Herc is kidnapped by agents of Hades, turned nearly mortal, and grows up as a klutzy teenager. In the Disney version, Zeus and Hera are a happily married pair who give birth to a bouncing baby god, Hercules. Uranus, by the way, was married to his mother. He married his sister and castrated his father, Uranus, before deposing him. His daddy, Zeus, got to be king of the gods after making his own royal father, Cronus, disgorge all of Zeus’ brothers and sisters, who then whipped their papa and put him in prison. Hercules may have been an Olympian blueblood, but his forebears were pure trash. Zeus’ jealous wife, Hera, tried to kill the baby Hercules and, failing that, later caused him to go mad, leading him to slaughter his wife, Megara, and their three children. In tales from antiquity, Hercules was the bastard son of the god Zeus and a human mistress. Gone from the Disney version, presumably down the same sinkhole that swallowed the grim, heart-rending tragedy of Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” are the madness, murder, incest and cannibalism of the Greek gods. Say what you will about Michael Eisner, he’s a darn sight more family-friendly than the ancient Greeks. Woe to you, Southern Baptist parents, if the animated film “Hercules” inspires your impressionable youngster to investigate the classical roots of Disney’s contemporized and sanitized story.
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