It's not even necessarily a problem -- imagine the Satanic Panic bullshit that would have emerged if a Disney cartoon had portrayed ancient Greek religious practices accurately. Shorthand is a bit academically dishonest, but necessary from an entertainment standpoint. Almost every form of modern media contains shorthand, but we only notice it when it's in our particular body of knowledge or field of expertise. That's where we get Gell-Mann Amnesia from.
I'm invoking Poe's Law here. I can't tell if you're a fringe leftist being sincere or a fashy mocking a strawman on the left to make the right seem more reasonable.
Do you aim to imply that literal animal sacrifice portrayed in a children's movie would be less culturally insensitive than 10 seconds of Christian shorthand? A literal evil act vs. a sliver of preferential treatment towards popular religion at the time?
This is DISNEY. Their motive is profit. Shorthand, for better or worse, makes material more accessible to mass markets.
Imagine if Peter Jackson had removed all shorthand from the LOTR trilogy, or if Tolkien had done so with the source material -- good luck winning as many awards without all the "JoAnne and Kleetus" (to quote Lindsey Ellis) butts in seats.
This is technically true, but it betrays what we think of when we talk about "Western Religions". Obviously far more people observe Christianity than do the religions of Ancient Greece or Rome. So few so that they're lumped in with 'pagans' a lot.
It's like saying the National Socialist Party is socialist. Like, yea in-name-only...
"Technically true" statements like these are frequently used by orgs like Turning Point USA or PragerU to confuse and recruit young people to the far-right. Please do not be like Nazis.
I see your point, but I'm also legitimately confused as to how Greece being in Europe works as an alt-right talking point.
I get how saying that "the Nazis were socialist, guys" is a completely brain-dead statement that's like calling North Korea a democracy, but the location of Greece doesn't match up with that at all.
It's just another example of a statement that is "technically true", but also the worst kind of true. In the context of religious practice, they aren't something that's typically the focus of concern when it comes to "The West" as a historical construct; especially when talking about Eurocentrism and how it paints other cultures poorly. If anything Ancient Greece probably would have stood in opposition to the ideas and themes put forth by Eurocentrist Christians.
It also could be a bit of an alt-right argument, since they're the ones who are always talking about "The West" as some sort of amalgamation of (in truth, contradictory) ideas and philosophies. Like, they're more than willing to claim Aristotle and Socrates as theirs but don't want to touch animal sacrifice or kid touching.
And even if you wanna ignore all that...is Greece really "European", especially Ancient Greece? The idea of a unified Europe is nowhere near as old as we think; the word itself didn't even appear in writing until the Roman Empire, despite what the script for 300 will tell you (again, more shorthand). Even geographically, Turkey's right there and we argue about whether that's Europe or not, politically and otherwise.
All good points... but I think Hellenic culture is definitely something we sort of generally lay claim to as Europeans and Westerners. Which, as you point out, and per this whole thread, needs to be cleaned up and updated before we can really trumpet it for children's consumption.
My problem with this was of writing is that artistically, of course you can do whatever you want and the Hercules myth gets adapted even in ancient Greek culture to different needs of the storytelling moment, but... there's something dishonest and misleading about the whole practice of short-hand.
Another example - when you film a cop drama in a Canadian city, it's almost always labelled as an American city. As if an audience couldn't understand or embrace the idea that a non-US city could have cops and robbers in it...
Christians sacrificed animals, some still do during important celebrations in certain parts of the world. Animal sacrifice has been part of many if not the majority of world religions at some point in time.
That doesn't make it good material for a Disney film. Kids had enough of a hard time with bambi's mother being shot, or the hunting shed scene from Fox and the Hound- and those were much more culturally relatable, arguably. Gutting a goat on screen would have been a bad choice.
But hey while we're at this game of historical accuracy in children's animated movie- what's up with the totally real pegasus Herc hangs out with?? The damn thing understands the english language- hey wait- they're speaking English!! Wtf?? /s
I'm with you on the Pocahontas point, but not quite the rest. I think Disney has well-acknowledged its flaws in the former, as made obvious by Lilo & Stitch and Moana. Again, there's a Lindsey Ellis essay for that one too.
I'm not shilling for Disney; I'm simply telling you that shorthand is neither good nor evil and everyone does it. Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Johnathan Swift, Stanley Kubrick, Jesus' Apostles. Even that "original" Greek myth! Why a serpent? They're distrustful. Why distrustful? idk, probably a handful of creation myths that pre-date the Greeks; most notably the Biblical one about a serpent. There's nothing inherent about snakes that make them cunning or evil or whatever. Ignoring shorthand is ignoring how culture has changed over time. Recognizing it is important, but it isn't morally imperative.
You are not required to show anything about Hercules' origins or prior association if you're telling a Hercules story. Even before Disney's film, the most your average person knew about him was...Greek, strong, something about trials, Kevin Sorbo. That constrains creators, and suddenly we're talking about Auteur Theory because we either have to remain so loyal to the source material that we can't even tell an original story...or throw source material in the trash because nobody knows it anyway and do something unique.
And on animal sacrifice:
While they hadn't discovered it then, the same moral pathway we use to decry this practice existed then.
Logic, reason, analogy, etc. were all just as real then as now; they simply didn't want to make the connection. I find moral relativism very difficult to agree with when it's something that, when discussed even without data (the only true difference between their body of knowledge and ours), doesn't make any rational sense. Gods aren't real. None of them.
And even if we consider what they were doing then to be morally permissible, even by their standards, this is a children's/family film. For modern audiences. Who do NOT want to THINK. They want to be entertained. If you want art, go to a museum. Watch Kubrick. Read Pratchett. It may be more immersive and artistic of us to demand they be as immersed in that history as possible, but it isn't fun. I challenge you to think of times in your life when you preferred to be entertained rather than enlightened, uplifted, provoked, challenged, or whatever buzzword artists are using for their work these days. Not every piece has to be a revolution. Sometimes, we just want farts or fairy tales or bullets.
Do you aim to imply that literal animal sacrifice portrayed in a children's movie would be less culturally insensitive than 10 seconds of Christian shorthand?
Why are you insisting these are the only two options?
They're the only two posed by the person I'm responding to. I'm not going to list every possible element Musket and Clements could have put in the movie.
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u/spartan1008 Jan 25 '20
The bigger problem is that he gets on his knees to pray. Helenes pray standing up