Mythos and Monstrosity: Encountering and Reframing the Modern Medusa

Abstract

This is an analysis and discussion of the impact the character Medusa has on modern United States culture and how the systems traditionally upheld through her mythos are challenged by Luciano Garbati’s statue Medusa with the head of Perseus. Hidden within United States culture, though often overlooked, are myths that maintain systems of oppression such as Medusa whose monstrous nature upholds both her own monstrosity and ‘others’ throughout U.S. society. Her prevalence in the Western culture from 2010 – 2021 demonstrates the perceived need for her mythos as a tool for the traditional organizing of society through the mirroring of historically Western paternalistic, hierarchical, colonial, and capitalistic systems in the United States. The demonstration of agency shown in Medusa with the Head of Perseus allows for queer ways of challenging societal structures and word victim to be brought forth which dismantle accepted oppressive systems placed onto gendered bodies, specifically women and queer people.