Dear Cinemythologists,
On Tuesday, September 15, our unit on Perseus on screen comes to a head. Please do the following.
VIEWING
- Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (Chris Columbus, 2010)
Streaming on Amazon Prime. Take notes as you see fit. You might consider how the movie treats some of the characters we’ve seen before, such as Medusa and Hades.
READING
- McWeeny, Drew. 2010. Interview with Chris Columbus and Craig Titely. (Originally posted on hitfix.com.)
Insights into the intentions of the film’s creative team.
- Paule, Maxwell T. 2020. “The Whitening Thief: Latent White Supremacy in Percy Jackson.” eidolon.pub. January 22.
Paule makes the case for the inherent racism of the first PJ novel; let’s see whether Paule’s ideas apply to the first entry in the abortive film series.
NOTE: This essay appeared in the journal Eidolon, which is devoted to (as its tagline reads) “Classics without fragility.” Given that the novels are much cherished by many young adults today, please try to maintain an open mind, or at least a sense of detachment, while reading and discussing this piece.
SEQUENCES
- Graubart, Padala, Ricci.
Use the comments feature on this post to recommend a sequence to be reviewed and discussed in class.
Recommendations should contain the following:
- A brief description of the sequence.
- Precise starting and ending times (hh:mm:ss — hh:mm:ss).
- A rationale as to why this sequence is worth our time.
DC
