Does Light Bend or Slow Down Due to Gravity and Medium Interactions?

[billw_willy]

I'm a newbee here and have read some of the posts about light photons having no mass. I have a question/comments that need to be verified.
I received an answer a few years ago about "bending" or reflecting of light and of "slowing down" of light in other than a "pure" vacuum.
The answers stated that light does not actually slow down or bend around massive objects, instead the space around massive objects is bent by the gravity of the object and that light travels only in straight lines and maintains velocity.
The answer continued with the explanation that light is not actually bent (in water) or reflected (mirrors), that as light photons hit any object (atoms in water, metals in mirrors) the photons exchanges light energy for mass and the masses hit generates photons directed in other directions.
Are these reasonable explanations for the phenomenon?

 

[granpa]

are you aware of how electric fields are excluded from the interior of condictors?