Metamorphoses of Medusa: The Reception of the Gorgon in 21st-century Culture for Children and Young Adults

Authors

Keywords:

gorgoneion, Medusa in 20th/21st-century retellings of Greek myths, motif of turning into stone, reception of the Perseus and Medusa myth in Clash of the Titans (1981 and 2010); Medusa, hair, agency, children, children’s literature, dual audience, classical reception studies, mythology, monster, family, identity, control, socialization, Joan Holub, Leslie Patricelli, Suzanne Williams; acceptance, gods and goddesses, friendship, Medusa, monster, Olympian pantheon, preadolescence, transformation, Joan Holub, Suzanne Williams; Gorgoneous families, male Medusa, coming of age, attractive monsters, teenagers, meaning of true love and friendship, Legacies, Monster High; Atlantis, curse, friendship, Hercules, Jason, love, Medusa, monster, sacrifice, prophecy, Pythagoras; age, fairy tale, Mère Méduse, Kitty Crowther, monster, motherhood, old adults, Percy Jackson, Rick Riordan, witch

Abstract

This text has been prepared within the project Our Mythical Childhood... The Reception of Classical Antiquity in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture in Response to Regional and Global Challenges, which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 681202, ERC Consolidator Grant (2016-2021), led by Katarzyna Marciniak, Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, the University of Warsaw.  

Medusa is one of the best known mythical creatures, a monster par excellence. Ancient literature transmits two versions of her story – a primordial being from pre-Olympian times (Hesiod, Theogony 270-285) and a young woman who was raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple and punished by being transformed into a hideous beast for what the goddess presumed was a dreadful sacrilege (Ovid, Metamorphoses 4,753-803). Down through the millennia of classical reception, Medusa appeared mainly as a killing monster to be defeated by the hero on his “Campbellian” journey to glory (Campbell 2004). Then Hélène Cixous listened to her voice as that of a victim – with a particular focus on her womanhood – and made Medusa an icon for generations of women who suffered innocently due to a range of societal factors (Cixous 1976). 
Is a similar reversal of perspective also valid in the culture for a young audience? Does this culture feature Medusa simply as a monster, or rather as a victim? Or perhaps there are more roles for her still? We have attempted to answer these questions by taking as our starting point an analysis of Medusa’s reception in two movies – namely, Clash of the Titans, the original from 1981 and the remake from 2010. This analysis reveals characteristic traits of her image as encoded in the 1980s, a period of particular importance for the development of popular culture, and compares them with the representation transformed into a believable 21st-century protagonist and following the demands of a 21st-century audience. The study of the Medusa characters in the two Clashes is interspersed with an overview of the most relevant ancient sources and the contemporary narrative both by scholars and popularizers of Classical Antiquity. 
Then, we propose a short survey of selected, mostly globally accessible works. Each is dedicated to a specific stage of Medusa’s life. First, we meet a child taking her first steps in the world (the picture book Brush Your Hair, Medusa! by Joan Holub and Leslie Patricelli). Second, we face a teen who discovers the meaning of true acceptance (The Goddess Girls series by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams). Third, we follow a maturing girl (and boy) building her (his) identity (the TV series Monster High and Legacies – a spin-off of The Vampire Diaries). Subsequently, we see a grown-up woman who fights for her right to happiness (BBC TV series Atlantis). Next, we observe an elderly lady torn between love and hate (Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan). And finally, we encounter a mother who learns her role in society (the picture book Mère Méduse by Kitty Crowther). 
This composite, literary-audio-visual curriculum vitae of Medusa permits us to risk casting a new look at this mythical creature. Does she still petrify with the gaze of a monster, or is she a victim? Or, above all, is she able to become a guide for contemporary children and young adults to better awareness of themselves and greater empathy towards the Other? 

Author Biographies

is a classical philologist and media scholar at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw. She published editions of Claudian (E. J. Brill) and Cicero (Bibliotheca Teubneriana) preceded by new examinations of the manuscript tradition. She worked at the University of Geneva and at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. She then spent almost three decades at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where she published a six-volume series “Challenges for International Broadcasting” and a monograph “The Age of International Radio: Radio Canada International 1945-2007”. Since 2009 at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales”; actively involved in research, conferences, and publications, in particular, in two large international programs, Classics & Communism and Our Mythical Childhood, an ERC funded innovative research program under the direction of Katarzyna Marciniak, exploring the reception of Classical Antiquity in children’s and young adults’ culture. Olechowska’s own research within the OMC centres on the reception of Graeco-Roman classics in contemporary audio-visual culture. 

is Professor, Director of the Centre for Studies on the Classical Tradition (OBTA), and Vice-Dean for International Cooperation at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw. Her PhD thesis, under supervision of Prof. Jerzy Axer, focused on Cicero’s translations from Greek into Latin. In 2011, she established the international team programme, “Our Mythical Childhood”, bringing together scholars from various continents with the aim of studying the reception of Classical Antiquity in children’s and young adults’ culture. She is laureate of a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Grant, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Alumni Award for Innovative Networking Initiatives, and the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant. She also writes for children and has published two volumes of myths for young readers. Her poems about a cat that surfs the Internet and a lion visiting the hairdresser received a nomination for the Book of the Year 2016 award of the Polish Section of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). 

is a PhD student at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw, and a research technical assistant in the ERC-founded project “Our Mythical Childhood…The Reception of Classical Antiquity in Children and Young Adults’ Culture in Response to Regional and Global Challenges”. Her doctoral dissertation is about transformations of the mythological female figures in contemporary Italian literature for children and young adults. 

is a cultural studies scholar and historian (graduate from Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań) focusing on the reception of Classical Antiquity (especially the image of Cleopatra VII – PhD in 2017: “Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt: Between Historical Narration and Popular Culture”); recipient of scholarships, she published academic papers on topics of ancient history and cultural studies; active participant and organizer of conferences and educational expeditions, as well as coordinator of academic and cultural events (including an exhibition entitled “Egyptomania” and a project called “Metamorphosis”). Adjunct at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales” of the University of Warsaw. She participates in the project directed by Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak “Our Mythical Childhood... The Reception of Classical Antiquity in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture in Response to Regional and Global Challenges”, funded by an ERC Consolidation Grant. Her current research centers on the reception of Classical Antiquity in toys and games for children and youth. 

MA in Cultural Studies (Mediterranean Civilization), University of Warsaw; she is currently a PhD student at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw and a research assistant in the project “Our Mythical Childhood... The Reception of Classical Antiquity in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture in Response to Regional and Global Challenges” (ERC Consolidator Grant) directed by Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak, at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales” UW. Her PhD dissertation deals with the transformation of Queen Cleopatra’s image in children’s and youth culture.  

holds an MA in Polish Philology and is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, advised by Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak and Prof. Grzegorz Leszczyński. Mik’s research interests cover the study of monstrosity, human-animal studies, minority discourses, and children’s culture. She is a Research Assistant in Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak’s ERC-funded project “Our Mythical Childhood… The Reception of Classical Antiquity in Children and Young Adults’ Culture in Response to Regional and Global Challenges”. Mik is also a member of a Research Laboratory of Children’s and Young Adult Literature directed by Dr. Weronika Kostecka, University of Warsaw.

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Published

2021-02-24

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libri liberorum (Jahrgang 21/ Heft 54-55/ 2020)

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Artikel

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