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going to try to keep this brief, link other threads because people have already said a lot of great stuff here! mostly i want to focus on the way this medusa's is represented and what work it does in creating an ideal of heroic survivorship that i actually think is quite harmful

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Rachel Holliday Smith

@rachelholliday

whoa. a seven-foot-tall bronze sculpture of "Medusa With The Head of Perseus" will be installed across the street from 100 Centre St., Manhattan's criminal courthouse this weekend, a commentary on the #MeToo movement mwthproject.com/oct-2020

3:42 PM · Oct 10, 2020

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in general i tend to bristle at pieces of art where medusa is made conventionally attractive as soon as we're asked to flip the mythological script and sympathize with her

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what i mean when i say "conventionally attractive" in these pieces is (usually) traditionally feminine (e.g., no facial hair); depicted as white or given features typically ascribed to whiteness; thin; fewer monstrous features (often snake hair alone)

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not to let the greeks and romans off the hook, this is a process that was already underway in ancient representations. see the shift from overtly monstrous (many archaic representations) to basically an average pretty woman a few snakes in her hair (later classical & roman)

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at the risk of oversimplifying, scholars have noted how this shift at least correlates with the diminishing of women's roles in classical athens, how medusa may be represented in a more feminized way in scenes where her visual agency is diminished (i'll put cites at the end!)

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to jump back ahead to contemporary depictions, i often find that the "taming" of monstrous qualities manifests as selection of a more conventionally feminized appearance for the viewer to extend sympathies to, imagine as capable of representing a certain idealized victim/survivor

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the centre street statue is definitely more of the "woman with some snake hair" type. she's got no tusks or facial hair, no body hair at all (as many have noted). she's also very thin, thinner than most women & goddesses in classical statues that this pieces is answering.

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she's just beheaded perseus but has no muscle (as if any body hair, fat, or muscle on a woman is potentially as monstrous as fangs?). the muted, traditional femininity is there, yoked to her appearance of whiteness (in that typical femininity is imagined as white femininity).

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i personally find that the nudity only adds to this sense of medusa as an attractive victim/survivor -- i understand here it's engaging with heroic nudity of male figures in classical/classicizing statues, but the artist could have chosen /not/ to play by those rules.

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i think overall one of the effects of this representation, when coupled with its monumental intention or message (inscription via social media marketing?), is to produce this sort of body as belonging to the idealized victim of sexual violence or rape culture

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we are invited to sympathize with the woman who has been raped (and get excited about her apparent reclamation of power, which is complicated and more below) but only to the extent that her body is publicaly visible as white, typically feminine, thin, hairless, etc.

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i'm going to resist citation anxiety here so you'll all have to trust me when i say that this is an image that exists already and that is used to discount and ignore violence perpetrated against women (and other ppl distanced from hegemonic manhood) who don't fit the ideal.

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and despite its placement at centre st, the image of the lone, heroic survivor seeking revenge on her own terms stops at taking down individual perpetrators and not the systems, institutions of power that enable sexual violence. more in this great thread:

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@AnneMartinConn

Replying to @AnneMartinConn

Most important—the “Medusa inversion” is emblematic of how we rely on individual women to carry the burden of what should be challenges to policies, laws & hegemonic power. (this text from @johannafateman is really helpful) #MeToo

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last note: i've seen people commenting on how it's mortal lackey perseus and not divine rapist poseidon with his head on the chopping block. again, i know it's abt cellini's sculpture. the irony stands. where's the accountability for perpetrators of violence in seats of power?

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some references on the taming/feminizing of medusa in ancient art - kiki karoglou for the met is a good starting point, available to read online here (metmuseum.org/art/metpublica) - kathryn topper, "perseus, the maiden medusa, and the imagery of abduction"

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also beth cohen and diana buitron-oliver's chapter in "the distaff side: representing the female in homer's odyssey" on representations of the female/feminized monsters of that epic in art, following similar trends of taming and beautification

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