Greek Gods In The Odyssey

Mosaic at the Movies Essay 2
“Never Judge a Book by its Cover” The movie Pumping Iron follows the story of American bodybuilders throughout the preparation and performance in two notable bodybuilding competitions. The idolization of these individuals seems reflective of the presence and power of the Greek gods in Homer’s Odyssey. The men are placed on a pedestal, at times literally, and famed for their physical ability and attractive appearance in Pumping Iron. The men are seen as superhuman; much superior to lesser, weaker, uglier plebeians. While the process of ranking and categorizing individuals based on physical attributes seems wrong to me and certainly many others, the process exists regardless, in more ways than we may even consider, altering human behavior whether we like it or not. In Odyssey, the gods are of various echelons with regard to physical strength, metaphysical strength, and beauty. This hierarchy is duly mirrored in the way the men in Pumping Iron are scored and placed by judges. These rankings display such stunning similarities in a way that transcends not only time and language, but religious observances as well. This proves how human it truly is to judge others based on their attractiveness.

These movies do a wonderful job of diagramming just how influential physical attractiveness is to human behavior. They show us that it is in our nature to judge with respect to looks, and has been since Homeric times and before. Pumping Iron and the Odyssey exemplify the practice as an underlying factor that has affected humanity since the beginning of time. They do so in a way that provides a snapshot in history of the practice as relevant to the culture of the time. So for those of us unattractive swine, we have only the hope of being reincarnated as attractive, godly beings such like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Zeus, and Professor