The Preponderance of Trash, Tripe and Trivia in the Mass Media

An ancient Greek demi-god is the hero of the day in the United States. As well as starring in one of the country's most popular television series, Hercules is also the subject of Disney's most ambitious cartoon since "The Lion King". "America is hot for Hercules" blared the cover of TV Guide a few months ago, but it is going to get hotter still, with Disney planning a summer blitz of Hercules books, dolls and parades to coincide with the general release of the film.

Hercules is not the only ancient hero America's hot for. NBC's spec­tacular television adaptation of Homer's "The Odyssey", costing some $30m and numbering Francis Ford Coppola among its executive produc­ers, will win fans for Odysseus. Indeed, the media's love for ancient heroes is so great that they have taken to making them up. "Xena", which occu­pies the Saturday evening spot after Hercules, is a Hollywood corrective to the ancient world's sexism. And a web site "Myth 101" answers those nag­ging questions about who did what to whom. Zeus, king of the gods, "was incapable of keeping his toga closed"; Hera, his wife, was addicted to "murder, bondage and hardcore discipline."

The cult of classics is not confined to low-brow culture. A new trans­lation of " TheOdyssey" (Viking; $35) by R. Fagles, a professor at Princenton University, has attracted much attention, with 64,500 copies in print and a laudatory review in everything from Time to The New York Times. Shops report a brisk market in audio-tapes of " The Iliad" and " The Odyssey". Herodotus has also become fashionable of late, thanks to enthusiasm for him in " The English Patient".

But the most encouraging sign of a classical revival is that more than half a million school or university students are now studying the classics. The American Philological Association, the classicists' professional society, says that the number of university students taking at least some Latin increased by a quarter. This increase reflects the growing popularity of the classics in public high schools.

The revival of interest in western classics generally is confirmed by an outpouring of fine translations of everything from Genesis to Dante's "Inferno". At the same time, Hollywood has discovered that great writers are well worth plundering — partly because they often told good stories, partly because their works are "in the public domain" (i.e., free from the costs and restrictions of copyright). David Denby, a film critic, argues that the classical revival is a reaction against hyperactive modern media. Bombarded with hundreds of television channels offering endless choices between similar programs, people are increasingly attracted by works that have stood the test of time.

Mr Fagles adds that the revival has a lot to do with the inherent attractions of the classics - and particularly with the attractions of Homer, who explores themes that are both universal and peculiarly resonant to the contemporary ear. "The Odyssey" describes a world that is coming to terms with the end of a prolonged war that divided civilization into two ideological blocks. It also provides a beguiling meditation on family values - not on the values of saccharine families like the Waltons but on flesh-and-blood families that are wracked by jealousy and hostility but nevertheless manage to stick together.

The view from Hollywood is, of course, a little more worldly. Christian Williams, the creator of the Hercules television series, argues that television programmers are forced by the proliferation of outlets to plunder the whole civilization, ancient and modern, to fill air space. In many ways, he says, the ancients have more going for them. They have built-in name recognition. They make perfect action heroes. And they give film-makers an opportunity to use fancy computer graphics to generate giant whirlpools and ferocious sea monsters.

One point, Mr Williams echoes Mr Fagles: the universal appeal of the classics. Television series about doctors, policemen and lawyers suffer from "high demographic specificity", he says, but "sword operas" such as Hercules, with their dramatic stories and simple distinctions between right and wrong, have, on this argument, a universal interest.

But why are Hollywood producers only now discovering the classics? Part of the reason lies in the way that classicists - never an unintelligent bunch — have succeeded in turning the twin forces of multiculturalism and the market to their advantage. For the first half of this century classicists had a guaranteed readership, underpinned by a mixture of social snobbery, republican symbolism and academic mandate. With the dwindling of a tied readership, classicists had to market themselves to survive.

They took to producing fine translations. They also became computer literate. Students can read the corpus of Greek literature and great chunks of Latin Literature on CD-ROM, clicking for translations and commentaries; and they can compare texts, draw up bibliographies, scrutinize archaeological sites and brush up on their Latin in an electronic chat room.

Classicists have also managed to reinterpret their subject in the light of modern obsessions with race, sex, oppression and so on. The past few decades have seen a flood of literature which has swept away the complacent Victorian view of the Greeks as committed to rationalism and democracy.

Inevitably, the classical revival is bringing some nonsense in its wake. Afrocentrists happily argue that Socrates was black by origin without a shred of evidence to support their claim. And Zeus would have a hard job recognizing the Hercules who so beguiles Americans at the moment. But a subject that once looked as if it was dying has clearly sprung back to life — and American culture, both high and low, is much better for it.

Notes

Centrism: Afrocentrism, Eurocentrism (европоцентризм), ethnocentrism (этноцентризм), etc. are various forms as opposed to multiculturalism (культурный плюрализм), or political correctness-centrism (P.C.-centrism), that is a term for the ideology that is now popular in the American society. The following are non-politically correct: emphasis on gender and ethnicity, standards of excellence, religion. Every politician has to think carefully today before he opens his mouth, everything he says must be politically correct, there should not be anything Euro-, Afro- or ethno-centristic. Living in a multicultural (поликультурное) society is always being aware of the expression of tolerance in the process of communication.

III. READING SKILLS

Ex. 1. Read the text and get its central idea. Among the statements below choose the one that tells the main idea of the text best:

a) The classical revival is a reaction against hyperactive modern media;

b) The classical revival has a lot to do with the inherent attractions of the classics, its universal appeal;

c) Renewed interest in the classics in American culture, both high and low, is much the better for it.