Historical Friction

We're still in Pirate Season here, and this week Alice, Helen, Sara, and Abigail discuss Muppet Treasure Island (1996). Technically it's based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, but with some significant deviations (including a weirdly racist pig tribe, and musical interludes of varying quality). Join us as we try to convince Sara that the Muppets are good, actually, even if this film is not.

Historical Friction is a podcast about storytelling, pop culture, the past, and why we reenact it.

Find the podcast on Twitter at @HistoryFriction

Find Alice at @aaprocter, Abigail at @onceuponafine, Helen at @HelenVMurray and Sara at @tinyredbook

Support the show on Patreon at patreon.com/historicalfriction

This week, Abigail, Helen and Sara are your favourite exposition crones, as we take a wild ride through The 13th Warrior (1999) - a film that probably would have made a better amusement park ride. Based on Michael Crichton's 1976 novel, The Eaters of the Dead, 13th Warrior tells the story of Arab ambassador, Ahmad Ibn Fadlan (Antonio Banderas) who joins forces with a band of Viking warriors to defeat an ancient, mysterious evil. As part of our ongoing series on Viking adaptations, we talk about Beowulf and its legacy, 90s 'post-racial' weirdness, cultural appropriation, and how exactly the Venus of Willendorf fits into all this.
Historical Friction is a podcast about storytelling, pop culture, the past, and why we reenact it.
Follow the podcast on Twitter, at @HistoryFriction.
Abigail is on Twitter at @onceuponafine, Helen is at @HelenVMurray and Sara is at @tinyredbook
Support the podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historicalfriction
Email us at [email protected]

This week, we've got anachronistic leather daddies, siege-based penetration imagery, big old snake holes, and Tony Curtis in tiny hotpants - it's got to be a Viking episode!
Sara sat down with Dr Roderick Dale to discuss The Vikings (1958), a film with some loud feelings about the Middle Ages. The film loosely adapts the sagas of King Ragnar Lodbrok (Ernest Borgnine) and his rivalrous sons Einar (Kirk Douglas) and Eric (Tony Curtis), as they invade the Kingdom of Northumbria and battle for creepy masculine ownership of the Welsh Princess Morgana (Janet Leigh). Sara and Roderick talk about how the film glamourizes the Sagas - what is surprisingly accurate to the archaeology, and what is way off base? They also discuss the film's trivialisation of sexual assault, cinema's weirdly colourless, beige vision of the medieval period, and throw in a good amount of 1950s Hollywood gossip.

Historical Friction is a podcast about storytelling, pop culture, the past, and why we reenact it.Find Sara on Twitter at @tinyredbook, and Roderick at @Berserkjablogg. Follow the show on Twitter @historyfrictionSupport the show on Patreon at patreon.com/historicalfriction

It's December, which means we are once again subjecting you to a time travel Christmas romance. It's a tradition now! Sara was joined by Dr Eleanor Janega to watch The Knight Before Christmas. What is hawking? What is mead? Can knights drive? What is Ohio?

This is our last episode of 2021! Thanks for listening, we'll see you in a few weeks.

Follow Eleanor on Twitter @GoingMedieval, and listen to her podcast We're Not So Different

Historical Friction is a podcast about storytelling, pop culture, the past, and why we reenact it.

Support the show on Patreon at patreon.com/historicalfriction

Follow the show on Twitter @historyfriction

This week, Abigail, Alice, and Helen watched Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite (2018), a gorgeous period piece set circa 1711 that explores the relationship between Queen Anne, Sarah Churchill, and Abigail Masham. We talk about adaptation, visual coherence, and the way that playing with anachronism while having a strong sense of tone is maybe the best way to make a movie set in the past.

Historical Friction is a podcast about storytelling, pop culture, the past, and why we reenact it.

Support the show on Patreon at patreon.com/historicalfriction

Follow the show on Twitter at @historyfriction

Follow Alice on Twitter at @aaprocter

Follow Abigail on Twitter @onceuponafine

Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenVMurray