March 18, 2025 • 56 mins
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
We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.
We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So you then have this ancient art and buildings that
feel very different fromanything that the West makes or
builds.
You have a very different way oflooking at death and you have
something where people havedecided it's a curse.
(00:20):
And boy oh boy, can you startputting all of your weird
beliefs and other deep thoughtsabout stupid shit?
I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts
(00:53):
About Stupid Shit, because popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
On today's episode, I will besharing my deep thoughts about
the 1999 Brendan Fraser film theMummy, with my sister, tracy
Guy-Decker, and with you.
Let's dive in.
So, tracy, I don't even know ifyou've seen this movie, because
(01:14):
it came out after we were bothadults, but it was in my.
I think I was still in college.
I was still seeing lots ofmovies in the theater.
I know I saw it in the theaterand just a rollicking good time.
So tell me what you know.
What's in the furniture of yourbrain about this movie?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Pretty, sure I've seen it.
Certain, I've seen it, butmaybe only once.
So, honestly, the only thingthat I have like when I think
about the Mummy besides BrendanFraser looking very nice in well
tailored clothes the only thingthat I remember is there's a
scene where the mummy has wokenup and there's that mousy guy
(01:53):
who is reading all of thesedifferent prayers or
incantations in all differentlanguages, and then he says
something in Hebrew and themummy's like oh, the language of
the slaves.
And somehow makes that guy hisservant as a result.
That's it.
That's all I've got.
I'm sure there are things withscarabs, maybe.
I remember being sort of on theedge of my seat, very action
(02:16):
and like what's going to happennow.
That's the feeling that I getwhen I think of the mummy, but
the only actual content I cancome up with is that little
nebbishy guy reading a wholebunch of different languages,
including Hebrew.
So that's what I got.
But tell me, why are we talkingabout it?
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So, as I said, this is a rocking good time.
It is a film that I rememberrevisiting many, many times.
In the early 2000s I owned iton DVD, maybe even VHS.
I can remember friends comingover and we would put it on and
talk and just kind of look up atfavorite scenes.
You know that sort of thing.
(02:55):
There's a couple of reasons whyI felt drawn to this.
First, I love action-adventurefilms.
I love them.
Second, I have an affinity forEgyptology and even the fake
lore around Egypt, in partbecause I feel like every 80s
kid went through an Egyptologyphase and it might not just be
(03:18):
80s kids, it might just be kids.
Every kid goes through thedinosaur phase, there's an
Egyptology phase, there's anAmelia Earhart phase, there's a
Helen Keller phase.
But then I went back to thatwhen I was a teenager and I
found the books written byElizabeth Peters, which was the
pen name of Barbara Mertz, whowas a trained Egyptologist I've
(03:41):
mentioned her before on the showshe had gotten her PhD from.
It is no longer called this.
At the time it was called theOriental Institute of Chicago.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, yeah, it's on the University of Chicago campus
.
I took at least one class therewhile I was at the Divinity
School.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yes, and it is very prestigious.
That is where Americans go tolearn about Egypt.
She got a PhD from there, butthis was in late 40s, early 50s,
and was not able to get anykind of job at all in Egyptology
because she was a woman.
So she ended up writing aseries of novels the Amelia
(04:16):
Peabody series, the first ofwhich I read when I was about 13
, that are set in the late 19thcentury, and Amelia Peabody is
like my favorite kind ofcharacter.
She is a feisty Victorian womanwho does not pay attention to
the rules of polite society andwho becomes an amateur
Egyptologist with her irasciblehusband Radcliffe Emerson, who
(04:41):
she meets during the first book,crocodile on the Sandbank.
They meet and fall in love.
So this movie is very muchwithin that genre as well.
So that was another reason whyI loved it.
And when I saw this movie whenit came out, I was in the midst
(05:03):
of getting my bachelor's degreein English and one of the things
that I really focused on wasthe literature of British
imperialism.
So there's a lot of veryinteresting aspects of
imperialism within the movie.
That it's not that I didn'tnotice them or forgave, because
it was a fun movie, but it wasjust like I was able to kind of
(05:23):
put my worry about that to theside, which I wasn't necessarily
able to do in movies I dislikedor didn't enjoy as much, and
just enjoy the adventure.
So there's that aspect of it.
And then in the past five yearsor so I have seen a number of
memes and I'll include a link toone of them talking about how
(05:48):
no one is born bisexual.
They see 1999's the Mummy at aformative age, so things like
that.
And so this film is apparentlya touchstone for young Gen X and
late millennial queer kids.
Reasons I'm still not sure Ientirely understand, other than
(06:10):
the fact that every singleperson in this cast is
mouthwatering and it's not likethat's unusual, but they just
smolder, but they just smolder.
And even the Weasley guy thatyou mentioned Benny is the
character's name Even he likeand I know it's because he's got
eyeliner, because that does itfor me.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
You're a sucker for that.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
But even he is just like you know what.
I don't think I'd turn him down.
So those are the things that Ijust really want to kind of dig
into and talk about.
And then I want to spend alittle bit of time also
mentioning Brendan Fraser andhis career arc, because he went
(06:55):
from this high of being like Imean, that was a major
blockbuster film and to like notacting for 15 years.
So I kind of want to talk aboutthat.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And then when he came back he did the Whale where he
was that morbidly obesecharacter and he gained a lot of
weight for it.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, which is a total departure from the
heartthrob and like sex symbolthat he was in this film.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Yes, exactly that's where I want to go with this.
Cool so, but why don't I kindof catch you up on the yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
remind me of the plot because the plot, seriously,
I've got that one scene, that'sall I got.
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
So the plot.
I watched it with my spouselast night.
He'd never seen it and it islike it's bonkers.
It is a bonkers plot, so realquick.
Also just want to mention thisis a remake of the 1932 Boris
Karloff the Mummy film.
(07:51):
Oh, I didn't know that.
That's cool and includes someof the like for the Mummy and,
like the ancient Egyptians,include some of the same names
that are names of actualhistorical Egyptians and it was
written and directed by StephenSummers, who I am not familiar
with other than this.
So it starts.
We get a narration of the cityof Thebes in 1290 BCE.
(08:15):
The pharaoh is Setia I.
He has a mistress namedAnaksonamun and his mistress was
basically owned by him, in thatno man could touch her other
than himself.
And so to ensure that she'slike, covered in like body paint
, his advisor was a priestcalled Imhotep who had they had
(08:37):
fallen in love on Aksanamun andImhotep.
And we see they wait until Setihas left Imhotep's priests.
Priests close the doors so thatthey have some privacy and they
start to kiss.
But then Seti comes backunexpectedly and Imhotep had
smeared the paint on hershoulder.
So Seti realizes that someonehas touched her and Anak,
(08:59):
sanamun and Imhotep kill thepharaoh.
Anak Sanamun tells Imhotep toleave.
He's like I don't want to leavewithout you.
And the priests pull him awayand she says you're the only one
who can resurrect me.
And she takes a knife as thepharaoh's bodyguards are coming
in and kills herself before theycan get her.
Then Imhotep tries to resurrecther in Hamantra, which is a
(09:22):
fictional city of the dead.
Hamantra, which is a fictionalcity of the dead.
In the midst of the ceremony,the pharaoh's bodyguards catch
up with them and mummify all ofthe priests alive and then
mummify Imhotep alive with thespecial 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 thenscarabs are put in the
(09:45):
sarcophagus with him to eat him.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
So sorry, mummified alive.
Is that like magically?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Because like mummification was like a very
they removed things, wrappedthem up, put them in
sarcophaguses and left them todie.
They removed organs Not all ofthem, no, just their tongue.
And all right, sorry, carry on.
Humtai, humtai.
Yes, and so this curse is thathis name will be forgotten,
(10:13):
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 reallydoesn't make sense to give him
this curse that's going to makehim super powerful.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
All right, so sorry.
This was the priest who was inlove with the mistress.
Is the one?
Imhotep, imhotep, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yes, all right.
By the way, arnold Vosloo isImhotep and Patricia Velasquez
is an ox on a moon.
God, they are so hot.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
They are so hot.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So the narrator continues, you know, telling
this backstory, and we learnthat the narrator is among the
Magi, which is the descendantsof the pharaoh's bodyguards who
did this to Imhotep, and so theyhave passed down the knowledge
of Imhotep's place in Hamunaptrafor 3,000 years, and their job
(11:17):
is to make sure that no one everdiscovers Imhotep's mummy.
So we then see it is 1923, andthe French Foreign Legion is in
Hamunaptra fighting against aninvading group that are locals.
The French Foreign Legion arenot.
So we meet Rick O'Connellthat's Brendan Fraser's
character, who is the captain ofthe regiment.
(11:40):
Just runs away, and the personnext to Rick is Benny, who is
this very weaselly Hungarian guywho says, well, I guess he just
got promoted.
And so we see the battlehappening.
Meanwhile the Magi are watching.
It's not going well for theForeign Legion and eventually so
Benny ends up running away andhiding in a tomb and Rick is
(12:05):
cornered under a statue ofAnubis.
We know that the mummy isburied at the feet of that
statue.
So he's cornered, he thinkshe's about to die and then all
of a sudden his attackers runaway and he doesn't know why.
But then the sand starts movingand weird shit is happening.
So he runs away into the desert.
(12:26):
The Magi choose not to harm himbecause the desert will kill
him, because you know plot armor.
So even though the Magi arelike about, you know we don't
want anyone to find this.
So it then says three yearslater we meet Evelyn Carnahan,
played by Rachelisz, with very90s eyebrows like just tweezed.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
That's how we wore them.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Then I know, and she's- lovely, but I was so
distracted by her eyebrows.
She's really beautiful, oh mygoodness.
So we meet her, we learn she isa scholar.
Her parents were patrons of themuseum, of the Egyptology
Museum.
She is kind of a klutz.
She causes the entire library,all the bookcases to fall over
(13:13):
Like all the stacks fall overDominoes.
Yeah, and we also meet herbrother, Jonathan, played by
John Hanna another my characteris so beautiful who is a
ne'er-do-well.
He's her older brother and shetells him that she was rejected
by the Bembridge scholars, againbecause people are not taking
her seriously.
She doesn't have enoughexperience in the field.
(13:34):
Blah, blah, blah.
Jonathan brings her a puzzlebox that he has found.
He claims he found it on a digin Thebes.
She figures out how to open itand finds a map inside that
shows a map to Hamunaptra.
They bring it to the curatorwho accidentally burns the map.
Jonathan admits that heactually stole the puzzle box
(13:55):
from a guy in a bar and so theygo to find him.
It is Brendan Fraser's RickO'Connell.
He is in jail and about to beexecuted, about to be hanged.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Are we like what?
Like 10 minutes into the movieat this point, maybe 15.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
So he steals a kiss, which we'll get to that in a
moment.
A what, okay?
She's like coming closer andcloser to him between the bars,
trying to like can you tell mehow 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, comecloser.
And he's like yes, I can dothat.
And she's like, well, do youswear that?
Blah, blah, blah.
And he's like, yeah, every damnday.
She's like I don't mean that.
And so he's like yes, I cantell you, come closer, come
(14:33):
closer.
And then he kisses her throughthe bars and then he's pulled
away and he says so she isnegotiating with the warden,
I'll give you 100 pounds to letthis man go as they're trying to
hang him.
And finally she tells him likehe knows the way to have an
optra, I'll give you a cut.
And so that's how they're ableto save him, after they've
(14:55):
already dropped him, but itdidn't break his neck.
The next day they're all meetingto go on a barge to head south
through Egypt to get to whereHamunaptra is.
And Brendan Fraser is now likeclean cut and got a haircut and
looks beautiful.
We are on the barge.
There are three Americans whoare also looking for Hamunaptra
(15:17):
and they have a guide.
They also have an Egyptologistwith them, turns out the guide
is Benny guide.
They also have an Egyptologistwith them, turns out the guide
is Benny.
And so Rick and Benny have aconversation and Rick throws him
over the edge of the boatbecause he abandoned him and all
of that and Benny's kind of aweasel.
There is also and this is why Ithink it's a bisexual coming of
(15:39):
age moment.
There's so much chemistry evenbetween Benny and Rick, like the
way that they interact witheach 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, towhich they call a key I thought
the map got burned, only part ofit and in the midst of the
(16:02):
fighting trying to do this, thebarge completely is consumed in
flames.
Everyone jumps overboard.
The Americans, benny and theEgyptologists are on one side of
the river.
All the horses that were on theboat are with them, and then
Rick, evie, rachel Weisz,jonathan and the warden are on
(16:24):
the other side because he camewith to protect his investment.
And Benny is taunting him it'sone of my favorite moments and
he's like hey, o'connell, lookslike 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 thewrong side of the river.
So they have to go buy somecamels, some clothes because
(16:49):
Evie was just in her nightgownand supplies and stuff.
Of course she was, of courseshe was.
And they end up racing toHamunaptra because they made a
bet with the Americans about whowould get there first.
So Evie knows certain thingsabout Hamunaptra that the
Egyptologist doesn't, but he'slike what could a woman possibly
know?
So they're trying to figure outwhere they're going to be
(17:12):
digging.
The first day some terriblethings happen.
The Americans have someEgyptian diggers with them.
The Egyptologist says let thediggers open that up, because
Satie was no fool.
And so they open something andthey're hit with salt acid and
three of the diggers are killed.
Yeah, and then the wardenwanders away from where Evie and
(17:35):
O'Connell and Jonathan aredigging and he finds these like
a scarab jewels on on the umwall and he starts grabbing them
.
But they magically turn intoreal scarabs and like crawl
under his skin in very 90s cgiand end up killing him, eat him.
Yeah, that night the magi comethrough and they're like using
(17:57):
swords and everything and likethey're killing a lot of extras.
Finally they stop.
They stop and Ardeth Bay, whois the leader of the Magi, who
is the most beautiful man, hesays enough bloodshed, live by
tomorrow or die, which againmakes no sense because they've
made it clear they're willing tokill innocent people.
Yeah, just kill them.
(18:17):
Yeah, no plot armor.
The Egyptologist finds the BlackBook of the Dead, which is
shaped like a trapper keeper andrequires the key to open it.
Meanwhile, evie has found themummy of Imhotep and it's still
(18:37):
juicy, which they're like.
This is really weird.
It's 3000 years old and so oncethe Egyptologist has fallen
asleep, she takes the Book ofthe Dead and reads it, which
awakens Imhotep.
So the Egyptologist and threeAmericans had opened a box that
had the canopic jars, which arewhere the organs were stored of
(19:00):
Imhotep, and apparently there isa curse on it that you know
anyone who opens this will die.
And so the Magi end upexplaining that Imhotep comes
back.
He's alive in this juicy mummygross thing, cgi creation but he
will like basically eat each ofthe four people who opened the
(19:21):
box that had his canopic jarsand take their essence and he'll
become more and more human-likeand once he's regained his
beautiful Arnold Vosloo form, hewill be unstoppable.
So that is the moment.
Once he's awakened, that's themoment that you remember where,
benny and it's very funny hestarts off, he pulls out a cross
(19:41):
from under his shirt and hesays a prayer, and then he pulls
out like a Buddha and sayssomething in Chinese, pulls out
something else and sayssomething in Arabic, and then he
pulls out the Star of David.
And I was paying attention lastnight and I could not figure
out.
Like it was not Hebrew that Irecognized, it was not Bracha,
that like it just sounded sortof like Hebrew.
(20:04):
Yeah, and I don't know, I haveno idea if they actually used
real Hebrew or not, but anyway.
And the mummy says, in ancientEgyptian, the language of the
slaves, this one might be usefulto me.
And so Benny, because he's aweasel, is like all right, yeah,
I'll be your servant.
So everyone hightails it backto Cairo.
They find out that the curatorof the museum is a member of the
(20:27):
Magi.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Oh plot twist.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, and so he burned the map on purpose, of
course he did.
And they basically say theywere able to stop the mummy
before he completely ate one ofthe Americans, but he got his
eyes.
The mummy before he completelyate one of the Americans, but he
got his eyes.
And so we then see that Bennyhas brought Imhotep to the now
blind guy and then he's consumedand one by one, each of the
(20:55):
three Americans and theEgyptologist are consumed, with
Benny's help.
With Benny's help, yes, andthere's a lot of just ridiculous
, wonderful fighting the 10plagues of Egypt are unleashed.
So we got locusts, we got waterturning to blood, we got, I
mean, it's oh boils and hail andthe full Passover Seder yeah.
(21:17):
Sweet, sweet, sweet.
And we learn that Imhotep isinterested in Evie because he
wants to sacrifice her so he canbring, because he needs to
sacrifice a living woman tobring Anaxanamun back to life
and not be juicy Cool.
So there's shenanigans back andforth and Imhotep is able to
(21:44):
take Evie.
He says if you come with meI'll let your friends live.
And so they're cornered.
She says, fine, I'll go.
And Rick's like no, no, no, youcan't.
And she says he has to take meback to Hamunaptra for the
ceremony, the ritual, likethere's time, come after me.
And so she goes with him.
Imhotep then says kill them allto his minions.
(22:06):
And they escape by the skin oftheir teeth because you know
plot armor.
They end up flying Rick andJonathan and Ardeth Bay.
The Magi end up flying toHamunaptra via the only Royal
Air Force member still in Egyptfrom the Great War who wished he
(22:27):
had died in the Great War, likeall the other chappies that he
came there with.
Okay, yeah, it's so ridiculousand so delightful, he's like.
And so what does your littleproblem have to do with His
Majesty's Royal Air Force?
He's like and so what does yourlittle problem have to do with
His Majesty's Royal Air Forceand Rick says not a damn thing.
And is it likely you'll succeed?
(22:48):
No, we're probably all going todie, really Jolly good.
And so, like, the plane ends upgoing down and the last thing
you see of Winston is the nameof this pilot is he's got this
huge grin on his face and he'sdead.
And the thing is, I don't know,I don't know, but based on a
(23:11):
lifetime of reading AgathaChristie and other early 20th
century British stuff, it feelslike that's a real type of
person.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, okay, all right , so they fly back.
Winston dies.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yeah, winston dies.
The mummy has become sand andhas become a sandstorm and takes
Benny and Evie there, takesthem down to the ritual room in
Hamunaptra and he gets the AnakSunamun's mummy.
It's closest to a Bechdelmoment that we have is she's
lying.
The mummy is lying next to Evie.
(23:44):
Her spirit comes back into themummy and she screams and Evie
screams.
That's as close to passing theBechdel and they're looking at
each other screaming.
I don't think that counts.
I don't think so either.
There is a ridiculous fightscene.
There's lots of mummies theyhave to use.
There's another book called theBook of Amun-Ra, which Jonathan
(24:05):
has to read, and we know he's ane'er-do-well not very good at
the scholarship.
So he's shouting like what doesa stork mean?
Trying to read things so theycan make Imhotep mortal again,
so he can be killed.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
They're able to do that, they kill.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Imhotep.
Then Benny accidentallytriggers the destruction of the
temple because there's a leverthat isn't marked or anything.
He had not been so greedy wouldhave survived because like he
had plenty of time but he keptgoing back in for more.
And so they all escape benny.
They try to help benny and he'snot able to to make it and then
he's eaten by by bugs.
They get out into the desert.
(24:53):
There are camels there that Ithink are supposed to be left
over from when they were inhominopter the first time.
Otherwise I don't know what thecamels are doing there.
They ride off into the sunset.
Rick and Evie kiss and that'sthe end of the film.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Like the thing is like I skipped so much.
So where are we going to start?
Let me start with the West'sobsession with Egypt.
Yeah, so there is this veryinteresting aspect Now.
(25:29):
Egypt is fascinating all on itsown, just if all you see are
the pyramids of Giza and theSphinx.
Like it's just like wow, thatis some cool shit, you know,
without knowing any of themythology behind it.
Sure, sure, sure, withoutknowing.
It's just like damn, those arereally old.
How did they make those?
Yeah, even more than likeseeing a cathedral, because
(25:52):
they're in the middle of thedesert, they're on the banks of
the Nile, so, okay, but just theamount of work necessary to
make them, yeah, and clearlythey're meaningful in a way,
yeah, and they're awe-inspiring.
Yeah, so the West's interest inEgypt in part came from Napoleon
(26:14):
, and it's because, you know,that was when there was kind of
widespread knowledge of what wasthere, and so there were a lot
of like people couldn't affordto travel there.
So there were a lot of likepeople couldn't afford to travel
there.
So there were a lot of liketravel guides, people writing
like they'd go visit and they'dwrite about it, and it was
fascinating to people.
Then add in the fact thatancient Egyptians mummified
(26:34):
their dead, and right there yougot something that's just
fascinating to people.
Everybody loves dead bodies,yeah, okay.
And then you have the discoveryof King Tutankhamen's tomb.
Yeah, which was in the early19-teens Teens yeah, or 1920s
yeah, somewhere around there.
(26:55):
Like 1919, I think wasn't it,yeah, yeah, somewhere around
there, somewhere in there, andwhat 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 thatthere are curses.
Yep, yep, this was beforewidespread vaccines of certain
(27:16):
things.
Like one of the members, Ithink Lord Carnahan, he cut
himself shaving and got bloodpoisoning and like 2025, can't
imagine that happening.
But you know, not that unusualback then.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah 100 years ago.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah.
So you then have this ancientart and buildings that feel very
different from anything thatthe West makes or builds.
You have a very different wayof looking at death and you have
something where people havedecided it's a curse.
(27:51):
And boy oh boy, can you startputting all of your weird
beliefs and othering thoughts onthis society?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, it's like the perfect storm for exoticization
and fetishization.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yes, yes.
And so I like to say King Tutto me is the perfect
crystallization of the fact thatyou have no control over your
legacy.
And the reason I say that isbecause he was a really minor
pharaoh.
He died young.
He was under the age of 20 whenhe died.
(28:26):
Not clear how he died.
They at some point thought hemight have been murdered, but
it's also possible he just diedof natural causes and then
whatever they thought wasevidence of murder was just
postmortem happened.
And so, because he died soyoung, he had not had a tomb or
pyramid built for him, so theyhad to make do with what they
(28:47):
had.
So it was a tomb that wasalready set aside for some minor
noble or something.
So it wasn't in the Valley ofthe Kings and it wasn't a
pyramid.
And because he was a minorpharaoh, he was completely
forgotten.
Uh-huh, because grave robbershave been stealing.
You know, you put a giantpyramid over like lots of riches
(29:09):
, riches yeah, people know whereto go.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, it's like a beacon Steal stuff here.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, yeah.
Pharaoh, who nobody remembershad nothing to do with the reign
of ancient Egypt, is now themost well-known and celebrated
Egyptian king of all time,Because he was unknown.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, at least of our time.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, whereas like Ramses and Seti, who were very
important, Westerners don't knowhim.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Westerners don't know them.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, so I find that very comforting in some ways.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
That's not the word I thought you were going to use.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Okay, so I love that.
This weird confluence of thingsmade this boy king, who there
have been so many storieswritten about.
I remember reading a youngadult novel when I was 13 or 14
about him, and it has sparked somuch imagination that he has
gotten the afterlife that theEgyptian pharaohs were promised
(30:16):
in a lot of ways, because he wasforgotten.
So, that's something I findreally 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 2,000years from now.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah yeah, that is really bizarre.
Yeah yeah, that is reallybizarre.
It's really interesting toobecause of this sort of
exoticization and fetishizationand mystical aspect of it.
There's a superhumanizationwhich is a dehumanization, which
I think is also really reallyinteresting.
I mean, we see it in otherplaces in society, but here's a
(30:59):
very clear example of wheresuperhumanization is in fact a
form of dehumanization.
Right, and even like what wasactually happening in the 20s,
when people would like buymummies when westerners and
unwrap them in a party or likebrew tea from the bandages and
drink it like like weird, weirdshit.
(31:19):
That like they would not do ifthey were thinking logically
about the fact that this is theremains of a human being.
Right, it was only in thedehumanization of this ancient
Egyptian person that they wereable to do the things that they
did.
And I think there's somethinglike the tension in the
(31:40):
superhumanization, anddehumanization is really really
fascinating.
It is one of the ways thatoppression happens, which feels
counterintuitive because it is asuperhumanization, but it
totally is one of the ways thatoppression happens things.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
That is worrisome about this film.
There are a few extras who mayhave been Egyptian.
I saw in the early scene whenthe pharaoh's guards come to
confront Imhotep and AnaksonAmun, there's one black guard,
but the cast is pretty much allwhite.
(32:19):
So Patricia Velasquez, the castis pretty much all white.
So Patricia Velasquez, whoplayed Anaxana Moon, I believe
is Latina.
Arnold Vazlu, I'm not sure.
He is South African andAmerican, so I don't really know
what his background is, but heis not Egyptian and so there's
that aspect of it that we andthey are gorgeous, like we
(32:42):
exotify them.
You've said, oh, my god, god,we exoticize them, but they are
white looking.
You know, their exoticness isin how they are dressed, right
other than or made up featuresyes, yes the body paint.
The body paint?
Yes, and then, on top of that,there is the fact that white
(33:07):
folks were the best scholars tostudy egyptian ancient history
(33:28):
yeah, and it was called theoriental institute when I was
there, when I was.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Oh, yeah, yeah, it's in the past, like 10, 5 or 10
years, that they changed.
Yeah, yeah, it's got to berecently.
Yeah, I mean, I've been gone.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
It's been 20 years since I left graduate school,
but it's you know, within ourlifetime, it was still very
recent, and so, then, the factthat all of the actors,
including the ones playingEgyptian characters, are, for
the most part, white, what about, like the curator, who is also
(34:01):
a Magi?
He is an Indian American actor.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So he was ethnic.
I'm putting quotes around that.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Yes, and then the man who played Ardeth Bay.
His name is Oded Fair and he isIsraeli, so he was the leader
of the Magi.
So Benny, I think, is supposedto be Hungarian because like
that's what you said, you saidHungarian.
Yeah, and the reason why I saythat is because when you watch
it with subtitles, there will betimes where he says something
(34:31):
is like speaking in Hungarian,and he does that multiple times.
Now it's also clear he's verygood with languages because he
understands the mummy.
But why would he be speaking inHungarian so regularly?
Yeah sure, mummy, but why wouldhe be speaking in hungarian so
regularly?
Yeah, sure, but he's anamerican actor named kevin j
o'connor.
So it is this like erasure ofactual egyptian culture and
(34:57):
actual egyptian people andreplacement with the white view
of what Egyptian culture is andwhite actors.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Or like the Indian American guy, he's ethnic.
It's close enough.
Yeah, it doesn't matter whichethnic, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Put a fez on him.
It's fine.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, he's not white, so he's Egyptian.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yeah, and that's painful yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
It's smart.
That's how we did it in the 90s.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Yeah, well, I mean, and the thing is, that's how
they did it in 1932.
Yes, boris Karloff playing in1932.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
For sure, for sure, in 32, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
And it's ruinous in every direction for
understanding of ancient Egyptand Egyptology, because it's
like assuming that white folksknow best and that's you know,
like there's so much in theBritish 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.
(35:55):
Yeah, by stealing.
It's like like it's a toddlerwith scissors yeah, this thing
that you made, yeah we willprotect for you.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah, but you can't see it anymore.
We're going to put it in thevitrine.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
It'll be fine, you can come see it anytime you like
, just fly to London.
Yeah, so you've got that aspectof it.
Then you've got the exoticismof putting magic, creating this
false lore of magic Egyptianculture that has literally
(36:30):
nothing to do with the actualdynamic, interesting,
fascinating culture that theEgyptians did subscribe to.
So you've got that.
So you've got like, on the oneside 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 theactual knowledge the scholars
(36:54):
might have.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Well, it's like the scholars.
And then there's also thestorytelling.
That's really just abouttelling a fantasy, but using
historical names and historicalmoments.
But just, I mean, it might aswell be JRR Tolkien, but instead
of making up a new Middle Earth, it's like, yeah, that's
ancient Egypt.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
There's something very human about that.
When you learn about somethingnew, you're like, oh, that's
really interesting.
I bet that's related to thatother thought I had.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I mean that is how meaning making works to be fair
to humans.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
I mean that is how meaning making works to be fair
to humans, and then because ofpop culture and things like
everyone wanting to get in onthe money making of, like
Egyptomania, which is what theycalled it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have BorisKarloff as the mummy and yet
another fable is created, yeah,so I mean, all of that I find
(37:52):
fascinating.
It's why I was so interested inthe literature of British
imperialism because it wasmaking meaning out of something
that was completelymisunderstood, often with good
intentions.
There was often a goodintention, even though it was
condescending as fuck that endsup harming people in ways that
(38:13):
you never anticipated.
The complete cluster of all ofthat I find fascinating.
And then the fact that you thencreate this completely bonkers
but absolutely delightful rideof a film like this, where
you're just like I am enjoyingevery single second of this,
(38:35):
also like it creates thisdissonance for me, and
particularly because I saw itwhen I did, when I was thinking,
the thoughts that I was abouthow imperialist cultures
appropriate native cultures.
So that's a lot.
Yeah, I want to talk a littlebit about, like I I have
mentioned, like every singleactor, like, damn, like, oh man
(39:00):
it's like.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
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
(39:24):
why was this an awakening foryou know, younger, Gen X and
elder millennial bisexuals,because it is.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
You know, I did a little reading and people were
saying, like part of it is thereis this like sexual chemistry
between Evie and Rick?
Yes, absolutely, and thatpeople watching that would
interchange themselves.
Like I want to be Rick and kissEvie.
I want to be Evie and kiss Rick.
Do you think there's some ofthe say himbo you think idiot
(40:16):
and that's not it.
It's that he is athletic and hecan do stuff, but he doesn't
have scholarly knowledge and heis very, very fascinated by
Evie's scholarly knowledge, likehe thinks it is really
interesting when she shares whatshe is passionate about, about
(40:38):
Egyptology.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
So he's like oh you think thinky thoughts.
Yes, meanwhile he's lookingreally good in his 1920s outfit.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Yes, and he is perfectly comfortable with her
taking the lead when she knowswhat the hell she's doing.
Oh, that's kind of hot.
Yes, and he is perfectlycomfortable with her taking the
lead when she knows what thehell she's doing.
Oh, that's kind of hot.
Yes, yes it is.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
And rare yes.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Now he also does shit like pick her up and carry her
into a room and lock her in.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Oh, that's not hot, which is not as okay.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Not hot.
He also kisses her without herconsent Not hot.
So those are the only like kindof toxic masculine stuff that
he does.
He otherwise like when it'sclear that the mummies come back
he's like all right, let's getout of here.
He's happy to run, he does notfeel the need to stay and
doesn't need to be a hero.
Yeah, he interacts with peoplein a very like interpersonal way
(41:26):
, like when he goes to winstonfor help with flying.
He knows he's going to getwinston's attention because he
knows what winston wants,because he's actually like and
they show him earlier, likebothering people at a bar,
winston, I mean, and rick likemouths along with something that
winston apparently says overand over and over again, so like
(41:47):
it'd be very easy to justignore that guy and not think
about him.
But there is that sense of Rickrecognizes the humanity of him.
The other thing that I lovethis moment until Imhotep is
completely regenerated, he isafraid of cats and this is fake
(42:09):
bullshit.
But Ardeth Bay says becausecats are like in charge of the
underworld basically.
And so there is, we know thatbecause like he like hisses and
goes away from the cat at onepoint and Rick asks like what's
going on with that.
And then at another point theyknow that the mummy is in a room
like menacing Evie, and so Rickhas picked up the cat and
(42:32):
brought it with him and so he'slike, here you go and like a
b-head would think that was likeemasculating to have the cat
like get the mummy to go away.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
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 (42:52):
So he recognizes like cause he's been told like human
weapons will not work on himand so and he had at one point
he argued cause when they firstencounter him, he shoots him and
it like causes him to fall overand he thinks, all right, I got
him, he's gone.
And like he argues severaltimes until Ardith Bay like
(43:13):
makes it clear to him, so likeonce he's learned it, that no, I
can't, I can't fight him like anormal fight all right, I'll
use the cat yeah, so it's.
I think that there's that aspectto it.
There is something a little bitsympathetic about Imhotep it's
more so in the second moviebecause he returns, as does Anak
(43:33):
Sunamun, but there's somethingsympathetic about the fact that
he is desperately in love withAnak Sunamun and everything he
does is to reunite with her.
He also doesn't care abouthurting anyone, but there's
something very human about hislove and even the scene when he
(43:54):
does not want to leave AnakSunamun and she says to him
you're the only one who canresurrect me.
Yeah, you said that.
There's also a kind of likechange in, like the masculine
trope.
Now he's pulled away by hispriests, but he does allow
himself to be pulled away by hispriests and that recognizing
like you know what I need to do,what I am good at Right live to
(44:16):
fight another day or whatever,yeah.
And then the character of Bennyis kind of hilarious.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Yeah, I remember him being funny.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
He's very funny.
There is something I don't wantto say in any way admirable or
anything like that, butcomprehensible about him.
He is a born survivor and so itkind of makes sense that he and
the mummy work together,because he says to Rick he's
like I'm immune to whatever'scoming to the rest of humanity,
(44:45):
and Imhotep is a similar sort oflike I'll do whatever needs to
be done to get my moon back.
But it's very funny when hepulls all the the religious
symbols out of his shirt thescene that stayed with me.
It's hilarious, but it's alsolike, yeah, this guy's thought
through contingencies.
Yeah, and if he were just ascooch less greedy he would have
(45:08):
survived yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Well, we are running out of time.
So did you have any other keyanalyses that you didn't get to?
Speaker 1 (45:17):
I do just want to real quick talk about Brendan
Fraser.
Oh yes, there were a couple ofreasons why he stopped acting.
One was that he had some healthproblems because doing action
movies like this one, he had abunch of different injuries and
he had to have surgery.
He went through a tough divorceand then he was also sexually
harassed by the head of theGolden Globes I don't remember
(45:39):
what that's called, but the headof the Golden Globes and spoke
out about it and there's kind ofconflicting stories.
I remember when I read about itit seemed very clear that he
was blacklisted and then sincethen it's been kind of like no,
like they don't have that muchpower was that person a man or a
woman?
Speaker 2 (45:59):
a?
Speaker 1 (45:59):
man, okay, and he claims that it was like at first
he he denied it, and then he'slike 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 jokewhich is fascinating,
considering the kiss betweenEvie and Rick and then, like the
(46:24):
other aspect of what happened,I think, and partially because
of the health problems, isBrendan Fraser doesn't look like
1999 Brendan Fraser anymore,even when he has not put on
weight specifically for the filmthe Whale, which I haven't seen
.
I didn't watch the movie either.
I know some fat activists wereless than excited about it, yes.
(46:45):
And then he also has his threesons, and his eldest is on the
autism spectrum, and so he alsowas like kind of focusing on
making sure that his son gotwhat he needed.
But there is, I have this sensethat Fraser was kind of chewed
up by Hollywood just between thesexual harassment, the surgery
(47:06):
and health problems and then thelike.
Anytime you heard anythingabout him, it's just like is
that Brendan Fraser?
Because he looks different thanhe did in 1999, because he's no
longer 28.
And so I appreciate looking atthat and thinking about that,
because there is somethingsimilar to a mummy.
(47:27):
Oh, interesting, because he wasat his height of fame, fame and
power, but because of outsideforces, bigger forces, he went
basically undergroundinteresting.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
That's not where I thought you were going with this
.
I thought you were going like.
This is a story we expect tohear about an actress oh, that
too, this is a story we expectto hear about a woman.
All of it the sexual harassmentthe health problems, the sort
of having a hard time breakingback in after a break because
they don't.
They're not as attractive asthey were like that's a.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
That is a story we hear again and again and again
about actresses that's where Ithought you were going with that
well, and it's interestingbecause I think that there's
been more sympathy for himtotally, 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 (48:17):
How dare you yeah, I mean, that's what we say to
women like, what'd you expect?
Of course he pinched yourbottom.
Look at you, what were youwearing?
Speaker 1 (48:23):
and so like that also gets into a little bit the fact
that that's what we expect withactresses.
It's the price of being femalein hollywood, or, yes, god just
existing yeah, but that's also,I think, in some ways part of
what gets back to that sense oflike.
This is like the bisexualawakening film.
There is something aboutbrendan fraser that is not
(48:47):
typically masculine, so I wonderif that has something to do
with it too.
And like I have no idea aboutFraser as an individual, like I
don't know anything about hissexuality and it's not my
business and it has nothing todo with anything, except that he
presents in a way that is notstereotypically masculine, even
(49:08):
though, especially in 1999, hevery much looked stereotypically
masculine.
But even he has these justperfect lips, cupid's bow lips,
yeah, that I tend to think of asa more feminine trait.
And he also has huge, beautifuleyes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
So interesting.
All right, let me see if I canreflect back some of the things
that we talked about, becausewe've been talking for a long
minute now.
There was a couple of bucketsthat you brought to your
analysis of the Mummy.
One was just like a look backat the West's fascination with
ancient Egypt and that fell intoreally interesting and like
almost conflicting buckets.
(49:46):
Like there's the one bucket ofsort of British Western
imperialism whereby white peopleunderstand everything better
than anyone, includingunderstanding Egyptian culture
better than Egyptians, and theway that the tendrils and the
ripples of that attitude wouldshow up in sort of who gets cast
(50:07):
and in like how we presentstories and even the fact that
Tutankhamen is the pharaoh whosename every American knows, even
though he was actually not thatimportant in sort of historical
, cultural terms.
But that's the one that likecaptured the imagination because
(50:27):
that's the one the scholarslike had the most information
about because of the tomb.
So there's there's sort of thatbucket and adjacent to it, with
the imperialism, is anappropriation and a projection
which becomes the egyptomania,which becomes sort of things
like this movie, where it'salmost like jrr tolkien or some
other fantasy writer is writinga totally new culture but using
(50:49):
the geography and names ofancient Egypt and the damage
that that potentially does,insofar as it completely erases
actual Egyptian culture, whichis rich and storied and deserves
to be known.
It has erased that forWesterners and created this
(51:11):
weird projected mythology thatis not actually related to real
historic moments.
And I named the fact that partand parcel of that, both in this
movie and in sort ofEgyptomania, is a
superhumanization of the ancientEgyptians which becomes a
dehumanization, which we see.
This is an example of thathappening, but it happens in
(51:33):
oppressive patterns in otherplaces.
That was one sort of big, rich,juicy bucket of what you
brought us.
There was another adjacentbucket around I mentioned the
casting, but I'll just name thatagain.
That part of that even in 1999,was like pretty much all the
actors are white or whitepresenting or they're ethnic I'm
(51:57):
putting quotes around that andso it doesn't matter if they're
Egyptian or like Egyptian,indian, israeli, whatever, it's
all the same.
So there's sort of that adjacentbucket to the imperialism that
shows up actually in the movieitself and related to the movie
itself.
You named the fact that likethis is fun, like this movie is
just really fun, and so thatlike causes some dissonance for
(52:20):
you, as you're seeing what Ijust named happening in this
really fun vehicle and likefinding a way to kind of enjoy
(52:41):
while holding it accountable is,I mean, that's the project that
we're doing right here, but wesee it particularly in this film
.
But we think that, you know,some of it isn't just the sheer
like beauty and sex appeal ofthe cast, which is true of most
Hollywood movies, but somehow inparticular this one.
They, every character smoldersRight.
(53:01):
They're not just good looking.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
They're not just good looking Sexy.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Yeah, and that, like you know that they're thinking
about sex, yeah, yeah, andthere's also you also named
specific pairings where there'sa 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 (53:27):
So I know what I'm looking up.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
I'm looking up.
So that was like another sortof bucket that we like briefly
talked about.
And then you also brought inBrendan Fraser himself, the
actor, and the ways in which hesort of got out of the business,
kind of after this movie or notlong after, and then kind of
came back, but not in the sameway, not with the same kind of
(53:50):
roles, and you named the ways inwhich his kind of disappearance
and reappearance was sort oflike a mummy kind of being like
set aside or set on a shelf atthe height of his looks and
power and then having a hardtime coming back or coming back
and being like I don't know,curse almost.
I named the fact that thatstory, that Brendan Fraser story
(54:14):
, is this like we, if we tookhis name out and put in almost
any Hollywood actress who had totake some time off for whatever
reason like we hear the samestory sexually harassed by
someone important, maybeblacklisted, maybe not, health
problems due to the business,and then having a hard time
(54:34):
coming back because everybody'slike, oh, have you seen them?
They don't look like they usedto look and how, as a culture we
give Frasier some additionalsympathy compared to women who
go through the exact same thing,because it is the cost of being
female.
I feel like there's somethingimportant that I'm forgetting.
What am I forgetting?
Oh, oh, you think I got it all.
I think you got it all Amazingyeah.
(54:56):
I'm amazing.
No, I think you got it all.
Polishing my nails here, allright.
Well, next time, emily.
Next week, I am really excitedto bring you my deep thoughts
about the movie Ladyhawk.
Do you, do you remember thatone?
Yes, matthew broderick as likea monk, and like they've got
rudger howard and I can'tremember the michelle pfeiffer
(55:17):
right.
I haven't seen it in ages.
I'm a little bit worried tore-watch it, but I'm also
excited so that's what I mean.
I mean, well, michelle pfeiffertoo, she's uh, that too.
Yeah, I, I'm only like maybe 20by, but she's like 18% of it.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
So it's Tig Notaro.
The other 2%, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
All right, well, until next time.
Until then, this show is alabor of love, but that doesn't
make it free to produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon there's a link in the
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(56:04):
, of course, share the show withyour people.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
Incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
(56:26):
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
So you then have this ancient art and buildings that
feel very different fromanything that the West makes or
builds.
You have a very different way oflooking at death and you have
something where people havedecided it's a curse.
(00:20):
And boy oh boy, can you startputting all of your weird
beliefs and other deep thoughtsabout stupid shit?
I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts
(00:53):
About Stupid Shit, because popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
On today's episode, I will besharing my deep thoughts about
the 1999 Brendan Fraser film theMummy, with my sister, tracy
Guy-Decker, and with you.
Let's dive in.
So, tracy, I don't even know ifyou've seen this movie, because
(01:14):
it came out after we were bothadults, but it was in my.
I think I was still in college.
I was still seeing lots ofmovies in the theater.
I know I saw it in the theaterand just a rollicking good time.
So tell me what you know.
What's in the furniture of yourbrain about this movie?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Pretty, sure I've seen it.
Certain, I've seen it, butmaybe only once.
So, honestly, the only thingthat I have like when I think
about the Mummy besides BrendanFraser looking very nice in well
tailored clothes the only thingthat I remember is there's a
scene where the mummy has wokenup and there's that mousy guy
(01:53):
who is reading all of thesedifferent prayers or
incantations in all differentlanguages, and then he says
something in Hebrew and themummy's like oh, the language of
the slaves.
And somehow makes that guy hisservant as a result.
That's it.
That's all I've got.
I'm sure there are things withscarabs, maybe.
I remember being sort of on theedge of my seat, very action
(02:16):
and like what's going to happennow.
That's the feeling that I getwhen I think of the mummy, but
the only actual content I cancome up with is that little
nebbishy guy reading a wholebunch of different languages,
including Hebrew.
So that's what I got.
But tell me, why are we talkingabout it?
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So, as I said, this is a rocking good time.
It is a film that I rememberrevisiting many, many times.
In the early 2000s I owned iton DVD, maybe even VHS.
I can remember friends comingover and we would put it on and
talk and just kind of look up atfavorite scenes.
You know that sort of thing.
(02:55):
There's a couple of reasons whyI felt drawn to this.
First, I love action-adventurefilms.
I love them.
Second, I have an affinity forEgyptology and even the fake
lore around Egypt, in partbecause I feel like every 80s
kid went through an Egyptologyphase and it might not just be
(03:18):
80s kids, it might just be kids.
Every kid goes through thedinosaur phase, there's an
Egyptology phase, there's anAmelia Earhart phase, there's a
Helen Keller phase.
But then I went back to thatwhen I was a teenager and I
found the books written byElizabeth Peters, which was the
pen name of Barbara Mertz, whowas a trained Egyptologist I've
(03:41):
mentioned her before on the showshe had gotten her PhD from.
It is no longer called this.
At the time it was called theOriental Institute of Chicago.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, yeah, it's on the University of Chicago campus
.
I took at least one class therewhile I was at the Divinity
School.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yes, and it is very prestigious.
That is where Americans go tolearn about Egypt.
She got a PhD from there, butthis was in late 40s, early 50s,
and was not able to get anykind of job at all in Egyptology
because she was a woman.
So she ended up writing aseries of novels the Amelia
(04:16):
Peabody series, the first ofwhich I read when I was about 13
, that are set in the late 19thcentury, and Amelia Peabody is
like my favorite kind ofcharacter.
She is a feisty Victorian womanwho does not pay attention to
the rules of polite society andwho becomes an amateur
Egyptologist with her irasciblehusband Radcliffe Emerson, who
(04:41):
she meets during the first book,crocodile on the Sandbank.
They meet and fall in love.
So this movie is very muchwithin that genre as well.
So that was another reason whyI loved it.
And when I saw this movie whenit came out, I was in the midst
(05:03):
of getting my bachelor's degreein English and one of the things
that I really focused on wasthe literature of British
imperialism.
So there's a lot of veryinteresting aspects of
imperialism within the movie.
That it's not that I didn'tnotice them or forgave, because
it was a fun movie, but it wasjust like I was able to kind of
(05:23):
put my worry about that to theside, which I wasn't necessarily
able to do in movies I dislikedor didn't enjoy as much, and
just enjoy the adventure.
So there's that aspect of it.
And then in the past five yearsor so I have seen a number of
memes and I'll include a link toone of them talking about how
(05:48):
no one is born bisexual.
They see 1999's the Mummy at aformative age, so things like
that.
And so this film is apparentlya touchstone for young Gen X and
late millennial queer kids.
Reasons I'm still not sure Ientirely understand, other than
(06:10):
the fact that every singleperson in this cast is
mouthwatering and it's not likethat's unusual, but they just
smolder, but they just smolder.
And even the Weasley guy thatyou mentioned Benny is the
character's name Even he likeand I know it's because he's got
eyeliner, because that does itfor me.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
You're a sucker for that.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
But even he is just like you know what.
I don't think I'd turn him down.
So those are the things that Ijust really want to kind of dig
into and talk about.
And then I want to spend alittle bit of time also
mentioning Brendan Fraser andhis career arc, because he went
(06:55):
from this high of being like Imean, that was a major
blockbuster film and to like notacting for 15 years.
So I kind of want to talk aboutthat.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And then when he came back he did the Whale where he
was that morbidly obesecharacter and he gained a lot of
weight for it.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, which is a total departure from the
heartthrob and like sex symbolthat he was in this film.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Yes, exactly that's where I want to go with this.
Cool so, but why don't I kindof catch you up on the yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
remind me of the plot because the plot, seriously,
I've got that one scene, that'sall I got.
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
So the plot.
I watched it with my spouselast night.
He'd never seen it and it islike it's bonkers.
It is a bonkers plot, so realquick.
Also just want to mention thisis a remake of the 1932 Boris
Karloff the Mummy film.
(07:51):
Oh, I didn't know that.
That's cool and includes someof the like for the Mummy and,
like the ancient Egyptians,include some of the same names
that are names of actualhistorical Egyptians and it was
written and directed by StephenSummers, who I am not familiar
with other than this.
So it starts.
We get a narration of the cityof Thebes in 1290 BCE.
(08:15):
The pharaoh is Setia I.
He has a mistress namedAnaksonamun and his mistress was
basically owned by him, in thatno man could touch her other
than himself.
And so to ensure that she'slike, covered in like body paint
, his advisor was a priestcalled Imhotep who had they had
(08:37):
fallen in love on Aksanamun andImhotep.
And we see they wait until Setihas left Imhotep's priests.
Priests close the doors so thatthey have some privacy and they
start to kiss.
But then Seti comes backunexpectedly and Imhotep had
smeared the paint on hershoulder.
So Seti realizes that someonehas touched her and Anak,
(08:59):
sanamun and Imhotep kill thepharaoh.
Anak Sanamun tells Imhotep toleave.
He's like I don't want to leavewithout you.
And the priests pull him awayand she says you're the only one
who can resurrect me.
And she takes a knife as thepharaoh's bodyguards are coming
in and kills herself before theycan get her.
Then Imhotep tries to resurrecther in Hamantra, which is a
(09:22):
fictional city of the dead.
Hamantra, which is a fictionalcity of the dead.
In the midst of the ceremony,the pharaoh's bodyguards catch
up with them and mummify all ofthe priests alive and then
mummify Imhotep alive with thespecial 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 thenscarabs are put in the
(09:45):
sarcophagus with him to eat him.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
So sorry, mummified alive.
Is that like magically?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Because like mummification was like a very
they removed things, wrappedthem up, put them in
sarcophaguses and left them todie.
They removed organs Not all ofthem, no, just their tongue.
And all right, sorry, carry on.
Humtai, humtai.
Yes, and so this curse is thathis name will be forgotten,
(10:13):
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 reallydoesn't make sense to give him
this curse that's going to makehim super powerful.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
All right, so sorry.
This was the priest who was inlove with the mistress.
Is the one?
Imhotep, imhotep, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yes, all right.
By the way, arnold Vosloo isImhotep and Patricia Velasquez
is an ox on a moon.
God, they are so hot.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
They are so hot.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So the narrator continues, you know, telling
this backstory, and we learnthat the narrator is among the
Magi, which is the descendantsof the pharaoh's bodyguards who
did this to Imhotep, and so theyhave passed down the knowledge
of Imhotep's place in Hamunaptrafor 3,000 years, and their job
(11:17):
is to make sure that no one everdiscovers Imhotep's mummy.
So we then see it is 1923, andthe French Foreign Legion is in
Hamunaptra fighting against aninvading group that are locals.
The French Foreign Legion arenot.
So we meet Rick O'Connellthat's Brendan Fraser's
character, who is the captain ofthe regiment.
(11:40):
Just runs away, and the personnext to Rick is Benny, who is
this very weaselly Hungarian guywho says, well, I guess he just
got promoted.
And so we see the battlehappening.
Meanwhile the Magi are watching.
It's not going well for theForeign Legion and eventually so
Benny ends up running away andhiding in a tomb and Rick is
(12:05):
cornered under a statue ofAnubis.
We know that the mummy isburied at the feet of that
statue.
So he's cornered, he thinkshe's about to die and then all
of a sudden his attackers runaway and he doesn't know why.
But then the sand starts movingand weird shit is happening.
So he runs away into the desert.
(12:26):
The Magi choose not to harm himbecause the desert will kill
him, because you know plot armor.
So even though the Magi arelike about, you know we don't
want anyone to find this.
So it then says three yearslater we meet Evelyn Carnahan,
played by Rachelisz, with very90s eyebrows like just tweezed.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
That's how we wore them.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Then I know, and she's- lovely, but I was so
distracted by her eyebrows.
She's really beautiful, oh mygoodness.
So we meet her, we learn she isa scholar.
Her parents were patrons of themuseum, of the Egyptology
Museum.
She is kind of a klutz.
She causes the entire library,all the bookcases to fall over
(13:13):
Like all the stacks fall overDominoes.
Yeah, and we also meet herbrother, Jonathan, played by
John Hanna another my characteris so beautiful who is a
ne'er-do-well.
He's her older brother and shetells him that she was rejected
by the Bembridge scholars, againbecause people are not taking
her seriously.
She doesn't have enoughexperience in the field.
(13:34):
Blah, blah, blah.
Jonathan brings her a puzzlebox that he has found.
He claims he found it on a digin Thebes.
She figures out how to open itand finds a map inside that
shows a map to Hamunaptra.
They bring it to the curatorwho accidentally burns the map.
Jonathan admits that heactually stole the puzzle box
(13:55):
from a guy in a bar and so theygo to find him.
It is Brendan Fraser's RickO'Connell.
He is in jail and about to beexecuted, about to be hanged.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Are we like what?
Like 10 minutes into the movieat this point, maybe 15.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
So he steals a kiss, which we'll get to that in a
moment.
A what, okay?
She's like coming closer andcloser to him between the bars,
trying to like can you tell mehow 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, comecloser.
And he's like yes, I can dothat.
And she's like, well, do youswear that?
Blah, blah, blah.
And he's like, yeah, every damnday.
She's like I don't mean that.
And so he's like yes, I cantell you, come closer, come
(14:33):
closer.
And then he kisses her throughthe bars and then he's pulled
away and he says so she isnegotiating with the warden,
I'll give you 100 pounds to letthis man go as they're trying to
hang him.
And finally she tells him likehe knows the way to have an
optra, I'll give you a cut.
And so that's how they're ableto save him, after they've
(14:55):
already dropped him, but itdidn't break his neck.
The next day they're all meetingto go on a barge to head south
through Egypt to get to whereHamunaptra is.
And Brendan Fraser is now likeclean cut and got a haircut and
looks beautiful.
We are on the barge.
There are three Americans whoare also looking for Hamunaptra
(15:17):
and they have a guide.
They also have an Egyptologistwith them, turns out the guide
is Benny guide.
They also have an Egyptologistwith them, turns out the guide
is Benny.
And so Rick and Benny have aconversation and Rick throws him
over the edge of the boatbecause he abandoned him and all
of that and Benny's kind of aweasel.
There is also and this is why Ithink it's a bisexual coming of
(15:39):
age moment.
There's so much chemistry evenbetween Benny and Rick, like the
way that they interact witheach 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, towhich they call a key I thought
the map got burned, only part ofit and in the midst of the
(16:02):
fighting trying to do this, thebarge completely is consumed in
flames.
Everyone jumps overboard.
The Americans, benny and theEgyptologists are on one side of
the river.
All the horses that were on theboat are with them, and then
Rick, evie, rachel Weisz,jonathan and the warden are on
(16:24):
the other side because he camewith to protect his investment.
And Benny is taunting him it'sone of my favorite moments and
he's like hey, o'connell, lookslike 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 thewrong side of the river.
So they have to go buy somecamels, some clothes because
(16:49):
Evie was just in her nightgownand supplies and stuff.
Of course she was, of courseshe was.
And they end up racing toHamunaptra because they made a
bet with the Americans about whowould get there first.
So Evie knows certain thingsabout Hamunaptra that the
Egyptologist doesn't, but he'slike what could a woman possibly
know?
So they're trying to figure outwhere they're going to be
(17:12):
digging.
The first day some terriblethings happen.
The Americans have someEgyptian diggers with them.
The Egyptologist says let thediggers open that up, because
Satie was no fool.
And so they open something andthey're hit with salt acid and
three of the diggers are killed.
Yeah, and then the wardenwanders away from where Evie and
(17:35):
O'Connell and Jonathan aredigging and he finds these like
a scarab jewels on on the umwall and he starts grabbing them
.
But they magically turn intoreal scarabs and like crawl
under his skin in very 90s cgiand end up killing him, eat him.
Yeah, that night the magi comethrough and they're like using
(17:57):
swords and everything and likethey're killing a lot of extras.
Finally they stop.
They stop and Ardeth Bay, whois the leader of the Magi, who
is the most beautiful man, hesays enough bloodshed, live by
tomorrow or die, which againmakes no sense because they've
made it clear they're willing tokill innocent people.
Yeah, just kill them.
(18:17):
Yeah, no plot armor.
The Egyptologist finds the BlackBook of the Dead, which is
shaped like a trapper keeper andrequires the key to open it.
Meanwhile, evie has found themummy of Imhotep and it's still
(18:37):
juicy, which they're like.
This is really weird.
It's 3000 years old and so oncethe Egyptologist has fallen
asleep, she takes the Book ofthe Dead and reads it, which
awakens Imhotep.
So the Egyptologist and threeAmericans had opened a box that
had the canopic jars, which arewhere the organs were stored of
(19:00):
Imhotep, and apparently there isa curse on it that you know
anyone who opens this will die.
And so the Magi end upexplaining that Imhotep comes
back.
He's alive in this juicy mummygross thing, cgi creation but he
will like basically eat each ofthe four people who opened the
(19:21):
box that had his canopic jarsand take their essence and he'll
become more and more human-likeand once he's regained his
beautiful Arnold Vosloo form, hewill be unstoppable.
So that is the moment.
Once he's awakened, that's themoment that you remember where,
benny and it's very funny hestarts off, he pulls out a cross
(19:41):
from under his shirt and hesays a prayer, and then he pulls
out like a Buddha and sayssomething in Chinese, pulls out
something else and sayssomething in Arabic, and then he
pulls out the Star of David.
And I was paying attention lastnight and I could not figure
out.
Like it was not Hebrew that Irecognized, it was not Bracha,
that like it just sounded sortof like Hebrew.
(20:04):
Yeah, and I don't know, I haveno idea if they actually used
real Hebrew or not, but anyway.
And the mummy says, in ancientEgyptian, the language of the
slaves, this one might be usefulto me.
And so Benny, because he's aweasel, is like all right, yeah,
I'll be your servant.
So everyone hightails it backto Cairo.
They find out that the curatorof the museum is a member of the
(20:27):
Magi.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Oh plot twist.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, and so he burned the map on purpose, of
course he did.
And they basically say theywere able to stop the mummy
before he completely ate one ofthe Americans, but he got his
eyes.
The mummy before he completelyate one of the Americans, but he
got his eyes.
And so we then see that Bennyhas brought Imhotep to the now
blind guy and then he's consumedand one by one, each of the
(20:55):
three Americans and theEgyptologist are consumed, with
Benny's help.
With Benny's help, yes, andthere's a lot of just ridiculous
, wonderful fighting the 10plagues of Egypt are unleashed.
So we got locusts, we got waterturning to blood, we got, I
mean, it's oh boils and hail andthe full Passover Seder yeah.
(21:17):
Sweet, sweet, sweet.
And we learn that Imhotep isinterested in Evie because he
wants to sacrifice her so he canbring, because he needs to
sacrifice a living woman tobring Anaxanamun back to life
and not be juicy Cool.
So there's shenanigans back andforth and Imhotep is able to
(21:44):
take Evie.
He says if you come with meI'll let your friends live.
And so they're cornered.
She says, fine, I'll go.
And Rick's like no, no, no, youcan't.
And she says he has to take meback to Hamunaptra for the
ceremony, the ritual, likethere's time, come after me.
And so she goes with him.
Imhotep then says kill them allto his minions.
(22:06):
And they escape by the skin oftheir teeth because you know
plot armor.
They end up flying Rick andJonathan and Ardeth Bay.
The Magi end up flying toHamunaptra via the only Royal
Air Force member still in Egyptfrom the Great War who wished he
(22:27):
had died in the Great War, likeall the other chappies that he
came there with.
Okay, yeah, it's so ridiculousand so delightful, he's like.
And so what does your littleproblem have to do with His
Majesty's Royal Air Force?
He's like and so what does yourlittle problem have to do with
His Majesty's Royal Air Forceand Rick says not a damn thing.
And is it likely you'll succeed?
(22:48):
No, we're probably all going todie, really Jolly good.
And so, like, the plane ends upgoing down and the last thing
you see of Winston is the nameof this pilot is he's got this
huge grin on his face and he'sdead.
And the thing is, I don't know,I don't know, but based on a
(23:11):
lifetime of reading AgathaChristie and other early 20th
century British stuff, it feelslike that's a real type of
person.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, okay, all right , so they fly back.
Winston dies.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yeah, winston dies.
The mummy has become sand andhas become a sandstorm and takes
Benny and Evie there, takesthem down to the ritual room in
Hamunaptra and he gets the AnakSunamun's mummy.
It's closest to a Bechdelmoment that we have is she's
lying.
The mummy is lying next to Evie.
(23:44):
Her spirit comes back into themummy and she screams and Evie
screams.
That's as close to passing theBechdel and they're looking at
each other screaming.
I don't think that counts.
I don't think so either.
There is a ridiculous fightscene.
There's lots of mummies theyhave to use.
There's another book called theBook of Amun-Ra, which Jonathan
(24:05):
has to read, and we know he's ane'er-do-well not very good at
the scholarship.
So he's shouting like what doesa stork mean?
Trying to read things so theycan make Imhotep mortal again,
so he can be killed.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
They're able to do that, they kill.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Imhotep.
Then Benny accidentallytriggers the destruction of the
temple because there's a leverthat isn't marked or anything.
He had not been so greedy wouldhave survived because like he
had plenty of time but he keptgoing back in for more.
And so they all escape benny.
They try to help benny and he'snot able to to make it and then
he's eaten by by bugs.
They get out into the desert.
(24:53):
There are camels there that Ithink are supposed to be left
over from when they were inhominopter the first time.
Otherwise I don't know what thecamels are doing there.
They ride off into the sunset.
Rick and Evie kiss and that'sthe end of the film.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Like the thing is like I skipped so much.
So where are we going to start?
Let me start with the West'sobsession with Egypt.
Yeah, so there is this veryinteresting aspect Now.
(25:29):
Egypt is fascinating all on itsown, just if all you see are
the pyramids of Giza and theSphinx.
Like it's just like wow, thatis some cool shit, you know,
without knowing any of themythology behind it.
Sure, sure, sure, withoutknowing.
It's just like damn, those arereally old.
How did they make those?
Yeah, even more than likeseeing a cathedral, because
(25:52):
they're in the middle of thedesert, they're on the banks of
the Nile, so, okay, but just theamount of work necessary to
make them, yeah, and clearlythey're meaningful in a way,
yeah, and they're awe-inspiring.
Yeah, so the West's interest inEgypt in part came from Napoleon
(26:14):
, and it's because, you know,that was when there was kind of
widespread knowledge of what wasthere, and so there were a lot
of like people couldn't affordto travel there.
So there were a lot of likepeople couldn't afford to travel
there.
So there were a lot of liketravel guides, people writing
like they'd go visit and they'dwrite about it, and it was
fascinating to people.
Then add in the fact thatancient Egyptians mummified
(26:34):
their dead, and right there yougot something that's just
fascinating to people.
Everybody loves dead bodies,yeah, okay.
And then you have the discoveryof King Tutankhamen's tomb.
Yeah, which was in the early19-teens Teens yeah, or 1920s
yeah, somewhere around there.
(26:55):
Like 1919, I think wasn't it,yeah, yeah, somewhere around
there, somewhere in there, andwhat 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 thatthere are curses.
Yep, yep, this was beforewidespread vaccines of certain
(27:16):
things.
Like one of the members, Ithink Lord Carnahan, he cut
himself shaving and got bloodpoisoning and like 2025, can't
imagine that happening.
But you know, not that unusualback then.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah 100 years ago.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah.
So you then have this ancientart and buildings that feel very
different from anything thatthe West makes or builds.
You have a very different wayof looking at death and you have
something where people havedecided it's a curse.
(27:51):
And boy oh boy, can you startputting all of your weird
beliefs and othering thoughts onthis society?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, it's like the perfect storm for exoticization
and fetishization.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yes, yes.
And so I like to say King Tutto me is the perfect
crystallization of the fact thatyou have no control over your
legacy.
And the reason I say that isbecause he was a really minor
pharaoh.
He died young.
He was under the age of 20 whenhe died.
(28:26):
Not clear how he died.
They at some point thought hemight have been murdered, but
it's also possible he just diedof natural causes and then
whatever they thought wasevidence of murder was just
postmortem happened.
And so, because he died soyoung, he had not had a tomb or
pyramid built for him, so theyhad to make do with what they
(28:47):
had.
So it was a tomb that wasalready set aside for some minor
noble or something.
So it wasn't in the Valley ofthe Kings and it wasn't a
pyramid.
And because he was a minorpharaoh, he was completely
forgotten.
Uh-huh, because grave robbershave been stealing.
You know, you put a giantpyramid over like lots of riches
(29:09):
, riches yeah, people know whereto go.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, it's like a beacon Steal stuff here.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, yeah.
Pharaoh, who nobody remembershad nothing to do with the reign
of ancient Egypt, is now themost well-known and celebrated
Egyptian king of all time,Because he was unknown.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, at least of our time.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, whereas like Ramses and Seti, who were very
important, Westerners don't knowhim.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Westerners don't know them.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, so I find that very comforting in some ways.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
That's not the word I thought you were going to use.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Okay, so I love that.
This weird confluence of thingsmade this boy king, who there
have been so many storieswritten about.
I remember reading a youngadult novel when I was 13 or 14
about him, and it has sparked somuch imagination that he has
gotten the afterlife that theEgyptian pharaohs were promised
(30:16):
in a lot of ways, because he wasforgotten.
So, that's something I findreally 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 2,000years from now.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah yeah, that is really bizarre.
Yeah yeah, that is reallybizarre.
It's really interesting toobecause of this sort of
exoticization and fetishizationand mystical aspect of it.
There's a superhumanizationwhich is a dehumanization, which
I think is also really reallyinteresting.
I mean, we see it in otherplaces in society, but here's a
(30:59):
very clear example of wheresuperhumanization is in fact a
form of dehumanization.
Right, and even like what wasactually happening in the 20s,
when people would like buymummies when westerners and
unwrap them in a party or likebrew tea from the bandages and
drink it like like weird, weirdshit.
(31:19):
That like they would not do ifthey were thinking logically
about the fact that this is theremains of a human being.
Right, it was only in thedehumanization of this ancient
Egyptian person that they wereable to do the things that they
did.
And I think there's somethinglike the tension in the
(31:40):
superhumanization, anddehumanization is really really
fascinating.
It is one of the ways thatoppression happens, which feels
counterintuitive because it is asuperhumanization, but it
totally is one of the ways thatoppression happens things.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
That is worrisome about this film.
There are a few extras who mayhave been Egyptian.
I saw in the early scene whenthe pharaoh's guards come to
confront Imhotep and AnaksonAmun, there's one black guard,
but the cast is pretty much allwhite.
(32:19):
So Patricia Velasquez, the castis pretty much all white.
So Patricia Velasquez, whoplayed Anaxana Moon, I believe
is Latina.
Arnold Vazlu, I'm not sure.
He is South African andAmerican, so I don't really know
what his background is, but heis not Egyptian and so there's
that aspect of it that we andthey are gorgeous, like we
(32:42):
exotify them.
You've said, oh, my god, god,we exoticize them, but they are
white looking.
You know, their exoticness isin how they are dressed, right
other than or made up featuresyes, yes the body paint.
The body paint?
Yes, and then, on top of that,there is the fact that white
(33:07):
folks were the best scholars tostudy egyptian ancient history
(33:28):
yeah, and it was called theoriental institute when I was
there, when I was.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Oh, yeah, yeah, it's in the past, like 10, 5 or 10
years, that they changed.
Yeah, yeah, it's got to berecently.
Yeah, I mean, I've been gone.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
It's been 20 years since I left graduate school,
but it's you know, within ourlifetime, it was still very
recent, and so, then, the factthat all of the actors,
including the ones playingEgyptian characters, are, for
the most part, white, what about, like the curator, who is also
(34:01):
a Magi?
He is an Indian American actor.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So he was ethnic.
I'm putting quotes around that.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Yes, and then the man who played Ardeth Bay.
His name is Oded Fair and he isIsraeli, so he was the leader
of the Magi.
So Benny, I think, is supposedto be Hungarian because like
that's what you said, you saidHungarian.
Yeah, and the reason why I saythat is because when you watch
it with subtitles, there will betimes where he says something
(34:31):
is like speaking in Hungarian,and he does that multiple times.
Now it's also clear he's verygood with languages because he
understands the mummy.
But why would he be speaking inHungarian so regularly?
Yeah sure, mummy, but why wouldhe be speaking in hungarian so
regularly?
Yeah, sure, but he's anamerican actor named kevin j
o'connor.
So it is this like erasure ofactual egyptian culture and
(34:57):
actual egyptian people andreplacement with the white view
of what Egyptian culture is andwhite actors.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Or like the Indian American guy, he's ethnic.
It's close enough.
Yeah, it doesn't matter whichethnic, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Put a fez on him.
It's fine.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, he's not white, so he's Egyptian.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yeah, and that's painful yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
It's smart.
That's how we did it in the 90s.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Yeah, well, I mean, and the thing is, that's how
they did it in 1932.
Yes, boris Karloff playing in1932.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
For sure, for sure, in 32, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
And it's ruinous in every direction for
understanding of ancient Egyptand Egyptology, because it's
like assuming that white folksknow best and that's you know,
like there's so much in theBritish 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.
(35:55):
Yeah, by stealing.
It's like like it's a toddlerwith scissors yeah, this thing
that you made, yeah we willprotect for you.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah, but you can't see it anymore.
We're going to put it in thevitrine.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
It'll be fine, you can come see it anytime you like
, just fly to London.
Yeah, so you've got that aspectof it.
Then you've got the exoticismof putting magic, creating this
false lore of magic Egyptianculture that has literally
(36:30):
nothing to do with the actualdynamic, interesting,
fascinating culture that theEgyptians did subscribe to.
So you've got that.
So you've got like, on the oneside 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 theactual knowledge the scholars
(36:54):
might have.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Well, it's like the scholars.
And then there's also thestorytelling.
That's really just abouttelling a fantasy, but using
historical names and historicalmoments.
But just, I mean, it might aswell be JRR Tolkien, but instead
of making up a new Middle Earth, it's like, yeah, that's
ancient Egypt.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
There's something very human about that.
When you learn about somethingnew, you're like, oh, that's
really interesting.
I bet that's related to thatother thought I had.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I mean that is how meaning making works to be fair
to humans.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
I mean that is how meaning making works to be fair
to humans, and then because ofpop culture and things like
everyone wanting to get in onthe money making of, like
Egyptomania, which is what theycalled it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have BorisKarloff as the mummy and yet
another fable is created, yeah,so I mean, all of that I find
(37:52):
fascinating.
It's why I was so interested inthe literature of British
imperialism because it wasmaking meaning out of something
that was completelymisunderstood, often with good
intentions.
There was often a goodintention, even though it was
condescending as fuck that endsup harming people in ways that
(38:13):
you never anticipated.
The complete cluster of all ofthat I find fascinating.
And then the fact that you thencreate this completely bonkers
but absolutely delightful rideof a film like this, where
you're just like I am enjoyingevery single second of this,
(38:35):
also like it creates thisdissonance for me, and
particularly because I saw itwhen I did, when I was thinking,
the thoughts that I was abouthow imperialist cultures
appropriate native cultures.
So that's a lot.
Yeah, I want to talk a littlebit about, like I I have
mentioned, like every singleactor, like, damn, like, oh man
(39:00):
it's like.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
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
(39:24):
why was this an awakening foryou know, younger, Gen X and
elder millennial bisexuals,because it is.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
You know, I did a little reading and people were
saying, like part of it is thereis this like sexual chemistry
between Evie and Rick?
Yes, absolutely, and thatpeople watching that would
interchange themselves.
Like I want to be Rick and kissEvie.
I want to be Evie and kiss Rick.
Do you think there's some ofthe say himbo you think idiot
(40:16):
and that's not it.
It's that he is athletic and hecan do stuff, but he doesn't
have scholarly knowledge and heis very, very fascinated by
Evie's scholarly knowledge, likehe thinks it is really
interesting when she shares whatshe is passionate about, about
(40:38):
Egyptology.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
So he's like oh you think thinky thoughts.
Yes, meanwhile he's lookingreally good in his 1920s outfit.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Yes, and he is perfectly comfortable with her
taking the lead when she knowswhat the hell she's doing.
Oh, that's kind of hot.
Yes, and he is perfectlycomfortable with her taking the
lead when she knows what thehell she's doing.
Oh, that's kind of hot.
Yes, yes it is.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
And rare yes.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Now he also does shit like pick her up and carry her
into a room and lock her in.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Oh, that's not hot, which is not as okay.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Not hot.
He also kisses her without herconsent Not hot.
So those are the only like kindof toxic masculine stuff that
he does.
He otherwise like when it'sclear that the mummies come back
he's like all right, let's getout of here.
He's happy to run, he does notfeel the need to stay and
doesn't need to be a hero.
Yeah, he interacts with peoplein a very like interpersonal way
(41:26):
, like when he goes to winstonfor help with flying.
He knows he's going to getwinston's attention because he
knows what winston wants,because he's actually like and
they show him earlier, likebothering people at a bar,
winston, I mean, and rick likemouths along with something that
winston apparently says overand over and over again, so like
(41:47):
it'd be very easy to justignore that guy and not think
about him.
But there is that sense of Rickrecognizes the humanity of him.
The other thing that I lovethis moment until Imhotep is
completely regenerated, he isafraid of cats and this is fake
(42:09):
bullshit.
But Ardeth Bay says becausecats are like in charge of the
underworld basically.
And so there is, we know thatbecause like he like hisses and
goes away from the cat at onepoint and Rick asks like what's
going on with that.
And then at another point theyknow that the mummy is in a room
like menacing Evie, and so Rickhas picked up the cat and
(42:32):
brought it with him and so he'slike, here you go and like a
b-head would think that was likeemasculating to have the cat
like get the mummy to go away.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
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 (42:52):
So he recognizes like cause he's been told like human
weapons will not work on himand so and he had at one point
he argued cause when they firstencounter him, he shoots him and
it like causes him to fall overand he thinks, all right, I got
him, he's gone.
And like he argues severaltimes until Ardith Bay like
(43:13):
makes it clear to him, so likeonce he's learned it, that no, I
can't, I can't fight him like anormal fight all right, I'll
use the cat yeah, so it's.
I think that there's that aspectto it.
There is something a little bitsympathetic about Imhotep it's
more so in the second moviebecause he returns, as does Anak
(43:33):
Sunamun, but there's somethingsympathetic about the fact that
he is desperately in love withAnak Sunamun and everything he
does is to reunite with her.
He also doesn't care abouthurting anyone, but there's
something very human about hislove and even the scene when he
(43:54):
does not want to leave AnakSunamun and she says to him
you're the only one who canresurrect me.
Yeah, you said that.
There's also a kind of likechange in, like the masculine
trope.
Now he's pulled away by hispriests, but he does allow
himself to be pulled away by hispriests and that recognizing
like you know what I need to do,what I am good at Right live to
(44:16):
fight another day or whatever,yeah.
And then the character of Bennyis kind of hilarious.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Yeah, I remember him being funny.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
He's very funny.
There is something I don't wantto say in any way admirable or
anything like that, butcomprehensible about him.
He is a born survivor and so itkind of makes sense that he and
the mummy work together,because he says to Rick he's
like I'm immune to whatever'scoming to the rest of humanity,
(44:45):
and Imhotep is a similar sort oflike I'll do whatever needs to
be done to get my moon back.
But it's very funny when hepulls all the the religious
symbols out of his shirt thescene that stayed with me.
It's hilarious, but it's alsolike, yeah, this guy's thought
through contingencies.
Yeah, and if he were just ascooch less greedy he would have
(45:08):
survived yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Well, we are running out of time.
So did you have any other keyanalyses that you didn't get to?
Speaker 1 (45:17):
I do just want to real quick talk about Brendan
Fraser.
Oh yes, there were a couple ofreasons why he stopped acting.
One was that he had some healthproblems because doing action
movies like this one, he had abunch of different injuries and
he had to have surgery.
He went through a tough divorceand then he was also sexually
harassed by the head of theGolden Globes I don't remember
(45:39):
what that's called, but the headof the Golden Globes and spoke
out about it and there's kind ofconflicting stories.
I remember when I read about itit seemed very clear that he
was blacklisted and then sincethen it's been kind of like no,
like they don't have that muchpower was that person a man or a
woman?
Speaker 2 (45:59):
a?
Speaker 1 (45:59):
man, okay, and he claims that it was like at first
he he denied it, and then he'slike 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 jokewhich is fascinating,
considering the kiss betweenEvie and Rick and then, like the
(46:24):
other aspect of what happened,I think, and partially because
of the health problems, isBrendan Fraser doesn't look like
1999 Brendan Fraser anymore,even when he has not put on
weight specifically for the filmthe Whale, which I haven't seen
.
I didn't watch the movie either.
I know some fat activists wereless than excited about it, yes.
(46:45):
And then he also has his threesons, and his eldest is on the
autism spectrum, and so he alsowas like kind of focusing on
making sure that his son gotwhat he needed.
But there is, I have this sensethat Fraser was kind of chewed
up by Hollywood just between thesexual harassment, the surgery
(47:06):
and health problems and then thelike.
Anytime you heard anythingabout him, it's just like is
that Brendan Fraser?
Because he looks different thanhe did in 1999, because he's no
longer 28.
And so I appreciate looking atthat and thinking about that,
because there is somethingsimilar to a mummy.
(47:27):
Oh, interesting, because he wasat his height of fame, fame and
power, but because of outsideforces, bigger forces, he went
basically undergroundinteresting.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
That's not where I thought you were going with this
.
I thought you were going like.
This is a story we expect tohear about an actress oh, that
too, this is a story we expectto hear about a woman.
All of it the sexual harassmentthe health problems, the sort
of having a hard time breakingback in after a break because
they don't.
They're not as attractive asthey were like that's a.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
That is a story we hear again and again and again
about actresses that's where Ithought you were going with that
well, and it's interestingbecause I think that there's
been more sympathy for himtotally, 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 (48:17):
How dare you yeah, I mean, that's what we say to
women like, what'd you expect?
Of course he pinched yourbottom.
Look at you, what were youwearing?
Speaker 1 (48:23):
and so like that also gets into a little bit the fact
that that's what we expect withactresses.
It's the price of being femalein hollywood, or, yes, god just
existing yeah, but that's also,I think, in some ways part of
what gets back to that sense oflike.
This is like the bisexualawakening film.
There is something aboutbrendan fraser that is not
(48:47):
typically masculine, so I wonderif that has something to do
with it too.
And like I have no idea aboutFraser as an individual, like I
don't know anything about hissexuality and it's not my
business and it has nothing todo with anything, except that he
presents in a way that is notstereotypically masculine, even
(49:08):
though, especially in 1999, hevery much looked stereotypically
masculine.
But even he has these justperfect lips, cupid's bow lips,
yeah, that I tend to think of asa more feminine trait.
And he also has huge, beautifuleyes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
So interesting.
All right, let me see if I canreflect back some of the things
that we talked about, becausewe've been talking for a long
minute now.
There was a couple of bucketsthat you brought to your
analysis of the Mummy.
One was just like a look backat the West's fascination with
ancient Egypt and that fell intoreally interesting and like
almost conflicting buckets.
(49:46):
Like there's the one bucket ofsort of British Western
imperialism whereby white peopleunderstand everything better
than anyone, includingunderstanding Egyptian culture
better than Egyptians, and theway that the tendrils and the
ripples of that attitude wouldshow up in sort of who gets cast
(50:07):
and in like how we presentstories and even the fact that
Tutankhamen is the pharaoh whosename every American knows, even
though he was actually not thatimportant in sort of historical
, cultural terms.
But that's the one that likecaptured the imagination because
(50:27):
that's the one the scholarslike had the most information
about because of the tomb.
So there's there's sort of thatbucket and adjacent to it, with
the imperialism, is anappropriation and a projection
which becomes the egyptomania,which becomes sort of things
like this movie, where it'salmost like jrr tolkien or some
other fantasy writer is writinga totally new culture but using
(50:49):
the geography and names ofancient Egypt and the damage
that that potentially does,insofar as it completely erases
actual Egyptian culture, whichis rich and storied and deserves
to be known.
It has erased that forWesterners and created this
(51:11):
weird projected mythology thatis not actually related to real
historic moments.
And I named the fact that partand parcel of that, both in this
movie and in sort ofEgyptomania, is a
superhumanization of the ancientEgyptians which becomes a
dehumanization, which we see.
This is an example of thathappening, but it happens in
(51:33):
oppressive patterns in otherplaces.
That was one sort of big, rich,juicy bucket of what you
brought us.
There was another adjacentbucket around I mentioned the
casting, but I'll just name thatagain.
That part of that even in 1999,was like pretty much all the
actors are white or whitepresenting or they're ethnic I'm
(51:57):
putting quotes around that andso it doesn't matter if they're
Egyptian or like Egyptian,indian, israeli, whatever, it's
all the same.
So there's sort of that adjacentbucket to the imperialism that
shows up actually in the movieitself and related to the movie
itself.
You named the fact that likethis is fun, like this movie is
just really fun, and so thatlike causes some dissonance for
(52:20):
you, as you're seeing what Ijust named happening in this
really fun vehicle and likefinding a way to kind of enjoy
(52:41):
while holding it accountable is,I mean, that's the project that
we're doing right here, but wesee it particularly in this film
.
But we think that, you know,some of it isn't just the sheer
like beauty and sex appeal ofthe cast, which is true of most
Hollywood movies, but somehow inparticular this one.
They, every character smoldersRight.
(53:01):
They're not just good looking.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
They're not just good looking Sexy.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Yeah, and that, like you know that they're thinking
about sex, yeah, yeah, andthere's also you also named
specific pairings where there'sa 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 (53:27):
So I know what I'm looking up.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
I'm looking up.
So that was like another sortof bucket that we like briefly
talked about.
And then you also brought inBrendan Fraser himself, the
actor, and the ways in which hesort of got out of the business,
kind of after this movie or notlong after, and then kind of
came back, but not in the sameway, not with the same kind of
(53:50):
roles, and you named the ways inwhich his kind of disappearance
and reappearance was sort oflike a mummy kind of being like
set aside or set on a shelf atthe height of his looks and
power and then having a hardtime coming back or coming back
and being like I don't know,curse almost.
I named the fact that thatstory, that Brendan Fraser story
(54:14):
, is this like we, if we tookhis name out and put in almost
any Hollywood actress who had totake some time off for whatever
reason like we hear the samestory sexually harassed by
someone important, maybeblacklisted, maybe not, health
problems due to the business,and then having a hard time
(54:34):
coming back because everybody'slike, oh, have you seen them?
They don't look like they usedto look and how, as a culture we
give Frasier some additionalsympathy compared to women who
go through the exact same thing,because it is the cost of being
female.
I feel like there's somethingimportant that I'm forgetting.
What am I forgetting?
Oh, oh, you think I got it all.
I think you got it all Amazingyeah.
(54:56):
I'm amazing.
No, I think you got it all.
Polishing my nails here, allright.
Well, next time, emily.
Next week, I am really excitedto bring you my deep thoughts
about the movie Ladyhawk.
Do you, do you remember thatone?
Yes, matthew broderick as likea monk, and like they've got
rudger howard and I can'tremember the michelle pfeiffer
(55:17):
right.
I haven't seen it in ages.
I'm a little bit worried tore-watch it, but I'm also
excited so that's what I mean.
I mean, well, michelle pfeiffertoo, she's uh, that too.
Yeah, I, I'm only like maybe 20by, but she's like 18% of it.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
So it's Tig Notaro.
The other 2%, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
All right, well, until next time.
Until then, this show is alabor of love, but that doesn't
make it free to produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon there's a link in the
show notes or leave a positivereview so others can find us and
(56:04):
, of course, share the show withyour people.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
Incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
(56:26):
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
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