Medusa, Monsters and Modern Pop

Medusa, Monsters and Modern Pop: Reclaiming the Gorgon in Contemporary Feminism

What do Rihanna, Madonna, and Lady Gaga have in common with the ancient Gorgon, Medusa? This class explores how today’s female pop icons reimagine one of mythology’s most demonised women — a figure long used to vilify female power, sexuality, and difference. The stories we tell matter, and myths from the ancient world continue to evolve, reflecting shifting societal beliefs. So what does Medusa mean in the modern day? From Rihanna’s striking GQ cover as Medusa, challenging the “snake-haired” insult historically aimed at Black women’s natural hair, to Lady Gaga’s transformation of monstrosity into community through her “Little Monsters,” pop stars are not just playing with myth and monstrous narratives - they’re rewriting them. Using Medusa as both symbol and lens, this class investigates how women in pop culture reclaim the monstrous from male-authored traditions to assert agency, find a voice, and challenge who gets to define beauty and danger.

By returning to Medusa's myth and her place in intersectional feminism and popular culture, we’ll see how she continues to shapeshift — from monster to muse, from silenced figure to feminist icon. Reading these women as modern Medusas makes it clear that this is a figure whose voice is finally being heard. The emphasis in this class will be on viewing Medusa through an intersectional feminist lens to explore how myths can evolve and be reappropriated by marginalised groups as narratives of empowerment.

The two two central aims of the session are: 1. To demonstrate how narratives can be used as tools of empowerment - creating something new that moves beyond one-dimensional portrayals of Woman as defined by men, toward representations of Women in all their beautifully diverse forms. 2. To highlight that the ancient world belongs to everyone. Too often, the legacies of Greece and Rome have been filtered through artists, philosophers, and scholars who aligned classical antiquity with whiteness, marginalising female, queer, and Black voices. My research seeks to reclaim these spaces by emphasising the diversity of the ancient world - and showing why figures like Medusa continue to resonate so powerfully across different marginalised groups today.

CORRECTION: In the slides, Dr. Gina Bevan has highlighted a mistake on the date for Ovid's Metamorphoses - it should state 8BCE rather than 8CE.

We are committed to making our sessions as accessible as possible. If you are unable to pay the full amount for this class, please reach out to us via email at [email protected] and we will provide you with a discount code.