A Trojan Horse Is Supposed to Have Humans Inside It

If you go to Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey, you may be able to purchase, for a mere $69.99, a plastic receptacle shaped as a  Trojan horse. The horse is used in the film as an image of moral decline. But the repurposing of a sinister instrument of war into a popcorn container hints at the malleability of the conceit: A Trojan horse contains unexpected multitudes. This mythical item has always been a tricky symbol, used by generations of storytellers and artists to map shifting perceptions of…