Hercules – Review

Hercules

With the voices of Tate Donovan, Rip Torn, et. al.
Written by Ron Clements & John Musker, Donald McEnery & Bob Shaw and Irene Mecchi
Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements (Disney)
by Jamie Kiffel

I was one of the first six-year-olds to see Disney’s The Black Cauldron. With visions of Bambi in our heads, my friend Rachel and I were taken to New York City to view the new cartoon on the mammoth screen at Radio City Music Hall. Today, I do not remember much of that movie. This is because most of my view of it was blocked by Rachel’s hysterically crying head as she lurched in front of me to bury it in her mother’s lap. I remember her shrieking, along with most of the three- to five-year-old matinee crowd, as skeletons on horseback terrifyingly replaced the Rockette kick line. I believe we left early, to the tune of Rachel’s mother scolding severely, “I cannot believe that Disney would do this to the children.” Apparently, many mothers shared her sentiment, because The Black Cauldron was whisked from the theatres before a single Cauldron Weeble could be produced.

Today, I see children sporting Hercules hi-tops, toting Hercules luggage (watch out, Samson), and even challenging the limits of oxymoronics by eating Herculean kids’ meals. In the fifteen years since the release of The Black Cauldron, Disney cartoons have gained popularity in direct proportion to the rate at which they’ve lost many of their moral strictures. Hercules not only features plenty of loud and bloody bugaboos, but goes one step further: it tears up the sweetly-flowered animated landscape of cartoons past to reveal a dark sexuality previously foreign to the Happy Meal set. The devil is free, his woman is loose, and the titans are running wild. Are the children being trampled?

As one would expect, Hercules‘ animation is stunning. Its style is closest to that of Sleeping Beauty: angular, conceptual lines resembling Greek keys compose our hero’s massive pectorals and the graceful Muses who tell his ancient tale. These muses are not only stunning for their craftsmanship, however: they are a full-bodied gospel group, artfully revealing thigh and bosom as they bounce from urn to column, hailing the massive mortal. No tittering Floras, Faunas, or Merriweathers are our succulent storytellers. These ladies bust out of their ancient Roman garb to loose their souls in forties-style Gods-praising. As scantily-clad scribbles, they grab the attention of the adult crowd in the first scene, while their Gospel style is a parent-pleasing joke: they sing of the Greek gods with modern, Louisiana lustiness. Their opening tune, “The Gospel Truth,” clarifies that Hercules‘ ambrosia will be of the three-alarm variety.

Our brazen chorus quickly reveals that Mount Olympus itself is more permissive than any Disney cartoon I remember: for the first time, we see a humanoid couple cuddling in bed. Hera rests on Zeus’ broad, bare chest as the baby Hercules sleeps nearby. This is the first time that a married couple sleeps together in a Disney cartoon (excepting the regal cats in The Lion King). Disney is either acknowledging that today’s preschoolers have largely discovered advanced biology through Baywatch, or it is turning slightly away from the little ones toward an audience that can provide its own milk money.

More insidiously sexual and possibly disillusioning, however, is our leading lady, Megora. During a stroll through a Bambi-esque thicket, she encounters two charming, woodland creatures. In a Snow White-turns-incarnadine moment, she says, “How adorable!” then adds thickly, “rodents.” Obliterating any remaining fantasies of sweet, talking wildlife, these animals instantly turn into Pain and Panic, Hades’ bumbling, demonic sidekicks. Just to add interest to injury, we discover that Megora is on their side.

With the hot-headed Hades as her pimp, Megora is employed to seduce the incredibly sexy but naive Hercules. Unlike the classically infant-faced Disney heroines, Meg has experienced, narrow eyes and a wide, sensuous mouth. She arouses a centaur in a ploy to help her master, and sics a drool-toothed, thousand-headed, computerized Hydra on the lovelorn Herc. Phallic snakes grow continuously from a furious body as the chaste Hercules whacks off head after head, making mythological innards spurt everywhere. Children shiver; Freudians take cold Roman baths. Even when Meg inevitably turns sweet on the neckless hero, she does not lose her smart mouth. When asked by Hades to lure our boy into danger, she audibly spits, “Forget it.” Her lips betray her speech, however; you be the judge of whether her words are G-rated or not. In a nod to those still buying Pampers with her picture on them, Megora interrupts her seduction of the bewildered Herc to comment, “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Despite these atypically adult situations, it is important to note that the tale Disney started with was no children’s bedtime story. In the Greek version, Hercules was the product of one of Zeus’ numerous affairs with mortals. Disney has changed this so that Alcmene, Zeus’ mortal mother, chastely finds him near her doorstep. The original Hercules was tortured not by Hades, but by the betrayed Hera. All adultery is bypassed in this version, in favor of romance with the Damn Yankees-esque temptress, Meg, who works for the devil but who cannot help going soft over the shocking purity of the super-lug. Also merely catering to fairy-tale whimsy is the appearance of Pegasus, who originally had nothing to do with Hercules (he belonged to Perseus). This bird-brained horse provides adorable and clever comic relief.

Hercules‘ monster scenes are serious, as not only Hercules’ or Megora’s lives are in the balance, but the future of the entire universe as well. The titans run wild in an apocalyptic frenzy, roaring enormously as they raze the Theban countryside. Somehow, even this is made light of, however, as Hades directs his cranially-impaired behemoths, “Uh – Mount Olympus is that way.” Scary scenes are made more palatable for little ones with strategically-placed, smiling interjections from the good guys.

Disney somehow escapes with a very precarious balance between adult humor and childish hysteria. The result is cartoon characters that not only children but adults, wondering how to compromise their three-year-old’s Hercules Tot Minder with their desire to critically analyze the animated hero, identify with on multiple psychological levels. Some children still might cry, but then again, so might their parents.