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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Ever had something you love dismissed because it’s “just” pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it’s worth talking and thinking about. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, two sisters who think a lot about a lot of things. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, and wherever pop culture takes us, come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Deep Thoughts About the Mummy
What is a place like me doing in a girl like this?
The 1999 Brendan Fraser film The Mummy has an extraordinarily beautiful cast, a delightfully bonkers plot, and a whole heap of unexamined colonialism, racism, and othering. Emily shares with Tracie the historical background of the West’s fascination with Egypt–which led to little Emily’s own interest and delight in all things Egyptological. But the Egypt we encounter in films like The Mummy has little to do with the real history of ancient Egypt (check out all the white actors!) and helps promote the idea that Western scholars make the best Egyptologists.
But not to worry: reflecting on this film isn’t all bad. The drool-worthy cast was the impetus for many a Gen X and Millennial bi awakening, and the characters (sometimes) reject traditional gender roles in delightful ways.
Even if you’re on the wrong side of the river, put in your earbuds and listen!
Content warning: Discussion of sexual harassment
Mentioned in this episode:
https://www.tumblr.com/unic0rnsandmurder/776100576860749824?source=share
https://www.tumblr.com/unic0rnsandmurder/776100594905726976?source=share
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Mertz
https://nilescribes.org/2022/01/08/egyptological-review-of-1999-mummy/
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls
So you then have this ancient art and buildings that feel very different from anything that the West makes or builds.
Speaker 1:You have a very different way of looking at death and you have something where people have decided it's a curse. And boy oh boy, can you start putting all of your weird beliefs and other deep thoughts about stupid shit? I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I will be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1999 Brendan Fraser film the Mummy, with my sister, tracy Guy-Decker, and with you. Let's dive in. So, tracy, I don't even know if you've seen this movie, because it came out after we were both adults, but it was in my. I think I was still in college. I was still seeing lots of movies in the theater. I know I saw it in the theater and just a rollicking good time. So tell me what you know. What's in the furniture of your brain about this movie?
Speaker 2:Pretty, sure I've seen it. Certain, I've seen it, but maybe only once. So, honestly, the only thing that I have like when I think about the Mummy besides Brendan Fraser looking very nice in well tailored clothes the only thing that I remember is there's a scene where the mummy has woken up and there's that mousy guy who is reading all of these different prayers or incantations in all different languages, and then he says something in Hebrew and the mummy's like oh, the language of the slaves. And somehow makes that guy his servant as a result. That's it. That's all I've got. I'm sure there are things with scarabs, maybe. I remember being sort of on the edge of my seat, very action and like what's going to happen now. That's the feeling that I get when I think of the mummy, but the only actual content I can come up with is that little nebbishy guy reading a whole bunch of different languages, including Hebrew. So that's what I got. But tell me, why are we talking about it?
Speaker 1:So, as I said, this is a rocking good time. It is a film that I remember revisiting many, many times. In the early 2000s I owned it on DVD, maybe even VHS. I can remember friends coming over and we would put it on and talk and just kind of look up at favorite scenes. You know that sort of thing. There's a couple of reasons why I felt drawn to this. First, I love action-adventure films. I love them. Second, I have an affinity for Egyptology and even the fake lore around Egypt, in part because I feel like every 80s kid went through an Egyptology phase and it might not just be 80s kids, it might just be kids.
Speaker 1:Every kid goes through the dinosaur phase, there's an Egyptology phase, there's an Amelia Earhart phase, there's a Helen Keller phase. But then I went back to that when I was a teenager and I found the books written by Elizabeth Peters, which was the pen name of Barbara Mertz, who was a trained Egyptologist I've mentioned her before on the show she had gotten her PhD from. It is no longer called this. At the time it was called the Oriental Institute of Chicago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's on the University of Chicago campus. I took at least one class there while I was at the Divinity School.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it is very prestigious. That is where Americans go to learn about Egypt. She got a PhD from there, but this was in late 40s, early 50s, and was not able to get any kind of job at all in Egyptology because she was a woman. So she ended up writing a series of novels the Amelia Peabody series, the first of which I read when I was about 13, that are set in the late 19th century, and Amelia Peabody is like my favorite kind of character. She is a feisty Victorian woman who does not pay attention to the rules of polite society and who becomes an amateur Egyptologist with her irascible husband Radcliffe Emerson, who she meets during the first book, crocodile on the Sandbank. They meet and fall in love. So this movie is very much within that genre as well. So that was another reason why I loved it.
Speaker 1:And when I saw this movie when it came out, I was in the midst of getting my bachelor's degree in English and one of the things that I really focused on was the literature of British imperialism.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of very interesting aspects of imperialism within the movie.
Speaker 1:That it's not that I didn't notice them or forgave, because it was a fun movie, but it was just like I was able to kind of put my worry about that to the side, which I wasn't necessarily able to do in movies I disliked or didn't enjoy as much, and just enjoy the adventure. So there's that aspect of it. And then in the past five years or so I have seen a number of memes and I'll include a link to one of them talking about how no one is born bisexual. They see 1999's the Mummy at a formative age, so things like that. And so this film is apparently a touchstone for young Gen X and late millennial queer kids. Reasons I'm still not sure I entirely understand, other than the fact that every single person in this cast is mouthwatering and it's not like that's unusual, but they just smolder, but they just smolder. And even the Weasley guy that you mentioned Benny is the character's name Even he like and I know it's because he's got eyeliner, because that does it for me.
Speaker 2:You're a sucker for that.
Speaker 1:But even he is just like you know what. I don't think I'd turn him down. So those are the things that I just really want to kind of dig into and talk about. And then I want to spend a little bit of time also mentioning Brendan Fraser and his career arc, because he went from this high of being like I mean, that was a major blockbuster film and to like not acting for 15 years. So I kind of want to talk about that.
Speaker 2:And then when he came back he did the Whale where he was that morbidly obese character and he gained a lot of weight for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is a total departure from the heartthrob and like sex symbol that he was in this film.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly that's where I want to go with this. Cool so, but why don't I kind of catch you up on the yeah?
Speaker 2:remind me of the plot because the plot, seriously, I've got that one scene, that's all I got. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:So the plot. I watched it with my spouse last night. He'd never seen it and it is like it's bonkers. It is a bonkers plot, so real quick. Also just want to mention this is a remake of the 1932 Boris Karloff the Mummy film. Oh, I didn't know that. That's cool and includes some of the like for the Mummy and, like the ancient Egyptians, include some of the same names that are names of actual historical Egyptians and it was written and directed by Stephen Summers, who I am not familiar with other than this.
Speaker 1:So it starts. We get a narration of the city of Thebes in 1290 BCE. The pharaoh is Setia I. He has a mistress named Anaksonamun and his mistress was basically owned by him, in that no man could touch her other than himself. And so to ensure that she's like, covered in like body paint, his advisor was a priest called Imhotep who had they had fallen in love on Aksanamun and Imhotep. And we see they wait until Seti has left Imhotep's priests. Priests close the doors so that they have some privacy and they start to kiss. But then Seti comes back unexpectedly and Imhotep had smeared the paint on her shoulder. So Seti realizes that someone has touched her and Anak, sanamun and Imhotep kill the pharaoh.
Speaker 1:Anak Sanamun tells Imhotep to leave. He's like I don't want to leave without you. And the priests pull him away and she says you're the only one who can resurrect me. And she takes a knife as the pharaoh's bodyguards are coming in and kills herself before they can get her. Then Imhotep tries to resurrect her in Hamantra, which is a fictional city of the dead. Hamantra, which is a fictional city of the dead. In the midst of the ceremony, the pharaoh's bodyguards catch up with them and mummify all of the priests alive and then mummify Imhotep alive with the special curse called the Hamdai, which I'm like. This really doesn't make sense, but the Hamdai is like the worst possible curse. He's mummified alive and then scarabs are put in the sarcophagus with him to eat him.
Speaker 2:So sorry, mummified alive. Is that like magically?
Speaker 1:Because like mummification was like a very they removed things, wrapped them up, put them in sarcophaguses and left them to die. They removed organs Not all of them, no, just their tongue. And all right, sorry, carry on. Humtai, humtai. Yes, and so this curse is that his name will be forgotten, among other things. But if he ever is resurrected, he'll bring a plague onto the earth and have like mighty power, which I'm like he could have just killed him, like it really doesn't make sense to give him this curse that's going to make him super powerful.
Speaker 2:All right, so sorry. This was the priest who was in love with the mistress. Is the one? Imhotep, imhotep, okay.
Speaker 1:Yes, all right. By the way, arnold Vosloo is Imhotep and Patricia Velasquez is an ox on a moon. God, they are so hot.
Speaker 2:They are so hot.
Speaker 1:So the narrator continues, you know, telling this backstory, and we learn that the narrator is among the Magi, which is the descendants of the pharaoh's bodyguards who did this to Imhotep, and so they have passed down the knowledge of Imhotep's place in Hamunaptra for 3,000 years, and their job is to make sure that no one ever discovers Imhotep's mummy. So we then see it is 1923, and the French Foreign Legion is in Hamunaptra fighting against an invading group that are locals. The French Foreign Legion are not. So we meet Rick O'Connell that's Brendan Fraser's character, who is the captain of the regiment. Just runs away, and the person next to Rick is Benny, who is this very weaselly Hungarian guy who says, well, I guess he just got promoted. And so we see the battle happening. Meanwhile the Magi are watching.
Speaker 1:It's not going well for the Foreign Legion and eventually so Benny ends up running away and hiding in a tomb and Rick is cornered under a statue of Anubis. We know that the mummy is buried at the feet of that statue. So he's cornered, he thinks he's about to die and then all of a sudden his attackers run away and he doesn't know why. But then the sand starts moving and weird shit is happening. So he runs away into the desert. The Magi choose not to harm him because the desert will kill him, because you know plot armor. So even though the Magi are like about, you know we don't want anyone to find this. So it then says three years later we meet Evelyn Carnahan, played by Rachelisz, with very 90s eyebrows like just tweezed.
Speaker 2:That's how we wore them.
Speaker 1:Then I know, and she's- lovely, but I was so distracted by her eyebrows. She's really beautiful, oh my goodness. So we meet her, we learn she is a scholar. Her parents were patrons of the museum, of the Egyptology Museum. She is kind of a klutz. She causes the entire library, all the bookcases to fall over Like all the stacks fall over Dominoes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we also meet her brother, Jonathan, played by John Hanna another my character is so beautiful who is a ne'er-do-well. He's her older brother and she tells him that she was rejected by the Bembridge scholars, again because people are not taking her seriously. She doesn't have enough experience in the field. Blah, blah, blah. Jonathan brings her a puzzle box that he has found. He claims he found it on a dig in Thebes. She figures out how to open it and finds a map inside that shows a map to Hamunaptra. They bring it to the curator who accidentally burns the map. Jonathan admits that he actually stole the puzzle box from a guy in a bar and so they go to find him. It is Brendan Fraser's Rick O'Connell. He is in jail and about to be executed, about to be hanged.
Speaker 2:Are we like what? Like 10 minutes into the movie at this point, maybe 15. Okay.
Speaker 1:So he steals a kiss, which we'll get to that in a moment. A what, okay? She's like coming closer and closer to him between the bars, trying to like can you tell me how to get to Hamunaptra? And he's like well, come closer. And he's like between the bars, trying to like can you tell me how to get to Hamunaptra? And he's like, well, come closer. And he's like yes, I can do that. And she's like, well, do you swear that? Blah, blah, blah. And he's like, yeah, every damn day. She's like I don't mean that. And so he's like yes, I can tell you, come closer, come closer. And then he kisses her through the bars and then he's pulled away and he says so she is negotiating with the warden, I'll give you 100 pounds to let this man go as they're trying to hang him. And finally she tells him like he knows the way to have an optra, I'll give you a cut. And so that's how they're able to save him, after they've already dropped him, but it didn't break his neck.
Speaker 1:The next day they're all meeting to go on a barge to head south through Egypt to get to where Hamunaptra is. And Brendan Fraser is now like clean cut and got a haircut and looks beautiful. We are on the barge. There are three Americans who are also looking for Hamunaptra and they have a guide. They also have an Egyptologist with them, turns out the guide is Benny guide. They also have an Egyptologist with them, turns out the guide is Benny. And so Rick and Benny have a conversation and Rick throws him over the edge of the boat because he abandoned him and all of that and Benny's kind of a weasel. There is also and this is why I think it's a bisexual coming of age moment. There's so much chemistry even between Benny and Rick, like the way that they interact with each other is lovely and like kind of charged. The Magi climb onto the boat, try to steal the map and the puzzle box which turns out, to which they call a key I thought the map got burned, only part of it and in the midst of the fighting trying to do this, the barge completely is consumed in flames. Everyone jumps overboard.
Speaker 1:The Americans, benny and the Egyptologists are on one side of the river. All the horses that were on the boat are with them, and then Rick, evie, rachel Weisz, jonathan and the warden are on the other side because he came with to protect his investment. And Benny is taunting him it's one of my favorite moments and he's like hey, o'connell, looks like I got all the horses. And Rick responds like hey, benny, looks like you're on the wrong side of the river. Jenny, looks like you're on the wrong side of the river. So they have to go buy some camels, some clothes because Evie was just in her nightgown and supplies and stuff. Of course she was, of course she was. And they end up racing to Hamunaptra because they made a bet with the Americans about who would get there first. So Evie knows certain things about Hamunaptra that the Egyptologist doesn't, but he's like what could a woman possibly know? So they're trying to figure out where they're going to be digging.
Speaker 1:The first day some terrible things happen. The Americans have some Egyptian diggers with them. The Egyptologist says let the diggers open that up, because Satie was no fool. And so they open something and they're hit with salt acid and three of the diggers are killed. Yeah, and then the warden wanders away from where Evie and O'Connell and Jonathan are digging and he finds these like a scarab jewels on on the um wall and he starts grabbing them. But they magically turn into real scarabs and like crawl under his skin in very 90s cgi and end up killing him, eat him. Yeah, that night the magi come through and they're like using swords and everything and like they're killing a lot of extras. Finally they stop. They stop and Ardeth Bay, who is the leader of the Magi, who is the most beautiful man, he says enough bloodshed, live by tomorrow or die, which again makes no sense because they've made it clear they're willing to kill innocent people. Yeah, just kill them. Yeah, no plot armor.
Speaker 1:The Egyptologist finds the Black Book of the Dead, which is shaped like a trapper keeper and requires the key to open it. Meanwhile, evie has found the mummy of Imhotep and it's still juicy, which they're like. This is really weird. It's 3000 years old and so once the Egyptologist has fallen asleep, she takes the Book of the Dead and reads it, which awakens Imhotep. So the Egyptologist and three Americans had opened a box that had the canopic jars, which are where the organs were stored of Imhotep, and apparently there is a curse on it that you know anyone who opens this will die. And so the Magi end up explaining that Imhotep comes back. He's alive in this juicy mummy gross thing, cgi creation but he will like basically eat each of the four people who opened the box that had his canopic jars and take their essence and he'll become more and more human-like and once he's regained his beautiful Arnold Vosloo form, he will be unstoppable. So that is the moment.
Speaker 1:Once he's awakened, that's the moment that you remember where, benny and it's very funny he starts off, he pulls out a cross from under his shirt and he says a prayer, and then he pulls out like a Buddha and says something in Chinese, pulls out something else and says something in Arabic, and then he pulls out the Star of David. And I was paying attention last night and I could not figure out. Like it was not Hebrew that I recognized, it was not Bracha, that like it just sounded sort of like Hebrew. Yeah, and I don't know, I have no idea if they actually used real Hebrew or not, but anyway. And the mummy says, in ancient Egyptian, the language of the slaves, this one might be useful to me. And so Benny, because he's a weasel, is like all right, yeah, I'll be your servant. So everyone hightails it back to Cairo. They find out that the curator of the museum is a member of the Magi.
Speaker 2:Oh plot twist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so he burned the map on purpose, of course he did. And they basically say they were able to stop the mummy before he completely ate one of the Americans, but he got his eyes. The mummy before he completely ate one of the Americans, but he got his eyes. And so we then see that Benny has brought Imhotep to the now blind guy and then he's consumed and one by one, each of the three Americans and the Egyptologist are consumed, with Benny's help. With Benny's help, yes, and there's a lot of just ridiculous, wonderful fighting the 10 plagues of Egypt are unleashed. So we got locusts, we got water turning to blood, we got, I mean, it's oh boils and hail and the full Passover Seder yeah.
Speaker 1:Sweet, sweet, sweet. And we learn that Imhotep is interested in Evie because he wants to sacrifice her so he can bring, because he needs to sacrifice a living woman to bring Anaxanamun back to life and not be juicy Cool. So there's shenanigans back and forth and Imhotep is able to take Evie. He says if you come with me I'll let your friends live. And so they're cornered. She says, fine, I'll go. And Rick's like no, no, no, you can't. And she says he has to take me back to Hamunaptra for the ceremony, the ritual, like there's time, come after me. And so she goes with him. Imhotep then says kill them all to his minions. And they escape by the skin of their teeth because you know plot armor. They end up flying Rick and Jonathan and Ardeth Bay.
Speaker 1:The Magi end up flying to Hamunaptra via the only Royal Air Force member still in Egypt from the Great War who wished he had died in the Great War, like all the other chappies that he came there with. Okay, yeah, it's so ridiculous and so delightful, he's like. And so what does your little problem have to do with His Majesty's Royal Air Force? He's like and so what does your little problem have to do with His Majesty's Royal Air Force and Rick says not a damn thing. And is it likely you'll succeed? No, we're probably all going to die, really Jolly good. And so, like, the plane ends up going down and the last thing you see of Winston is the name of this pilot is he's got this huge grin on his face and he's dead. And the thing is, I don't know, I don't know, but based on a lifetime of reading Agatha Christie and other early 20th century British stuff, it feels like that's a real type of person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, all right, so they fly back. Winston dies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, winston dies. The mummy has become sand and has become a sandstorm and takes Benny and Evie there, takes them down to the ritual room in Hamunaptra and he gets the Anak Sunamun's mummy. It's closest to a Bechdel moment that we have is she's lying. The mummy is lying next to Evie. Her spirit comes back into the mummy and she screams and Evie screams. That's as close to passing the Bechdel and they're looking at each other screaming.
Speaker 1:I don't think that counts. I don't think so either. There is a ridiculous fight scene. There's lots of mummies they have to use. There's another book called the Book of Amun-Ra, which Jonathan has to read, and we know he's a ne'er-do-well not very good at the scholarship. So he's shouting like what does a stork mean? Trying to read things so they can make Imhotep mortal again, so he can be killed.
Speaker 2:They're able to do that, they kill.
Speaker 1:Imhotep. Then Benny accidentally triggers the destruction of the temple because there's a lever that isn't marked or anything. He had not been so greedy would have survived because like he had plenty of time but he kept going back in for more. And so they all escape benny. They try to help benny and he's not able to to make it and then he's eaten by by bugs. They get out into the desert. There are camels there that I think are supposed to be left over from when they were in hominopter the first time. Otherwise I don't know what the camels are doing there. They ride off into the sunset. Rick and Evie kiss and that's the end of the film.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Like the thing is like I skipped so much.
Speaker 1:So where are we going to start? Let me start with the West's obsession with Egypt. Yeah, so there is this very interesting aspect Now. Egypt is fascinating all on its own, just if all you see are the pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx. Like it's just like wow, that is some cool shit, you know, without knowing any of the mythology behind it. Sure, sure, sure, without knowing. It's just like damn, those are really old. How did they make those? Yeah, even more than like seeing a cathedral, because they're in the middle of the desert, they're on the banks of the Nile, so, okay, but just the amount of work necessary to make them, yeah, and clearly they're meaningful in a way, yeah, and they're awe-inspiring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the West's interest in Egypt in part came from Napoleon, and it's because, you know, that was when there was kind of widespread knowledge of what was there, and so there were a lot of like people couldn't afford to travel there. So there were a lot of like people couldn't afford to travel there. So there were a lot of like travel guides, people writing like they'd go visit and they'd write about it, and it was fascinating to people. Then add in the fact that ancient Egyptians mummified their dead, and right there you got something that's just fascinating to people. Everybody loves dead bodies, yeah, okay. And then you have the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which was in the early 19-teens Teens yeah, or 1920s yeah, somewhere around there.
Speaker 1:Like 1919, I think wasn't it, yeah, yeah, somewhere around there, somewhere in there, and what happened was there were three men who opened the tomb. All three of them died very, very young, and so it became this self-fulfilling idea that there are curses. Yep, yep, this was before widespread vaccines of certain things. Like one of the members, I think Lord Carnahan, he cut himself shaving and got blood poisoning and like 2025, can't imagine that happening. But you know, not that unusual back then.
Speaker 2:Yeah 100 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you then have this ancient art and buildings that feel very different from anything that the West makes or builds. You have a very different way of looking at death and you have something where people have decided it's a curse. And boy oh boy, can you start putting all of your weird beliefs and othering thoughts on this society?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like the perfect storm for exoticization and fetishization.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes. And so I like to say King Tut to me is the perfect crystallization of the fact that you have no control over your legacy. And the reason I say that is because he was a really minor pharaoh. He died young. He was under the age of 20 when he died. Not clear how he died. They at some point thought he might have been murdered, but it's also possible he just died of natural causes and then whatever they thought was evidence of murder was just postmortem happened. And so, because he died so young, he had not had a tomb or pyramid built for him, so they had to make do with what they had. So it was a tomb that was already set aside for some minor noble or something. So it wasn't in the Valley of the Kings and it wasn't a pyramid. And because he was a minor pharaoh, he was completely forgotten. Uh-huh, because grave robbers have been stealing. You know, you put a giant pyramid over like lots of riches, riches yeah, people know where to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like a beacon Steal stuff here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Pharaoh, who nobody remembers had nothing to do with the reign of ancient Egypt, is now the most well-known and celebrated Egyptian king of all time, Because he was unknown.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at least of our time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, whereas like Ramses and Seti, who were very important, Westerners don't know him.
Speaker 2:Westerners don't know them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I find that very comforting in some ways.
Speaker 2:That's not the word I thought you were going to use.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I love that. This weird confluence of things made this boy king, who there have been so many stories written about. I remember reading a young adult novel when I was 13 or 14 about him, and it has sparked so much imagination that he has gotten the afterlife that the Egyptian pharaohs were promised in a lot of ways, because he was forgotten.
Speaker 1:So, that's something I find really interesting, and it has spawned movies like this Mm-hmm, which is just so bizarre. Can you imagine trying to tell, like 17-year-old Tutankhamen, like, let me tell you 2,000 years from now.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, that is really bizarre. Yeah yeah, that is really bizarre. It's really interesting too because of this sort of exoticization and fetishization and mystical aspect of it. There's a superhumanization which is a dehumanization, which I think is also really really interesting. I mean, we see it in other places in society, but here's a very clear example of where superhumanization is in fact a form of dehumanization.
Speaker 2:Right, and even like what was actually happening in the 20s, when people would like buy mummies when westerners and unwrap them in a party or like brew tea from the bandages and drink it like like weird, weird shit. That like they would not do if they were thinking logically about the fact that this is the remains of a human being. Right, it was only in the dehumanization of this ancient Egyptian person that they were able to do the things that they did. And I think there's something like the tension in the superhumanization, and dehumanization is really really fascinating. It is one of the ways that oppression happens, which feels counterintuitive because it is a superhumanization, but it totally is one of the ways that oppression happens things.
Speaker 1:That is worrisome about this film. There are a few extras who may have been Egyptian. I saw in the early scene when the pharaoh's guards come to confront Imhotep and Anakson Amun, there's one black guard, but the cast is pretty much all white. So Patricia Velasquez, the cast is pretty much all white. So Patricia Velasquez, who played Anaxana Moon, I believe is Latina. Arnold Vazlu, I'm not sure. He is South African and American, so I don't really know what his background is, but he is not Egyptian and so there's that aspect of it that we and they are gorgeous, like we exotify them. You've said, oh, my god, god, we exoticize them, but they are white looking. You know, their exoticness is in how they are dressed, right other than or made up features yes, yes the body paint.
Speaker 1:The body paint? Yes, and then, on top of that, there is the fact that white folks were the best scholars to study egyptian ancient history yeah, and it was called the oriental institute when I was there, when I was.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, it's in the past, like 10, 5 or 10 years, that they changed. Yeah, yeah, it's got to be recently. Yeah, I mean, I've been gone.
Speaker 1:It's been 20 years since I left graduate school, but it's you know, within our lifetime, it was still very recent, and so, then, the fact that all of the actors, including the ones playing Egyptian characters, are, for the most part, white, what about, like the curator, who is also a Magi? He is an Indian American actor.
Speaker 2:So he was ethnic. I'm putting quotes around that.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then the man who played Ardeth Bay. His name is Oded Fair and he is Israeli, so he was the leader of the Magi. So Benny, I think, is supposed to be Hungarian because like that's what you said, you said Hungarian.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the reason why I say that is because when you watch it with subtitles, there will be times where he says something is like speaking in Hungarian, and he does that multiple times. Now it's also clear he's very good with languages because he understands the mummy. But why would he be speaking in Hungarian so regularly? Yeah sure, mummy, but why would he be speaking in hungarian so regularly? Yeah, sure, but he's an american actor named kevin j o'connor. So it is this like erasure of actual egyptian culture and actual egyptian people and replacement with the white view of what Egyptian culture is and white actors.
Speaker 2:Or like the Indian American guy, he's ethnic. It's close enough. Yeah, it doesn't matter which ethnic, yeah.
Speaker 1:Put a fez on him. It's fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's not white, so he's Egyptian.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's painful yeah.
Speaker 2:It's smart. That's how we did it in the 90s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean, and the thing is, that's how they did it in 1932. Yes, boris Karloff playing in 1932.
Speaker 2:For sure, for sure, in 32, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's ruinous in every direction for understanding of ancient Egypt and Egyptology, because it's like assuming that white folks know best and that's you know, like there's so much in the British Museum of, like you know, the British saying, well, we'll take charge of this, you can take care of it yourself. We have to take care of this. Yeah, by stealing. It's like like it's a toddler with scissors yeah, this thing that you made, yeah we will protect for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you can't see it anymore. We're going to put it in the vitrine.
Speaker 1:It'll be fine, you can come see it anytime you like, just fly to London. Yeah, so you've got that aspect of it. Then you've got the exoticism of putting magic, creating this false lore of magic Egyptian culture that has literally nothing to do with the actual dynamic, interesting, fascinating culture that the Egyptians did subscribe to. So you've got that. So you've got like, on the one side you've got the scholars who are like taking charge of it, and then you've got the culture that is like negating any of the actual knowledge the scholars might have.
Speaker 2:Well, it's like the scholars. And then there's also the storytelling. That's really just about telling a fantasy, but using historical names and historical moments. But just, I mean, it might as well be JRR Tolkien, but instead of making up a new Middle Earth, it's like, yeah, that's ancient Egypt.
Speaker 1:There's something very human about that. When you learn about something new, you're like, oh, that's really interesting. I bet that's related to that other thought I had.
Speaker 2:I mean that is how meaning making works to be fair to humans.
Speaker 1:I mean that is how meaning making works to be fair to humans, and then because of pop culture and things like everyone wanting to get in on the money making of, like Egyptomania, which is what they called it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have Boris Karloff as the mummy and yet another fable is created, yeah, so I mean, all of that I find fascinating. It's why I was so interested in the literature of British imperialism because it was making meaning out of something that was completely misunderstood, often with good intentions. There was often a good intention, even though it was condescending as fuck that ends up harming people in ways that you never anticipated. The complete cluster of all of that I find fascinating. And then the fact that you then create this completely bonkers but absolutely delightful ride of a film like this, where you're just like I am enjoying every single second of this, also like it creates this dissonance for me, and particularly because I saw it when I did, when I was thinking, the thoughts that I was about how imperialist cultures appropriate native cultures. So that's a lot. Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about, like I I have mentioned, like every single actor, like, damn, like, oh man it's like.
Speaker 2:It's like more hotties and um per square inch than you can shake an on cat, and so I want to talk about like why was this an awakening for you know, younger, Gen X and elder millennial bisexuals, because it is.
Speaker 1:You know, I did a little reading and people were saying, like part of it is there is this like sexual chemistry between Evie and Rick? Yes, absolutely, and that people watching that would interchange themselves. Like I want to be Rick and kiss Evie. I want to be Evie and kiss Rick. Do you think there's some of the say himbo you think idiot and that's not it. It's that he is athletic and he can do stuff, but he doesn't have scholarly knowledge and he is very, very fascinated by Evie's scholarly knowledge, like he thinks it is really interesting when she shares what she is passionate about, about Egyptology.
Speaker 2:So he's like oh you think thinky thoughts. Yes, meanwhile he's looking really good in his 1920s outfit.
Speaker 1:Yes, and he is perfectly comfortable with her taking the lead when she knows what the hell she's doing. Oh, that's kind of hot. Yes, and he is perfectly comfortable with her taking the lead when she knows what the hell she's doing. Oh, that's kind of hot. Yes, yes it is.
Speaker 2:And rare yes.
Speaker 1:Now he also does shit like pick her up and carry her into a room and lock her in.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's not hot, which is not as okay.
Speaker 1:Not hot. He also kisses her without her consent Not hot. So those are the only like kind of toxic masculine stuff that he does. He otherwise like when it's clear that the mummies come back he's like all right, let's get out of here. He's happy to run, he does not feel the need to stay and doesn't need to be a hero.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he interacts with people in a very like interpersonal way, like when he goes to winston for help with flying.
Speaker 1:He knows he's going to get winston's attention because he knows what winston wants, because he's actually like and they show him earlier, like bothering people at a bar, winston, I mean, and rick like mouths along with something that winston apparently says over and over and over again, so like it'd be very easy to just ignore that guy and not think about him.
Speaker 1:But there is that sense of Rick recognizes the humanity of him. The other thing that I love this moment until Imhotep is completely regenerated, he is afraid of cats and this is fake bullshit. But Ardeth Bay says because cats are like in charge of the underworld basically. And so there is, we know that because like he like hisses and goes away from the cat at one point and Rick asks like what's going on with that. And then at another point they know that the mummy is in a room like menacing Evie, and so Rick has picked up the cat and brought it with him and so he's like, here you go and like a b-head would think that was like emasculating to have the cat like get the mummy to go away.
Speaker 2:I see, because the mummy like gets very frightened and runs away, I see, I see, instead of like fighting him or something, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1:So he recognizes like cause he's been told like human weapons will not work on him and so and he had at one point he argued cause when they first encounter him, he shoots him and it like causes him to fall over and he thinks, all right, I got him, he's gone. And like he argues several times until Ardith Bay like makes it clear to him, so like once he's learned it, that no, I can't, I can't fight him like a normal fight all right, I'll use the cat yeah, so it's.
Speaker 1:I think that there's that aspect to it. There is something a little bit sympathetic about Imhotep it's more so in the second movie because he returns, as does Anak Sunamun, but there's something sympathetic about the fact that he is desperately in love with Anak Sunamun and everything he does is to reunite with her. He also doesn't care about hurting anyone, but there's something very human about his love and even the scene when he does not want to leave Anak Sunamun and she says to him you're the only one who can resurrect me. Yeah, you said that. There's also a kind of like change in, like the masculine trope. Now he's pulled away by his priests, but he does allow himself to be pulled away by his priests and that recognizing like you know what I need to do, what I am good at Right live to fight another day or whatever, yeah. And then the character of Benny is kind of hilarious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember him being funny.
Speaker 1:He's very funny. There is something I don't want to say in any way admirable or anything like that, but comprehensible about him. He is a born survivor and so it kind of makes sense that he and the mummy work together, because he says to Rick he's like I'm immune to whatever's coming to the rest of humanity, and Imhotep is a similar sort of like I'll do whatever needs to be done to get my moon back.
Speaker 1:But it's very funny when he pulls all the the religious symbols out of his shirt the scene that stayed with me. It's hilarious, but it's also like, yeah, this guy's thought through contingencies. Yeah, and if he were just a scooch less greedy he would have survived yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, we are running out of time. So did you have any other key analyses that you didn't get to?
Speaker 1:I do just want to real quick talk about Brendan Fraser. Oh yes, there were a couple of reasons why he stopped acting. One was that he had some health problems because doing action movies like this one, he had a bunch of different injuries and he had to have surgery. He went through a tough divorce and then he was also sexually harassed by the head of the Golden Globes I don't remember what that's called, but the head of the Golden Globes and spoke out about it and there's kind of conflicting stories. I remember when I read about it it seemed very clear that he was blacklisted and then since then it's been kind of like no, like they don't have that much power was that person a man or a woman?
Speaker 2:a?
Speaker 1:man, okay, and he claims that it was like at first he he denied it, and then he's like that he's actually the person accused burke is his name. So he claimed, claimed, no, that didn't happen, and then he's like, all right, yeah, fine, I like pinched his bottom, but you know, like it was a joke which is fascinating, considering the kiss between Evie and Rick and then, like the other aspect of what happened, I think, and partially because of the health problems, is Brendan Fraser doesn't look like 1999 Brendan Fraser anymore, even when he has not put on weight specifically for the film the Whale, which I haven't seen.
Speaker 1:I didn't watch the movie either. I know some fat activists were less than excited about it, yes. And then he also has his three sons, and his eldest is on the autism spectrum, and so he also was like kind of focusing on making sure that his son got what he needed. But there is, I have this sense that Fraser was kind of chewed up by Hollywood just between the sexual harassment, the surgery and health problems and then the like. Anytime you heard anything about him, it's just like is that Brendan Fraser? Because he looks different than he did in 1999, because he's no longer 28. And so I appreciate looking at that and thinking about that, because there is something similar to a mummy. Oh, interesting, because he was at his height of fame, fame and power, but because of outside forces, bigger forces, he went basically underground interesting.
Speaker 2:That's not where I thought you were going with this. I thought you were going like. This is a story we expect to hear about an actress oh, that too, this is a story we expect to hear about a woman. All of it the sexual harassment the health problems, the sort of having a hard time breaking back in after a break because they don't. They're not as attractive as they were like that's a.
Speaker 1:That is a story we hear again and again and again about actresses that's where I thought you were going with that well, and it's interesting because I think that there's been more sympathy for him totally, I completely agree because, like, as a society, we're just like well, that's I mean, what'd you expect? Yeah, you aged.
Speaker 2:How dare you yeah, I mean, that's what we say to women like, what'd you expect? Of course he pinched your bottom. Look at you, what were you wearing?
Speaker 1:and so like that also gets into a little bit the fact that that's what we expect with actresses.
Speaker 1:It's the price of being female in hollywood, or, yes, god just existing yeah, but that's also, I think, in some ways part of what gets back to that sense of like. This is like the bisexual awakening film. There is something about brendan fraser that is not typically masculine, so I wonder if that has something to do with it too. And like I have no idea about Fraser as an individual, like I don't know anything about his sexuality and it's not my business and it has nothing to do with anything, except that he presents in a way that is not stereotypically masculine, even though, especially in 1999, he very much looked stereotypically masculine. But even he has these just perfect lips, cupid's bow lips, yeah, that I tend to think of as a more feminine trait. And he also has huge, beautiful eyes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So interesting. All right, let me see if I can reflect back some of the things that we talked about, because we've been talking for a long minute now. There was a couple of buckets that you brought to your analysis of the Mummy. One was just like a look back at the West's fascination with ancient Egypt and that fell into really interesting and like almost conflicting buckets. Like there's the one bucket of sort of British Western imperialism whereby white people understand everything better than anyone, including understanding Egyptian culture better than Egyptians, and the way that the tendrils and the ripples of that attitude would show up in sort of who gets cast and in like how we present stories and even the fact that Tutankhamen is the pharaoh whose name every American knows, even though he was actually not that important in sort of historical, cultural terms. But that's the one that like captured the imagination because that's the one the scholars like had the most information about because of the tomb. So there's there's sort of that bucket and adjacent to it, with the imperialism, is an appropriation and a projection which becomes the egyptomania, which becomes sort of things like this movie, where it's almost like jrr tolkien or some other fantasy writer is writing a totally new culture but using the geography and names of ancient Egypt and the damage that that potentially does, insofar as it completely erases actual Egyptian culture, which is rich and storied and deserves to be known. It has erased that for Westerners and created this weird projected mythology that is not actually related to real historic moments.
Speaker 2:And I named the fact that part and parcel of that, both in this movie and in sort of Egyptomania, is a superhumanization of the ancient Egyptians which becomes a dehumanization, which we see. This is an example of that happening, but it happens in oppressive patterns in other places. That was one sort of big, rich, juicy bucket of what you brought us. There was another adjacent bucket around I mentioned the casting, but I'll just name that again. That part of that even in 1999, was like pretty much all the actors are white or white presenting or they're ethnic I'm putting quotes around that and so it doesn't matter if they're Egyptian or like Egyptian, indian, israeli, whatever, it's all the same.
Speaker 2:So there's sort of that adjacent bucket to the imperialism that shows up actually in the movie itself and related to the movie itself. You named the fact that like this is fun, like this movie is just really fun, and so that like causes some dissonance for you, as you're seeing what I just named happening in this really fun vehicle and like finding a way to kind of enjoy while holding it accountable is, I mean, that's the project that we're doing right here, but we see it particularly in this film. But we think that, you know, some of it isn't just the sheer like beauty and sex appeal of the cast, which is true of most Hollywood movies, but somehow in particular this one. They, every character smolders Right. They're not just good looking.
Speaker 1:They're not just good looking Sexy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that, like you know that they're thinking about sex, yeah, yeah, and there's also you also named specific pairings where there's a pairing with Brendan Fraser's Rick and Rachel Weisz's Evie, but there's also a pairing with Rick and Benny, potentially, like I imagine there's fan fiction that ships those two. Oh gosh, yeah, I'm guessing.
Speaker 1:So I know what I'm looking up.
Speaker 2:I'm looking up. So that was like another sort of bucket that we like briefly talked about. And then you also brought in Brendan Fraser himself, the actor, and the ways in which he sort of got out of the business, kind of after this movie or not long after, and then kind of came back, but not in the same way, not with the same kind of roles, and you named the ways in which his kind of disappearance and reappearance was sort of like a mummy kind of being like set aside or set on a shelf at the height of his looks and power and then having a hard time coming back or coming back and being like I don't know, curse almost. I named the fact that that story, that Brendan Fraser story, is this like we, if we took his name out and put in almost any Hollywood actress who had to take some time off for whatever reason like we hear the same story sexually harassed by someone important, maybe blacklisted, maybe not, health problems due to the business, and then having a hard time coming back because everybody's like, oh, have you seen them? They don't look like they used to look and how, as a culture we give Frasier some additional sympathy compared to women who go through the exact same thing, because it is the cost of being female.
Speaker 2:I feel like there's something important that I'm forgetting. What am I forgetting? Oh, oh, you think I got it all. I think you got it all Amazing yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm amazing. No, I think you got it all. Polishing my nails here, all right. Well, next time, emily. Next week, I am really excited to bring you my deep thoughts about the movie Ladyhawk. Do you, do you remember that one? Yes, matthew broderick as like a monk, and like they've got rudger howard and I can't remember the michelle pfeiffer right. I haven't seen it in ages. I'm a little bit worried to re-watch it, but I'm also excited so that's what I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean, well, michelle pfeiffer too, she's uh, that too. Yeah, I, I'm only like maybe 20 by, but she's like 18% of it.
Speaker 1:So it's Tig Notaro. The other 2%, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, well, until next time. Until then, this show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon there's a link in the show notes or leave a positive review so others can find us and, of course, share the show with your people. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from Incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's episode. Until next time, remember pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?