Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Why Helen Of Troy Is The Real Star Of 'The Odyssey'

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Beautiful women are always causing trouble in history, and perhaps none more so than Helen of Troy.She's the daughter of Zeus and a human mother, after all.With the new film Odyssey hitting the big screen, find out all about the formidable Helen of Troy who was supposedly the most beautiful woman in the world and caused the Trojan War.Joining Kate today is Ruby Blondell, Professor of Classics at University of Washington and author of two books on Helen of Troy.This episode was edited by Tim Arstall. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister, welcome back once again to Betwicks the Sheets. That's me doing jazz hands, but you can't see it because we're still on audio. Welcome back. It's fab to have you here. But because we care about you and your precious, precious feelings,

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about 3,000 years in the past, to be precise. It's actually a quiet morning in ancient Greece down by the harbour in Sparta, but something momentous is happening. Queen Helen is standing on the deck of a boat watching back towards the shore as she sailed off with the Trojan Prince Paris. And that is not her husband. Huh, that's going to piss a few people off. And if there's one group of people, you don't want to piss off. It's the Spartans. I think we can all agree on that one.

Married queens just aren't supposed to bugger off with their sneaky link. Not now, not never. But did she go willingly? Or was there something more sinister going on in this story? Either way, it won't be long before whole kingdoms are at war. Heroes will become legends. and luckily for us, it'll all be depicted on the big screen in a film called The Odyssey in the Year of Our Lord, 2026.

So what better time to find out more about Helen's story? Hello and welcome back to Betwixta Sheets, the history of sex scandal and society with me, Kate Lister. Yes, you may have already heard that a huge, huge blockbuster is about to arrive on our shores. It's Christopher Nolan's take on the ancient Greek epic story. of the Odyssey, which features the story of Helen of Troy as part of it. Well, I mean, you know, it's quite a big part of it. But what was the story of Helen of Troy? What else did the Greek myths say about her? Anything at all other than that she started wars? What is her legend all about? It can't just be that she's a pretty face, can it? Well, joining me today is

Professor Ruby Blondell, Professor of Classics at the University of Washington, an author of two books on Helen of Troy. So if anybody can help us answer some of these questions, it's got to be her, right? Yeah, I thought so too. Right, fake horses and toogas at the ready. Let's do this. Well, hello and welcome to Betwicks the Sheets. It's only Professor Ruby Blondell. How are you doing? I am doing great. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You know, we had to get you on to do this one on Helen of Troy because you are the author of Helen of Troy Beauty Myth Devastation and Helen of Troy in Hollywood. So given the fact that the Odyssey is about to come out

and given the fact that there was a whole brouhaha on social media about the fact La Peter Njongo is playing Helen of Troy, were you just like stand back everybody? I have got this one. This is my bag. Well, I have to say that all my friends, but we're saying that more or less. So how did you come to,

a professor of classics. Would you remember when you first started, when you were first introduced to this material? Well, yes, but I had a very old-fashioned traditional English education. Oh, oh, I see. It's like, I remember as a very young child reading the stories from Greek mythology and loving, I mean, I love the, all the myths for all the cultures. But as you know, classical myth, Greek myth is the one that gets privileged in traditional educational contexts. That's true. But it stuck with you. It's like this, this is good stuff.

This is. Yeah. And then I was introduced to the languages and I turned out to, you know, be good at the languages. Oh, are you? And I don't know. Things have changed probably in Britain since my day. But back then you had to pretty much make your choice when you were 16 whether you wanted to, you know, do sciences or whatever you wanted to do. And so I started really young doing Greek and Latin.

You did. I went to a state school. We didn't do Greek or Latin. And we'd just... Some of them used to in those days. My best friend in college went to a grammar school. Yeah. Yeah.

And when I went to private schools and, you know, I was pretty much on the traditional track that way. But then after I graduated, I didn't know what I wanted to do really, but I knew I wanted to do something that would be fun. And I knew I was good at going to school. Ruby, I love that you, that for studying ancient Greek for you was fun, that that time you wanted to do for fun. Well, fun was going to California. Of course it was. That was the fun part. So everybody was like, well, why wouldn't you go to Cambridge or stay at Oxford?

Blu-blah-blu. And I'm like, that wasn't really my motivation to go to the most elite academic institutions, although Berkeley was one, which is where I did my PhD. But I wanted to travel and, you know, do something a little different. That sounds fantastic. And obviously, during the course of your studies and your travels around California, you know a thing or two about Helen of Troy. So can we introduce, just in case there's anyone listening to this going,

who, Helen, who? Can you tell us who Helen of Troy is? Well, I first started getting interested in Helen of Troy because, you know, Achilles is the greatest warrior of the Greeks. Most people probably know that. And Helen is the most beautiful woman in the world, ever. And I always thought that they can have made a good couple because he, I mean, there should be a couple, right?

You're right. He's the manliest man, and she's the womanliest woman. Anyway, she's the most beautiful woman in the world. And as you know, not just from Greek culture, but from pretty much every culture the world has ever known, beautiful women are trouble. Yes. And so in Greek mythology, she's the daughter of Zeus, who's the king of the gods. And that means she has like a divine superpower, which is her beauty.

But she has a human mother. So she's like among humans. She is human, but kind of special, very special. And has this awe-inspiring superpower of her beauty, which makes everybody want to fall in love with her. Yeah. So naturally, this is going to lead to trouble. And because she's the most beautiful woman in the world, it leads to the greatest war of all time, commonly known as the Trojan War. Yeah.

So she elopes. Well, she's already married. She's married to Menelaus, who's kind of a loser. And my menelers is Michael Douglas. I think he would be... Anyway. He's who you'd pick to play menelaus? Yes.

Yes. Because I like that. Because you can't stand him. He's so... Anyway, he's just kind of got loser written. I don't know why he's a big star because, to me, he's got loser written all over him. But... I feel we need another episode to unpack this one, Ruby, but continue.

So, she's married to him at Sparta. And then this nice young man comes to visit. And his name is Paris. And he's from Troy. Troy on the other side of the Aegean in now what's Turkey. And he is not the hottest man in the world, but he's pretty good. The hottest man in the world. Yeah, he's a looker.

Yeah, he'd catch your eye if he smiled at you. Yeah. Exactly. However, not a lot of people know this, but the most handsome guy at Troy is Achilles. Well, see, that makes it. So why didn't he in hell? on a side quest already. I need to rein it back in. But maybe we can talk about why Helen and Achilles never got together because that sounds like they should have done.

In mythological terms, yes, and I'm happy to have sidetrack. There is a very remote, ancient version of the story in which they do get together in the afterlife. Oh, oh, oh. That sounds good, but then also, oh, okay. So they kind of get it together, but they're dead. Well, except they're living on because they're heroic semi-modal figures. Because he's half a god as well, isn't he? Achilles. Yes. Yes. That's one of the reasons they're well matched. Yeah, they got a lot. But the bottom line reason why they can't get together is because then we wouldn't have a story.

Because she would never have walked out on Achilles. It would have been a crap story, that one. It would have just been, yeah, they got together. They made beautiful children and lived happily ever after. Done. Absolutely. Yeah. So she's got to be married to someone who's kind of a loser. Yeah, okay. Okay. And then Paris comes along and seduces her.

and off they go to Troy. And because Helen's so beautiful, the Greek chiefs have all sworn an oath, a really dumb oath, which is that if anybody takes Helen away, they'll all come and fight for her. They swore that oath? Yes.

That's a weird oath to ask people to take. If anyone comes and steals my wife, you'll come with me to get her back. If your mates came to you and had that as a deal, you'd have a few follow-up questions. Yes, well, you see, everything comes back to the fact that she is the most beautiful woman in the world, period, ever. And they all want to marry her. Oh, because of course someone would try and steal her.

Of course somebody would. Right, it's not like I'm getting married and like there's no reason why anyone would want to steal me. It's of course someone would want to steal Ellen. Right. This makes more sense. Yeah, I think you look very stealable, by the way. Oh, thank you very much. There literally tens of people would want to steal me, but thank you.

Okay, but it's a known risk with Helen. Someone's going to want to steal her. It's a known risk. Plus, they all want to marry her. So the way they kind of settle the deal is like, there are many versions of the story, but when there's a lottery. Oh. And Menelaus is chosen at random. That's a weird one.

And part of the deal of the lottery is that they all agree that whoever wins, they will all get together and defend him if his wife takes off. That starts. Okay. All right. Okay. Fine. Right. I know. It's mythology, remember?

It is, isn't it? I keep trying to like apply more sense to it, but it's a story. It's a story. We're moving on. Paris has stolen or seduced, Helen? That is the million-dollar question. There are many, many, many versions of the story. And in all the Greek versions, except one, but it's complicated, she is seduced, but she goes willingly.

She wants to go. Okay. And that's really crucial, the question of intentionality. A lot of the modern versions, they all want to, for some reason, ancient and modern authors, they all want to defend Helen and they say, oh, she wasn't so bad, it wasn't her fault. And the modern ones tend to do it by saying, oh, she was stuck in a loveless marriage, you know, it's really not her fault. She had to get away. But in ancient ones, that's no excuse.

No, I'm not sure how much of an excuse I would make that one either, because if you're married, married to Menelaus and you know he has a temper. You know that. And you know that if you get stolen, there's going to be a big war. I think maybe just keep it in your pants, Helen. That's what I think. Well, the Greeks took a very strong view about this kind of female behavior. Of course they did. You know, it's a very patriarchal culture. And they think of women as being sex maniacs, basically, and incapable of self-control. So therefore, it's easy to seduce them. Yes. Yeah. And so that helps you. Someone's behavior is kind of typical woman behavior.

But she's also the most beautiful woman in the world. And we don't want to think bad things about her because we all secretly want her. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you think about the other bad women in Greek mythology, like Clytemnester, who is my favorite, who kills her husband and Medea, who kills her children. You don't see like 15 authors all trying to say, well, it wasn't really her fault. No. I mean, that's pretty privilege on an epic scale, isn't it, that one?

of just she can do no wrong because she's the most beautiful woman in the world. Questionable choices, though, I think, personally. But then you can turn it around and say, yeah, it's pretty privileged, but it's also power. And the way I first thought about Helen was as a figure of power. She has this superpower. And that's what, you know, in a patriarchal situation, women and other oppressed people use whatever tools they have at their availability. And because men have this unfortunate weakness that they often want to have sex with women. I feel like you can't really blame women for taking advantage of that.

Yeah, what's a girl to do, quite frankly? So she's seduced, makes a bad choice, but she's pretty, so we don't want to blame her. She goes to Troy with Paris, and then obviously she writes a note to Men allow us going, sorry, not going to work out. And he goes, well, never mind then. It's all fine. Yeah, that's what happens. But that brings up another issue that I'm interested in, which is like, it's the men's fault. didn't have to follow her. They didn't have to go. No, no. No, they didn't. They didn't. He could

have just gone, well, stuff you, you trollop, I'll go and find another, I'll find the second most beautiful woman in the world. Exactly. So the Greek sources, they do, a lot of them do blame Helen. I mean, she's an icon of the bad woman. But they blame Paris more. He's, he's the one who took the initiative and seduced her, and therefore he's the bad man. Is he much of a warrior, Paris? Well, he's usually presented as kind of a whip. Yeah. However, he is still an ancient epic hero. He's one of them. And so he looks glorious in his armor.

He runs into battle looking amazing. And he does fight. You know, he's not a complete wimp. I think often the modern retellings seem to, they oversimplify all the characters. That's just a tendency, you know, pop culture. And I don't think he's a complete wimp because otherwise, I mean, he wouldn't even be there among the heroic figures. No. But by compared to like Achilles or Hector.

or any of the real big ones. Yeah, he's a whip. Is he favored by Aphrodite? I'm just trying to remember the last time I read. He's by Aphrodite and she's the goddess of sexual passion. Yeah. And she protects him. And this is a good example of how ambiguous it is because it's great to be favored by a god.

All of the big ones have gods on their side. That's, you know. But Aphrodite, she's the goddess of sex. She whisks him away out of the battle when he's about to get killed. so that he doesn't get killed. So it's kind of a dodgy form of protection when that girly girl goddess is your protector.

She's like the divine equivalent of Helen. She's the most beautiful, sexy goddess. And there is quite a long tradition in classical literature going right back, certainly to the ancient Greeks, of beautiful women distracting heroic men from their manly quest and their manly duties, whether it's calypso distracting,

keeping people on their island and stopping them from going on the heroic quest or like a little bit later Dido keeping Aeneas from his heroic quest and that kind of idea that if you spend too much time with women you're going to become overly feminized yourself. Yes. And he's hanging out with Aphrodite.

So maybe he's a bit of a metrosexual Harris. That's putting it kindly. Yes. And contrary to our stereotype, the Greek stereotype is that men who are too attracted to women are more girly. Yes, I remember that now. Yes.

Explain that one in the Greek logic. How do they join those dots up? That if you're too attracted to women, then you're effectively a big girl yourself. Yeah. Well, there's a really fundamental principle in Greek thinking, both in philosophy and also in ordinary everyday life, which is that like is attracted to like.

Things are attracted to things that are like themselves. So if you're attracted to women, that means you're girly. You're girly, yeah. That's the bottom line. That's the basic principle. And if you spend too. much time in the company of women, you're going to become soft and luxuriant and

use bubble bath and moisturiser and just generally. And you can actually see echoes of that in this kind of hyper-masculine men's rights podcasting man-manosphere at the moment, can't you? It's all bros, bros and we don't spend time with girls because they're

because they're icky. I'm overly, yeah, I'm overly simplifying. Oh no, you can't ever simplify. So Paris is a metrosexual, but Helen seems to really, really, like him. And he's favored by Aphrodite. And they have a war. And I think the thing that people forget about the Trojan War is it's 10 years.

It's not just like people show up in boats and they have a bit of a skirmish and then it's all over. Ten years. Yeah. Yeah. Now what you just described, a bit of a skirmish and all that, that might be what happened historically. But this is legend. This is, you know, the legend takes an event from the past and makes it into something much greater, grand and more glorious. So it takes longer. The warriors are greater. They keep talking about how the poet who is composing this many hundreds of years later than they imagined time, they often say basically men back then were greater. They always say that, don't they? No matter how far back you go,

there's always this, look, once upon a time when things were better, when men were more manly, like there'll be things scratched on cave walls about how it was better in the olden days. Exactly. So it belongs to a heroic era, which is in fact mythological. You know, it's not, even if there are some historical origins. And to be honest, I don't really care if it's historical personally. Can I, well, this seems like a good place to ask the question, though, is, is there any truth to the fact that there was a Trojan war? Where is Troy? Is there any historical evidence to any of this? Well, there is a place. Troy is a place. Okay. And it was discovered by someone who was a true. believer, like, yeah, we can use Homer to find history. And as you can imagine, there's been a ton of archaeology done there. Wow. It's a real place. It's a real place. When did they find it? And it was found by a Troy fan. That must have been a moment. That must have been like when we discovered Richard

the third in a car park and it was a Richard the third fan who did it. Yes. Kind of like that. Yes. Only this guy is like a professional, professional archaeologist. And so they've been digging around and people have been nagging about it, and they found like some spectacular jewelry, which has become known as Helen's jewelry. Oh, wow. But that's all kind of made up. Yeah, okay. But my point is that it's more like you said just now, we don't know what really happened.

There may have been some people who kind of had similar names or no doubt somebody stole somebody's wife because that happens all the time in myth and history. Yeah. And then they, no doubt, they thought about it. Who knows for how long? but over the course of hundreds of years this was built up by the epic storytelling tradition into something much greater and grander.

Yeah. A 10-year war is like because Troy is a city like could you even see besiege a city for 10 years? I know it's legend. I know it's a story. Okay. Yeah, so I think the historical thing is a bit of a distraction. I mean, that's partly just because I'm not,

I won't even say this. I'm not interested in history. But oh my God. Right. Cover your ears, dear listeners. No, that's fine. So it's a real place, but probably not the place where there was a 10-year war because the daughter of a god and a demi-goddess was stolen by a metrosexual

who was loved by the goddess of love. Probably not that. It turns of a shame, isn't it? But probably not. It is a shame. So I don't know if people really know how the story of hell and even ends. They might know about the war. They might know about the Trojans.

they'll probably know about the Trojan horse. They'll know the big names Achilles, Hector, Achilles lover, Patriclis, who's edited out of the movies. But how does it finish? How does the war end? What happens to Helen at the end of the story? Good question. Well, first off, there's a really interesting story

regarding Helen and the Trojan War, which actually comes from The Odyssey. No doubt it will not be in this movie. But the story is that the Trojan Horse was already inside the walls of Troy and you know how the men are supposed to leap out in the middle of the night, right? And surprise the city. And so they're still in there and they're napping or whatever and waiting to jump out. And Helen appears and walks around the horse and she makes seductive voices of all the men's wives back home.

And they all want to jump out of the horse. That's a neat trick. Isn't it? She has this like magical superpower of seductiveness. And among the Greeks, it's not just about how you look. It's also about your voice and how you present yourself. So there's a lot that associates the voice, singing, speaking, with seduction. Wow.

And because she's got these magical powers of seduction, she impersonates the spouses of the men and they all want to jump out and reveal themselves, which would ruin the whole plan. She's like a siren. Yes, exactly. Same idea. and the only one who resists is a disuse and a disuse shuts the others up.

Wow. That really is superpowers. That's like she's some kind of just seduction goddess who just knows exactly what to say. Right. Or that casts her in rather a difference. She's not just a pretty face. Oh, no. There's another story which I would connect with that,

which is also in the Odyssey in the same scene, really. The scene I just described as a story told by somebody at a dinner party. And at the party, everybody is weeping and lamenting because the Trojan War was so terrible and they have lost a disuse. Nobody knows where he is.

And the hosts are Helen and Menelaus. It's at their place back in Sparta. So you asked about the ending. Well, the most common ending is she goes back to Sparta with him. So everybody's crying. And she gets a magic potion and sticks it in the drink,

which takes away their cares. So it's sort of like she put, I don't know, heroin in the wine. My God. She's drugging people as well. Yes. Wow. Okay, Helen.

Some questionable ethics going on here. So the drug is another example of her superpower. It's an emblem of her beauty that she can manipulate man however she wants and take away their negative feelings. Is that how she ends up back with Menelaus? Because I'd imagine, like, you would need some couples therapy for that. Possibly Dr. Una would need to be in. involved, there would be, like, like, I had the idea that after 10 years of bloodshed and Odysseus has gone missing and Achilles is dead and Hector's dead and Paris is dead, like,

they're all dead. And then Helen's just going to go back to Sparta with Manilaus and been like, yeah, sorry, sorry about that, we'll just pick up where we're like, anyone want, anyone wants something to eat? Like, is the only way that that makes sense, again, is if she has this power that she's so beautiful that everybody just kind of goes, yeah, Yeah, yeah. Oh, Helen, you're such a sort. Yeah. And actually how she ends up going back home is another good story. What happens at the fall of Troy is, you know, everything's being sacked and burned and destroyed. And Menelaus sees her and he's really, really angry, you know, obviously.

And he lifts up his sword to kill her. He's going to take revenge. And she just kind of looks at him. Oh, wow, Helen. Oh, my God. And then he is trouble. He literally drops his sword. You see this in pictures. There are vase paintings. Yeah.

He literally drops his sword when he sees her. And says to the guys, yeah, I'll punish her later. We'll take her home and punish her there. Oh, wow. I'll be back with Helen and Ruby after the short break. Mad story. So another question then is, who wrote this? So, like, I know that there's Homer, but was he the first?

Did it exist in a tradition before him? Do we have any of that kind of evidence? Well, I was talking about how it probably, for all I know, started by like a cattle raid or some little small thing, you know, involving a woman. And over hundreds and hundreds of years, that was built up into an epic, supposedly glorious narrative, right? So the mechanism for that is oral poetics where it's all done orally. there's no writing. So for hundreds of years, the poets are passing the song. It's like a chanted song down from one to the other over the years and taking turns and embellishing it and expanding it and refining it. And there's lots and lots of controversy as to whether there was like one big

person who kind of put it all together at the end who we would call Homer or how it quite got to be that way we don't really know. But the bottom line is it's not the product of a single author. It's the product of a long tradition. Yeah, like kind of retellings, redrafts, like the King Arthur legend, I suppose, just it keeps getting retold and then eventually somebody with a big name writes it down. Exactly, exactly. And then even if Homer didn't exist, they had to invent him, you know, to be. Just about to ask you that, did he exist?

Because we were interviewing Professor Helen King and she dropped a bombshell, which was that Hippocrates didn't write the stuff that we attribute to him probably. It's like a brand name that just goes out of different people taking them. taking the name Hippocrates and writing stuff. Is Homer like that? Did he exist or is he a brand? He became a brand for sure. We don't know if he existed in the sense that

there could have been one poet who was extra specially important in putting it all together just at the point where it got written down and stabilized. But we really don't know. And he is kind of a legendary figure. The Greeks didn't have the kind of views that we do about what counts as faking. No, they didn't. Plagiarism was very fast and loose. Yes, so you might stick your name Hippocrates on.

Another example is Plato, the philosopher. We have a whole bunch of letters that were supposedly written by Plato, and a lot of them probably weren't. But it doesn't mean that people were trying to fake themselves out and pretend to be Plato. Yeah, yeah. It's more like branding, as you say. That's a good way to put it. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. All right. So Homer writes this stuff. down. And how important would you say is Helen of Troy? Because like in the actual epic narratives of Troy and then of course the Odyssey that follows it is she's not a major character in it, but it all circles around her. Yes. It all circles around her. She's the most prominent character and female character in the Iliad by quite a lot. Yeah. She's also shows up in so many works of Greek literature. All different kinds. Tragedy, oratory. She's mentioned in philosophy all over the place,

which is why I was able to, I mean, I wrote a book about Helen and Troy and Greek myth, and it doesn't even deal with all the texts. Wow. So she's kind of a pervasive presence. And she's got this bottom line superhero power. She's the most beautiful woman. And that, you know, that, yeah, and that sticks. But from every other point of view, especially ethically, they treat her in so many different ways. Like, was it her fault? Was it not her fault? Was she seduced? Or did she seduce him? Or, you know, they love to cast judgment, but they also love to defend her in really weird ways, like saying, oh, it's not her fault because Aphrodite made her do it. I'm going to try that one the next time I get pulled over for a speeding ticket. It wasn't me. It was Aphrodite. See how that sticks. Exactly. And Greeks wouldn't go for that either.

So, but I always take it back to that Supreme Beauty. It's like, why do you want to defend her so badly? Because, you know, she's beautiful and because we don't. It's interesting, I'm just drawing parallels in like the past couple of weeks as we're recording. It's been, it would have been Marilyn Monroe's 100th birthday. And I think she's got to be one of the most beautiful women that's ever walked the earth. And she certainly has that cult following around her. And Helen was supposed to be even more beautiful.

and that. But people feel very attracted to the character of Marilyn and they never want to hear anything bad about her and they want to defend her no matter what she's done. And it's that kind of thing again, isn't it? It's because somebody looks a certain way and is beautiful. We are attracted to that,

endlessly attracted to that. Yes. And then that attraction and that desire makes them who they are. Because in a literal sense, nobody's the most beautiful woman in the world. But to be Helen, it is very much like Marilyn. She's a good parallel because she's iconic. She becomes to symbolize a certain kind of beauty and seductiveness

and attraction for a particular time of place, namely in 1950s, US. So she takes on like a greater significance than any actual single mortal woman would ever have. And Helen's a lot like that. I have a whole bit in my second book where I talk about her being a movie star. She's like a movie star. She's like Marilyn. Oh, that makes perfect sense. And like she's popping up all over Greek culture in that same kind of iconic work. Like she's a by word for beauty and sexuality. Yes. She must have presented quite a conundrum to the Greeks

because on one hand, they have an idea that the women just really can't help themselves. They're not very bright, and they can't control their passions, and they're really horny. So, of course, she's going to run off. She's an idiot. But also, she is, like, the thing that they fear,

because that level of attraction to someone makes she quite weak. This isn't even dealing with myth and legend. Like we all know what it's like when you really, really, really fancy someone and you feel yourself being a complete twit. Like you're acting like an idiot and you're doing stuff that it's that you look back on. You're like, oh, it's so embarrassing that like I bombarding them with text messages. That's a weakness. And that is something to be quite feared, I think.

Absolutely. And that's exactly right. Helen stands for what it is about women that's terrifying to men. Yeah. And part of what's terrifying is that they want them and they need them. And you can go really basic and say they need them to reproduce. Yes. But you can't just ditch them.

Let's talk about Helen in film then because this is, that's a tough role to fill because the one thing everyone knows about Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. Like so how, and it doesn't really matter what woman you get to play her is, like you said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Like there's going to be somebody that doesn't think that's the most beautiful woman. So how do you even, who first played? the most beautiful woman in the world on film. Who first played Helen?

Well, I don't know because it goes back really early like this German epic silent movies. Of God, yes, of course. Yeah. And I can't remember the name of the person who played Helen. But again, in my second Helen book, I have a whole bunch of stuff about casting. How do you cast?

How do you choose? Who's to play the most beautiful woman in the world? Because we all pay lips service to the fact that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But secretly deep down, people have opinions. Yes, they're like ice. You know, I think. A is more beautiful than B.

And, you know, so there's this constant tension in how you choose to cast her. And my argument is that she should be a great movie star because a great movie star would bring that charisma, which is part of what Helen is. She's got the Riz, as the kids would say. She got the Riz, yeah. I started thinking about Helen in the movies when I saw the movie Troy. Do you remember the movie Troy? Oh, I remember it very well. I quite like Brad Pitt's legs.

I do remember that. I do you know it's weird about that? When that film came out, I remember that god. panned by critics and stuff. And now that there is a new version of it coming out, there's this weird narrative that's emerged about, oh, look how good this film was. It wasn't that good.

No, it was interesting. And I loved Brad Pitt as Achilles. I loved for the same reason I gave just now. He has the charisma. He's got the movie star glamour. And they film him that way. And that's appropriate to a hero. Yep.

So I like that. I thought Orlando Bloom was a good Paris, like very good looking, slightly feminine looking, not quite as heroic as his older brother, thought he was quite good. Yes, I mean, I don't get it with Orlando Bloom. I don't like him at all,

but I think he appeals to, like, the young, the very young. Okay, right, okay. But Helen was Diane Kruger. Yeah. And that made me so mad. That's when I started researching him. Tell me why you were mad, Ruby. Why did that make you mad?

Because she's kind of... And she's written this way. It's not the actress's fault. but she's written as passive and weepy and mopee. Yes. And that's not sexy. That's a very good point. She isn't very sexy in that film.

She just sort of walks around just pouting a lot. Exactly. And looking mopey and they make up this whole thing about how she's in this unwanted marriage. It was an arranged marriage, blah, blah, blah. Which actually in Greek sources isn't true. Some Greek sources, she chooses metallurface. herself, just made a bad choice. Right.

So they just made her to this kind of pathetic dish rag. And as I mentioned earlier, I always have thought of Helen through the lens of power, of female power. You're right. She wasn't very powerful. You're absolutely right. Completely. A bit wet beyond the ears, to be completely honest.

Very, completely. Yeah. So I didn't like that. So I started writing about how this did not fit into my idea of what Helen was like in the ancient world. And I think when I first wrote about it, I was a bit naive about how much of that is down to the actress and the casting.

but most of it's down to the script and the director. Yes, yes. I do remember hearing some criticism of the film at the time, which said that the dialogue was quite stilted for everybody. A lot of fun was made of the accents, too. They were trying to homogenize the accents. And they completely removed Achilles' lover, Patrick Clesson turned him into his cousin?

Yes, this is a good example of how myth is really, really fluid. Because at that time, I researched it just to see, you know. And there is a very, very obscure mythological variant where he is his cousin. Oh my God, right. Okay, I stand corrected. I've been carrying this grudge for 20 years. No, you can carry it. I mean, it's not that it's, it's not whether it's right or wrong.

It's the choices that they make. And mythology is so fluid. And the Greeks made stuff up. Lots of their versions. Good point. Yeah. They vary. They vary.

You're writing a new play, you can make the character different. Absolutely. It's not that it's a mistake of what people. people like to think of as authenticity. It's not about that. It's about what choices do you make with the materials that are available to you? I would just have liked to have seen them be a little bit braver, I think. You're not the only one.

I'm just like, come on, guys. If we're going to do it, if we've got Brad Pitt in a skirt, let's just, let's go the full hog here. Let's not hold back. Which I guess brings me to the topic of the new film that is about to come out. And the absolute hoo-ha that was created by the very idea. of Helen, who's not real anyway and was half a garden, born of an egg

or whatever the hell it was, is being played by a black woman. Yes. And we can thank, especially Elon Musk, that well-known expert in Greek mythology and movies. Wasn't it amazing just how many classic professors popped up on social media when that was announced? Like, my God, I had no idea.

There were so many experts out there. They're not experts. They're idiots. As an actual professor of this stuff, What is your take on LePietan Younger playing Helen? I think it's super interesting. When I was writing about Helen and film and television, they were all basically blonde and blue-eyed or maybe green eyes and very, you know, stereotypical.

Except this is interesting, except for two that were in TV shows, not movies. TV shows can, back in the day, not, I mean, everything's changed now. But I'm talking about an episode of Star Trek and an episode of Zina Warwick. a princess, both of which have Helen as a character, and they both used mixed-race actors. Okay. With dark hair. Television is a much cheaper medium.

The stakes are lower. You can take more risks. And, you know, the Hollywood machine tends to encourage conformity. So I thought, back when I was writing this stuff, I was really interested in that, the racial makeup of these two actors being different from the others. Diane Kruger, by the way, is German. And my theory of that is the director of Troy is German, and that's his ideal beauty. Ah, interesting. Very teutonic, blonde, Germanic looking because she is German.

Anyway, these two, the one in Star Trek, people often ask me, like, who's your favorite Helen? I have a couple, and one of them is the one in Star Trek. Her name is Franz Wien, and she's half French and half Vietnamese. And I love that she's an evil Helen. An evil Helen now then. I like the evil Helen's and she also has a superpower. If a man touches her tears, he has to fall in love with her magically. That's helpful.

Yeah, because that's really, and that's kind of how I think of Helen. And she also has amazing clothes and we haven't talked about this, but when you get on the topic of how do you represent female beauty, a lot of it is the clothes. Of course it is. I don't think it really mad of what you look like. It's how you, you know, dressed a kill.

Yeah. And this, she actually has the most costumes of any Star Trek female character. I'm going to look her up. Actually, my producers just sent me a picture of her. Oh, hello. Oh, she looks. Elan of Troyes. Woo.

She, that is a hot, hot layer. I love the silver bikini wear. Oh, no. Okay, I'm going to watch that later. Okay, she's a, oh yeah. She's a badass. I'll be back with Helen. and Ruby after the short break.

In the actual sources about what Helen looks like, is there anything at all? Does it say she's wearing a silver bikini on board a spaceship? Nothing directly. I mean, she does become a goddess in the end when she does not. She doesn't die. She becomes a goddess. The Greek sources present her,

I mean, I like to say the most beautiful woman is the one with the best accessories. I love that. And there's lots of Greek illustrations of beautiful mythological women. And they tend to kind of look the same because there are certain tokens that you identify. And one is lots of jewelry. Right. Okay.

So in Greek art, that's how we are depicting a beautiful woman is with the jewelry. Jewelry, the clothes. Okay. It's kind of like in a cartoon. You know, if we look at cartoons you don't expect a literal representation, but there are certain things like big boobs that tell you. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, and she has golden hair maybe, but it's a color word that's used for gods and for heroes. It's kind of like lighter colored hair. And yeah. So again, that's kind of symbolic. It's like most Greeks were dark-haired.

Yeah, but if you're a god, you've got this golden bronzy type of look going on. But Achilles is described like that too, is he? Or am I just thinking of bread pit? Yeah. So that's kind of part of the tradition. But since there's no real person called Helen. No. You know, when I was working on it, people would write to me with questions like,

how tall was she really? Did you answer? Honestly, did you just write back and just go about five foot four? according to our research. Well, I'm always in the business of trying to separate out mythology from people's desire for everything to be a fact. I mean, it's a lot more interesting if it's not a fact. I think it could make her any size you want.

Because it's not a fact is we have limitless scope to play with it. And I personally am very much looking forward to seeing what La Peter Nongo does with the character of Helen. Because if there's one thing, that actress has got its presence. Like she can command. She's got the Riz. Right? can command a screen and all eyes are on her. So I think that she's going to really bring it. And

I'd like to see Helen be confident. I'd like to see her be aware of her power. I would like to see her have a bit more agency. And now you've mentioned it, I might like to see a bit of a bit of bad Helen a little bit. Yeah. She should be badass. What are you hoping for in this? I assume you're going to go and see it, the film. I'm tickets for the opening night in 70, Oh, Nathan. What are you hoping for from Helen? You basically just described it. Yeah, a bit of attitude. Attitude, good costumes, really important. Yeah, good accessories. We know that now. Exactly. The kind of costuming and accessories and makeup that make you say, she's a badass bitch. That's what I want. The other thing that's interesting about her is she's also playing Clytemnestra.

I didn't know that. Allegedly, yeah. And Clytemnester is her sister. Right. Her half sister. LePietan Young is playing both parts? Yep. Okay. This is interesting. Why do you think they've done that?

I don't know. I think it's a really interesting choice. Yeah. It reminds me of, there's an old, old Odyssey movie in which Penelope and Circee, I think it is. Or Calypso with Circee are played by the same person. Interesting. Interesting. What is it that's drawing him?

Mm. And it kind of gives you an interplay between the kids. two characters. It tells you that Penelope has semi-divine specialness that's just expressed through the casting. So there's a number of possibilities. It depends how they do it. But in Greek literature, especially

in Ascolus in the Oristea, the Helen and Clydenester are represented as his pair, like this duo of bad women. Interesting. Two ways to be a bad woman. One is to be two quote-unquote masculine, like Clytemnester. She picks up an axe and

lobs her husband off. The other way is be too feminine, like Helen, too much of a girl, too seduceable. So they're kind of two sides of the coin of bad womanness, which of the Greeks are so obsessed with. I wonder if that's what they're going to do then. Well, that would be super interesting to make that suggestion that there's, you know, there's this continuum of all the different ways of being a bad woman and because they're sisters, and one is half divine and the other isn't, they convey different facets of that of the ways of being a bad woman. The final question then, why do you think the legacy of Helen endures the way it has? Because I wouldn't

have thought, I mean, obviously everyone knows about her and she's kind of iconic. But I mean, the fuss that was kicked up about the idea of her not being played by a white Germanic woman, it's just like she obviously still is in cultural currency and means different things to different people. Why do you think the legacy of Helen endures the way it does? That's a tough one. But I think it's because she just speaks to something so fundamental. basic. On the one hand, the desire that people have for beauty and the most beautiful woman, which is a placeholder for their desire for sex, their desire for babies, all that stuff. And what goes along with that, which is fear, the fear of the power of female beauty.

And one way that I'm going to say men, all the people online, I don't know, probably some of them are women, but they kind of want to control that by saying he's like, I know what it should be like. I know what authenticity is. And that's a good point. And these are people who don't know anything about it, really. But it's a way of kind of asserting their control over the narrative to start talking about what she should be like. Again, when I was researching my second book, I read a lot of user comments and responses. And I saw how people, they developed their own idea of authenticity.

And then they would judge the film by that, even if it was nothing to do with that ancient story. It's like, they think it should be. this way and so they will judge it and say it's good or bad depending on that. So it's a form of self-defense. I love that. It's a form of control. I hadn't even thought about that. Ruby, you have been wonderful to talk to. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you? Well, honestly, probably the best place is my Wikipedia page. Yeah, go and go and read Ruby's Wikipedia page. Are you on social media at all? I used to be on Facebook, but I'm still there. I'm on Facebook, but I don't use it very much anymore since it went kind of crappy.

Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. In that case, read Ruby's books and go to her Wikipedia page. I very much hope that you enjoy the film. I hope that it rocks your world and is everything that you're hoping for. Thank you. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.

Thank you so much for coming along. You've been fantastic. Thanks for inviting me. Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Ruby for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like with you and follow along wherever it is you get your podcasts. Coming up, we have got episodes on Sex,

work in Soviet Russia and the truth about Pablo Picasso all coming your way. And if you'd like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at betwixt at history hit.com. This podcast was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckworth. The senior producer is Freddie Chick. Join me again, Betwixt Sheets, The History of Sex Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.