Hollywood and History: The Good Place
I'd like to start a new series of blog posts. They will probably not be reliably regular but hopefully regular enough to constitute a series. Recently I've been thinking a lot about how movies and TV portray the past, specifically my area of interest, the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean world (pre-Greek and Roman times). So, I'd like to talk about the times Hollywood brings them up, explain what they may get wrong or right and if the former, how they could have fixed those things, without taking away from what they are trying to do in the movie or show. I'll start with the recent smash hit series The Good Place, which recently ended (and I cried). Consider THIS your SPOILER WARNING, if you have not finished season 4, STOP HERE. In season 4's penultimate episode, the whole gang, humans, Michael and Janet, arrive in the real good place at last. They of course end up meeting a few people from the ancient world, including the philosopher Hypatia of Alexandr...