Things You Can Learn by Watching the Animated Film Hercules with a Seventh Grade Class

1) Seventh graders don't like musicals. Or rather, they don't like the songs in musicals, being quiet during musicals, or learning anything from musicals. The best you can get from them is that, they will, very grudgingly, accept that musicals exist, and possibly keep their eyes open and focused in the general direction of the screen, if only to keep themselves informed on when they should open their mouths to mock the characters pouring out their souls on screen. Every time a new song came on, I had to brace myself for the onslaught of the collective sigh that suddenly overtook the classroom.

2) American students have no background information on anything myth related. (If it wasn't in Clash of the Titans, they don't know it.) Not only do they not know what a demigod or Greek myth is (I'm relatively sure they thought Hercules' name was actually Kevin Sorbo and that he would later go onto captain a star ship called the Andromeda or something along those lines.)

3) All American students watch Family Guy:
No American students know who Hades is (beyond incorrectly labeling him the lord of Hell, and thinking he is Satan) but, ironically, all American students know who James Woods (the voice of Hades) is. "Oh, a piece of candy" was the joke of the week.

4) The fake watch salesman, a popular joke of my youth, is dead and buried. It has gone the way of the DoDo and been replaced by "the flasher." There is a scene, in the first half of Hercules where a man springs in front of Herc in the city of Thebes and throws his cloak open wide..."wanna' buy a sun dial?" I remember this joke, I remember seeing this movie. I distinctly remember not thinking "that guy is about to show his junk to Hercules!" Each class very audibly gasped in surprise or said "eeeeeew" when this scene played out. Humor has definitely shifted in the past ten years, and this joke didn't make the cut. In fact, now, it's mildly offensive (or terrifying.)

5) Disney does what it wants. If you watch a movie such as Hercules with your kids, or younger siblings, you don't really think about how entirely inaccurate the movie is in regards to Greek culture and mythology and you just enjoy the movie and the song and dance routines therein.

However, when you are in a class, and expected to answer questions on said movie, you realize that Disney got just about everything wrong when considering the myth as it was originally told.(Some examples are as follows:)

REAL MYTH:
Mother: Alcemene
Status: Demigod
Events: Murders his own children in a sorcery induced rage.
Muses: Nine goddesses of the arts.
Twelve Labors: Twelve hardest tasks known to man.
Titans: Zeus' parents.Former Lords of The Universe.
Timeline: Hercules proceeds the more common, and human, heroes such as Achilles and Jason.

Disney's version:
Mother: Hera
Status: god
Events: Turned into a super strong mortal by a potion Hades concocted.
Muses: Five black gospel singers.
Twelve Labors: Hades minions.
Titans: Hades minions.
Timeline: Hercules is trained by a goat and comes along well after a string of lesser heroes, and apparently, the Battle of Troy.


These are just a few of the incongruities that had to be addressed, in some manner, during the movie. I felt it was unwise to get into things like "no Greek god would ever be depicted to have pecs that big" (in regards to Zeus.) Or, "why was Hera mad? Well, you see, Zeus was a cheater. He cheated. Infidelity and all that...no, Fidelity is the name of a bank...look Zeus loved women and women loved Zeus. Moving on."

6) Seventh graders have no concept of historical time lines. I give you the case of: Heracles vs. Hercules. When explaining that the Roman's being the totally awesome, yet distinctly creativity lacking imperialists that they were, just jacked the Greek god's right out from under the Greek's (decidedly conquered) noses, I had to explain ideas like:

1) Greek language vs. Roman language
2) The Renaissance: A fascination with "the classics" led to Renaissance scholars discovering planets, and naming them after the Roman gods, not, as one of my seventh graders succinctly put it: "So, uhm, the Romans named their gods after the planets...right?"
3) "Troy was more than a movie with Brad Pitt in it, and the original story--the Illiad--no not the Alien, no not the Idiot, the Ill--the guys who...are you laughing at Trojan because a condom company? Really? Guuuuuys....the story had much great ramifica--again with the laughter, really?"

"Ha. Ha. you said ram."