Classical mythology has been consistently inspiring art and entertainment over the years for a nearly inconceivable amount of time. As a die hard classics student (and all around nerd), I am always excited to find new adaptations to these familiar stories and see just how much variety exists among them.
The 2004 movie Troy, for example, tells the story of Homer’s Iliad. The movie received good ratings and much acclaim when it first came out, yet I have not met a single person today that still enjoys this movie. And this is not just a generational split—many of my teachers also deem this movie to be nearly unwatchable. It seems that somewhere between the sparklingly all-white cast and the complete erasure of the Achilles-Patroclus arc, this movie falls short for most modern audiences.
To contrast this, as fellow Arts students I’m sure a good number of you grew up reading, and thoroughly enjoying, the Percy Jackson books. This series is unique in that it was written for a generation of young people who had novel ways of communicating directly with the author as he continued writing. Rick Riordan took advice and criticism directly from his readers through channels such as Twitter, and his later books reflect this. The Percy Jackson books now have one of the most diverse cast of characters among mainstream children’s / YA books today while still gathering its inspiration from the original Greek myths.
So what’s the point? Why retell the story of Hercules or the Trojan War over and over again if the adaptations might not stand the test of time? I believe this question can be answered by one of the quotes from week 4: “our approach to the past is always made from the present.” It seems to me that these kinds of stories are usually more useful in revealing things about the era in which they were written, not the one they are writing about.
And this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. The sheer timelessness of Grecoroman mythology has already proven that the core stories have always, and will always, resonate with audiences on a fundamental basis. It’s just that with each new adaptation, we get a unique look into the time period and environment in which it was written.
We were asked in class, “when interpreting history, what measures could one take to maintain historical integrity?” I don’t know that complete historical integrity will ever be attainable, but I do think that these new ways of storytelling have value simply in the fact that they reflect the contemporary environment in which they are told. Disney’s Hercules reveals much more about Western culture in the 90s than it does about the ancient Greeks, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a fantastic movie with a banging soundtrack.
New audiences need new stories, and I for one am not complaining that while it continues to evolve, humanity always seems to come back to the Olympian gods and their favorite heroes.
References:
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/anti/hd_anti.htm
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/percy-jackson-problem
I love this! I agree in saying that the way in which a story is told is more of an indicator towards the period in which the story is being told, rather than the period of the story itself. Mythology is a great example of this as it is, as you said, used and repeated over and over in many forms of media. The way Zeus is depicted now compared to how he may have been before speaks worlds to the changes a story can have overtime. After all, you don’t see many stories praising Zeus as being almighty anymore!
Great post Midori! My friend and I have actually both been re-reading the Percy Jackson books recently and were struck by how they seamlessly interweave Greco-Roman mythohistory and contemporary culture. I think that the impact of youth literature on readers is often underestimated in this respect. Percy Jackson was a formative aspect of my childhood and I honestly think it’s one of the reasons that I am studying classics in my degree! This is just one of the reasons why I think that’s it’s so important to have stories that reflect contemporary values and morals. I do not think that historical integrity within a novel is compromised by using stories as a jumping-off point into fascinating new worlds 🙂
Yesss, I really want to reread them because I feel like I’ll be able to recognize A LOT more of the stories if I read them now. I agree with everything you said. There was some stuff I found while doing research for this post that I couldn’t include because of the word count, but there are some New Yorker and Atlantic articles that completely tear apart the Percy Jackson books in claiming that they “defame the classics” in some way by modernizing some aspects and are corrupting children??
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/percy-jackson-problem
I don’t know, it just seemed so out of touch to me that these adults were condemning Rick for moulding the stories to better reflect contemporary society and values when that’s exactly what the Romans did to the Greeks lol.
Really fun read, Midori! I loved your discussion on the evolution of storytelling over time – it’s fascinating to think that the same stories from so long ago are still being repeated, but in different forms depending on the generation they are told within. It’s only become more clear to me that the media we create is nigh inseparable from the circumstances of that creation, and that the return to the old classics is often motivated by a desire to understand modern society through the lenses of those that have come before. The cultural comparison can help us investigate pretty deep truths about human nature as well as what’s changed over time, and there is a lot of value in being able to do that.
…it’s also just fun to read an urban fantasy romp based on Greek and Roman mythology that fits some really cool concepts into a familiar time and place.
As an avid reader of the Percy Jackson series back in the day, I completely agree with your post Midori. As a series which bases itself entirely on being historically inaccurate (unless the Grecoroman Gods really are living in central Manhattan), it is difficult to see how the series could have any historical value to it whatsoever. However, its value far exceeds movies like Troy and (in my opinion) Clash of the Titans, both of which attempt to portray events in a modern, gritty and realistic tone; PJ creates interest in its readers to learn more about the historical backgrounds, whilst actually being fairly accurate to mythology in individual instances. When delving into myths and legends of different societies, it is easy to apply the wrong lens through which to depict their stories. For future representations, I would advise creators to consider how historical accuracy ought factor into the story they want to tell. In the Rome HBO series, the lives of Caesar, Cicero and many other famous Romans are depicted in fairly truthful ways, but minor inaccuracies in an otherwise solid show are seen as justifiable, given the natural information gaps where records are incomplete. After all, given the lack of literature and stories we really have about the Olympian Gods and their heroes, it’s only fair to give people wishing to tell their stories some slack (just not too much!).
I very much agree with this post. I love the part about ‘our approach to the past is always made from the present’. It’s very interesting to me to look at similarities between Greco-Roman culture of the past and compare it to today’s climate. One of my closest friends is part of the LGBT+ community, and I can vividly remember her excitedly telling me about Sappho the poet, Achilles and Patroclus. For her, it was exciting to be finally learning about LGBT+ people who existed outside the 20th and 21st century. It is a sign of evolving times, however slowly. It’s also amazing to see depictions of Zeus finally shift away from all-powerful-and-righteous-lightning-god to the more accurate eager-to-mess-as-many-things-up-as-possible kind of depiction. Learning that Cerberus was potentially called ‘Spot’ was also fantastic.
This was a fantastic post Midori! I find that timeless ideas, themes or characters in classical stories still resonate to this day, however it is modern interpretations of them that re-contextualize and essentially re-brand them for modern audiences. For me the Percy Jackson books were vastly influential in my childhood – I think I read the series 5 or 6 times as a young adult. The mythology, adventures and heroism was always captivating, however it was the contemporary aspects that made them so intriguing. The idea that our own views and society influences our approach to the past is especially poignant, as often the perception of historical figures will change over time due to changing social values. The idea that classical myths and stories can be used to interpret not only universal and enduring human dilemmas (love and loss, struggle and triumph, etc) but also reveal truths about our own contemporary society is particularly intriguing.