Romans as far
Speaker 4: as the mythology goes.
Speaker 2: I mean, reboots on reboots, reboots on reboots, you know,
Speaker 2: Michael Gonzalez, what is your favorite god from Greek and
Speaker 2: Roman mythology?
Speaker 4: Yeah, boy, this is a tough one to choose, but
Speaker 4: I think if I had to choose one, it's probably Dionysus.
Speaker 3: Oh behind Dionysus.
Speaker 4: Was the god of wine and leisure. But also Dionysus
Speaker 4: is where we get our modern ideas of theater from,
Speaker 4: and the theater of Dionysus in Athens is where theater
Speaker 4: originated and where the earliest plays, you know, were performed.
Speaker 4: And so I think it's easy for us to look
Speaker 4: at wine and partying and in that sort of thing
Speaker 4: as being the world of Dionysus, and certainly that was
Speaker 4: part of it. However, Dionysus also in theater and with wine,
Speaker 4: these were actual rituals, in meaningful ceremonies that occurred. So
Speaker 4: there's sort of two schools of thought or philosophies in mythology.
Speaker 4: It's the Dionesian people that really identify with that psychological
Speaker 4: idea of Dionysus, or the Apollonian people that idealize Apollo,
Speaker 4: which was very much a god who was dedicated to
Speaker 4: rational thinking and logic and things like that, which we
Speaker 4: might say that that sort of leads us to believing
Speaker 4: there's two types of people in the world. Those who
Speaker 4: were Apollonian in nature and believe logic, and we sometimes
Speaker 4: call those people left brain people, and then Dionysian the
Speaker 4: people that might be more creative. We're always out to
Speaker 4: have fun that we might consider more right brain. So
Speaker 4: we're constantly trying to bifurcate that psychological idea we find
Speaker 4: in mythology. And they would say it's either Dionysus or Apollo.
Speaker 4: But I'm a Dionysus guy.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I realize that.
Speaker 2: Oh it reminds me a little bit of the goofis
Speaker 2: and gallant but in Highlights Magazine.
Speaker 3: But I think there's too much pressure pressure to be
Speaker 3: a gallant.
Speaker 4: Shout out to Highlights Magazine, mantimes.
Speaker 2: You got to be a Goophist, just be like whatever,
Speaker 2: I didn't put the cap back on the milk.
Speaker 3: Oh y'all.
Speaker 4: I'm going to write an academic article based on that,
Speaker 4: because honestly, I think you're onto something. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of people that would resonate with that.
Speaker 3: That's good. I think it's too much black away thinking.
Speaker 2: Jessica Chamberlain asks what is something for mythology that is
Speaker 2: carried over into modern traditions that most people don't know
Speaker 2: the origins of like holiday traditions or olympics or other
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, boy, there's so many. One of the things that
Speaker 4: I think people might find somewhat interesting is the modern
Speaker 4: ideas that we have about death. For example, when people die,
Speaker 4: we typically don't just go put them out in the
Speaker 4: recycle bin out on the curb, or go and bury
Speaker 4: them in the backyard.
Speaker 2: For more info on how to dispose of your body
Speaker 2: and confront your immortality, see episode six of ologies Phanatology
Speaker 2: with Cole and Perry. She's so great and also I
Speaker 2: confront my existential terror.
Speaker 4: We typically have a ceremony where there's a nice coffin
Speaker 4: and that where sometimes we will even go put maybe
Speaker 4: something that was meaningful to that person in the coffin
Speaker 4: with them. And those ideas all come from Egyptian mythology.
Speaker 4: The way that the Egyptian saw death as being sort
Speaker 4: of a at least in the funeral type experience, is
Speaker 4: being this liminal space before you'd go on the afterworld.
Speaker 4: We sort of treat the dead like that in America,
Speaker 4: where many cultures will still have an open coffin at
Speaker 4: the funeral and we talk to the person like they're
Speaker 4: still there getting ready to go. We dress them up
Speaker 4: and put on a nice suit for them, or a
Speaker 4: dress or some sort of preparatory clothes for wherever they're going.
Speaker 4: We will often put things in the coffin, you know,
Speaker 4: that were meaningful to them. The Egyptians believed, you know,
Speaker 4: that death was just really this experience, this transitory experience
Speaker 4: that was taking someone on to the next place in
Speaker 4: the journey. It's something that we mythologically still really rely
Speaker 4: on our death traditions.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I would just like put a coin in
Speaker 3: your mouth and sail you over to the.
Speaker 2: Sticks by nice known you. Here's here's toll for the sticks.
Speaker 2: Eric wants to know why were the Romans such biters.
Speaker 4: I'm guessing what he's said is why did they bite
Speaker 4: the style of I think he's used the got hop
Speaker 4: parlance of biding.
Speaker 3: Got it, got it, got it?
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think one of the things that made the
Speaker 4: Romans such biters, Eric, is the fact that the Romans
Speaker 4: had the ability to travel and experience other cultures. Because
Speaker 4: they had the means, they were wealthy, they could go
Speaker 4: and experience other cultures. And it's sort of like when
Speaker 4: you go visit your cousin in middle school in their
Speaker 4: hometown and everybody's wearing Yankees caps backwards, and you decide
Speaker 4: to come back and be the person that's going to
Speaker 4: start wearing the Yankees cap backwards. It's not unlike what
Speaker 4: the Romans would do. Wherever the Romans went, they tended
Speaker 4: to bring back some aspects of the culture that they
Speaker 4: thought was great, and we still do the same today
Speaker 4: because spoiler alert, guess what that sushi that everybody's enjoying
Speaker 4: so much here in Los Angeles, it wasn't developed in
Speaker 4: the San Fernando very Somebody experienced that in another country,
Speaker 4: thought it was great and brought it here. And that's
Speaker 4: sort of how the world works.
Speaker 2: And who's going to catch the Romans. It's not like
Speaker 2: anyone could google it back then. We're like, oh, that's
Speaker 2: a great idea, and they're like kind offer from Grease.
Speaker 2: Laura Ason wants to know. As an ologite, I got
Speaker 2: to ask smart people them questions. So what is your
Speaker 2: favorite mythological creature?
Speaker 4: Oh, this is a really great one because I'm going
Speaker 4: to somewhat cheat on the answer here because I'm going
Speaker 4: to pick a half creature, half human, and that is
Speaker 4: the Mermaid. Yeah, I think mermaids are super fascinating because
Speaker 4: we although we have disnified mermaids. You know, mermaids were
Speaker 4: often sirens in the older mythological tales that had really
Speaker 4: sharp teeth and would sing these beautiful songs and set
Speaker 4: topless on rocks calling to the sailors, and the sailors
Speaker 4: would be drawn to their beauty, nudity and beautiful voices.
Speaker 4: They would go over and then a horror movie would
Speaker 4: ensue from the mermaids, you know, having lunch on the sailors.
Speaker 4: So I think the idea of dangerous beauty is really
Speaker 4: interesting to me, and I think mermaids sort of encapsulate
Speaker 4: that idea of dangerous beauty. So for me, you know,
Speaker 4: it's the mermaid. I know, I could have, you know,
Speaker 4: picked a a much more creature like monster or subject.
Speaker 4: You know. So I'll give a second place to unicorns
Speaker 4: because there's a straight white male of my people have
Speaker 4: not given unicorns their due. And I got to say,
Speaker 4: as once said by one of my favorite films from
Speaker 4: the creators of South Park, unicorns are badass.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're so revered and they can gouge the
Speaker 2: shit out of you with that horn, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's a horse with a giant sharp object
Speaker 4: coming out of it. What's more manly than that?
Speaker 2: Really, there's nothing that's more gently phallic than that, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean? Like a gorgeous like a totally
Speaker 2: like stick but lethal fallus like you boys need to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you need to commandeer? That is your come on?
Speaker 4: That really is the symbol of male culture. Is the unicorn?
Speaker 4: This magic dangerous phallus. Yeah, you you male secrets have
Speaker 4: been revealed on this podcast, Alley, There's no way around it.
Speaker 2: Tyler Fox wants to know the two major comics publishers.
Speaker 2: Who do you think has better superhero stories? Marvel or
Speaker 2: DC Rife.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna say DC that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're in a happy marriage. I think you should
Speaker 2: definitely say DC. And I think let's see how Oh
Speaker 2: and last question, Caroline, also known as under Knit, says,
Speaker 2: who is your favorite mythological underdog?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna have to say you know that. I'm
Speaker 4: going to give an old school answer here, and it's Sisyphus,
Speaker 4: you know, known for pushing the boulder up the hill
Speaker 4: and it keeps coming back down. There's something I think
Speaker 4: we can all relate to in that no matter what
Speaker 4: we're trying to do, the idea of pushing this heavy
Speaker 4: boulder up the hill only to have it come back down.
Speaker 4: That is that psychologically makes me feel understood and seen.
Speaker 4: And really that's what that's what good mythology does. You know,
Speaker 4: it makes us feel seen and understood, and it makes
Speaker 4: us feel like there's someone out there that gets us,
Speaker 4: that also told this story. And maybe that's the bottom
Speaker 4: line for all mythology is it helps us feel less alone.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. So what is your what's your really
Speaker 3: quick advice for writer's block?
Speaker 4: Yeah, my quick advice for writer's block is to literally
Speaker 4: walk outside and the first thing that you see, determine
Speaker 4: and promise yourself I will write one page about the
Speaker 4: first thing I see, whether it's a tree or a
Speaker 4: flower or whatever it is, and that just gets getting
Speaker 4: the keyboard flowing again, especially something that's organic outside. It
Speaker 4: touches parts of the brain that took millions of years
Speaker 4: to develop, and that connection to nature, that connection to
Speaker 4: the natural world. Sometimes it just opens up what's inside
Speaker 4: of us and allows it to begin to come out.
Speaker 4: So get out of your office, get out of your house,
Speaker 4: get out of your room, walk outside, for a minute
Speaker 4: and the first thing of the natural world that really
Speaker 4: strikes you, walk back inside, write a full page about it.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, that's so great. That's like how to overcome
Speaker 2: writer's block. And instead of reading a whole book about
Speaker 2: how to overcome it's like.
Speaker 3: Boom, here you go. I was like, you really are
Speaker 3: a doctor. That's a great prescription.
Speaker 2: So what is your least favorite thing about your work
Speaker 2: or mythology in general, or just like your life and
Speaker 2: what you do.
Speaker 4: You No, my least favorite thing is I wish I
Speaker 4: had more time us to be reading the millions of
Speaker 4: books out there that delve deeply into subjects I care about.
Speaker 4: If I could change anything about my life, it would
Speaker 4: be somehow to magically create space and time. When I
Speaker 4: go to the bookstore, when I go on Amazon and
Speaker 4: I buy a new book, I'm actually not buying that book.
Speaker 4: I am buying what I think will be the time
Speaker 4: I have to read that book. It makes me feel
Speaker 4: good to feel like I'm going to have time to
Speaker 4: read that book, and that makes me feel good. I
Speaker 4: don't actually think that any of us have the sort
Speaker 4: of time we need to be the full people that
Speaker 4: we are, and so for me, you know it's not uncommon,
Speaker 4: but I would just have more time to delve even
Speaker 4: more deeply into the things I'm curious about.
Speaker 3: So book wormery.
Speaker 4: Book wormery is like my jam and my religion.
Speaker 3: I would say, so your favorite thing about what you do.
Speaker 4: My favorite thing about what I do is getting to
Speaker 4: understand the stories behind the stories. My life became much
Speaker 4: easier when, even though I'm a mythologist, I became My
Speaker 4: life became easier when I begin to understand that my
Speaker 4: life didn't boil down to a job description. My life
Speaker 4: is an ecosystem. And in that ecosystem of story, I
Speaker 4: have the mountains of mythology, and I have the rivers
Speaker 4: of story structure, and I have the deserts of writers blood.
Speaker 4: And I have all these things, and I spend time
Speaker 4: at different parts of the ecosystem. But if I tend
Speaker 4: to that ecosystem of my own creativity in life's work,
Speaker 4: and I treat it like a living thing, I care
Speaker 4: for it differently, I love it differently, and I don't
Speaker 4: get angry with it in the same ways that I
Speaker 4: did before I understood the ecosystem of story and creativity.
Speaker 2: God, I should apply that to my own life, but
Speaker 2: just the desert would be like emails, I gotta gotta
Speaker 2: Maybe that's just a delush, maybe that's a mom soon somewhere.
Speaker 3: So where can people find you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have a website called Telling a Better Story
Speaker 4: dot com. Please go check it out and you can
Speaker 4: see some of the different work that I do. Books,
Speaker 4: I've written TV shows, I've appeared on podcasts that I've
Speaker 4: been on. But also I'm really active on Twitter. So
Speaker 4: my Twitter handle is at John j O h n
Speaker 4: K b U c h e Er. Notice I spell it,
Speaker 4: I save people the trouble of having to pronounce it.
Speaker 4: But those those are probably the two easiest places to
Speaker 4: find me. Yeah, I'm just I'm really fortunate to have
Speaker 4: a platform to get to talk about these things that
Speaker 4: I think are really important in life.
Speaker 3: Story doctor change in lives, saving lives.
Speaker 2: So get it all up in John Booker's website and Twitter.
Speaker 2: And to follow ologies, We're at ologies on Instagram and
Speaker 2: Twitter as well. Very straightforward. I'm at Ali Ward with
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Speaker 2: anyone needs internship credits, holler at me at Hello Ali
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Speaker 2: a lot. I can't promise you that, but either way,
Speaker 2: send me an email if you're interested. Thank you Stephen
Speaker 2: Ray Morris for slicing this episode altogether, and to Aaron
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Speaker 2: for helping with ologiesmerch dot com a really great online
Speaker 2: store a great way to support the podcast. Nick Thorburn
Speaker 2: wrote and performed the theme music. And I'm still in
Speaker 2: this hotel room in Portland. I'm leaving in a few
Speaker 2: minutes to go interview a zimologist about fermentation and beer making,
Speaker 2: and then an apologist about beekeeping and age. I know
Speaker 2: about maybe why I hate the word panties. So stay
Speaker 2: tuned for those episodes. Those are coming up. If you
Speaker 2: listen to the end of the episodes, you know that
Speaker 2: I started telling a secrets just the thanks for sticking
Speaker 2: it through the credits, so I will let you know.
Speaker 2: I travel for work a lot, and for years and
Speaker 2: years and hotels, I was afraid to put the do
Speaker 2: not disturb sign up because I thought it literally meant
Speaker 2: like people are boning in heir, or like I'm doing
Speaker 2: things that you don't want.
Speaker 3: To see, or in up because they're gross.
Speaker 2: So for years, when the cleaning staff would open the
Speaker 2: door at like seven forty five in the morning, I'd
Speaker 2: be like, hey, I'm in here because I didn't put
Speaker 2: the sign up. And it's not until the last few
Speaker 2: months that I've started to just put it out if
Speaker 2: I'm sleeping. I like didn't realize that that do not
Speaker 2: disturb sign could also mean like I'm just sleeping anyway,
Speaker 2: That is that weird. Okay, so ask smart people dumb
Speaker 2: questions because they love it honestly, and questions are probably
Speaker 2: not stupid at all. And anytime you ask a question,
Speaker 2: it's saying, hey, I'm curious and I want to learn
Speaker 2: from your brain, which I think is the highest compliment
Speaker 2: you can pay.
Speaker 3: Okay, Bye bye, Pacaderman
Speaker 2: College, bombiology or doo zoology, lithology, zechnology, meteorologyology, ethnology, zeriology, elisology,