RHAP: We Know Survivor - TV for Real: J. Maya Reveals the Great American Epic

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

In this episode, Mike and Sasha welcome Survivor 45's J. Maya on to discuss escapism through reading, her thoughts on adaptations, and the great American epic.

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Hi everybody and welcome back to TV for Real, where reality and scripted TV collide. My name is Mike Bloom. I am joined, as always, by Sasha Joseph. Sasha, how you doing? So, so excited today. I can't wait. Listen, it's not my Achilles heel to love this person. So I'm so ready. I'm so ready for this one. Absolutely. We've hit maybe the golden age of TV for real as we're about to hear a lot of stories today. And we've got our library card

as we are joined by the one, the only from Survivor 45, J. Maya. What an honor to be here. I am such a fan of both of you. And the research is impeccable. You got deep into the discography. Oh, I'm honored. I'm honored. Oh, my goodness. Well, yeah, I mean, what's so interesting is that obviously, this is a podcast that gets into pop culture into media. And like, you have said that your genre is nerd pop. And so I would imagine that you are someone who has taken in so much of these pop culture. And I think maybe differently than a

lot of the people that we've talked to on here has also kind of digested it and regurgitated it in a manner of speaking into this beautiful music. I love the word regurgitation because that is 100% what the music is. It is just my formative childhood experiences with media being regurgitated into a microphone and then being presented to the world for consumption. Because 100%, I feel like I will, and we'll get into all of this, but media was my Achilles heel growing up. I was like super nerdy. I didn't have a ton of friends and that just like formed the perfect breeding ground for like obsessions with escapist fiction and like music. I'm just like throwing myself headfirst into all of it.

And so I love it. And I've like kept that love through my whole life, which is why I'm just ecstatic to be talking about it with you guys today oh this feels really exciting yeah we're we're ready to go on this journey with you and you know talk yeah talk us through this a little bit where you know what what were you into growing up you know what what were you watching was there anything like comfort show related? You know, tell us, tell us everything. Absolutely. First thing I want to say is journeys tend to not end great for me, but I feel like today.

We're all sharing things much like an amulet or a sandwich. Exactly. And if the three of us come across a sign that says take an amulet or take the sandwich, we're leaving not hungry because we're going to be taking the sandwich. We're going to be eating today no matter what. We won't be eating. Yeah, no, it's a wonderful question. So basically, like I mentioned, I grew up, I was super nerdy. Just, oh my gosh, I wish I could show you pictures of what I looked like

from that age. Like I just did not understand so much about like how to present yourself as a normal person to the world. I was like, okay, this is, this is actually kind of, I don't know how much I talk about this. My, my mom was so worried about like my social development growing up that she, she would try to bribe me with ice cream to like talk to the other kids in my class. It would be like, if you have one conversation today with somebody, like I will take you to ice cream after school. She was trying so hard. Obviously things have like shifted in my life. And now I feel like funnily enough, I'm more of an extrovert than anything. But at that time, my head was just always in a book I was escaping into

fiction I was escaping mostly honestly into reading because um I grew up my parents kind of didn't want my sister and I to be super exposed to like western media beyond what was on the Disney channel so I grew up actually reading uh watching a lot of Bollywood films and shows and uh and then watching whatever was on the Disney channel so as a result I very much imprinted on like the Disney channel so I was like watching Wizards of Waverly Place um the Hannah Montana uh Victorious like this was my to me this was what Western media was. I was like, this is the pinnacle of television. Why, why isn't the Emmys recognizing shows, you know, are they not recognizing iCarly? I, exactly. To me, iCarly deserved a golden globe. And I

couldn't understand how television got better than that. Um, and honestly, beyond that, understand how television got better than that um and honestly beyond that it was just books for me I was like reading voraciously and I think um that like desire and hunger for long-form storytelling is like very much influenced how my media tastes have shifted as I've grown up because so much of my formative experience was just reading um and I was reading anything that was young adult fantasy you know whimsical just anything anything you could get dystopian like I loved the Hunger Games Divergent Maze Runner um obviously the Percy Jackson series um just yeah anything in that realm no pun intended I was I was all in on well yeah it's interesting that you say like you mentioned whimsical and then you said dystopian because yeah that's the thing with like young adult fiction is that especially

nowadays it really has run the gamut where I think a lot of the days of yore have been typified as like oh yeah these are like little larks that are not the best written but you know they're fun to oh my god this is like dark depressing real shit so it seems like you got a full scope and that escapism meant uh a real breath to you that it wasn't just i'm only going to pursue like stuff that takes me away into this beautiful imaginative flights like no i want to go into this post-apocalyptic world that That's so, I think that's so accurate because I think that's so like representative of as a young person, this irony, like I feel like after a certain age, you spend all of your time feeling like you want to be a kid again, but then when

you're a kid, all you want to do is feel grown up and like you're delving in and understanding real issues. And I think smart YA authors understand that desire for their audience and so they like balance their stories with this like like you said like really gritty realism so I actually feel and I have this like belief about The Hunger Games that it is one of the I think it's one of the greatest pieces of fiction to like come out of the last 100 years um and like not YA fiction it is the greatest piece of fiction it is so to me I haven't found a series that better like that is a better foil or mirror to society and and the way that um specifically like war plays out in in this era um and I just I think it's so there's so many there's so many layers

to it it's so profound and what I've always really appreciated about authors like Suzanne Collins is that they don't play down to their audience they treat their audience like they're the smart you know the smart readers that they are and I think that's why that series has been so successful and it obviously spawned this like entire genre like Divergent, Maze Runner all of these books that were trying to like tackle these big issues in ways that felt digestible for kids um so yeah I definitely like became obsessed with that as a kid and I thought that you're so right like I thought that I was like the most sophisticated reader on the planet I was like Harvard University I'm knocking down your door

like I'm reading Suzanne Collins you know what I mean and you did knock down Harvard's door and then you promptly close you're like no let me put this door up I'm good sorry I banged it down exactly I was lightly tapping on it and then sorry sorry sorry you're just like I could so I did but i actually don't want to never in my life have i ever knocked down a door figuratively or literally it's always been a very polite asking to like go through the gate so let me ask them because as long as like these things have been popular there's also been adaptations of it. Are you somebody who is like able to compartmentalize and separate the the work that you fell in love with from like what you're seeing on the screen?

Or do you always walk into these types of films with like the book was better? Is that just a mood you typically fall into? I have a shirt that says the book was better that I've had since I was literally 13 or 14 years old I'm not even kidding I would wear it to school I was so snobby as a kid and I'm gonna give myself grace for this but I for me the book was everything like specifically so Percy Jackson was my greatest obsession until I was like 17 18 it was depressing how late that obsession and to this day it is like I reread it every year it is every that series means the world to me um and I remember there's I have these like vivid memories of um

two two events when I was growing up the first is the first time that Rick Riordan came to San Francisco, which is where I grew up. I begged my parents to let me attend the book tour. And I went with my friends. I got totally dressed up in costume and I got to hear him read from the series. And it was so meaningful to me. And I think that's one of the moments where it just like really cemented

how much like writing meant to me over other forms of media. Because I just, I will always remember that specific experience of hearing him read from the book. It felt so real. It felt so meaningful. And then juxtapose against when the Percy Jackson movie came out and I walked in and I literally walked out of the theater after 30 minutes because to me I couldn't accept that this was the adaptation of the book that I had read Percy Jackson fans will tell you the movie is horrible it is it has no they cast the teenagers as like 18 year olds like right you know what what is her name Alexandra D'Addario yeah most beautiful woman on the planet

had no business playing 13-year-old nerdy Annabeth. It was, like, to so many kids. And she did a great job. Like, I love her as an actress, but it was just, for the kids that went into the theater, it was such a mismatch, like, what we were expecting, that it was actually, like, and I'm so dramatic, but, like, it was, it made me so sad and I

just like rejected it and I was like this is not part of the world that I feel for myself um and a lot of kids did too and Rick Riordan famously hated it and like went very openly on talk shows and stuff and was like I hate the movie now there's an adaptation right on tv and plus that he is like in the helm for which is why it's so much better it's so much more authentic to the books but long story short no i was like book all the way the exception however was divergent because i had the biggest crush on the guy who played for oh yeah neil james james i loved him so much i used to like watch the clip of him talking about his tattoos on like repeat when i was like 14 or 15 i would just like press the button over and over and over again so you're just a girl is what you're saying

yes what about you sasha are you someone that like tries to separate the adaptation from the original work or is that impossible to do um yes and no it really depends um on how the adaptation is done I don't know how you how y'all feel but right like Lord of the Rings right I I read it all um and I talked about this last time that I'm re-watching it um this last two weeks and uh Two Towers right vibes only definitely not close to the book and or like a little bit close and then the drama that comes with all of that but but it's still well made you know the movie like it's still like an exciting movie so that works but then I think about Bridgerton and Kate and Anthony's story and how the book was just so much smarter um which sure folks can have their own issues but

but it just felt like okay and Anthony were just smarter in the books and they are here um so yeah I just I really feel like it depends on how it's presented to us I don't know what about you Mike yeah I mean I think for me I've done a better job as the years have gone on of like really taking the word adaptation literally of like this is one person looking at something and being like this is the way I want to do it uh and so maybe you do get instances like the Percy Jackson series I'm glad that this has become a better thing of like actually bringing the creators in to be like okay we want to do this like let us know about your vision because otherwise it really does become like for me

it's less so about adaptations of books but more so like adaptations of stage musicals big theater person i was just talking on a podcast this week about uh the disney version of into the woods uh which is my favorite musical and so it's tough for me because like on the one hand obviously a lot of a lot of things will not play on stage the way they do on film on the other hand stage in and of itself is a medium of adaptation where you are going to different directors, different performers are going to mount it in very different ways. And it's going to look very different. So like just because it's on a different medium, why should I, you know, discern things from it more than just watching a different version of it? Much like reading a book, like if someone else reads the book and has a different opinion about it, that's their quite literal adaptation of it.

someone else reads the book and has a different opinion about it that's their quite literal adaptation of it i love that take specifically what you were saying about taking the word adaptation quite literally um and it reminds me a lot of the discourse in the classics community about translators and what the role of a translator should be when it comes to ancient languages and there's been this movement in the last like 20 or so years where the art of translation has become more and more of an art form in and of itself and translators are given a lot more room to be creative um and there's like a really wonderful translator named Emily Wilson who uh just recently translated versions of the Odyssey and the Iliad and her translations are being held up by scholars

as like literal just poet it's poetry in and of itself and to me I think when somebody who's going into their adaptation takes that mindset of like exactly like you said like I'm it's not realism it's modernism it's not I'm trying to a hundred percent show you know take this adaptation and bring it to life. They understand that that's not ever really going to happen unless you are the creator, right? Unless it was your original vision all along. So they're going to take some creative liberties, poetic license, if you will, with what, how

they're bringing it to life. Like, I think I respect adaptations and enjoy them so much more when I feel like that's been, that's happened. You know what I mean? and enjoy them so much more when I feel like that's been, that's happened. You know what I mean? Yeah. When it feels like there's like love and attention and clear care for the source material being put in, as opposed to like, well,

this thing sold a lot of books. So we're just going to kind of put a veneer on it and put it on film. A hundred percent. And also like, um, they're that, there's this straddling between love and clear and attention for the book. And also like they're intentionally putting their own spin on it because they understand that they're never going to bring it to life the way that everyone wants it to be brought to life. Like you said, with the stage adaptation, there's like it's just inherently different because it's always going to be different. And the creator understands that and then treats that as the art form how can I make this now its own separate piece of art that is inspired and has these important roots from the original piece but becomes its own thing in the

process um yeah from an adaptation perspective are you usually when bringing a book over to the screen are you usually a tv series above a book person because i think that a large argument that a lot of people have made maybe up until like five years ago when really like we have just been busting all over with tv shows is like well when it's a movie they cut more stuff out and so with a tv show you're able to stretch it out is that always the case in your opinion i love tv shows i think that's part of the reason I really fell in love with um Survivor honestly is because of the story and the in like how enjoyable it is to see us to see episode after episode how the story continues to play out that um suspense that happens like when

this episode ends and you're like what's gonna happen in the next episode to me that is so much more representative of what like chapters are doing and like the chasing of a book which is part of the experience of enjoying it um and I just feel like you can there's so much more room to play with with the tv series than a movie so um I'm sure that there are film adaptations that I've enjoyed more than television adaptations but as a a medium, I think if I ever wrote a book and I was choosing a medium for it to be, um, to be adapted, I would say TV for me. Yeah. I, I love that. Thank you. And also you, you talked a lot about language and, uh, and writing right and um I personally because this is my like IRL job is I am a Jewish educator so we we talk a lot about right like what does language mean and translating like Hebrew and Aramaic to English and you know how things change so thank you for

bringing that up yeah and also I want to know uh from you like where did your then this adventure right of like reading and talking through everything then like translated to now where you are where you are now doing the writing right and bringing all of this stuff up um on stage because I was listening to a lot of your songs uh before too just because I love you but uh in in preparation for this podcast and and the lyrics right it's just the certain word you use uh makes so much more sense right with Greek mythology versus Roman etc etc so I just would love to hear yeah like when um you know this confidence came to you right that like hey this is something I can do, maybe under J. Maya, not Janani, but still, right? Like, where did that adventure start? Oh, that's such a thoughtful question, Sasha.

Thank you. Also, I am obsessed with the fact that you're a Jewish educator. I actually, I don't think I knew that. That's so wonderful and phenomenal. And I want to, like, learn more about that. And I also love talking about language and the power of language. I always say when I talk about like what I get to do now is my job, which every morning I wake up and I genuinely, genuinely cannot believe that it is my job to write songs

and then put them out and then interact with the people that are listening to those songs. Basically, so I when I grew up, I I felt so I didn't have access to social media growing up. Even when like Instagram, Facebook were becoming popular, that was just like our household. And I really loved how we grew up. I feel like my sister and I had really real childhoods um and I wouldn't like trade anything for that I think the one downside to it was I was engaging with all of this media and I had no outlet for it it was just going in there was no one I could talk to about it nobody that I knew in real life was really engaging with the same media that I was engaging with there were a couple of friends that I went to school with who would be reading the Percy Jackson books, but that

was really the extent of it. And I just grew up with this intense desire to not only engage with the media, but, um, but be able to talk about it and to be able to really understand it and, uh, talk about it with people who are also really passionate about it. So I think like when I started to begin this journey as being an artist myself, everything that I was doing at a very early age was very attuned to the fan experience and the people who I was trying to put myself in the shoes of people who were engaging with this. And I'm like, how can I make this experience the best possible experience for the people who are engaging with it and that meant like you know creating discord channels

creating like opportunities for community for people to be able to talk about it and then I was just thinking about like the things that I really got excited about when I was younger and it was narrative it was stories it was you know telling a cohesive story and I think that's really informed everything that I've tried to do as an artist um this I think I've already kind of like shared this on social media but um my debut album which is will come out I think quite soon at this point which is insane to say I know it's crazy I think that's announcing the date next week which is insane um but it's like a concept-driven project and there will be like a story that accompanies it and I've been scattering these easter eggs for the last year and a half in all my songs um that kind of go toward this

bigger picture so it's been like incubating and in the works for years at this point because I think that's just how important story is to me um and so I think yeah the the short answer is like I really strongly feel like everything my entire childhood was so crucial and important because I didn't know it at the time I thought there was no way that I would grow up and be an artist or creative myself um which is so funny and obviously I'm so grateful to be here now um but I was almost like going through the motions of like okay when I have the opportunity to be an artist when I grow up like this is the kind of artist I want to be and I was like taking those building blocks um and yeah and I've been

grateful that like it took me a little bit of time when I first started making music and coming out here to like get my feet wet with all of it. But now I'm just so stoked. Like I feel like everything that I dreamed about as a kid that I would one day get to do is is happening. Knock on wood. So, yeah, that's amazing. It is. It is. It is happening. It is happening. It's fantastic. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy.

And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N.ca. So you mentioned the classics beforehand, because like even from outside of like an immediate pop culture perspective, you know, things that came out when when you were a kid, obviously a lot of throwbacks to Greek mythology anthology as referenced uh in your videos in

your your music was that always something that you were a fan of as well and what do you think it is about like those types of stories that still ring through thousands upon thousands of years to this day we can talk about greek anthology of. Come on. This is your podcast. How could we not? I'd be leaving money on the table if we didn't. Seriously. I'm so excited. Oh my gosh.

And please let me know if I'm like over talking at any point, just because I get so passionate about Greek mythology. So I've been obsessed with Greek mythology really my whole life. It started with the Percy Jackson series, as I think so many you know classicists today that are in my generation have the same origin story we were all nerds who were obsessed with I'm not a classicist but I'm friends with a lot of people who are and we you know we genuinely all have the origin story of like being nerds who are obsessed with Percy Jackson and then becoming obsessed with any Greek mythology piece of media that we could get our hands on um and it like followed me all the way

into college so I took classics courses in college um my the professor that I developed the deepest possible relationship with when I was in college was was a classics professor. She specialized actually in modern adaptations of classical mythology and music, which is so funny. And in fact, through that relationship, last year I had the greatest honor of my career and I developed a relationship with the Harvard Classics Department where I come back to Harvard and I actually get to like guest lecture to students about.

Whoa. Oh, my God. You get the chance to bang down the door again. Bang down. Yeah. This time I am banging down the door. And I remember to that question that you asked, Mike, because I think I found myself thinking about this a lot. Like, what is it about Greek mythology that is so sticky, both for kids, but then I think also for like, for, for everyone, everyone has some Greek myth that I feel like they weirdly imprint themselves onto, they feel resonant with. And this was actually the topic of this the the talk that I gave last year and I remember um the first the kind of like crux of it was um it's about founding epics so I saw this tweet

uh this was like a trend about like a year or so ago which was you know, the Babylonians had this epic, the Greeks had the Iliad, the Mesopotamians had the epic of Gilgamesh, the Hindus had the Ramayana. What is America's founding epic? And then the meme part of it is like the bye sister James Charles video. Like you input some piece of media that is like the founding epic of whatever like American media is. Very funny meme format. As somebody who has never, you know, not overthought about anything in their entire life, it got me thinking and I was like, wait,

this is actually weirdly quite poignant because what is America's founding epic? Yeah. And you know, there, we have, we have mythology in the sense of we have the founding fathers, we have, you know, the declaration of independence, we have the constitution, but these are not stories. They're not fictional stories. The way that, you know, in Odysseus, besting the Cyclops is a story that King Rama vanquishing,

you know, King evil, the evil King of Lanka is a story in the way that Gilgamesh and, and his brother Enkidu and the relationship that develops between the two of them is a story. And it got me thinking just about how important story is to the fabric of civilization and society. And I started doing like a lot of research on what these founding epics, like what is the purpose of a founding epic? on what these founding epics,

like what is the purpose of a founding epic? A founding epic, like it's a story that tells the world what values are so important to that civilization. The Iliad, arguably a more famous, more well-known story at the time that it became the founding epic of ancient Greece. But the Odyssey, which is, the Iliad is a war epic.

The Odyssey is the story of a man who is trying to go home to his son and wife and that became the founding epic of ancient greece not the glory not the guts of the trojan war um it was a story about a man it's so human it's so character driven and that way, it says, what does it say about ancient Greece? It says that this is, you know, these are people who are deeply connected to their family. They're loyal people above all, all else. The Ramayana, what does the Ramayana say? It's obviously like the victory of good over evil, but it's also about loyalty to your country.

It's about duty, which is dharma, which is so important to what like the Hindus believe about life. And so it's funny that, and then I started thinking about like how important Greek mythology is in American society, because Americans, we don't have this. So we have to borrow it from other people. When you go to Washington, DC, what statues do you see all around the city? You see statues of Athena. You see statues of Zeus. Everything is built as an homage to ancient Greece because we are hungry as a society for something that unites us as a community and that tells us how we're supposed to live our lives, what is important to us. And that is why so much of us, I think from a young age, fall weirdly deeply in

love with Greek mythology because a it's so human it's so accessible but b it's something that feels bigger than us that connects us to a shared history it doesn't matter if it's our shared history because we're a newer country but it feels resonant in that way anyway that was a long i am i am in awe this is one of my favorite conversations i've had in quite a while like on or off like like god my fingers are falling off from the amount of metaphoric snaps i was giving you to that i mean it's a good question though i was racking my brain and like i do have a couple of my like, Sasha, are there any like what? If we could pick an American epic, you I have a couple in mind, but I'm intrigued to see if you have any.

I don't know that. Yeah, there is an epic, right? Because I'm even thinking of fantasy, like, you know, maybe that took over. And then I was like, oh, that's British. Oh, right. That's also British. And then this in that I always think of of our unfortunate maybe but our war stories seem

to be our our epics right like you think about oh well the civil war was the big deal and here and right the confederacy versus whatever else um that fell that feels rather and I say this because I think I'm from the south where that is still such a big identity marker and taking away that identity marker for whatever reason is dividing us, actually. So that's really interesting. Yeah, I have so many more thoughts. But yeah, this is this is fascinating I mean to me maybe it's just because I'm a big freaking nerd but the more J-Mal you were talking about like you know what are some of the the values that are taken from other pieces and that represent that culture like it sounds so weird but it sounds so American I think the great American epic is Star Wars like I think it represents so much both in the moment and everything following we're like yes big movie franchises existed before but it spawned quite literally an entire universe

the themes in there right of like america was founded as a country of oh there is this evil empire that we have to overthrow and we are the good ones and we are going to do it to the point that certain people from certain communities might take the wrong messages from Star Wars in terms of who might the evil empire might be. It also speaks to the commercialism aspects as well. If you talk about it from a more meta perspective and maybe what it has become

and this idea of a ragtag group group coming together unified by quite literally a central force to do extraordinary things like founded or unfounded it sounds incredibly american to me and it's odd because again we're talking about like tomes that were etched in stone thousands of years ago versus like a movie that george lucas made in 1977 but it does feel wholly American to me for a country that was celebrating its bicentennial around the time that Star Wars was released no I I love that I love that and I think it's interesting uh what actually the both of you are now saying right we're in the in in this vacuum right of having this one thing that the foundational rather I should say epic instead right what what does that mean then and and I think a survivor in that way

survivor's been around for right y'all tell me nearly 25 years thank you um you know I'm not a math girly or a survivor girly but anyway it's just you know it's been around for this long and and I always like to make a joke right like oh it takes itself so serious like it's like people basically naked starving on a beach like enough but but I think about this the sense of belonging um that has created over these 25 years and and you're right that that one person gets to be right the winner and like comes through you know in whatever version of the war that we go through and and how many in America have these like little pockets of their own epics like that's fascinating and and as

an immigrant I think coming moving to this country um that's what I was holding a lot as well is like I you know I'm like I said I'm Jewish but I grew up in India where nothing felt like siloed right like I read the Ramayana I read the Mahabharata like that was normal like it and it wasn't like necessarily this religious experience. You're right that it was this like story that, you know, yeah, good versus evil or, you know, in my part that I like family and why it's important for families to maybe be together, not fight and kill each other. But anyway, it's just it's really interesting. And then I moved to America and in granted, I moved to Oklahoma. So a lot to say there. But everything felt so siloed like oh

this is our religion and this is what we do and that's it right and then maybe your neighbor does something and maybe you get invited to things versus in India when something's happening everyone's invited to everything and you're just like oh it's this holiday so then I know that this neighbor is going to be inviting me and making all this food. Then, oh, it's my holiday. So now I am that communal aspect of getting everyone and bringing everyone together. But you're right. It's built on that foundation. And I wonder this like isolationism that happens in America. Right. Is that because there isn't this like huge founding value necessarily that's built in a story and instead over real human again not to like drag anyone um or you know for like the Ramayana is

real yes fair okay there's a whole I get it uh but you know what I mean like it's just we can like historically trace it back to these people so that equal equals us saying oh well here's why I don't believe in it versus what Mike you're saying like Star Wars it's not it's a story and that's why folks can get um attached to it so that's so fascinating and I can't wait to now lead a session on this yes well you would be more equipped honestly Sasha no than anyone you're as an educator and then someone with this like super interesting background I'm just fascinated by it and this question of identity and how identity relates to value and stories and I get information when you're young specifically which is I think when we when it's an age when we all kind of find the

pieces of media that we're interested in. And we start to use those to define what our identity is to our peers. Um, and it makes me think about this idea of a monoculture. And I'm, I was like nodding vigorously with you, Mike, when you were talking about star Wars, because I genuinely couldn't agree more with you that America creates its founding epics in real time we are hungry yeah we are hungry for it and so Star Wars I I was snapping vigorously because I couldn't agree more with you it was monoculture every single person in the country knew what it was they knew the characters they knew the values and I think that we have many epics that come about in real time and it comes back to this idea and this is very dramatic but the Greeks had gods they had 12 gods

a lot of these cultures have had gods and we as Americans we're looking for gods we're looking for moments in monoculture that create characters that we can see ourselves in. And Sasha, what you were saying about Survivor, I think the big sweep of Survivor that happened when it first came out, when it became firmly a part of the American monoculture and became this like cultural talking point. Yeah. That was Americans being like, we found it. We found it.

This is the epic. This is an American thing. This is our thing. you know what i mean like and it so ties to these values of meritocracy pulling yourself up by your bootstraps being the last one standing um and i think that's why it felt so when it happened like oh my god like this is this is so exciting this is us this is who we are this is our identity and I think moments in culture happen like this like I think with Game of Thrones oddly that like sweeping epic story of it like really cemented it as like firmly in the monoculture and I feel that the attitude with these things

in society it's not just oh you haven't seen Game of Thrones you haven't seen Survivor it's like you haven't seen Survivor you haven't seen Game of Thrones, you haven't seen Survivor, it's like, you haven't seen Survivor, you haven't seen Game of Thrones. It almost feels like a personal offense if someone hasn't seen it, if you're invested in it, because you know how formative it is to like, it's the thing that everyone at work is talking about on Tuesday, and you don't want to be a part of that. You know what I mean? Anyway, so I couldn't agree more. And I think Survivor 100% has been an epic for America. Not to like, I love Survivor. All right, Jeff, come on in. Now you're right.

You're putting that score, put it on 50. Jeff Probst, aka Homer, I guess. You're a Homer for Homer. Yes. Same thing with The Sim simpsons so that's funny exactly do you have like a favorite uh mythological adaptation oh my god yes bookwise cersei by madeline miller it's because it's so human it feels like madeline miller in general as an author i feel like is writing modern day epics but like that resonate with our generation and like the millennials and Gen Z and feel so distinctly human and complex um so yeah I can't speak highly enough of her I gotta be so honest

the Percy Jackson TV show 10 out of freaking 10 I think that show is so well done yeah um you're yeah i'm obsessed with it i actually this is i go on so many percy jackson tv show podcasts just to talk about how much i love this show it's so fun i watched a little bit of it i i i definitely enjoyed it so i my own like origin story with this was that uh when my son was like one or two years old we like read books to him even though he had no comprehension and like my wife is a huge percy jackson fan and so she just had the series lying around and so i was like okay like i never read it before i'm like okay i guess i'll read and so i read it aloud and i did all the voices, you know, I did my best, uh, um, my best, like, uh, what's his name from the, who's all the Harry Potter series, Jim something. That guy, that guy, exactly. I was that guy. Uh, but I, uh, I, I did a whole read through

of that, uh, Jim Dale, Jim Dale and Stephen Fry. But then, uh, I was like, Oh, actually, I mean, I was very much into Greek mythology I had that little like big book that everybody has that we ended up buying for my son so I just didn't have time to check out the rest of it but I especially compared to the movie I I really enjoyed it um one that blows me out of the water though especially as of late I am a massive Hadestown fan oh me too I was gonna I was gonna say JMI if you have not checked it out like it's so in your wheelhouse it is about the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and it's like folk soul jazz music like that just feels like a recipe for success in your opinion

I'm obsessed with it I've been obsessed with it for so freaking long um I I think I like first became a fan of it in college because my um professor that Dr. Weiss that I was talking about earlier she was like when Hadestown was first being like developed regionally she was the biggest freaking advocate for it she was telling all of her students about it um and so I remember being like okay well I'll check out I'll check this out and I think the Anais Mitchell original concept album was the first thing I listened to and it was so freaking good like the music is it's just very special to me actually like so I'm a huge theater fan and like um I I love musicals specifically that like, I just feel like have their own musical ethos. They're building a world.

And Hadestown of all the shows that are currently on Broadway to me does that so freaking well, where the music, you're not getting the music that you're hearing at Hadestown anywhere else. And so like, it's building a world from scratch that like immerses the audience into something new and

exciting um and not to like I I technically am a part of it but I from a very nuanced perspective I do think that this new musical called Epic the Musical which is huge on TikTok yes I've heard about this I was like I had to yeah um one of my two very so I I do play Aphrodite in the musical so I this is going to sound insanely biased and I am very grateful for all the love that's gone the way of the musical obviously um and I've actually known the creator of the musical we're very very very close friends and we've known each other for three and a half years, which is insane at this point. And it's been such a blessing to see. I just love when my friends win. It is my love language.

It's my favorite thing in the world. So seeing this musical get the acclaim that it very much deserves over the last year has been very special to witness. And I think that that musical does something and the funny thing is like Hadestown and Epic couldn't be more disparate as sounds as storytelling mechanisms like it is so free and Epic is a 40 song sung through Epic it is yeah meant to I feel like Hadestown strips the the Epic down to its most human moments and epic is trying to make it as big as possible and the music is more um inspired by video game scores than it is by like traditional musical theater but what these two stories are doing is showing how different adaptations can be

exactly exactly the source material when it's so well-known and people like know the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, like the back of their hand, no pun intended. And like, they know the story of the Odyssey. Like they, you can play with it. You can, that's where adaptation and translation becomes its own art form and you're making something distinct with it.

And I just really appreciate adaptations that can do that really well you know yeah you say that everyone knows orpheus and eurydice but i think one of my favorite low-key things to do on the internet is track people who are talking about whenever spoiler alert for a you know a millennia year old myth but every time orpheus turns around and looks at eurydice when doubt comes in and like people tell stories about how shocked audience members are by when it happens whether it's like them gasping and then going like damn or like something like that for whatever reason whether it's a lack of education about the story or just getting caught up in the mood or

maybe it's to your point it's that ability to make old stories feel new again with a fresh coat of paint it's able to make you like sort of relive getting to experience that story all over again oh my gosh I mean that's that's how good the musical is right like they they're that moment is such a big moment because of all of the storytelling that goes into it the rising action and I'm sure that even as an audience goer who knows what's about to happen like you see that moment unfold and you're like i don't know maybe maybe they make it through yeah maybe maybe this time despite the fact that again spoiler alert in the very beginning of the show they say like it's a sad song and we're gonna sing it again spoiler alert watch out it's not a good ending but they're like we're

having such a great time what What were they saying back then? Doesn't matter anymore. Listen, everyone wants a happy ending, and sometimes in your adaptation in your mind, you're like, surely they adapt it positive. It's delusion. It's delusion. Oh my God.

We all deserve a little bit of delusion. Oh my God. Listen, you want to be calliope and get excited, okay? It is what it is. We have stuff! Also, have either of you seen Hadestown on Broadway? No. I've seen it twice on Broadway.

Oh my gosh. Did you see it with Eva Noblezada and Reeve Carney? I did. I saw it literally about a month before covid hit and i'm fairly sure i actually got covid uh from the performance but yeah we ended up going for valentine's day and so i saw everyone in the original cast but patrick page so i ended up very much lucking out in that regard but yeah it was it's a wild time because we walked into that pretty blind um i

not really i i caught like a couple of songs that kind of broken through on social media but i regard but yeah it was it's a wild time because we walked into that pretty blind um i had not really i i caught like a couple of songs that kind of broken through on social media but i purposely wanted to go in as unknowing as possible and i was just like like i cannot speak this is this is the show that i personally like to tout for anyone who's coming into town or is like looking for something new to check out um it's not everyone's cup of tea you know i may have talked with a couple of reality alum who were here the past couple weeks who said that it wasn't their thing surprisingly but like for me between the music the staging the aesthetics like absolute 10 out of 10 would get covet again i'm pretty sure i did the second time that i saw it as well

i'm pretty or at least i got very sick again, right after I saw it, uh, for my wife's birthday last year. So it's like, you know what? Fine. It doesn't matter. I'll keep rolling the dice on this. Is there some spell that's going on that we didn't know? I don't know. I mean, my, my health gets dragged on the road to hell every time I go in that theater, but I'm not going to complain too much about it. Wait, that's so funny. Um, they they like give you they intentionally infect you so that you're left to be at home just replaying the song that's exactly it like i can't move on i can't move on they want you to like sit there and write fan fiction and really get into you know all the

reddit communities why not because you're sick what else you got going exactly like i gotta go i'll start up that a03 account and start writing slash fan fiction i love this i love this i would get sick to see hadestown on broadway do you have any like big mythological adaptations that ping in your heart that you know of yeah because i'm indian yet right like every every year you have to yeah it's like the adaptation happened you go see the ramayana because the volley is coming up right next week so it's just and that's when the story gets told listen your girl was in the play or two um for the ramayana adept who were you sasha listen i i was sita sometimes um with like very dimmy or very mindful things i'm not right like just no be serious uh the amount of time the teacher had to be like you know you're like you need to be like

oh shy and whatever didn't happen for me that was also my fair lady so like you know I could do it guys uh but yeah so never mind like again for me that was a big thing and this is like really silly and funny but when I first met my mother-in-law um who again I'm not South Indian they are they're pretty like, I don't know the right word, but like they're conservative in that way. And they met me and they were asking me all these questions. And I was like, well, you know, I lived in India like longer than my husband, number one.

And she's like, right, but we're Hindu. Like the, and I was like, right. I have read all of these epics, like my husband has not. So it's a very just funny thinking about all of this because yeah to me like those are the stories that I always think of um I was just watching yeah I was just watching a show oh the um the Pradeep's of Pittsburgh uh everyone please watch it oh it. It's comedy mystery. It's on Amazon.

Very easy watch. It's billed as just a comedy show, but it's actually a mystery. I loved it. Yeah. It's like a whodunit comedy. So would recommend Pradeeps of Pittsburgh. Anyway, so they talk about Donataria in the the show and it's like a normal thing and he's like

he's talking about these two talking these two like country white people and he's like i'll be your like you know teacher and here's why this is important and you can be like because he's teaching them how to shoot bow and arrows so to me like these stories have always been part of my life so it's very weird like that like I don't want to personally forget them um living in America so I always seek out like adaptations yeah that was so long-winded sorry no listen the Windsor have been blowing this is a whole gale force hurricane this podcast so yeah names of Pittsburgh shout out well I just saw like the picture is just like of a family with a young child and i'm like this is a mystery no it's like an immigrant family that moves to america um and the the dad

gets a contract from spacex um i would tell y'all it's so funny and the and I'm not spoiling too much they just like come in and it's again it's just like play on how Pittsburgh unfortunately right or like these places in America aren't ready to like accept um yeah I think that's a fair way to say it aren't ready to accept immigrants so the the immigration officer like says each person's name but he like butchers each person but it's so funny because it's a camel he calls him camel so camel and this and this and this and this and then without missing a beat the dad is like yes so i'm pradeep like they'll just they do the translation i don't know it's a very clever uh yeah I just I really enjoyed it I watched it last week I love that um and I still hear you on the drama in a place that you do growing up the amount of

times that like we would get into squabbles about who got to play Sita and then like one of us would play Kaikei and we'd be like so you hate me so you think I'm ugly and annoying oh yeah you're trying to like infer what they think about you based on what you were cast as. I was also a little bit of a bully growing up. Oops. But only to the boys. So I would be the

person casting a lot of these plays. And you would cast yourself as Sita. I love it. Oh my god. Well, speaking of casting, i would love to bring this up for you jay so let's say that they do like yes a scripted version of survivor 45 they get to talk about adaptations if you get the chance to cast someone to play yourself who would it be oh my god does it have to be race conscious no you know what well our minds are open here okay beautiful

beautiful i appreciate you saying that so much um i was about to pick from like three actresses that people know of yeah i was like okay um my three obviously yeah i would I would go and say my three and I'm just kidding really well um okay oh my god let me say oh my god okay so let's dice like this so so in survivor 45 the person would have to get would have to convey the reaction when the shot in the dark hits very well because that is the emotional climax of my arc. And so I'm going to go ahead. Oh my gosh. Can I say, am I allowed to say

Ayo Edebiri is my dream? Because she's so good at the rage. She's so funny. I'd love to be played by someone funny because she would be so much funnier than I am, which I would love to see. And then I think she also, but she has the range to do the emotion

because I love the bear and I think she like crushes it in the bear. So she's my dream. And then I'm going to give a backup because I think I- An understudy. An understudy. She's booked and busy and you know, that's like-

She's like, oh, she would do this like she's like funny like i was um have you seen all her letterbox reviews right that went viral oh yeah so it's just you know she's a writer too so yeah i think it works i'm kind of obsessed i mean i know i'm obsessed with her um i'm actually gonna pick an actress no no she's so young okay i'm not gonna pick i was gonna pick someone from percy jackson and the olympians but i'm like she's like i mean we just like put her in a world where we age her up a little bit yeah okay okay um i love the actress who plays clarice in percy jackson and the olympians dior good john um i just i think she's a phenomenal actress and is lovely and also makes amazing music that we should all go and check out. And it's also just like a really lovely person.

So I'm going to go say my girl, Dior. She's lovely. All right. And also she's like, she plays like a really badass character on Percy Jackson and the Olympians. And it's like wishful thinking, but it'd be amazing to have someone who can play that, play me.

I'm exclusively playing actress, picking actresses who are like, you know this yeah no you're the jesse tannenbaum you're the ones that are like putting these people forward so you wish cast however you want to all i've ever wanted is the lovely jesse tannenbaum i think he's the best oh my gosh I love this also uh unrelated but related what is your favorite Bollywood movie oh my god Sasha I know the soundtrack to Yeh Jivani Hey Devani yes yes very much your um your epic your generation that is my epic that if I could pick an epic that has been foundational to my life and has impacted every decision. So basically this movie,

it's called Ye Giovanni, Hey Giovanni. It's about this girl. And I'm going to say the plot and you're going to be like, you're going to roll your eyes because you're like- This is something I really want to do on one of these podcasts,

just say the plot to Bollywood movies and folks are like, this is not real. Yeah, I want to hear all about this. So this movie is about a girl who is like unbelievably nerdy head in a book and she runs into this friend group from her high school and they like are acquaintances but they don't know each other really well of three like they're like they were like the bad kids in high school and they're about to leave on a mountaineering trip the next day and they like

jokingly invite her and she's like you know what screw this I'm gonna leave my medical exams and go on this mountain trip leave my heart yeah and go on this mountain trip to the wilderness where I am away for a certain amount of time and learn to and that's that that's the first part of the movie then she falls in love spoiler alert sorry to anyone who wanted to watch this with one of the guys from this crew and but like he it just is like faded you know they're not meant to be together at that time they're they're going their separate ways she goes back um and then in fact the second part of the movie is it's the wedding of one of the other people in the trio.

So everyone gets back together like 10 years in the future. And it's like just exploring all the dynamics after. It's one of my favorite movies I've ever watched. It literally inspired me. I took, I watched this in high school and the summer before I went to college, I went on a mountaineering trip and I climbed the three sisters mountain range in Oregon literally a hundred percent exclusively inspired by this movie I am dramatic and I was seeking my main character moment and yes it was phenomenal did you have to

have the fake glasses to make you seem nerdy even though you're incredibly hot like girl Bollywood is so funny because they are like I always joke that Bollywood is like You have the fake glasses to make you seem nerdy, even though you're incredibly hot. Like, girl. Bollywood is so funny because they are like, I always joke that Bollywood is like 10 years behind the cliches of American movies. A hundred percent. So like the trend where like the nerdy girl takes off her glasses. Right, the she's all that. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. It's so that.

Oh my God. It's just, it's so funny. And, you know, back up pop culture, Mess Magnets time. But the actor and actress were dating and she gets his letter of his name R tattooed on her neck, back of her neck. And then she she marries someone else with a very similar name. Just one letter removed. Ranbir Kapoor versus Ranveer Kapoor. Two of the biggest Bollywood actors.

But Sasha Delore, which I recently discovered about this movie. So Deepika and Ranveer had dated prior to Yijun and Devani. But he cheated on her. And then she had to film the movie anyway where they were in love interest i didn't know that yeah freshly but they were freshly broken up yeah he's like a dog wow i don't want to grow up character like that's in every movie like wake up right like every movie yeah and you could low-key that'd be his life you can't tell me otherwise listen he married now to much younger woman uh yeah but yep and much younger woman and they have a baby so you know shout out to him

well as much as i am willing to just listen to a huge deep dive about all the drama that is involved within the world of indian film unfortunately we are starting to bid adieu we've reached the final verse of this podcast but j maya to say this was a pleasure would be an understatement you are so beautiful with your words i mean it shows why you're such like a fantastic lyricist it's just like when you are so passionate about something from a story to an epic to any piece of media that you talked about that is so foundational to you like you could just feel the energy behind it it is as electric as one of zeus's. So thank you so much for taking the time

today to talk with us about all of your interests and your passions and beyond. And for people who want to check out all the great stuff you're doing, what do you have to plug? Oh my gosh, from such a wordsmith himself, Mike Bloom, I appreciate you so much, Mike. I really felt like this conversation was a garden. We were planting seeds, watching them grow, and everything was in bloom. And right behind you, no pun intended. And I just wanted to thank you both

for this lovely conversation. I'm gonna, oh my gosh, I think by the time that this comes out I will have announced that my debut album is forthcoming and will come before the end of this year and you can pre-save it uh on all platforms it is a story it from top to bottom and each of the songs on the album corresponds to a chapter of the story I I'm extraordinarily excited. It is inspired to no one's surprise by Greek mythology. So if you're a fan of Greek mythology, hopefully you'll be a fan of the project. And I'm just so excited for that. And I have some live shows coming also before the end of the year, if you live anywhere on the east coast um so i'm really excited about that as well

and that's kind of that's kind of it for me um and to both of you thank you again for just such a wonderful meaningful conversation thank you for letting me rant about the classics and percy jackson and wizards of raverly plays for an hour i really appreciate it awesome i wish we could go on for like 100 hours. The pleasure was all ours. Sasha, what would you like to plug? You mentioned a couple of your previous works earlier on this podcast. Yes, of course. Like I said, you can always check out Mess Magnets where Kirsten McInnes and I are talking everything pop culture, everything trending. You need to check out messmagn magnets.com to keep updated on what's going on in the world all right and uh of course uh matt legory and i are talking dancing with the stars

and it's been so much fun we just had aman come on to talk disney night and it was truly and i still haven't changed my background oops but listen Disney night was so much fun and just I'm really enjoying the show even though they're playing me with the scores but it's fine and it was really fun though and for everything else of course just check out my twitter at funsize underscore 04 and what about you Mike? Doing my usual Survivor-ish. We have reached the point where J. Maya was taken from us in Survivor 47. Went out in a very different explosiveness,

I would say, than you did, but still going to be a lot of fun to talk about all of that on the B&B this week. I'm covering the Penguin and Battlestar Galactica over on the scripted side of things. I'm around. I'm doing stuff. You can check out everything i'm doing at a mike bloom type and of course check out everything going on here on tv for real on we know scripted tvs next week sasha and i will be back

with another reality star talking their taste in all things scripted thank you all so much for listening this was such a great conversation jay maya thank you so much for listening. This was such a great conversation. Jay, Maya, thank you so much. Truly, it's such a pleasure. We'll be back next week for another edition of TV for Real. Until then, everybody, it's been real.