Lifestyle
W
hen I was a teenager in
the summer of 1981, I
was smitten with the film
a
small budget version of
the Greek tale of Perseus.
The gods and goddesses were played by a list of
acting luminaries, including Laurence Olivier,
Ursula Andress, and Maggie Smith, with Harry
Hamlin playing the handsome hero. The real
star of the movie, though, was Ray
Harryhausen’s stop motion animation, used to
create the magnificent creatures of Greek
mythology.
Evidently, the movie captured more than just
imagination, as it was remade with a
grander budget in 2010. This time, Perseus was
played by Sam Worthington, star of
and
an actor everyone knows but can’t necessarily
name. In both films, we are supposed to root
for Perseus, but, instead, I found myself most
fascinated with Medusa.
If you’ve seen
, ever bought
an item with the Versace logo, or studied Greek
mythology, you know about Medusa. She’s a
creature with venomous snakes for hair and so
wretchedly ugly she can turn any man who
looks upon her into stone.
Medusa is a bit player in the odyssey of
Perseus, who heroically beheads her and rids
the world of one more ugly woman. However,
according to Ovid, Medusa wasn’t born a
monster or hatched from a devious god’s egg.
She was a strikingly beautiful priestess of
Athena. Poseidon, god of the seas and brother
of Zeus, was overcome with lust for Athena and
raped her in the middle of her own temple.
If justice were to be served, Athena would
confront Poseidon for his crimes, and the
wicked would be punished, but this ain’t
is ancient Greece! Alas,
Athena knew the old saying among males,
“Don’t get in a pissing match with a man who
has a bigger…” I’m not finishing that sentence.
This political season has been vulgar enough.
So, instead, Athena takes her vengeance out
upon the innocent Medusa, transforming her
into a hideous reptilian form, forcing her to
abandon society and live in a cave to be
despised for nothing more than being hideous
and unwittingly turning meter readers into
statues. Athena punished Medusa in an act of
misdirected retribution over being an unwilling
victim of a crime perpetrated by a man because
was too important to be put on trial.
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