Hollywood’s Villainous Masculinities: A Study of Hades and Set from Clash of the Titans and Gods of Egypt

Abstract

Gods, Goddesses, Heroes and other mythical figures from religious mythologies have made continued appearances in Hollywood films since the 20th century, with many of them reflecting the times and era of their production in the guise of depicting the “ancient” world and dealing with “sacred” themes in a secular manner. While a cinematic text invites us to identify with the hero, the antagonist is imbued with qualities that require judgement from the hero. This paper seeks to undertake a character study of the Greek God Hades from Clash of the Titans (2010) and the Egyptian God Set from Gods of Egypt (2016) to understand the ways in which the cinematic imagination constructs them as antagonists and condemns their ways. While the hero and his masculinity is generally propagated as a form of “ideal” masculinity, the villain forms a more complex characterization as he may embody qualities possessed by the hero himself and yet be termed “unheroic”. Reading the texts as embodiments of popular culture, and thus, as sites for interrogating contemporary socio-political and cultural concerns, the paper would like to explore the construction of villainous and “non-ideal” masculinities in the figures of Hades and Set. Utilizing a textual reading of the films, the analysis would be supported by theories derived from Masculinity Studies and Film Studies. Keywords: Hollywood, mythology, masculinities, heroism and villainy