Sunday, October 27, 2013

Two Demigods and a Satyr Walk into Medusa's Lair . . .

Perseus with the head of Medusa, by Antonio Ca...
Perseus with the head of Medusa,
by Antonio Canova, completed 1801
 (Vatican Museums)
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Starting with number 1 from the list in my last post, it should be obvious to those who have seen the film or read the book that Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief  is based on already existing Greek mythology:  he's the son of Poseidon, his real first name is Perseus (the original Perseus's father was Zeus, but that's another myth), and he is destined to be a hero.  The second requirement is also obvious, because as the film goes on Percy encounters all kinds of elements, fighting mythological monsters like the Minotaur, Medusa, and a hydra, meeting Chiron, visiting the land of the lotus eaters, and so on, but these, except for Chiron, whose role in the myths was as the mentor/trainer of demigods, are all serving different functions in this story than they did in the Greek myths.

And that's just for starters.  There's more to come.
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At Long Last, NEO-MYTHOLOGY Is Here!

English: Various mythos.
English: Various mythos. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I'm taking a break from working on my research paper draft (it's due on Thursday, sigh) because I need one and because I've finally got my critical model in a finished state, or so I hope.  It works not just for Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief but also for a bunch of other films.  So, here are the defining characteristics of the Neo-Mythology genre:
1.  The film (or book, too, I guess) is based on already existing mythology and/or folklore.
2.  It uses elements (characters, plot points, etc.) from that mythology/folklore for other than their original purposes.
3.  It creates a new story out of that material.
4.  It is set in a hidden reality that secretly co-exists with the known current reality.
5.  It is in the form of a quest.

I'll discuss these in my next post (since I've met the required 100-word length already).
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Monday, October 14, 2013

Another "Sword-and-Sandals" is Coming

Gladiator (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys)
Gladiator (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I've been following the Flickering Myth website for a while now, and yesterday they had an item about Hercules:  The Legend Begins (not to be confused with Hercules:  The Legendary Journeys, the '90s tv show with Kevin Sorbo), which is coming out next spring.  The trailer that was just released for the movie bears out almost everything I've been reading in my sources.  It's become obvious to me that this genre is alive and well, and it looks like my research paper (which I need to begin drafting next weekend at the latest) is going to use sword and sandals as a basis for arguing that Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief  represents either a subgenre of it or a "sibling" genre to it, which I am going to call neo-mythology.  
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Who Doesn't Love Big Sweaty Men with Swords?!!

Conan the Barbarian (1982 film)
Conan the Barbarian (1982 film)
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Warning:  if it seems like I am getting away from Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief at times, please bear with me -- it'll all make sense in the end.

Okay, so now, what about pepla?  I found a terrific article (citation below) by Robert A. Rushing, titled "Gentlemen Prefer Hercules: Desire | Identification | Beefcake."  It looks like Rushing is talking precisely about what my mother meant by "gladiator movies."  And he goes on to discuss them in a way that may be the reason my mom was kind of laughing when she talked about them.  Apparently, the big deal about the Italian pepla is their homoerotic appeal.  I haven't actually seen the movies he discusses, but he explains the genre pretty well, and I can see some/a lot of the elements in movies I have seen, like 300, Conan the Barbarian (the Schwartzenegger one), and The Scorpion King (you gotta love The Rock).  Rushing points out that these films "appear to have been consumed primarily by heterosexual, adolescent male viewers, an audience that would seem to have needed some way of negotiating the highly visible and eroticized spectacle of the male body that these films traditionally presented" (162).  So, the primary demographic here was not gay men, but homoerotic element does not seem to deter heterosexual males from watching them.

Naturally, after reading this, I had to talk to my mom again, and this time she was giggling.  "I knew you'd figure it out sooner or later," she said, which wasn't exactly an apology.

Rushing, Robert A., "Gentlemen Prefer Hercules: Desire | Identification | Beefcake."  Camera Obscura 23.69 (Sept 2008):  158-191.  Print.
(note:  still haven't figured out how to do a hanging indent here.  Sorry for you MLA purists)
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And Then There's the Gladiator Genre

Gladiator fights at "Brot und Spiele"...
Gladiator fights at "Brot und Spiele", Germany's biggest Roman festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Everytime I think I'm starting to get a handle on things, I come across a new source that forces me to rethink everything I thought I had resolved.  This time, it's my mom.  I was talking to her yesterday about how much work this is turning out to be, and she wanted to know all about it.  When I told her about my neo-mythology idea, she said, "you mean like gladiator movies?"  Aargh!  So, I had to ask what that meant, and I'll just summarize her explanation.

Gladiator movies, according to Mom, were all over the place in the '50s and '60s, especially at drive-ins and on late-night television.  The hero was obviously a bodybuilder and was usually dressed in a way that exposed his chest and most of his legs.  He always won his fights through his superior strength, and you could never remember the storyline afterwards.

This sounds to me like what they call pepla, and I'll have more to say about that next time.
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Falling Behind in Mythic Fashion

And I Was There
And I Was There (Photo credit: Brave Heart)

Yeah, I'm behind again.  I've turned in my annotated bibliography, and I'm revising my literature review.  For now, I'd like to talk about one of the books I'm using.  It's Rick Altman's Film/Genre, and it's pretty much invaluable for my project, mainly because he covers all of the issues about genre criticism as an approach.  He's apparently an expert on musicals but writes on other genres as well, including sword and sorcery, but he doesn't say anything about sword and sandal, biblical, or pepla.  I've gotten some good material, and the way he talks about specific films has given me a feel for how to use this approach on PJ1.

Altman, Rick.  Film/Genre.  London: BFI, 1999.  Print.




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