Young man, it’s time we had a talk. Your mother and I have never wanted to be those kind of strict, clueless parents who can’t understand what young people are into “nowadays,” but I have to put my foot down. You are forbidden from joining that rowdy, no-good Zorba the Greek fan club. No ifs, ands, or buts about it!
Because I said so, that’s why.
Oh, you think you’re grown up enough to deserve some reasons? Well, if that were really the case, you wouldn’t have to be told to stay away from a bunch of Kazantzakis-worshipping juvenile delinquents. You’d be mature enough to realize that they’re nothing but a bunch of morons drunk on ouzo and the Academy Award–winning cinematography of Walter Lassally.
And don’t think I don’t know about that bouzouki you’ve got stuffed under your bed. Do you really think you could sneak a trichordo in this house without making your mother cry?
You’re smart. We didn’t raise you to blindly fall in with the kind of people who think that romanticizing the construction of a lignite mine in Crete is “fire” and “bussin.” Son, you know as well as me that lignite is an inferior form of soft coal, and there’s nothing to be proud of in mining it.
Goddammit, son, lignite?
LIGNITE?
I’m sorry. I flew off the handle. No matter what kind of Zorba the Greek crowd you’re falling in with, I’m the adult here and have to act like it.
Son, I know you think I’m the bad guy here. You think there’s nothing wrong with trying a little modern Greek cinema here, a little Michael Cacoyannis auteurship there. You must be thinking, “It’s not like I’m mainlining Spentzos Films’ back catalog.”
Zorba the Greek is a gateway movie, son, and before you know it, you’ll be drowning in a nightmare of life-affirming drama-comedy.
Those kids that you think are so “Gucci” are probably already out on the street, doing god knows what to afford to rent out a local arthouse cinema to show a 35mm print of Zorba the Greek and buying history after history of the Balkan Wars. That is, if they’re not shoplifting them from our town’s sole remaining Barnes & Noble.
I get it. When I was your age, I experimented. I used to play hooky and catch a matinee of Zorb’ with my friends sometimes, absorbing the hard-won humanism and strength of the human spirit in the face of bleak poverty and shocking femicide when I should have been bettering myself. Once, the guys and I pooled all the money we had and bought tickets to the 1983 Tony Award–winning Broadway revival of the Zorb’ musical and hitchhiked all the way to NYC.
Yes, we called it Zorb’. I know it sounds outdated, but that was the slang of the time, son.
Your mother and I have tried to turn an indulgent eye to the Anthony Quinn poster above your bed and your constant Alan Bates impressions. You’ve kept us up all hours playing your Mikis Theodorakis LPs.
We can tolerate a lot, son. But we’re not going to see you flush your future down the drain just to impress some degenerate Zorbaheads. You will never—do you hear me?—never join that fan club. I forbid it.
Good night, son. I know you’re angry now, but you’ll grow out of this Zorba the Greek phase soon enough.
We all do.
