Reasons for the term "wool"

[Cochise]

As we know, women are Ajax's weakness. The term "wool" is often used to refer to them. What might have been the reasons for this? Do we take at surface value, as a common term from the era, or do we look farther? Let's look a little farther, shall we?

The name Ajax is among the few Greek references scattered about the movie The Warriors. I am a bit of a Greek history/mythology buff or fan, whatever you would like to call it, and I know a little bit about Ajax.

Ajax the Great was a powerful warrior, and was arguably responsible for winning many battles in the Trojan War. After the war was over, Achilles dead, Helen returned to Sparta, and Troy and it's royal family utterly destroyed, the armor of Achilles was given to Odysseus, a clever warrior that fought on the side of Sparta during the war. Ajax is upset, and vows to kill the high-ranking of Sparta. Athena tricks him into believing that a nearby of herd of sheep are Agamemnon and the others he wishes to kill, so he slaughters them. Overcome by remorse, he later kills himself.

Now, in other versions, the herd is of cattle, not specifically sheep. I do believe this is looking into it a little far, and I doubt if Walter Hill had any of this in mind during the writing of the script. Anyways, you never know. I hope this little bit of history educates and entertains you.

[wolverine_95]

It's an interesting coinsidence. It's not out of the question given Sol Yurick's intentions to mirror a Greek epic. However, I don't think the phrase "strange wool" is used in the book and Hill wanted to go comic book with the movie when the studio wouldn't let him to ethnicly based gangs. So, it seems like this is simply an amazing coinsidence. Then again, I can see one of the screen writers having a flash of brilliance and writing that line, but not being able to work similar referances into the Ajax's other lines. Clever little referances like that are common in screen plays right?

[zubi q]

i think yurick just made something up and hoped it would work!

[HellsFury]

My guess is that "wool" refers to the femal pubic hair which I as you could guess was probably still not a thing that "bothered" people in the 70's.

[da-warrior]

i think its probably a street slang terminology from the 70,s era regarding females which they incorporated into the movie