September 13, 2025 • 40 mins
An exploration of what Medusa means in the modern era. I talk with NYT best selling author Julie Berry about her new book If Looks Could Kill and how Medusa's story still shapes power, rage, and transformation today.
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Speaker 1 (00:32):
Welcome back, Pornodans to another episode of the Greek Mythology
Retold Podcast with a focus on the wonder women of
Greek mythology. I hope life has been treating you and
yours with prosperity and happiness. If you love Greek myth
and the Trojan War characters, you have found the right place.
(00:54):
This podcast is for you. Welcome. Today's bonus episode features
a guest whose stories linger in your bones long after
you've turned the last page. Julie Barry joins me today
talking about her newest release, If Looks Could Kill, a
genre bending thriller that reimagines Medusa as in nineteenth century
(01:18):
power walking the streets of Victorian London and Manhattan. It's
Medusa meets Jack the Ripper and it is every bit
as brilliant as it sounds.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Remembered on's This is Julie Barry, the author of If
Looks Could Kill, and I am so excited to have
her on the show today as we talk about her
book that merges Medusa and Jack the Ripper in a
tantalizing story. So welcome, miss. Can I call you Julie?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Please?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Do?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yes? All call you?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yes? Welcome Julie to the show why don't we start
off by why don't you tell us a little bit
about the book? If looks could kill?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Absolutely so the show the fabulous cover here would kill
and really impressed with this striking design that they put together.
There's texture and shine. The snake's so cool, yes, but
it looks could kill? Is Medusa versus Jack the Ripper
in the Gilded Age Bowery and our main characters are
(02:30):
Tabitha and Pearl, two young recruits to the Salvation Army
who are volunteering their time in New York City trying
to serve the poor, and they have a kind of
mixture of like religious and humanitarian motivations that they're trying
to do good. Meanwhile, across the ocean, Jack the Ripper
is murdering one woman after another. And this is actually
(02:51):
that the Jack in the story is drawn from a
credible suspect in the Jack the Ripper investigations, who fled
London after the last killing, was actually arrested on a charge.
He was arrested on suspicion of being the Ripper, no evidence.
He was arrested on another charge that could have been convictable,
(03:13):
but then he posted bail and fled the country, and
so they followed him to Scotland. Air detectives followed him
out of the country. So he was a very serious
suspect and he fell off the radar in the Ripper
community for about a century for a handful of reasons.
But long story short, he sort of resurfaced as a
suspect that the Ripper community became aware of in the
(03:36):
late well in the mid nineties, when a letter was
found by an antiquarian bookshop owner, a letter from the
head of the special division leading the investigation at the
time of the killings, writing to a British journalist saying
he basically he thought that this man was a very
credible suspect. So so this guy, this sus fled London
(04:02):
after the killings and ended up in the Bowery, and
so he is. That's how Jack the Ripper in my story,
he is the Ripper. That's how he ends up in
the location where these girls are. But the other aspect
to the piece is how myth and true crime and
history all work together in this story. Some unusual combination,
but I feel like it was a necessary combination. I
(04:23):
sort of joke that like Medusa versus Jack the Ripper
is a vital and missing part of our cannon. So
I'm happy to talk about why that.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Is that I found. I found your representation of I'll
just go to Jack the Ripper. I found that frightening.
He was just like a regular dude, you know, go
out at night, like I'm just some guy leaving the bar.
Nobody knows me and his cannibalism. I just I found
that frightening as a like, that's a that's a real villain,
(04:53):
the unsuspecting because you can't tell nobody that's hunting women.
Is could he was signed on their forehead? They're just
blending in. And that's so frightening. So that was really
that human element that you brought to that was quiet
and understated. Yet for me, that's what made it scary,
(05:15):
you know what I mean that the character.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, it is scary, and I think we've sort of
made Jack the River into a boogeyman and but also
into a sort of like he's like a myth himself,
right since we never figured out who it was, He's
this enigma, this shadow, this unsolved mystery. And because he
was so famous and because he was so prolific, although
(05:38):
there certainly have been more prolific you know, killers since
because he was so stealthy and you know, Kilbert out
in the open in the dark of night in minutes
and you know, did these gross things. He he's a celebrity.
I mean, he's he's a huge industry in London. You
go to London, you want to have a Shakespeare tour,
(05:59):
a dickens to like two a week. You want Jack
the Ripper tore there's like twelve a night. He's huge.
He's huge, huge, huge, And so the way we talk
about him makes him a myth, makes him a legend,
which made me feel very comfortable mixing him with the
Greek myth. But also it romanticizes him, it glorifies him,
It makes him the star and his victims these afterthoughts,
(06:24):
and I feel like that is so messed up, and
that's part of this whole culture of violence against women
that's so normalized. So it was really important to me
that Jack was not going to have any mystique in
this book. Jack was not gonna have any romance. Jack
was not some dark hero. Jack was a true monster,
(06:46):
Like who's the monster, right, Medusa versus Jack the Ripper,
who's the monster Jack was a monster, but he was
a man. He was a man who had bookers in
his nose. He was a man who had lint between
his toenails. Like he was not something other than human.
He was something human and less than human because he
(07:07):
was a sociopath at the very least, right, I guess
I should. I mean, I'm not a psychologist, but he
was a person who showed no regard for others, clearly,
and the profile of someone who would do what he
did aligns right with sociopathic and borderline personality or personality
disordered tendencies. So I think we can say that with safety.
(07:29):
He was a wretched coward and a puny soul. And
I wanted to make sure that that came through. I
hope it did.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, No, it did, it really did. I thought that
was great. And then I liked how you introduced the
last correct me if I'm wrong, but it was the
last victim with the red hair, And so can you
can you tell us about how how you introduce the
(07:58):
Medusa character is very interesting and through that first that
last victim, So can you tell explain that a little
bit to us?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Sure? So, how do I bring Medusa and Jack together. Right, Well,
there are five victims that we know to have been
Jack the River's victims. They're called the canonical five. There
were many brutal murders of poor, unfortunate women in East
London prior to the canonical five and following, and part
(08:31):
of the challenged investigation was trying to figure out which
ones were done by who. Like, you know, originally they
thought he'd done like nine or ten killings, but scholars
have since sort of said, we're pretty confidence these five.
There's a little bit of debate there, but not too much.
So I made the last of the five victims was
Mary Jane Kelly. And she was younger than the other women.
(08:54):
She had red hair, she was pretty, and she had
sort of some more elegant ways. I guess you could
say she had been She had worked in Paris as
a not courtsone, but you know, a sort of higher
class of prostitute. And so so I decided, and I
(09:18):
wanted to bring Medusa. I wanted Medusa to be the
avenger of the slain women of women who'd suffered violence
from them, and so I needed to bring them together,
and I needed it a way to well I want
to a pause there, and I'm going to talk about
some of the ways in which I decided to massage
(09:40):
what we typically think of as like the rules of Medusa.
And I want to begin by, like, you know, firing
a cannon at the idea that there are these rules
that we have to follow. You know, myths are stories
that have like in telling and retelling and retelling, and
people have felt all kinds of freedom to read into, layer, into,
(10:01):
add nuanced modify these stories. And if you study mythology
in any serious way, you find so many different versions
of the stories of gods and heroes and monsters, which
you have to take all of it with a certain
open mindedness. Right, which which is the original? Which is correct?
I think is kind of the wrong question, and so
(10:23):
incited early on that I have permission to interpret these
myths any way that I want to, and in particular,
I have permission to alter the baggage that Medusa has
accumulated and the baggage that Medusa has perpetuated. And I
want to explain what I mean. We get the story
(10:44):
of Medusa in such a you know, from almost exclusively
male voices, right, males talking to males, throughout the millennia,
so the misogyny baked in is pervasive. I think the
reason Medusa's speaks to so many women today for a
set of reasons that are there why she's resonant, but
(11:07):
they're also why the story is harmful. And just to
give some context for that, I took a course morbid anatomy.
So they do like these cool courses on mythology and
things like that, so I took a little course from
them on Medusa as I was writing a book, and
you know, we looked at all the different aspects of Medusa.
She queen and she got us, she monster, as she
sucks object, is she victim? But as I was studying
(11:27):
all these stories in this class, I realized, She's an
ultimate weapon. That's what Medusa is. Medusa is an ultimate
weapon and like an unassailable force. And in that sense,
it wouldn't matter if she was Medusa or if she
was a cannonball. She is the fantasy of an ultimate weapon,
(11:47):
something that no enemy could defeat, no size of army
could defeat. She's a nuclear warhead, long before nuclear warheads
could be conceived of. But how fascinating that when the
ancient mind searched for something to be that ultimate weapon.
(12:08):
They settled upon an angry, empowered, unattractive woman. And I
think there's so many layers there, right, So she's an
ultimate weapon. But she's an angry, liberated woman who sets
aside the expectations of beauty and goes about her own business,
(12:29):
living on her own and really not bothering, very not
bothering anybody, because she lives on this island with her sisters.
Even so, her mere existence is such a threat that
she needs to be slain, so the gods send a
man to chop off her head. So what does this
story do to us? Right? What is this story normalized?
I love the story of Medusa. I always have, and
I think a lot of women do it. She speaks
(12:51):
to us today. But just to be clear, she is
a young woman who was assaulted, sexually assaulted in Athenis Tumble,
and then she was punished for that. So first of all,
she is a victim of a horrific act. And then
she is blamed and punished and cursed with this hideousness
(13:11):
and this power that she cannot control at all, a
power that turns others instantly to stone. So she becomes this.
It's kind of like King Midas, right, only King Midas
turns things to gold. But that's a curse. He has
no ability to turn it off. His impact, his effect
on others is unchangeable. He can't control it in any way,
(13:36):
and he can't turn it off. He can't modulate. He
just is a curse. So Medusa, So now what have
we got. We've got We've got sexual assault and the
perpetrator faces no consequence. We've got blame and punished the victim.
There's no problem with that. We've got females have tremendous power,
(13:58):
but no ability to control none. They are helpless beings.
And it's like Medusa is herself a pillar that turns
others into pillars. She has no autonomy, so she's essentially voiceless.
I think I've lost jack of fingers. She's voiceless because
who could she talk to. I mean, she has I
(14:18):
assume vocal cords, but because of the effect she has
on others, she cannot talk to anyone. She cannot go
out into the world. She is as shut in as
an ancient Greek wife was, who never could leave home,
never could go out into the marketplace without a man
you know, she is a prisoner, so again, victim of assault,
(14:39):
punished for it by an older woman who's presumably jealous
of her. In some way, she's blamed. She has a
power that she didn't ask for, can't control, can't affect.
She's silenced, and she's locked away. And in spite of
all that, she goes and finds herself a little island
(15:00):
to be on. She's minding her business, harming no one.
It is a divinely sanctioned action to murder her, and
the gods will help someone do it. And if he
does it, he'll be a hero and he will secure
his prosperity because he has rid the world of the
ultimate weapon, a dangerous, powerful, independent woman. This is the
(15:23):
legacy of the Medusa story. Even as I love the story,
I look at that and realize this story has been
hurting us forever because we see this all the time,
and we understand this is just the world we have.
And I don't mean to say that only the Medusa
story did this. You know, it's one of many stories
that props up misogyny. But think of the impacts of
(15:46):
this being just like a cool story we've told each
other by firelight through the ages, we have normalized all
this violence against women. So I decided to turn that around.
And in my story there are men Medusa's. Medusa is
not just one person who's a way of life. Medusaness
can be spread under certain conditions, and it is something
(16:09):
that the women who have it, they can modulate it.
They can decide the level of effect that they will have,
and they can even decide when they go snaky and
when they look normal. And I think there will be
people who will say, well, that's just not how Medusa works. Well,
says who? I mean, really says who?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Right?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Like, at what point in this long chain of people
retelling and retelling and retelling a story, is there's somebody
who owns the copyright, Like, at what point is it
sacred and set in stone and unable to be changed.
I felt like the twenty first century needed a Medusa
who was in charge of her power, who could turn
(16:49):
it on or turn it off at will, and who
could dial up or down the level of impact she
had another's ranging from frightening them, stunning them, knocking them out,
or killing them. So those are things I did to
change the rules of Medusa and why I feel not
just allowed to do it, but like I feel it's
(17:10):
urgency to do it, because we have to understand the
impact of these stories in order to understand how to
make them work for us today, how we can be
empowered by the fierceness of Medusa and not limited by
how centuries of male storytellers have bloxter her it.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
And I love how you did that with Pearl, so
as she transitions into Medusa, because she was a Salvation
Army soldier worker, and she was very intense that character
and very just like she was almost really unwavering, and
(17:52):
it seems like a very natural progression because her whole
thing was she was trying to save everybody. So by
having this power, I don't know if power is the
right word, but by having this power imbued inside of
her going to give her and it does give her
like another level to move forward with the work that
(18:13):
I think was in her heart and soul to be
doing in the first place. Do you want to talk
about how you transition that into Pearl, because that was
very unique and I think that is something that I
haven't seen before, you know, with the Medusa, And so
if you want to talk about how you gave Pearl
that power, and why you gave her that power?
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Sure, So Pearl is one of the two Salvation Army
sister soldiers, and we see the story more through Tabitha's
point of view than Pearls, although we do get to
see some of Pearls as well, and as Tabitha encounters
Pearl initially, they do not get along at all. Tabitha
(18:56):
is kind of easy going, and she has kind of
a playful, sarcastic humor about her. She wants to do good,
but she's also kind of like some of this stuff
we do is kind of weird and I don't know.
And herl presents on the page at first, I think
as very rigid and straight laced and kind of like
(19:17):
religiously fundamental, and she even seems, you know, critical or
judgmental of anybody who doesn't see things the way she does.
So I think modern readers may recoil from her a
little bit at first, and I knew that is how
I would present her. But she does have this fervor
and this intensity and this unyieldingness and this like relentless
desire to do the work as she sees it needing
(19:38):
to be done, and then she becomes a monster, and
that turns on her head, turns on its head. Everything
she thought she knew about the world and everything she
thought she believed, and the real crisis of identity for
anyone to decide they're a monster or to realize that
they are, but it's sort of a religious crisis. For her,
it's an identity crisis, but has a history that is,
(20:02):
shall we say, acquainted with sorrow and acquainted with violence.
And as we watch her go through this journey, we
realize and I hope, I hope that this will help.
I hope people will love Pearl as they get to
know her, because she's hard to take it first, but
we realize that for Pearl, she is as religious as
(20:25):
she is because it was something that brought healing. It
was something that brought some light into a life that
had been so bruised and so darkened by violence against her,
and so she embraced it ferociously and she became, you know,
(20:45):
this almost strident proponent of her beliefs because she really
felt that they had rescued her. And as she grapples
with becoming a monster, we're gonna we're gonna realize more
of the humanity underneath what looks like I sort of
(21:06):
unappealing kind of fundamentalism. And I hope that I found
that fascinating. I found that, you know, both psychologically and
emotionally and even spiritually rich, and I hope that people
will feel safe.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
As we're talking. I wrote down blinding light she was.
She became like a harsh, blinding light of her beliefs
to protect that part of her that was wounded. And
so a blinding, harsh light can camouflage things. But that was,
you know, and I'm thinking of is it some I
(21:44):
must have seen the movie, because I just think of
Medusa as like this, you know, light coming out of
her eyes and the idea of turning somebody to stone.
That's like harsh. But I just I just thought right
now that her, that her belief system. You know, when
people are fundamentalists or you know, there's they grab on
so hard that it is and the things that she
(22:07):
the things that Pearl supports are so they're virtuous, but
she's just dogged in that. But there's a blinding light
to that for her. And maybe that's how other people are.
Maybe that's how you know, that's because Tabitha does sort
of have that back and forth with her, and and
(22:30):
it annoys Tabitha. But there's nothing that Pearl is supporting
that is wrong, Like, you can't Faulter for wanting to
save all these women from the saloons and from the
seedy life that she knows is existing.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
You know what I mean. I like that. Yeah, I
love what you said. And I'm going to really think
about that image of the blinding light that is so
insightful and so visually arresting to me. I hadn't thought
of it that way, but I really love that. And
I think we too often resort to a very stereotypic
(23:10):
interpretation of when somebody has these deep, deep convictions and
these strong connections to their faith, and we default to
the assumption they've been blind you know, brainwashed and blinded
by They've been fooled, they've been hoodwinked. And I think
that we do people a disservice and not asking like
(23:35):
what deep experiences in their own life made this such
a fit for them, made this so resonant. And I
think it's important too. And this is something that I've
written about in my novel The Passion of Dolsa, which
is set in the thirteenth century and is about a
medieval mystic. And that is that I think we don't
realize historically how how liberating and how democratized and how
(24:00):
feminist religion has been for women through the centuries. Because
God is one I mean, don't get me wrong, Like
there's a strong tradition to make God male male male
male male, and I'm not here to say what gender
God is. But for all of the misogyny that coexists
in religion, there remains this fact that, like the divine
(24:23):
is beyond the reach of any human male authority. And
so the medievalistics in the thirteenth century, if they could
really help, if they could make you believe as they
believed that God had spoken to them, they had power,
They had authority. Nobody could take away from them their
(24:44):
witness and conviction that God has spoken to me. And so,
and I don't mean to say that the women was
lying or manipulated, but religion is a source of authority
and a source of power. If you have spiritual power,
if you if you become a light to others such
that they flock to you to hear your words or
(25:04):
receive your miracles. What bishop or king can stop you right,
like religion is a source of power. And similarly, the
Salvation Army in the late nineteenth century was one of
the only religious movements in America, probably in England as well,
where it began, that gave equal status and footing to
(25:27):
women as to men. Women could have the same leadership ranks,
women could be in charge, and in fact, women led
the Salvation Army like the uppermost ranks for many of
the early years, and scholars believe this is because the
founder of William Booth was married to a very strong
and outspoken woman and they had the flock of very strong,
(25:49):
outspoken daughters. But you know, it probably kind of burst
our brains a little bit in modern times. But to
join the Salvation Army was one of the most kind
of brave and defiant things a girl could do, because
she could be a general over a man, and she
(26:09):
could speak and she could preach, and she could pray
in church and be listened to by men, which was
not happening anywhere else. So I think that's kind of cool.
You know, that is very cool.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
That is very cool. I like that, And you know,
we think of when I think of the Salvation Army,
I don't really think of, you know, the religious aspect
of that sort of you know, I think of, you know,
just an organization that helps people. So maybe there's sort
(26:42):
of a civilian aspect that merges with the religious aspects
that I hadn't thought of before that would get that
would empower women through their organization and through that movement,
because we still have Salvation Army. It's still existing today.
It's just you know, that's cool.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
One of the things that we were talking about earlier
was the the impact of myth through culture, whether it's
good or evil, and you talked about that. Did we
cover all the aspects of that with Medusa or anything
you wanted to add to that about mythology, because I'm
all on board with that. I love the idea of
reimagining characters through even you know, like through the heroes.
(27:28):
You know there there is so much more complex And
when I look at the myths as a historian, I'm
rather a humanist, So I think about why would a
character do what they do, what would what would be
going on inside of them as a as a human being,
you know, So looking at a character like like Medusa,
when I look at Clytemnestra or even when I look
(27:48):
at Odysseus or Penelope, what, you know, what would you
be feeling and going through as a human being?
Speaker 3 (27:56):
You know?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And how does that as you as a modern uh storyteller,
as a modern myth reimaginer, how does that?
Speaker 3 (28:04):
You know?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
How does all that play into your work or your thoughts?
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Well? I think the power, the lasting power of these myths,
the reason we can't get enough of them even today,
has a lot to do with the fact that they
are such powerful stories. They draw us into the situations
of their characters. They reveal the humanity of their characters.
(28:30):
I don't mean to say that their characters always behave
in humane ways, but they reveal the humanness, the possession
of jealousies, rage, joy, passion, desire, greed, lust, appetite, fatigue,
you know, courage and battle, cowardice in battle. You know,
(28:52):
they're so human. And I think that is the astonishing
thing about story and about point of view. Anytime you're
really surrender to story and like just think what would
these people do and how would they feel? And bring
that forward into the story, you've done something radical and subversive,
and you've done something beautiful and lasting. And so that's
(29:14):
why these stories are still with us. And I want
to begin I want to make sure that people know,
like I love these myths. I am like, I'm a
worshiper at the altar of these stories. Even if they're
totally slanted against women, in spite of themselves, they empower women.
I mean, in spite of themselves. We have these fierce
(29:34):
goddesses and these powerful monsters and these you know, I
mean Medea, Oh my gosh, I mean, she's terrible, but
she's kind of incredible. She's compelling. So that is the
power of story. Story, you know, centers the point of
view of the human story mesmerizes us with what would
these people do? But at the same time, and I
(29:57):
just want to be really clear how much I love them,
how much as a person who makes her living sharing
stories with the world, what a debt I owe to
these stories, and how greatful I am for them. But
I also believe not incompatible take a critical look at them,
and it's certainly not incompatible with our love for them
to to give ourselves radical permission to rewrite them.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Did you want to share any of the research that
you did for MEDUSA anything that struck you when I
was doing when I was researching for talking to you,
because I did not I didn't want to come unprepared.
I did see a big transition from Medusa. You know,
she was a monster and then she became this beautiful woman.
(30:45):
And I'm going to pull that all the way to
your book. How you pull that into with Pearl. So
Pearl was actually the transverse. She was beautiful and then
she became a monster. Did you want to talk about
how you did any researching came to that?
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Sure? Yeah, Well, I mean if we look at the
history of how Medusa has been portrayed visually through the millennia,
I mean, it's fascinating in its own right. For research,
I did take that course that I mentioned, the Morbid
Anatomy course, which had a lot of really great visuals,
a lot of I really recommended, very entertaining experience, very educational.
(31:23):
I also took a trip to Greece and I got
to see a lot of you know, carvings and statues
and a lot of artistic representations, which was just amazing.
The early visuals of Madusa are like animal like. Some
of them have like a snout, you know. Sometimes she
has a snout, she has tusks. Her face is usually
portrayed as like very round, like a sun, and very
(31:46):
kind of bulgy, and she's often shown with her tongue
sticking out in a really kind of kind of way.
So early on, like they really leaned into the ugly part,
like there was no no ambiguity there, and somewhere, and
I'm not gonna be able to say with precision when,
but somewhere, as we got into like the Renaissance and Beyonce,
(32:07):
you know, we start to see a Medusa who does
still have snakes, but has maybe also some more conventional
feminine beauty. And then we get to where there's a
whole world of Medusa erotica. So today it's tricky how
to render her visually today, because if we go really
(32:28):
animalistic and tusks and things and a snout, then I
think people cannot see her in a human way. And
a big part of the changes that I made were
to give her personhood, to give her agency, to give
her a voice, to allow her to be a person
who could have relationships, have conversations, go out in the
world and make choices and learn from her choices. And
(32:50):
so there's this line. We have to strike to look
sort of human and enough that an audience can say, Okay,
I can relate to you. I can you know, I
can see myself in you. But I still didn't want
I didn't want to be I didn't want any like medusachord.
You know, if I'm not looking for I wasn't looking
(33:11):
for Reduca to be hot sexy. That wasn't what I'm
going because I'm.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Sorry, because I did come across an article that was
linking Medusa to like the fem fatale.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
When you spoke.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Earlier about that, the Medusa story can and some of
the stories that we we retell can be kind of harmful.
And it really and that really focuses on the manipulation
of female sexuality. I think our society perpetuates that, even unintentionally,
you know, that that the only power that women have
(33:47):
is either through violence or their sexuality, and that they
can trap a man with that.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
So I was like, whoa, that that's just you know,
I was just thinking all kinds of things, and then
a quote was the feminization of monsters served to demonize women.
I wrote that down when I was reading, and I thought, yeah,
that's I don't know, did you want to speak.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
To that guy?
Speaker 2 (34:13):
I just threw that. I just threw that at you
right now, because that was that. These are these aha
moments I was having because I was reading your book
If Luks Could Kill, and I was very I'm just fascinated,
like I'm going down. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Oh. I love it. I love it. I appreciate the question.
I think that to demonize women, to turn some of
them into monsters or witches, is very convenient tool for
male power. It allows there to be good women, young, pretty, mouldible, impressionable,
(34:47):
sweet and sexual and sexually desirable, and then bad women
who we can kill. It is a convenient solution for
a mindset that wants to enjoy what women add to
their lives, sex and babies and subverb and still be
able to eliminate those women who actually prove challenging to men, because,
(35:12):
for example, what's more challenging to a man than an intelligent, empowered,
let's say, menopausal woman who has had it, you know,
and is like taking none of your garbage. That is
very threatening, right, burned our witches because as soon as
they've had some words and some opinions of their own
and like to live on their own as a widow
(35:33):
without a man. What you know, this is dangerous, This
is threatening. So for men to make beauty and ugliness
the dividing line between the females we keep and the
females we kill. These stories of female monsters just serve
that narrative and actually allow girls in the audience to
be like, yeah, kill the witch, kill the monster. I mean,
(35:55):
you know, we follow along with the story. And I
think that idea that Medusa has a power, she cannot
control a pot. She is powerless to effect. I read
it as an analog to a woman's sexual appeals, slash
her own sexual appetites, and to make a woman only.
(36:16):
That is to say, she has no intelligence, she has
no political opinion, she has no financial acumen, she has
no creative talent, she has no friendships of her own.
She is nothing more than a column of lust, My
lust for her, her lust for someone who's not me,
you know. Like so so anyway, I just think it
(36:40):
all comes down to sex and control, and if they
can persuade the world through story that once the beauty
goes away, the need to keep this person alive is removed.
Maybe why women are literally killing themselves and covering up
their bodies and poisoning their bodies and torturing their souls
(37:02):
to try to retain the appearance of a twenty two
year old girl long past when nature thinks they should
look like a twenty two year old girl. Because we
have literally been taught that not just our worth, but
our physical survival is tied to remaining young pretty.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
That that's a very powerful point. And as a woman
who turned sixty this past summer, I resonate with that,
like I'm I'm in my Nona phase now and it's great,
but you know, there are some consequences to that. This
is a great conversation I have. Maybe we can chat
again another time and do a different episode. And when
(37:44):
did your book come out?
Speaker 3 (37:46):
September sixteenth is the official release. I will be doing
some events as early as next week, but the sixteenth
is the official day. And I wanted to tell you too.
I have a sister who's a PhD mythologist and teaches
mythology at PACIFICA. So if you ever want us to
come back and talk together, I mean, she's brilliant and.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
That would be fantastic. Let's do that. I bet we
could do a great episode. It's just been really good
talking to you, and I'm glad to get to know you,
and I am definitely excited about your books. So well, Julie,
thank you so much for coming and joining the Greek
Mythology we Told podcasts and sharing your work with us.
(38:26):
I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Oh, thank you, Janelle. I was so excited to get
this invitation. I thought we were going to have a
great chat and we shared it.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Well, I will see you next time then.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Sounds good, looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
You bet.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
That's all for today, Murma Dons, I hope you enjoyed
this deep dive with the brilliant Julie Berry as much
as I did. From Medusa's Serpentine Gays to Pearls Blinding Light,
Julie's storytelling reminds us that myth, mystery and human nature
are eternally entwined. If you haven't picked up her new book,
(39:07):
If Flukes Could Kill, I highly recommend that you do so.
It is a dark, mesmerizing twist on ancient myth with
a dash of Victorian horror. It releases September sixteenth, right
around the corner and is available everywhere until next time.
Please like, follow, and share the podcast so more myth
(39:28):
loving listeners can find us. I'm Janelle Rhiannon, author of
the Homeric Chronicles and your guide through the wild world
of God's monsters and the mortal messes that we continue
to unravel in this podcast and in the books that
we love to read. Well that's it, So drink your
wine and be married for the Dallas
Speaker 3 (40:00):
He Mo
Welcome back, Pornodans to another episode of the Greek Mythology
Retold Podcast with a focus on the wonder women of
Greek mythology. I hope life has been treating you and
yours with prosperity and happiness. If you love Greek myth
and the Trojan War characters, you have found the right place.
(00:54):
This podcast is for you. Welcome. Today's bonus episode features
a guest whose stories linger in your bones long after
you've turned the last page. Julie Barry joins me today
talking about her newest release, If Looks Could Kill, a
genre bending thriller that reimagines Medusa as in nineteenth century
(01:18):
power walking the streets of Victorian London and Manhattan. It's
Medusa meets Jack the Ripper and it is every bit
as brilliant as it sounds.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Remembered on's This is Julie Barry, the author of If
Looks Could Kill, and I am so excited to have
her on the show today as we talk about her
book that merges Medusa and Jack the Ripper in a
tantalizing story. So welcome, miss. Can I call you Julie?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Please?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Do?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yes? All call you?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yes? Welcome Julie to the show why don't we start
off by why don't you tell us a little bit
about the book? If looks could kill?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Absolutely so the show the fabulous cover here would kill
and really impressed with this striking design that they put together.
There's texture and shine. The snake's so cool, yes, but
it looks could kill? Is Medusa versus Jack the Ripper
in the Gilded Age Bowery and our main characters are
(02:30):
Tabitha and Pearl, two young recruits to the Salvation Army
who are volunteering their time in New York City trying
to serve the poor, and they have a kind of
mixture of like religious and humanitarian motivations that they're trying
to do good. Meanwhile, across the ocean, Jack the Ripper
is murdering one woman after another. And this is actually
(02:51):
that the Jack in the story is drawn from a
credible suspect in the Jack the Ripper investigations, who fled
London after the last killing, was actually arrested on a charge.
He was arrested on suspicion of being the Ripper, no evidence.
He was arrested on another charge that could have been convictable,
(03:13):
but then he posted bail and fled the country, and
so they followed him to Scotland. Air detectives followed him
out of the country. So he was a very serious
suspect and he fell off the radar in the Ripper
community for about a century for a handful of reasons.
But long story short, he sort of resurfaced as a
suspect that the Ripper community became aware of in the
(03:36):
late well in the mid nineties, when a letter was
found by an antiquarian bookshop owner, a letter from the
head of the special division leading the investigation at the
time of the killings, writing to a British journalist saying
he basically he thought that this man was a very
credible suspect. So so this guy, this sus fled London
(04:02):
after the killings and ended up in the Bowery, and
so he is. That's how Jack the Ripper in my story,
he is the Ripper. That's how he ends up in
the location where these girls are. But the other aspect
to the piece is how myth and true crime and
history all work together in this story. Some unusual combination,
but I feel like it was a necessary combination. I
(04:23):
sort of joke that like Medusa versus Jack the Ripper
is a vital and missing part of our cannon. So
I'm happy to talk about why that.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Is that I found. I found your representation of I'll
just go to Jack the Ripper. I found that frightening.
He was just like a regular dude, you know, go
out at night, like I'm just some guy leaving the bar.
Nobody knows me and his cannibalism. I just I found
that frightening as a like, that's a that's a real villain,
(04:53):
the unsuspecting because you can't tell nobody that's hunting women.
Is could he was signed on their forehead? They're just
blending in. And that's so frightening. So that was really
that human element that you brought to that was quiet
and understated. Yet for me, that's what made it scary,
(05:15):
you know what I mean that the character.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, it is scary, and I think we've sort of
made Jack the River into a boogeyman and but also
into a sort of like he's like a myth himself,
right since we never figured out who it was, He's
this enigma, this shadow, this unsolved mystery. And because he
was so famous and because he was so prolific, although
(05:38):
there certainly have been more prolific you know, killers since
because he was so stealthy and you know, Kilbert out
in the open in the dark of night in minutes
and you know, did these gross things. He he's a celebrity.
I mean, he's he's a huge industry in London. You
go to London, you want to have a Shakespeare tour,
(05:59):
a dickens to like two a week. You want Jack
the Ripper tore there's like twelve a night. He's huge.
He's huge, huge, huge, And so the way we talk
about him makes him a myth, makes him a legend,
which made me feel very comfortable mixing him with the
Greek myth. But also it romanticizes him, it glorifies him,
It makes him the star and his victims these afterthoughts,
(06:24):
and I feel like that is so messed up, and
that's part of this whole culture of violence against women
that's so normalized. So it was really important to me
that Jack was not going to have any mystique in
this book. Jack was not gonna have any romance. Jack
was not some dark hero. Jack was a true monster,
(06:46):
Like who's the monster, right, Medusa versus Jack the Ripper,
who's the monster Jack was a monster, but he was
a man. He was a man who had bookers in
his nose. He was a man who had lint between
his toenails. Like he was not something other than human.
He was something human and less than human because he
(07:07):
was a sociopath at the very least, right, I guess
I should. I mean, I'm not a psychologist, but he
was a person who showed no regard for others, clearly,
and the profile of someone who would do what he
did aligns right with sociopathic and borderline personality or personality
disordered tendencies. So I think we can say that with safety.
(07:29):
He was a wretched coward and a puny soul. And
I wanted to make sure that that came through. I
hope it did.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, No, it did, it really did. I thought that
was great. And then I liked how you introduced the
last correct me if I'm wrong, but it was the
last victim with the red hair, And so can you
can you tell us about how how you introduce the
(07:58):
Medusa character is very interesting and through that first that
last victim, So can you tell explain that a little
bit to us?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Sure? So, how do I bring Medusa and Jack together. Right, Well,
there are five victims that we know to have been
Jack the River's victims. They're called the canonical five. There
were many brutal murders of poor, unfortunate women in East
London prior to the canonical five and following, and part
(08:31):
of the challenged investigation was trying to figure out which
ones were done by who. Like, you know, originally they
thought he'd done like nine or ten killings, but scholars
have since sort of said, we're pretty confidence these five.
There's a little bit of debate there, but not too much.
So I made the last of the five victims was
Mary Jane Kelly. And she was younger than the other women.
(08:54):
She had red hair, she was pretty, and she had
sort of some more elegant ways. I guess you could
say she had been She had worked in Paris as
a not courtsone, but you know, a sort of higher
class of prostitute. And so so I decided, and I
(09:18):
wanted to bring Medusa. I wanted Medusa to be the
avenger of the slain women of women who'd suffered violence
from them, and so I needed to bring them together,
and I needed it a way to well I want
to a pause there, and I'm going to talk about
some of the ways in which I decided to massage
(09:40):
what we typically think of as like the rules of Medusa.
And I want to begin by, like, you know, firing
a cannon at the idea that there are these rules
that we have to follow. You know, myths are stories
that have like in telling and retelling and retelling, and
people have felt all kinds of freedom to read into, layer, into,
(10:01):
add nuanced modify these stories. And if you study mythology
in any serious way, you find so many different versions
of the stories of gods and heroes and monsters, which
you have to take all of it with a certain
open mindedness. Right, which which is the original? Which is correct?
I think is kind of the wrong question, and so
(10:23):
incited early on that I have permission to interpret these
myths any way that I want to, and in particular,
I have permission to alter the baggage that Medusa has
accumulated and the baggage that Medusa has perpetuated. And I
want to explain what I mean. We get the story
(10:44):
of Medusa in such a you know, from almost exclusively
male voices, right, males talking to males, throughout the millennia,
so the misogyny baked in is pervasive. I think the
reason Medusa's speaks to so many women today for a
set of reasons that are there why she's resonant, but
(11:07):
they're also why the story is harmful. And just to
give some context for that, I took a course morbid anatomy.
So they do like these cool courses on mythology and
things like that, so I took a little course from
them on Medusa as I was writing a book, and
you know, we looked at all the different aspects of Medusa.
She queen and she got us, she monster, as she
sucks object, is she victim? But as I was studying
(11:27):
all these stories in this class, I realized, She's an
ultimate weapon. That's what Medusa is. Medusa is an ultimate
weapon and like an unassailable force. And in that sense,
it wouldn't matter if she was Medusa or if she
was a cannonball. She is the fantasy of an ultimate weapon,
(11:47):
something that no enemy could defeat, no size of army
could defeat. She's a nuclear warhead, long before nuclear warheads
could be conceived of. But how fascinating that when the
ancient mind searched for something to be that ultimate weapon.
(12:08):
They settled upon an angry, empowered, unattractive woman. And I
think there's so many layers there, right, So she's an
ultimate weapon. But she's an angry, liberated woman who sets
aside the expectations of beauty and goes about her own business,
(12:29):
living on her own and really not bothering, very not
bothering anybody, because she lives on this island with her sisters.
Even so, her mere existence is such a threat that
she needs to be slain, so the gods send a
man to chop off her head. So what does this
story do to us? Right? What is this story normalized?
I love the story of Medusa. I always have, and
I think a lot of women do it. She speaks
(12:51):
to us today. But just to be clear, she is
a young woman who was assaulted, sexually assaulted in Athenis Tumble,
and then she was punished for that. So first of all,
she is a victim of a horrific act. And then
she is blamed and punished and cursed with this hideousness
(13:11):
and this power that she cannot control at all, a
power that turns others instantly to stone. So she becomes this.
It's kind of like King Midas, right, only King Midas
turns things to gold. But that's a curse. He has
no ability to turn it off. His impact, his effect
on others is unchangeable. He can't control it in any way,
(13:36):
and he can't turn it off. He can't modulate. He
just is a curse. So Medusa, So now what have
we got. We've got We've got sexual assault and the
perpetrator faces no consequence. We've got blame and punished the victim.
There's no problem with that. We've got females have tremendous power,
(13:58):
but no ability to control none. They are helpless beings.
And it's like Medusa is herself a pillar that turns
others into pillars. She has no autonomy, so she's essentially voiceless.
I think I've lost jack of fingers. She's voiceless because
who could she talk to. I mean, she has I
(14:18):
assume vocal cords, but because of the effect she has
on others, she cannot talk to anyone. She cannot go
out into the world. She is as shut in as
an ancient Greek wife was, who never could leave home,
never could go out into the marketplace without a man
you know, she is a prisoner, so again, victim of assault,
(14:39):
punished for it by an older woman who's presumably jealous
of her. In some way, she's blamed. She has a
power that she didn't ask for, can't control, can't affect.
She's silenced, and she's locked away. And in spite of
all that, she goes and finds herself a little island
(15:00):
to be on. She's minding her business, harming no one.
It is a divinely sanctioned action to murder her, and
the gods will help someone do it. And if he
does it, he'll be a hero and he will secure
his prosperity because he has rid the world of the
ultimate weapon, a dangerous, powerful, independent woman. This is the
(15:23):
legacy of the Medusa story. Even as I love the story,
I look at that and realize this story has been
hurting us forever because we see this all the time,
and we understand this is just the world we have.
And I don't mean to say that only the Medusa
story did this. You know, it's one of many stories
that props up misogyny. But think of the impacts of
(15:46):
this being just like a cool story we've told each
other by firelight through the ages, we have normalized all
this violence against women. So I decided to turn that around.
And in my story there are men Medusa's. Medusa is
not just one person who's a way of life. Medusaness
can be spread under certain conditions, and it is something
(16:09):
that the women who have it, they can modulate it.
They can decide the level of effect that they will have,
and they can even decide when they go snaky and
when they look normal. And I think there will be
people who will say, well, that's just not how Medusa works. Well,
says who? I mean, really says who?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Right?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Like, at what point in this long chain of people
retelling and retelling and retelling a story, is there's somebody
who owns the copyright, Like, at what point is it
sacred and set in stone and unable to be changed.
I felt like the twenty first century needed a Medusa
who was in charge of her power, who could turn
(16:49):
it on or turn it off at will, and who
could dial up or down the level of impact she
had another's ranging from frightening them, stunning them, knocking them out,
or killing them. So those are things I did to
change the rules of Medusa and why I feel not
just allowed to do it, but like I feel it's
(17:10):
urgency to do it, because we have to understand the
impact of these stories in order to understand how to
make them work for us today, how we can be
empowered by the fierceness of Medusa and not limited by
how centuries of male storytellers have bloxter her it.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
And I love how you did that with Pearl, so
as she transitions into Medusa, because she was a Salvation
Army soldier worker, and she was very intense that character
and very just like she was almost really unwavering, and
(17:52):
it seems like a very natural progression because her whole
thing was she was trying to save everybody. So by
having this power, I don't know if power is the
right word, but by having this power imbued inside of
her going to give her and it does give her
like another level to move forward with the work that
(18:13):
I think was in her heart and soul to be
doing in the first place. Do you want to talk
about how you transition that into Pearl, because that was
very unique and I think that is something that I
haven't seen before, you know, with the Medusa, And so
if you want to talk about how you gave Pearl
that power, and why you gave her that power?
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Sure, So Pearl is one of the two Salvation Army
sister soldiers, and we see the story more through Tabitha's
point of view than Pearls, although we do get to
see some of Pearls as well, and as Tabitha encounters
Pearl initially, they do not get along at all. Tabitha
(18:56):
is kind of easy going, and she has kind of
a playful, sarcastic humor about her. She wants to do good,
but she's also kind of like some of this stuff
we do is kind of weird and I don't know.
And herl presents on the page at first, I think
as very rigid and straight laced and kind of like
(19:17):
religiously fundamental, and she even seems, you know, critical or
judgmental of anybody who doesn't see things the way she does.
So I think modern readers may recoil from her a
little bit at first, and I knew that is how
I would present her. But she does have this fervor
and this intensity and this unyieldingness and this like relentless
desire to do the work as she sees it needing
(19:38):
to be done, and then she becomes a monster, and
that turns on her head, turns on its head. Everything
she thought she knew about the world and everything she
thought she believed, and the real crisis of identity for
anyone to decide they're a monster or to realize that
they are, but it's sort of a religious crisis. For her,
it's an identity crisis, but has a history that is,
(20:02):
shall we say, acquainted with sorrow and acquainted with violence.
And as we watch her go through this journey, we
realize and I hope, I hope that this will help.
I hope people will love Pearl as they get to
know her, because she's hard to take it first, but
we realize that for Pearl, she is as religious as
(20:25):
she is because it was something that brought healing. It
was something that brought some light into a life that
had been so bruised and so darkened by violence against her,
and so she embraced it ferociously and she became, you know,
(20:45):
this almost strident proponent of her beliefs because she really
felt that they had rescued her. And as she grapples
with becoming a monster, we're gonna we're gonna realize more
of the humanity underneath what looks like I sort of
(21:06):
unappealing kind of fundamentalism. And I hope that I found
that fascinating. I found that, you know, both psychologically and
emotionally and even spiritually rich, and I hope that people
will feel safe.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
As we're talking. I wrote down blinding light she was.
She became like a harsh, blinding light of her beliefs
to protect that part of her that was wounded. And
so a blinding, harsh light can camouflage things. But that was,
you know, and I'm thinking of is it some I
(21:44):
must have seen the movie, because I just think of
Medusa as like this, you know, light coming out of
her eyes and the idea of turning somebody to stone.
That's like harsh. But I just I just thought right
now that her, that her belief system. You know, when
people are fundamentalists or you know, there's they grab on
so hard that it is and the things that she
(22:07):
the things that Pearl supports are so they're virtuous, but
she's just dogged in that. But there's a blinding light
to that for her. And maybe that's how other people are.
Maybe that's how you know, that's because Tabitha does sort
of have that back and forth with her, and and
(22:30):
it annoys Tabitha. But there's nothing that Pearl is supporting
that is wrong, Like, you can't Faulter for wanting to
save all these women from the saloons and from the
seedy life that she knows is existing.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
You know what I mean. I like that. Yeah, I
love what you said. And I'm going to really think
about that image of the blinding light that is so
insightful and so visually arresting to me. I hadn't thought
of it that way, but I really love that. And
I think we too often resort to a very stereotypic
(23:10):
interpretation of when somebody has these deep, deep convictions and
these strong connections to their faith, and we default to
the assumption they've been blind you know, brainwashed and blinded
by They've been fooled, they've been hoodwinked. And I think
that we do people a disservice and not asking like
(23:35):
what deep experiences in their own life made this such
a fit for them, made this so resonant. And I
think it's important too. And this is something that I've
written about in my novel The Passion of Dolsa, which
is set in the thirteenth century and is about a
medieval mystic. And that is that I think we don't
realize historically how how liberating and how democratized and how
(24:00):
feminist religion has been for women through the centuries. Because
God is one I mean, don't get me wrong, Like
there's a strong tradition to make God male male male
male male, and I'm not here to say what gender
God is. But for all of the misogyny that coexists
in religion, there remains this fact that, like the divine
(24:23):
is beyond the reach of any human male authority. And
so the medievalistics in the thirteenth century, if they could
really help, if they could make you believe as they
believed that God had spoken to them, they had power,
They had authority. Nobody could take away from them their
(24:44):
witness and conviction that God has spoken to me. And so,
and I don't mean to say that the women was
lying or manipulated, but religion is a source of authority
and a source of power. If you have spiritual power,
if you if you become a light to others such
that they flock to you to hear your words or
(25:04):
receive your miracles. What bishop or king can stop you right,
like religion is a source of power. And similarly, the
Salvation Army in the late nineteenth century was one of
the only religious movements in America, probably in England as well,
where it began, that gave equal status and footing to
(25:27):
women as to men. Women could have the same leadership ranks,
women could be in charge, and in fact, women led
the Salvation Army like the uppermost ranks for many of
the early years, and scholars believe this is because the
founder of William Booth was married to a very strong
and outspoken woman and they had the flock of very strong,
(25:49):
outspoken daughters. But you know, it probably kind of burst
our brains a little bit in modern times. But to
join the Salvation Army was one of the most kind
of brave and defiant things a girl could do, because
she could be a general over a man, and she
(26:09):
could speak and she could preach, and she could pray
in church and be listened to by men, which was
not happening anywhere else. So I think that's kind of cool.
You know, that is very cool.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
That is very cool. I like that, And you know,
we think of when I think of the Salvation Army,
I don't really think of, you know, the religious aspect
of that sort of you know, I think of, you know,
just an organization that helps people. So maybe there's sort
(26:42):
of a civilian aspect that merges with the religious aspects
that I hadn't thought of before that would get that
would empower women through their organization and through that movement,
because we still have Salvation Army. It's still existing today.
It's just you know, that's cool.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
One of the things that we were talking about earlier
was the the impact of myth through culture, whether it's
good or evil, and you talked about that. Did we
cover all the aspects of that with Medusa or anything
you wanted to add to that about mythology, because I'm
all on board with that. I love the idea of
reimagining characters through even you know, like through the heroes.
(27:28):
You know there there is so much more complex And
when I look at the myths as a historian, I'm
rather a humanist, So I think about why would a
character do what they do, what would what would be
going on inside of them as a as a human being,
you know, So looking at a character like like Medusa,
when I look at Clytemnestra or even when I look
(27:48):
at Odysseus or Penelope, what, you know, what would you
be feeling and going through as a human being?
Speaker 3 (27:56):
You know?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And how does that as you as a modern uh storyteller,
as a modern myth reimaginer, how does that?
Speaker 3 (28:04):
You know?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
How does all that play into your work or your thoughts?
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Well? I think the power, the lasting power of these myths,
the reason we can't get enough of them even today,
has a lot to do with the fact that they
are such powerful stories. They draw us into the situations
of their characters. They reveal the humanity of their characters.
(28:30):
I don't mean to say that their characters always behave
in humane ways, but they reveal the humanness, the possession
of jealousies, rage, joy, passion, desire, greed, lust, appetite, fatigue,
you know, courage and battle, cowardice in battle. You know,
(28:52):
they're so human. And I think that is the astonishing
thing about story and about point of view. Anytime you're
really surrender to story and like just think what would
these people do and how would they feel? And bring
that forward into the story, you've done something radical and subversive,
and you've done something beautiful and lasting. And so that's
(29:14):
why these stories are still with us. And I want
to begin I want to make sure that people know,
like I love these myths. I am like, I'm a
worshiper at the altar of these stories. Even if they're
totally slanted against women, in spite of themselves, they empower women.
I mean, in spite of themselves. We have these fierce
(29:34):
goddesses and these powerful monsters and these you know, I
mean Medea, Oh my gosh, I mean, she's terrible, but
she's kind of incredible. She's compelling. So that is the
power of story. Story, you know, centers the point of
view of the human story mesmerizes us with what would
these people do? But at the same time, and I
(29:57):
just want to be really clear how much I love them,
how much as a person who makes her living sharing
stories with the world, what a debt I owe to
these stories, and how greatful I am for them. But
I also believe not incompatible take a critical look at them,
and it's certainly not incompatible with our love for them
to to give ourselves radical permission to rewrite them.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Did you want to share any of the research that
you did for MEDUSA anything that struck you when I
was doing when I was researching for talking to you,
because I did not I didn't want to come unprepared.
I did see a big transition from Medusa. You know,
she was a monster and then she became this beautiful woman.
(30:45):
And I'm going to pull that all the way to
your book. How you pull that into with Pearl. So
Pearl was actually the transverse. She was beautiful and then
she became a monster. Did you want to talk about
how you did any researching came to that?
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Sure? Yeah, Well, I mean if we look at the
history of how Medusa has been portrayed visually through the millennia,
I mean, it's fascinating in its own right. For research,
I did take that course that I mentioned, the Morbid
Anatomy course, which had a lot of really great visuals,
a lot of I really recommended, very entertaining experience, very educational.
(31:23):
I also took a trip to Greece and I got
to see a lot of you know, carvings and statues
and a lot of artistic representations, which was just amazing.
The early visuals of Madusa are like animal like. Some
of them have like a snout, you know. Sometimes she
has a snout, she has tusks. Her face is usually
portrayed as like very round, like a sun, and very
(31:46):
kind of bulgy, and she's often shown with her tongue
sticking out in a really kind of kind of way.
So early on, like they really leaned into the ugly part,
like there was no no ambiguity there, and somewhere, and
I'm not gonna be able to say with precision when,
but somewhere, as we got into like the Renaissance and Beyonce,
(32:07):
you know, we start to see a Medusa who does
still have snakes, but has maybe also some more conventional
feminine beauty. And then we get to where there's a
whole world of Medusa erotica. So today it's tricky how
to render her visually today, because if we go really
(32:28):
animalistic and tusks and things and a snout, then I
think people cannot see her in a human way. And
a big part of the changes that I made were
to give her personhood, to give her agency, to give
her a voice, to allow her to be a person
who could have relationships, have conversations, go out in the
world and make choices and learn from her choices. And
(32:50):
so there's this line. We have to strike to look
sort of human and enough that an audience can say, Okay,
I can relate to you. I can you know, I
can see myself in you. But I still didn't want
I didn't want to be I didn't want any like medusachord.
You know, if I'm not looking for I wasn't looking
(33:11):
for Reduca to be hot sexy. That wasn't what I'm
going because I'm.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Sorry, because I did come across an article that was
linking Medusa to like the fem fatale.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
When you spoke.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Earlier about that, the Medusa story can and some of
the stories that we we retell can be kind of harmful.
And it really and that really focuses on the manipulation
of female sexuality. I think our society perpetuates that, even unintentionally,
you know, that that the only power that women have
(33:47):
is either through violence or their sexuality, and that they
can trap a man with that.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
So I was like, whoa, that that's just you know,
I was just thinking all kinds of things, and then
a quote was the feminization of monsters served to demonize women.
I wrote that down when I was reading, and I thought, yeah,
that's I don't know, did you want to speak.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
To that guy?
Speaker 2 (34:13):
I just threw that. I just threw that at you
right now, because that was that. These are these aha
moments I was having because I was reading your book
If Luks Could Kill, and I was very I'm just fascinated,
like I'm going down. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Oh. I love it. I love it. I appreciate the question.
I think that to demonize women, to turn some of
them into monsters or witches, is very convenient tool for
male power. It allows there to be good women, young, pretty, mouldible, impressionable,
(34:47):
sweet and sexual and sexually desirable, and then bad women
who we can kill. It is a convenient solution for
a mindset that wants to enjoy what women add to
their lives, sex and babies and subverb and still be
able to eliminate those women who actually prove challenging to men, because,
(35:12):
for example, what's more challenging to a man than an intelligent, empowered,
let's say, menopausal woman who has had it, you know,
and is like taking none of your garbage. That is
very threatening, right, burned our witches because as soon as
they've had some words and some opinions of their own
and like to live on their own as a widow
(35:33):
without a man. What you know, this is dangerous, This
is threatening. So for men to make beauty and ugliness
the dividing line between the females we keep and the
females we kill. These stories of female monsters just serve
that narrative and actually allow girls in the audience to
be like, yeah, kill the witch, kill the monster. I mean,
(35:55):
you know, we follow along with the story. And I
think that idea that Medusa has a power, she cannot
control a pot. She is powerless to effect. I read
it as an analog to a woman's sexual appeals, slash
her own sexual appetites, and to make a woman only.
(36:16):
That is to say, she has no intelligence, she has
no political opinion, she has no financial acumen, she has
no creative talent, she has no friendships of her own.
She is nothing more than a column of lust, My
lust for her, her lust for someone who's not me,
you know. Like so so anyway, I just think it
(36:40):
all comes down to sex and control, and if they
can persuade the world through story that once the beauty
goes away, the need to keep this person alive is removed.
Maybe why women are literally killing themselves and covering up
their bodies and poisoning their bodies and torturing their souls
(37:02):
to try to retain the appearance of a twenty two
year old girl long past when nature thinks they should
look like a twenty two year old girl. Because we
have literally been taught that not just our worth, but
our physical survival is tied to remaining young pretty.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
That that's a very powerful point. And as a woman
who turned sixty this past summer, I resonate with that,
like I'm I'm in my Nona phase now and it's great,
but you know, there are some consequences to that. This
is a great conversation I have. Maybe we can chat
again another time and do a different episode. And when
(37:44):
did your book come out?
Speaker 3 (37:46):
September sixteenth is the official release. I will be doing
some events as early as next week, but the sixteenth
is the official day. And I wanted to tell you too.
I have a sister who's a PhD mythologist and teaches
mythology at PACIFICA. So if you ever want us to
come back and talk together, I mean, she's brilliant and.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
That would be fantastic. Let's do that. I bet we
could do a great episode. It's just been really good
talking to you, and I'm glad to get to know you,
and I am definitely excited about your books. So well, Julie,
thank you so much for coming and joining the Greek
Mythology we Told podcasts and sharing your work with us.
(38:26):
I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Oh, thank you, Janelle. I was so excited to get
this invitation. I thought we were going to have a
great chat and we shared it.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Well, I will see you next time then.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Sounds good, looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
You bet.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
That's all for today, Murma Dons, I hope you enjoyed
this deep dive with the brilliant Julie Berry as much
as I did. From Medusa's Serpentine Gays to Pearls Blinding Light,
Julie's storytelling reminds us that myth, mystery and human nature
are eternally entwined. If you haven't picked up her new book,
(39:07):
If Flukes Could Kill, I highly recommend that you do so.
It is a dark, mesmerizing twist on ancient myth with
a dash of Victorian horror. It releases September sixteenth, right
around the corner and is available everywhere until next time.
Please like, follow, and share the podcast so more myth
(39:28):
loving listeners can find us. I'm Janelle Rhiannon, author of
the Homeric Chronicles and your guide through the wild world
of God's monsters and the mortal messes that we continue
to unravel in this podcast and in the books that
we love to read. Well that's it, So drink your
wine and be married for the Dallas
Speaker 3 (40:00):
He Mo
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