Hercules - The Disney movie that annoyed the Greeks

Kriton Kyrimis kyrimis at cti.gr
Thu Aug 28 16:13:17 CEST 2003


> I just saw that someone mentioned Hercules. As far as I remember that movie
> did annoy many Greeks because Disney used a Latin name on an ancient Greek
> God. The Greeks thus think that the correct title for that movie and its
> hero as well, would have been Herakles. Hopefully some of our Greek friends
> here can tell us more about this.

Speaking for myself, I don't think that calling the film "Heracles"
instead of "Hercules" would have made Greeks suddenly like it; probably
quite the opposite, as giving the Greek name of the hero to the movie
would have implied that the film revolved around the actual Greek legend,
instead of being some Disneyfied interpratation thereof, that Disney's
producers deemed suitable for a general audience.  This, I gather,
was the main reason that Greeks weren't so keen on the movie.

No I haven't seen the film, but given that the Heracles legend is not
much of a family story, considering that it involves such wholesome
themes as sex, adultery, murder, jealousy, rape, and tons of dung (a la
Monty Python), I would be extremely surprised if the film were at all
faithful to the legend.

	Kriton	(e-mail: kyrimis at cti.gr)
	      	(WWW:    http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis)
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"There are finer thieves than I.  Time, for example.  Eventually, it steals
 everything."
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