| The Tragedy Of Hercules |
 Did you ever see Disney’s Hercules? You might want to see it again sometime because I’m about to give you a new perspective on it. I’m also about to talk a lot about the story – so consider yourself warned if you haven’t seen the film yet and don’t want to hear any spoilers. Hit the jump to read on as I dissect the film and reveal the true tragedy in the story of Disney’s Hercules.
So that’s the first part of the story. From here on the story centres on Hercules, who faces many obstacles and must eventually thwart Hades and save Meg, the woman he falls in love with. Yet for all that Hercules goes through – both physical and mental – I argue that the characters who suffer the most hardship in the entire film are Hercules parents, Zeus and Hera. When Zeus runs in too late to find his son gone, he cries out and his anger and sorrow resounds in the sky with lighting strikes – lightning being Zeus’ iconic power. From this point on thunderstorms become symbolic of Zeus being distressed. Although Hercules becomes our lead character, in that first part of the film it is Zeus and Hera who I felt the most sympathy for. The solemn singing of the chorus hit the feeling home: “Zeus and Hera wept/because their son could never come home/they'd have towatch their precious baby grow up from afar."The idea that these parents are separated from their child, yet can look upon him from Mount Olympus as though through a one-way mirror is just heartbreaking. For eighteen years Zeus and Hera can see their son, but they can’t interact with him. Young Hercules doesn’t even know who his real parents are. So we come to the true tragedy of Disney’s Hercules. While the film presents the ending in an exuberantly happy fashion, emphasising that evil has been defeated and true love been found – I cannot get over the fact that Zeus and Hera have been seriously jilted. They wait eighteen years to be re-united with their son and just as they’re on the verge on being a family once more, Hercules – completely unaware of his parent’s woe – choses to abandon them and return to Earth with a woman he’d only just met. There is no happy ending for Zeus and Hera. They lose their son, watch him grow up for eighteen years, are teased with the prospect of being re-united and finally are rejected by their son. That would have to hurt. The interesting thing about this is that the anguish of Hera and Zeus is entirely in the background of the storytelling. But as I’ve shown, this element of the story is still there. Not obvious, but there. Directed and written by John Musker and Ron Clements, these guys are likely too accomplished storytellers to have included this tragic side of the film by accident. Indeed, previous films directed/written by Ron and John have dealt with similar parental woes. In The Little Mermaid King Tritan is imposes strict rules on her daughter Ariel, but confidently worries about her and whether he’s being a good father. Meanwhile in Aladdin the Sultan worries for Jasmine’s future and her inability to find a husband while he ignores that the greatest threat to her future is his own Grand Vizier, Jafar. And yet, while this element of Hercules’ story is certainly not a mishap, there’s dissonance between Hercules story and his parents story. There’s no acknowledgement of the selfishness of Hercules’ choice to go with Meg and the film appears to end on a blissfully happy note. I wonder whether John and Ron (or someone else on the story team) wished to have a hidden dark side to an apparently happy ending for observant viewers to appreciate. Or are they trying to gloss over this unpleasant story point? Or perhaps it truly was an oversight when conceiving the final scene. For me, Hercules’ remains a good (if not great) film with many wonderful animated performances that ends up being a tragic story – and not the heroic tale is outwardly seems to be. Article image from Disney Animation Archive.
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