Mini Curiosity: Percy Jackson and the Olympians

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[Reading] The Stranger by Albert Camus 

[Listening] Soul Christmas

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The Gospel Truth: Percy Jackson Goes the Distance

Much like Real Housewife of Salt Lake City Angie Katsanevas, I'm obsessed with being (half) Greek. Indeed, you can only reread Stephen Fry's Mythos, Heroes, Troy, and Odyssey or relisten to the back-catalogs of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, or The Ancients so many times.

I binged the first season of ​Percy Jackson and the Olympians over a weekend and loved every bonkers minute! And the second season is off to a legendary start, even featuring an ironclad!

Since elementary school, I have been obsessed with Civil War ironclads, which is funny for a pacifist ironically named after a twentieth-century general. But I've been gripped by these silly ships since playing Pigskin and Slamjam in Social Studies. Both were ten-week U.S. geography trivia worksheets that required using actual atlases (books of maps, not the Titan) and encyclopedias (because the internet was off-limits and honestly not super helpful in the 1990s). Anyway, one of the perennial questions asked something like which team would fly closest to a sunken ironclad? and what cape did the ironclad sink in? and bonus: what is the name of the ironclad? Obviously, the last answer is the USS Monitor.

The thing I like most about Percy Jackson and the Olympians ​is how the show (I know it was a book series first, but I haven't read it and do not plan to) translates Greek mythology into a contemporary setting. The show achieves this by layering different historical aesthetics onto the present. In addition the aforementioned ironclad (crewed by the dead), the show also incorporates Art Deco architecture and motifs, which lends an air eeriness and spiritualism and opulence to the show.

Percy Jackson also does a stellar job of imaginatively mapping the mythical Aegean onto the continental United States with the Sea of Monsters translocated to the Bermuda Triangle or the Gateway Arch in St. Louis morphing into a temple to Athena (and a brief critique of American settler-colonialism!) or the secret entry to Hades' realm being guarded by a tacky 1970s-inspired Procrustes in a Los Angeles mattress store. This show! 

Anyway, here is the good, the bad, and the queer for Percy Jackson and the Olympians:

The Good

• Daddy Poseidon — uff da
• Mariah Carey saving the day!
• Jason Mantzoukas and Jay Duplass
• ​Diverse cast adds depth to mythology
• Timothy Simons' Gargamel-esque Tantalus 
• Successfully dodging Disney's dead mom trope

The Bad

• Feminist icon Medusa meeting her fate at the hand of yet another Percy
• Occasionally glimpsing Tyson's real eyes under his CGI monop

​
The Queer
While the queerness of Greek mythology and society seems to have been erased for the comfort of Disney audiences, viewers familiar with the mythology can still glimpse it in palimpsestic relief. And Percy and his fellow demigods offer a parallel for queer and trans audiences, existing out of sync with dominant human (hetero-patriarchal) society. As Percy and company navigate their non-normative godlike identities, LGBTQ+ viewers have an opportunity to safely explore ways of being and accepting their own identities.

Finally, Percy Jackson offers viewers a Harry Potter-like experience without all the violently anti-trans, occasionally racist baggage.  

Thank you very much for your time. If you have recommendations or curiosities, please fill out this nifty contact form.

Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, 

Creighton 

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