It was called the Golden Age of Civilization for a reason

January 29, 2015 2:27 PM

Women Murdering Men in Western Art History: "The Venn diagram of “female devotees of Dionysus who savagely tear apart Orpheus” and “parties I would love to attend” has an overlap of roughly 100%."
posted by Conspire (33 comments total)

That Pentheus cup is at the Kimbell and it a sight to see.
posted by bdc34 at 2:32 PM on January 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

Two posts in a row. We have reached peak Mallory Ortberg.
posted by eyeballkid at 2:37 PM on January 29, 2015 [8 favorites]

not a mob, but some of the best: Judith and Holofernes by:
Gentileschi
Caravaggio
Donatello
Reubens
Klimt
Wiley
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:37 PM on January 29, 2015 [14 favorites]

Brad Neely Classic
posted by monocyte at 2:42 PM on January 29, 2015

Two posts in a row. We have reached peak Mallory Ortberg.

Indeed. We might want to consider a new subsite. Or at least a disclaimer: SLMO.

"Warning: Ortberg"?
posted by notyou at 2:53 PM on January 29, 2015

Where's the "misandry" tag?
posted by brundlefly at 2:58 PM on January 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

someone get his harp, men cannot be killed unless you also destroy the instrument they were trying to play at you
posted by KathrynT at 3:12 PM on January 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

Where's the "misandry" tag?

i would totally add a ~*misandry*~ tag but you cant do punctuation in tags

mega sadfaec
posted by Conspire at 3:18 PM on January 29, 2015 [6 favorites]

She sort of explains this, but without any indication that there are facts interspersed in the listicle humor: Sparagmos is indeed the act of ritually tearing apart an animal or human associated with Maenads, Bacchantes, and various Dionysian cults that does not seem to have actually been a thing people did. Wikipedia.
posted by cmoj at 3:24 PM on January 29, 2015

♂🔫 👸☆♬ misandry🎶 ☆👸⌐╦╦═─♂
posted by en forme de poire at 3:28 PM on January 29, 2015 [9 favorites]

I hope Marat's assassination by Charlotte Corday actually went down exactly like this: six people bursting into the room, catching her red-handed, and breaking into six different melodramatic songs.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:32 PM on January 29, 2015 [14 favorites]

Sparagmos is indeed the act of ritually tearing apart an animal or human associated with Maenads, Bacchantes, and various Dionysian cults that does not seem to have actually been a thing people did.


Also if you were wondering there is already a band called Spargamos because I had to check right away.
posted by louche mustachio at 3:40 PM on January 29, 2015 [5 favorites]

Charlotte Corday's dress is so fabulous and I want it. Assasinatin', feelin' fancy dress.
posted by louche mustachio at 3:43 PM on January 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was going to make a joke about how it looks like the death of Orpheus was a pretty wicked party, but then I looked it up and that's exactly what it was.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:49 PM on January 29, 2015

Two posts in a row marks the closing of the Ortberg Loop. The Ortberg Cycle has caught up with itself.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:50 PM on January 29, 2015

"MANNNN"
Nice collection MTT. I had a co-worker at university library who did a great paper on Judith/Holofernes head. Concerning Marat, this always fascinated.

(Feels a bit strange to flag ones own comment:/
posted by clavdivs at 4:20 PM on January 29, 2015

Wow, I never learned about these in art college!
posted by Calzephyr at 5:12 PM on January 29, 2015

haha, i just noticed she actually uploaded all the pictures with "misandry" in the file name.
posted by bigendian at 6:21 PM on January 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is what your fear looks like when your tacit participation in sexual tyranny almost rises to consciousness.
posted by kaymac at 6:25 PM on January 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

Now I want to get "Look at how fun these stabbing bitches seem" t-shirts for all my girl friends.

(But not as much as I want hat Charlotte Corday dress. If I could find a bathtub on wheels, that'd make a great group Halloween costume.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:28 PM on January 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

ON WEDNESDAYS WE PULL OUR DRESSES DOWN TO THE WAIST AND KILL MEN

is what I've sadly never said.
posted by allthinky at 6:39 PM on January 29, 2015 [4 favorites]

(I can probably just head down to Party City and pick up a Slutty Charlotte Corday costume off the rack, tho.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:31 PM on January 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

Peak Ortberg.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:35 PM on January 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

"She sort of explains this, but without any indication that there are facts interspersed in the listicle humor: Sparagmos is indeed the act of ritually tearing apart an animal or human associated with Maenads, Bacchantes, and various Dionysian cults that does not seem to have actually been a thing people did."

Yeah, I wish she'd been a little more clear about it. When I was working on an (unfortunately never finished) time travel guide with some MeFites, one of the things I read up on was maenads, and the Dionysian mystery cults. In a bunch of cities (mostly around Boeotia), there'd be Dionysian festivals where women would essentially have a big ol' drunken march up a mountain to a big wine-drunk party. They may have maybe ripped apart a sacrificial goat, but who knows. Mostly it sounds like the sort of thing you'd tell guys if you didn't want them to follow a bunch of naked drunk chicks up a mountain.

"What do you do when you get up there? *wink*"
"Uh mostly rip apart a goat and eat its flesh raw"
"What if a man is up there?"
"Then we rip him apart and eat his flesh raw"
posted by klangklangston at 7:38 PM on January 29, 2015 [18 favorites]

I chalk up the maenad thing to sublimated patriarchal guilt. Also, tearing human bodies apart would be hard work without using knives. You'd need a LOT of maenads. You're up in the hills, just throw him off a convenient cliff.
posted by emjaybee at 7:51 PM on January 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

"oh yeah, they just put that in there because they read Mr. Natural comix where Flakey Foont decides to spend the rest of his life in his bathtub."

Going back to Kali.
The western motion of rendered flesh is to wordy, needs context.
posted by clavdivs at 8:04 PM on January 29, 2015

Time Vanquished by Hope, Love, and Beauty - Vouet
posted by j_curiouser at 8:20 PM on January 29, 2015

I'm just saying, you can make maenad sock puppets and have them tear up a paper cow/person for educational purposes. So fun!

on the Pentheus kylix, I think the whole design is great: off to the right of the entails there's a satyr going WHAT A PARTY WHAT THE HELL and then over on the left someone's just holding a foot for fun, and then around the other side there's Dionysus having an awesome soiree, as you do, surrounded by body parts. AND there's a maenad on the inside, so I'm imagining that you're there, sipping your wine from this thing, only to have a maenad emerge from the wine-dark depths of the cup, reminding you of what madness can lie ahead...and as you tip the cup further towards you, any of your friends sitting nearby get to witness the AWESOME AFTERMATH OF MESSING WITH DIONYSUS every time you take a sip.
posted by jetlagaddict at 11:11 PM on January 29, 2015

chalk up the maenad thing to sublimated patriarchal guilt. Also, tearing human bodies apart would be hard work without using knives. You'd need a LOT of maenads. You're up in the hills, just throw him off a convenient cliff.

So, I got curious and went looking. Weirdly, this AskMe still seems like the most fleshed out reference (no pun intended). The closest I seem to have gotten is this, which makes it look like (given the variance in the distribution) the lowest bound is about 900 psi (6.3 MPa).

…and I've just spent far too long being grumpy about the appalling state of strongwoman sled pull record keeping online. I have no idea how much force an average athletic woman can apply to a joint assuming a restrained man. But damn am I curious.
posted by klangklangston at 11:57 PM on January 29, 2015

good. lord. I was having a (rather strange) conversation recently about my recent Marat-bath-habits. and it mostly ended up how-did-you-never-see-that-one-iconic-painting-or-THE-700-MILLION-OTHER-ONES.

you want a duck?

(but, srs, how did everyone agree on that dress?)
posted by dorian at 2:57 AM on January 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

In more recent times (nsfw?)
posted by bonobothegreat at 10:51 AM on January 30, 2015

I hope Marat's assassination by Charlotte Corday actually went down exactly like this: six people bursting into the room, catching her red-handed, and breaking into six different melodramatic songs.

Closest I could find to that scenario.
posted by bibliowench at 6:26 PM on January 30, 2015

I guess if you pre-perforated the goat (or dude) first, he might come apart more easily.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:38 PM on February 1, 2015