TrudyToogood

I'm the narrator in my own novel Too Good To Be Tru. Happily married, mother of one, bit feminist, all woman.
Ask me anything.

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

Alison Moyet's work has a timeless, truthful, and powerful element to it. We'll be listening and appreciating it decades from now, just as we still appreciate Shakespeare, or Nina Simone, as she sings about the human condition. @AlisonMoyet

[James Dreyfus @DreyfusJames]

Take Me Back!!
PLEASE. Take me back!! Take me back to these times…I’ll do anything…
@AlisonMoyet
#TOTPS #80s #nostalgia

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

On the other hand, I am learning a hell of a lot about the Odyssey! 🙂

[Spencer A. Klavan @SpencerKlavan]

Homer would have been perfectly justified in focusing exclusively on men—it is actually allowed, in case we’ve forgotten, to tell stories about men and be interested first and foremost in men. That is still legal in all fifty states and parts of Europe.

But as it happens the Odyssey, of all classic texts, can fairly be described as obsessed with different kinds of women, with their psychology, their subjectivity, the ethics of their actions and their roles in world affairs.

Not only is the whole plot occasioned, as many have noted, by the decisions of the woman *that Lupita herself is playing*, it’s also driven by Odysseus’s devotion to his wife, Penelope, who shows up before he does in the plot and whose unique personality is the whole reason he can’t just give up his journey home. He is the most famous wife guy in history.

In the very first sequence where Odysseus speaks, the goddess Calypso is exasperated that he won’t just give up already and let her make him immortal, which by any objective measure is a better deal than schlepping back home through *yet more* storms, loss, sleeplessness, violence, and agony.

He replies that yes, by all accounts no mortal woman can hold a candle to a goddess, but Penelope is *his* wife, and he is willing to leave the bliss of the divine bed specifically because of *the person that Penelope is* and what she means to him.

In other words the theme and focus of the poem, set up quite explicitly by Homer at the outset of the hero’s journey, is the particular uniqueness of Penelope as a character: *her* virtues, *her* wits, the match she makes for Odysseus and everything their shared history means to him and to her.

Not to mention that of course this is all given texture by being set against the really quite astonishing number of *other* female characters and the rounded humanity (or deity) they present. Besides Calypso, Helen, and Penelope there’s Athena, the terrifyingly relentless and inscrutable power upon whom both Odysseus and his son Telemachus depend to achieve their aims. Hera, the jilted codependent, Eurycleia, the devoted model of resolve and care, Arete, the canny power behind the throne of Phaeacia, Circe, the scheming enchantress, and Clytemnestra, whose negative example as an unfaithful wife obsesses almost every character, serving as the foil and anti-type to Penelope’s heroic patience.

I haven’t even come close to exhausting the list. Then there’s the Iliad, which despite taking place very much in a man’s world still gives us unforgettable women: Andromache, tragic hostage of fortune, Hecuba, regal model of dignity in disaster, Thetis, formidable tiger mom, Aphrodite, petty princess of the gods…the poem closes with women’s words, words of lament for the fallen hero Hector.

I maintain that Lupita is a hugely talented and very beautiful actress who has been treated to extremely unfair and ungentlemanly talk in the press cycle around this movie. Her silliness here doesn’t mean her performance will be bad. But it’s sad that she defaults into this Disney Princess press junket pablum. It speaks to the surpassing shallowness and boring ignorance of Hollywood’s fashionable assumptions. Homer is so, so much more than this.

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@greg16676935420 Famous place for a battle? Also an ABBA hit 😂

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@DanCastaRi13 @GMJuditPolgar @Schwarzenegger It's his famous Terminator catchphrase, "I'll be back..."

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@DanCastaRi13 @GMJuditPolgar @Schwarzenegger Never let the facts get in the way of a good joke 😉

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

Arthur Ferry is really Gustav Graves, isn't he?

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@EvacTony It's so short sighted of you to say this. 😂

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@FreeArse @BasilTheGreat @Iannoshoes I didn't say that. She's beautiful. But not like Helen of Troy was beautiful in those days!

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@FreeArse @BasilTheGreat @Iannoshoes Oh, she's beautiful OK. But the only degrees she'll be getting is honorary ones 😬

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@N0VFS @BasilTheGreat @odysseymovie Helen of Troy was a woman who was acclaimed as "the" most beautiful woman of the time, that is, a Greek white woman. The Greeks and Trojans had black slaves. She was never a slave.

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@5Pillarsuk Also, please post her name here on X, so we all know who she is...and can buy her a drink!🍻

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@jamesnoble57257 @BasilTheGreat 🤭

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@Centrist_Mike @ayeejuju I knoooow.
Why not just tattoo a "L"?
Then when you've grown up and know your left from your right, you can just turn it into "Love" ❤️

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@JustLycos @ayeejuju Mate, some confuse men and women, so...🤷🏾‍♀️

[George Alexopoulos @GPrime85]

"Very little time in the Odyssey is spent in the perspective of a woman"

O illiterate founder of Greece, the goddess Athena (a female) drives the entire story from start to finish. Her fingerprints are on every page.

The entire point of the story is that mortals, in spite of all their pride and greed, are the playthings of the gods and therefore must be humble and behave honorably or they will be punished. The male god Poseidon is the antagonist, and the hero is Athena, who repeatedly leads the otherwise helpless characters to resolution and peace.

This knowledge could be yours, if you read the book

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@SlimWiggy Ultimately, whether the Director is right or not will be judged by the box office receipts. I won't be going to see it.

[Queen Bee @KingBobIIV]

And Homer replies...

"So, just to be absolutely clear, Helen runs off with Paris, a thousand ships are launched to get her back, an entire civilisation spends ten years slaughtering itself, Achilles dies, Ajax dies, Troy is burnt to the ground, countless young men are hacked to pieces, all because Helen wanted to get her leg over with a Trojan...

Then Odysseus, who's never even met her, spends another ten years trying to get home, loses every one of his men, gets blown from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, is imprisoned by Calypso, nearly eaten by a Cyclops, enchanted by Circe, tempted by the Sirens, chased by Poseidon, washes up naked on beaches, arrives home, his dog dies, he's missed his son grow up and has to kill a house full of blokes trying to shag his wife and you think I should, *checks notes* 'make it a bit more about Helen?'"

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@KingBobIIV Put like that...🤣🤣🤣

[Jen k 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @Jenny_1884]

For those pensioners who have paid into the system & only receive the State Pension, not Pension Credit will not receive a free TV licence at 75yrs but those on benefits will.

Nothing is fair in this country anymore.

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

🤣 not wrong 🤣

[Paul Rees. ex Rucksack. @HannahIamthest1]

Son sent me this. 🤣🤣🤣

[TrudyToogood @TrudyToogood]

@ThatEricAlper I'm afraid all my friends are ON benefits 😬