Cultural Differences In The Movie Hercules

The lights dim and the curtains open. A young Greek boy is attending a showing of the brand new Disney movie Hercules. The boy had been told the myths of Heraclês his entire life and is ready for an entertaining film. The movie begins and the boy notices some things that are out of place. These include: Zeus and Hera being Hercules’ parents, Megara is not given to Hercules as a prize, and Hercules chooses to stay mortal. The boy is confused why one of his favorite stories is changed so drastically and wanted explanations for these differences. What the boy did not understand at his age was cultural differences. The changes made to the classic Greek myth “Heraclês” to fit the family friendly Disney movie Hercules shows the cultural differences …show more content…
In the myth adaptation, the plot is completely different. Heraclês is only half god and his mother is not Hera. However, in the movie adaptation Hercules is completely god and his mother is Hera. This is because of the family values of American culture. In the myth, Zeus has multiple wives and is involved in a polygamous relationship with his large number of spouses whilst in the movie adaptation Zeus has a single wife and is involved in a completely monogamous relationship. This shows that American culture believes that monogamous relationships are only acceptable whilst Greek culture is more lenient on this subject.. Next, almost everyone that lives on Mount Olympus seems happy and loves each other in the movie adaptation. In the myth however, there are many feuds and the relationships between everyone can be quite crude. Both of these factors go to show that American culture is highly focused on family values. The perfect family in American culture would be the type of family in the movie (except for Hades). There would be no feuds among family members and there would definitely not be any polygamous relationships. To prove this point even further, the whole premise and plot of the source material was changed to fit in with American culture. Furthermore, what the myth says about Greek culture is that they are not as focused on the perfect family like America is. They do not think family is as important as American culture does and they are more lenient over the topic of families. All in all, the differences between the movie and myth show that American culture is very intent on the perfect family, whilst Greek culture is not as focused on family and could care less about a family that is