13th Warrior

Can I just say that Netflix is the coolest thing ever? We watched the 13th Warrior again last night. I like this movie a lot, even though I somehow missed the goddess=evil imagery the first time around. Or maybe I just blocked it out. It happens. Anyway - the cannibalistic tribe who were mythisized (is that a word? If not it should be!) as non-human supernatural-like boogeymen leaves a venus figurine at the scene of a particularly gruesome murder. Then it turns out they are led by a serpent-goddess priestess; whose dreadlocked Medusa-styled head must be cut off (it is prophesied by an old crone) to make the bloodthirsty tribe quit attacking. Meanwhile, the protagonists are 1) an Arabic Muslim; and 2) 12 very "manly" Norse warriors. At first I'm thinking "great.... matriarch vs. patriarchal cultures and isn't it interesting which is painted evil?" but now I'm not so sure. Islam is a given but what about the pre-Christian Norse religion? Sure, they exalted the "manly" arts of war but they had some kick-ass female warriors and gods in their pantheon too, and I thought Celtic influence?. Aside from the cannibalism, the movie actually depicts what I'd think life would be like for the early Paleolithic European tribes who worshipped the Venus figures. They're associated with hunter/ gatherer societies, dwellings in caves and big game animals. So that fits.... but the last figurines only date to about 20,000 BC; and the movie takes place sometime after Mohammed (622 AD? but before the Norse were Christianized (around 1000AD?) so in the end perhaps it's just a "lost barbaric tribe" vs. "civilization" thing?? Still interesting, thought I discovered when looking for that link that this was based on a Michael Creichton book, Eaters of the Dead which was in turn, apparently based largely on Beowulf (as told from an Arab contemporary perspective). Damn - I knew I was missing out on something when we had to read fucking "Moby Dick" in 11th grade honors class instead of Beowulf & Chaucer as the "regular" class was doing. Fucking Hawthorne!