Gorgons, Hancock, and the power of the gaze
So I know I tend to stir the pot whenever I make posts in here, and it's (usually) not intentional but I just absolutely have to post about this. I've been watching a show on the History Channel the past few weeks called Clash of the Gods that's really interesting for geeks like me who love Greek mythology. This week's show was about Medusa and it explained the basic story of the myth and then got into some historical and cultural elements to explain where the story came from and what it was used to explain, etc., etc. And of course, I got to thinking about Hancock and her connection to all this stuff, and I got to thinking about how both of these characters and their stories can be seen from a modern perspective.
((Wow, I really didn't mean for this to be as long as it is. Sorry about that, the rest is under a cut.))
Now, I'm a film analysis and critique major, so I naturally read into things a lot anyway, but I can't help but notice that both of these stories involve the idea of "the gaze" really predominantly; you have Medusa's gaze which turns anyone who looks at her directly to stone, you have the three Graeae sisters whom Perseus interacts with in order to get the weapons he needs to defeat Medusa and all three of them share one eye, and then you have Hancock who can turn (nearly) anyone who looks at her to stone. In order to get into what I'm talking about, I'll need to explain some theory concepts for anyone who isn't familiar with them, so bear with me and I'll try to be really brief.
The Gaze
In film theory, particularly feminist film theory (which just about every school of film theory uses heavily), there is a concept called "the gaze", and it's extremely important in understanding how media works on the viewer/reader. It can get really complicated, but to attempt and boil it down, basically you have inside the story a gazer and a gazee. The gazer is the one who looks at the gazee, and is in the position of power over them; the gazer can control who s/he looks at, but the gazee cannot control who looks at them, only how much they want to be looked at. Naturally, women are more often the gazee (which is the passive/subordinate role) and men are the gazer (which is the active/dominant role), and I think most people would agree that the "camera" looks at women in different ways than men in order to facilitate the gaze not only of the man/men inside the story, but also the people watching the movie/reading the comic/looking at the art, whatever. It gets complicated. But basically there are three levels of the gaze, the person inside the story looking at something/one, the "camera" looking at something/one, and the viewer looking at something/one. The way the "camera" looks at the object informs the viewer where to look and how to look at it/them. (There are other levels, too, but they get complicated.) Most often, the work in question is made with a male gaze because it is intended for a predominantly male audience, so women are primarily the gazees on all three levels, which helps facilitate men's position in dominance over them. ((If anyone's confused or curious about this stuff, there's loads of fantastic information available, but I'd especially recommend John Berger's Ways of Seeing. It's more about art, but the same basic ideas apply to any visual media, and the description on the page I linked to does a good job of summarizing his main argument.))
Medusa
I doubt very much that the ancient storytellers who first told the story of Medusa had all that in mind, but I have to say, her story works really well with it. In one version of the myth, she was originally an incredibly beautiful woman in service as a priestess to Athena. Because Athena was a virgin goddess, her disciples were expected to be as well, so Medusa was off-limits to marriage and sex. However, that didn't keep Poseidon from desiring her, since since he was a god, he could do whatever he wanted, including raping her inside Athena's temple, which was hugely sacrilegious. Of course, none of this was Medusa's fault, but because Poseidon was a god, Athena couldn't punish him, so, like with most Greek stories, the victim was punished. Athena turned Medusa into a Gorgon and banished her to live on a secluded island for all eternity-- her only visitors would be warriors coming to kill her and steal her power. Of course, any man who looked at her directly would turn instantly to stone, so it's no wonder why Medusa was one of the most pervasively feared monsters-- she turned the male gaze into a huge weakness, rather than a strength, by immobilizing/killing any man who looked at her. Of course, her power was fiercely coveted, and even after death it could be used against people, so loads of people tried to kill her and take her power for themselves. Of course we all know one man eventually did, Perseus. He had help from the gods (he was one of Zeus's many illegitimate sons), and he was also clever and figured out that to look at her in the reflection of his shield would be harmless to him, and so was able to cut off her head and stuff it in a bag. Perseus used her head to do good things, like killing the man forcing his mother into a marriage she didn't want, and so forth. There are a lot of ways to read the meaning of this myth, but one that jumps out is the appropriation of destructive female power by men who then use it to protect, and the sort of "taming" of the powerful, threatening woman. (It's really funny just how many monsters in Greek mythology are female. Huge number. XD) There is also another version where Medusa is one of a trio of Gorgon sisters who live on a secluded island. The rest of the story's pretty much the same, but it's interesting that Oda seems to have combined the two in a way.
Boa Hancock
If you've made it this far, I'm sure you can see where I'm going with all of this. Gorgons were even directly mentioned in the story, since it was what the Boa sisters told the Amazons to keep them from seeing their tattoos. They have Medusa-esque designs, there's a heavy snake motif running through Amazon Lily (the term "amazon" is also from Greek mythology), and there are some pretty clear parallels between Hancock and Medusa, and possibly Luffy and Perseus, if you squint your eyes a little. Only instead of defeating her with his cleverness, it's Luffy's un-cleverness and earnest purity that does it. He doesn't chop off her head, but his purity of desire makes him just as invulnerable to her power as Perseus's shield did to Medusa's, and her love sickness weakens her against him, making her vulnerable and forcing her (possibly willingly) to submit to him, thus allowing him to use her power for good in the attempted rescue of Ace. However, because of the way her personality is constructed, we're likely supposed to desire for her to submit to Luffy (or someone in general) because her power and assertiveness are presented in unpleasant ways, such as her kicking kittens, destroying a statue made for her by children, and turning men to stone simply because they're men. She is not presented as simply a strong, powerful woman, she is presented as a woman who thinks too highly of herself, and who needs to be humbled, preferably by a man, since she has such a problem with them. Instead of doing it by force, Oda sets it up so that she actually wants to submit by having her fall in love, which takes away the troublesome aspect of her being physically beaten into submission, but creates new troublesome aspects in terms of gender roles. While the idea of her learning that not all men are oppressive abusers is not a bad one, nor is the idea of her learning to be compassionate and considerate, the manner in which these ideas are playing out are robbing her of her power, choice, and dignity.
Unlike Medusa, whose appearance itself did not determine her power, Hancock's powers rest almost solely on her ability to visually please people. While she has no control over how attractive she is naturally, and she was likely victimized because of it earlier in life, she now uses it against people. So she, like Medusa, turns the gaze against the gazers in a subversion of power. However, while the people inside the story are all susceptible to it, the people reading the story from the outside (ie: you and me) are not likely to turn to stone no matter how charming someone may find her. So not only is the reader capable of gazing at her, they are encouraged to do so by the way she is presented-- often in provocative, sexy poses, either intentional or unintentional on her part. It's probably done mostly to emphasize her sex appeal, so the reader really gets how sexy she's supposed to be, but at the same time, it also makes her into a sex object, which diminishes her presence as a personality for the sake of her physicality. So even though inside the story, she uses her power to turn the gaze into a weakness, outside the story, she is more susceptible to the gaze than nearly anyone else.
And I need to stop there before I get into things any more than I already have. This is probably a huge, intimidating mess of thoughts that only I find interesting, but after watching that program, I really felt the need to sort of talk this out. I'm posting it in here on the off-chance anyone else might find it interesting, but if you made it this far, then thanks. :) If anyone has anything to add, including a contradicting viewpoint, I'd love to hear it.
((Wow, I really didn't mean for this to be as long as it is. Sorry about that, the rest is under a cut.))
Now, I'm a film analysis and critique major, so I naturally read into things a lot anyway, but I can't help but notice that both of these stories involve the idea of "the gaze" really predominantly; you have Medusa's gaze which turns anyone who looks at her directly to stone, you have the three Graeae sisters whom Perseus interacts with in order to get the weapons he needs to defeat Medusa and all three of them share one eye, and then you have Hancock who can turn (nearly) anyone who looks at her to stone. In order to get into what I'm talking about, I'll need to explain some theory concepts for anyone who isn't familiar with them, so bear with me and I'll try to be really brief.
The Gaze
In film theory, particularly feminist film theory (which just about every school of film theory uses heavily), there is a concept called "the gaze", and it's extremely important in understanding how media works on the viewer/reader. It can get really complicated, but to attempt and boil it down, basically you have inside the story a gazer and a gazee. The gazer is the one who looks at the gazee, and is in the position of power over them; the gazer can control who s/he looks at, but the gazee cannot control who looks at them, only how much they want to be looked at. Naturally, women are more often the gazee (which is the passive/subordinate role) and men are the gazer (which is the active/dominant role), and I think most people would agree that the "camera" looks at women in different ways than men in order to facilitate the gaze not only of the man/men inside the story, but also the people watching the movie/reading the comic/looking at the art, whatever. It gets complicated. But basically there are three levels of the gaze, the person inside the story looking at something/one, the "camera" looking at something/one, and the viewer looking at something/one. The way the "camera" looks at the object informs the viewer where to look and how to look at it/them. (There are other levels, too, but they get complicated.) Most often, the work in question is made with a male gaze because it is intended for a predominantly male audience, so women are primarily the gazees on all three levels, which helps facilitate men's position in dominance over them. ((If anyone's confused or curious about this stuff, there's loads of fantastic information available, but I'd especially recommend John Berger's Ways of Seeing. It's more about art, but the same basic ideas apply to any visual media, and the description on the page I linked to does a good job of summarizing his main argument.))
Medusa
I doubt very much that the ancient storytellers who first told the story of Medusa had all that in mind, but I have to say, her story works really well with it. In one version of the myth, she was originally an incredibly beautiful woman in service as a priestess to Athena. Because Athena was a virgin goddess, her disciples were expected to be as well, so Medusa was off-limits to marriage and sex. However, that didn't keep Poseidon from desiring her, since since he was a god, he could do whatever he wanted, including raping her inside Athena's temple, which was hugely sacrilegious. Of course, none of this was Medusa's fault, but because Poseidon was a god, Athena couldn't punish him, so, like with most Greek stories, the victim was punished. Athena turned Medusa into a Gorgon and banished her to live on a secluded island for all eternity-- her only visitors would be warriors coming to kill her and steal her power. Of course, any man who looked at her directly would turn instantly to stone, so it's no wonder why Medusa was one of the most pervasively feared monsters-- she turned the male gaze into a huge weakness, rather than a strength, by immobilizing/killing any man who looked at her. Of course, her power was fiercely coveted, and even after death it could be used against people, so loads of people tried to kill her and take her power for themselves. Of course we all know one man eventually did, Perseus. He had help from the gods (he was one of Zeus's many illegitimate sons), and he was also clever and figured out that to look at her in the reflection of his shield would be harmless to him, and so was able to cut off her head and stuff it in a bag. Perseus used her head to do good things, like killing the man forcing his mother into a marriage she didn't want, and so forth. There are a lot of ways to read the meaning of this myth, but one that jumps out is the appropriation of destructive female power by men who then use it to protect, and the sort of "taming" of the powerful, threatening woman. (It's really funny just how many monsters in Greek mythology are female. Huge number. XD) There is also another version where Medusa is one of a trio of Gorgon sisters who live on a secluded island. The rest of the story's pretty much the same, but it's interesting that Oda seems to have combined the two in a way.
Boa Hancock
If you've made it this far, I'm sure you can see where I'm going with all of this. Gorgons were even directly mentioned in the story, since it was what the Boa sisters told the Amazons to keep them from seeing their tattoos. They have Medusa-esque designs, there's a heavy snake motif running through Amazon Lily (the term "amazon" is also from Greek mythology), and there are some pretty clear parallels between Hancock and Medusa, and possibly Luffy and Perseus, if you squint your eyes a little. Only instead of defeating her with his cleverness, it's Luffy's un-cleverness and earnest purity that does it. He doesn't chop off her head, but his purity of desire makes him just as invulnerable to her power as Perseus's shield did to Medusa's, and her love sickness weakens her against him, making her vulnerable and forcing her (possibly willingly) to submit to him, thus allowing him to use her power for good in the attempted rescue of Ace. However, because of the way her personality is constructed, we're likely supposed to desire for her to submit to Luffy (or someone in general) because her power and assertiveness are presented in unpleasant ways, such as her kicking kittens, destroying a statue made for her by children, and turning men to stone simply because they're men. She is not presented as simply a strong, powerful woman, she is presented as a woman who thinks too highly of herself, and who needs to be humbled, preferably by a man, since she has such a problem with them. Instead of doing it by force, Oda sets it up so that she actually wants to submit by having her fall in love, which takes away the troublesome aspect of her being physically beaten into submission, but creates new troublesome aspects in terms of gender roles. While the idea of her learning that not all men are oppressive abusers is not a bad one, nor is the idea of her learning to be compassionate and considerate, the manner in which these ideas are playing out are robbing her of her power, choice, and dignity.
Unlike Medusa, whose appearance itself did not determine her power, Hancock's powers rest almost solely on her ability to visually please people. While she has no control over how attractive she is naturally, and she was likely victimized because of it earlier in life, she now uses it against people. So she, like Medusa, turns the gaze against the gazers in a subversion of power. However, while the people inside the story are all susceptible to it, the people reading the story from the outside (ie: you and me) are not likely to turn to stone no matter how charming someone may find her. So not only is the reader capable of gazing at her, they are encouraged to do so by the way she is presented-- often in provocative, sexy poses, either intentional or unintentional on her part. It's probably done mostly to emphasize her sex appeal, so the reader really gets how sexy she's supposed to be, but at the same time, it also makes her into a sex object, which diminishes her presence as a personality for the sake of her physicality. So even though inside the story, she uses her power to turn the gaze into a weakness, outside the story, she is more susceptible to the gaze than nearly anyone else.
And I need to stop there before I get into things any more than I already have. This is probably a huge, intimidating mess of thoughts that only I find interesting, but after watching that program, I really felt the need to sort of talk this out. I'm posting it in here on the off-chance anyone else might find it interesting, but if you made it this far, then thanks. :) If anyone has anything to add, including a contradicting viewpoint, I'd love to hear it.