Exhibitions and events Troy: behind the scenes of a Hollywood epic The myth of Troy has been told and retold throughout history and Hollywood hasn’t been immune to its lure. Here Honorary Research Fellow Lesley Fitton reveals her behind-the-scenes experience of working on the 2004 epic, Troy.
California has a propensity for starting trends that sweep through the rest of the nation, whether it was the hippie era in the ’60s, high tech in the ’90s, or a host of environmental regulations in the 2000s, to name a few.
Politicians have run this fifth-largest economy in the world as a test case for radicalism, enacting some laws that turned out to be a disaster. Here are the top five:
California State Water Resources Control Board
The precursor to this agency was created in 1949 with legislation aimed at preserving the state’s vast water resources by enforcing laws and regulations. Citizens saw the agency as a welcome partner to the Golden State’s pristine ocean, beautiful homes, and stunning landscapes in the postwar era. But as the population grew, so did the board’s smothering clout, and it’s now viewed as the enemy by farmers and many rural communities that resemble dust bowls.
Since 2008, the board has regulated the flushing of millions of gallons of water into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to protect an endangered fish. This water then flows into the ocean and is not diverted to parched farmland.
For more than a decade, farmers in the Central Valley have grappled with decreasing water levels that have forced them to cut back on crops or abandon their lands altogether, spiking food costs.
Some years, farmers receive no water allotment but watch while celebrity homes in Los Angeles and golf courses in Palm Springs continue to showcase massive green lawns. As California is once again in the midst of a drought and threats of rationing, the mandate of “fish over people” continues to draw ire.
FILE – In this June 9, 2021, file photo, a small stream runs through the dried, cracked earth of a former wetland near Tulelake, Calif. California regulators on Tuesday, Aug. 3 said some farmers in one of the country’s most important agricultural regions will have to stop taking water out of major rivers and streams because of a severe drought that is rapidly depleting the state’s reservoirs and killing endangered species of fish. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard, File)
Nathan Howard/AP
Proposition 47
Citizens placed this initiative on the ballot in 2014 as the “ Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act ,” and it passed with 60% of the vote. Pushed by then-San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, it was billed as a way to give more attention to violent criminals by downgrading numerous felonies to misdemeanors.
One million felons with crimes such as grand theft, forgery, and fraud were eligible for resentencing, with most released from prison due to overcrowding, thereby saving the state money, proponents said.
It took just five years before criminals realized that they could steal from stores in broad daylight with little or no repercussions. Many rural cities don’t have enough police to respond to all the vehicle and home thefts, while San Francisco has been the poster child for violent smash-and-grab retail looting.
Assembly Bill 5
Who would think of passing a bill during a pandemic that makes it harder for people to find work? No one is surprised to learn that the “winner” is California. Newsom signed the gig worker bill in 2019 as a means to provide independent contractors with benefits. It forced employers in most situations to hire contractors as employees, who would then receive benefits such as healthcare and vacation.
Instead, companies like Uber and Lyft balked, along with other industries, including those that employ artists and journalists.
A hastily written measure was placed on the 2020 ballot to exempt Uber and Lyft , and it passed. Newsom then rolled back the artist and media segments, but the original law remains in place and is driving more businesses out of state. Some 40,000 businesses closed last year .
Proposition 57
Like its partner, Prop. 47, this initiative had a glowing, misleading name: the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act. This 2016 ballot measure was billed as a way to clear out overcrowded prisons of nonviolent offenders with early parole, saving tens of millions of dollars.
Some of the felons eligible for early release would include sex traffickers, child molesters, hate crime offenders, and those who committed assault with a deadly weapon. Parole boards ruling on these cases were stymied by only being allowed to see the most recent offense.
Now, crime is rising across the state, but exact numbers are not available because statistics were not submitted to the FBI for an annual report. The state is apparently reclassifying its data, as various crimes no longer qualify as “violent” or as a felony.
However, local jurisdictions tell the true story, as in Oakland, with 100 murders this year. TheGuardiananalyzed crime data for the San Francisco Bay area and reported a 25% rise in homicides so far this year.
California Coastal Commission
During the 1970s, Californians became alarmed as large numbers of oceanfront developments were erected and nothing was in place to protect public access to the state’s 840 miles of coastline. Hence, the commission was born as a way to regulate future development and ensure sound environmental policies.
It didn’t take long before the commission started infringing on personal property and meting out illegal edicts, even ordering a restaurant to allow beachgoers to use its parking lot for free. The restaurant sued in a case that was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court , which ruled that the commission was unconstitutionally taking private property.
Now, the problem has been exacerbated with a 2014 rule by the Legislature that gives the commission power to levy fines of up to $11,250 per day. The number of new cases opened by the commission has skyrocketed as it attempts to take any land it wishes, attorneys told Reasonmagazine.
However, the agency is again headed toward the Supreme Court, as one homeowner balked at allowing the state to demolish part of his property for a walkway. He has been fined $4.2 million.
Frazetta’s “Death Dealer” and the Question of White Nationalist Iconography at Fort Hood
In 2009, the military base at Fort Hood installed what can only be described as a bizarre sculpture. Sitting outside the headquarters building is a monumental equestrian statue of medieval European fantasy complete with all the expected trappings—chain mail, axe, helmet and a shield here emblazoned with the caltrop of the III Corps United States. As this imposing character looks down with red eyes from his muscled horse, one cannot help but wonder about the figure’s appropriateness within this space. Surely, the statue would better suit an event at Comic-Con than an Army Base.
“Phantom Rider” Statue outside III Corp Headquarters, Fort Hood Texas, 2009.
The sculpture renders Frank Frazetta’s “Death Dealer” a character originally painted in 1973. During his career Frazetta would become famous for creating the cover art for re-printings and pastiches of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian. The infamous, Western barbarian, who spends his time battling Oriental sorcerers and slaughtering black cannibals, played some role in inspiring the “Death Dealer” as suggested by this cover of “Conan the Conqueror” from 1967.
“The Death Dealer,” Frank Frazetta, 1973.Conan the Conqueror Cover, Frank Frazetta, 1967.
While the original painting obscures the phantom figure’s physical qualities, his weaponry and costume code him as white. The bearded axe and horned helmet recall popular iconography denoting “Viking”[ness], though as some scholars have demonstrated such helmets were largely products of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, his shield bears the reichsadler, the black heraldic eagle employed by the Holy Roman Emperor which has also been used for more contemporary and horrifying purposes.
Imperial Black Eagle associated with Henry VI from Codex Manesse (c. 1304).
Nazi appropriation of the Imperial Black Eagle in their Reichsadler Symbol (1935-1945).
Admittedly, the visual elements alone do not convey the more problematic elements found in the Conan narratives. As the “Death Dealer” grew in popularity, even becoming adopted as the III Corp mascot in 1986, Frazetta joined author George Silke to create a backstory for his creation in 1987. The novel “Prisoner of the Horned Helmet” begins in a proto-European forest defended by “Gath of Baal” (our Death Dealer). The text, perhaps unsurprisingly, describes “Gath” as a “barbarian” who must defend his homeland from the invading Kitzaaks, a pseudo-Mongol Empire, and their collection of Eastern allies, including the naked and bloodthirsty “Feyan Dervishes.” The cover art here depicts a scene where our hero encounters desert-dwelling “nomads” who have been mutated into dog-faced beings by their continued use of drugs. Such tropes have connections to medieval Latin Christian polemical narrative of Muslims, frequently described as a “race of dogs” or in the case of the Nizari State at Alamut, engaged in the consumption of hashish as part of a perverted “Saracen” practice. Finally, as the “Death Dealer” raises the axe, the artist reveals those corded arms, his previously indeterminable “epidermal” (Heng, 181-184) whiteness is now made manifest.
Cover of “Prisoner of the Horned Helmet” (The Death Dealer II), Frank Frazetta, 1987.
Evidently, the “Death Dealer” suffers from what Helen Young has previously termed the “Habits of Whiteness” that pervade fantasy literature. As with Tolkien’s and Howard’s work, white bodies and imagined culture is central to this genre. While I do not presume intent on the commissioning of the Fort Hood statue, given the textual narrative, how do we approach this installation of white violence? In fairness, when the III Corps adopted the character they decided to utilize the more politically correct “Phantom Warrior,” perhaps not wishing to glorify “death.” Still, we cannot divorce this sculpture from its racial overtones because of the larger context of artistic and authorial intent. The Army’s own literature manages to perpetuate some of the problems with this imagery, stating that it “represents the heritage and symbol of America’s Armed Corps” and even connects the “Phantom Warrior’s” horse to those employed by William the Conqueror in 1066. Even when devoid of the textual contribution of Frazetta/Silke, the official narrative insists upon a European past.
By highlighting these issues, I do not mean to attack the Army’s history, though the question of “historical preservation” remains interesting to this conversation. In recent years some discourse has begun to question the public display of Confederate statuary and the naming of military bases for Confederate generals. Opponents of this movement have cried foul, stating that to do so would be to remove American “history.” Of course, these claims are groundless as many of the monuments and bases were erected or named during the early-twentieth century. Yet, even if this were not true, and the icons of Confederacy somehow held an indelible historical value, in what way does an 1980s sword & sorcery construction constitute the pith of American military memory?
“Hood’s Texas Brigade” Monument, Austin TX, 1910.
As we continue to move beyond more obvious examples of racist imagery, perhaps new attention needs to be paid to seemingly neutral renderings which bear all the hallmarks of a white fantasy. Indeed, it is the subtle appellations which allows such narratives to endure. With the escalating number of white nationalist affiliations among military personnel, the public should consider “who does this Warrior speak to and what mythologies does he seek to reinforce?”
“Phantom Warrior” Statue, Fort Hood, 2009.
Tirumular (Drew) Narayanan
PhD Student in Art History
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Frank, Roberta. “The Invention of the Viking Horned Helmet.” International Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in memory of Gerd Wolfgang Weber (2000): 199-208.
Higgs Strickland, Debra. “Monstrosity and Race in the Late Middle Ages.” In The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and The Monstrous. Edited by Asa Simon Mittman with Peter J. Dendle, 365-386. New York: Routledge, 2016.
Heng, Geraldine. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Young, Helen. Race and Popular Fantasy Literature: Habits of Whiteness. New York: Routledge, 2016.
