“Ancient Archetypes, Amber Heard, and How to Avoid Both” read a headline on a rightwing US website in May. It was illustrated with Caravaggio’s painting of Medusa, her hair a writhing mass of snakes, her eyes bulging, her mouth open in a silent scream. “Don’t look at her, Johnny! She may turn you to stone!” read the first line of the piece.
There is no more potent symbol of male fear of the female gaze than Medusa. She can destroy you with a single glance. For my generation, we knew this at a very early age, from the 1981 movie Clash of the Titans. Harry Hamlin, as the handsome young hero Perseus, has been sent on a quest to find the head of a gorgon. He hunts Medusa to a dark cave, and discovers that she is hunting him too: armed with a bow, she picks off his comrade with an arrow, and then petrifies him with her glowing eyes. Perseus has to approach her by looking at her reflection in his shield, and even once he has killed her, she is toxic. Her spilled blood is lethally corrosive. I love this film: it was my first introduction to Greek myth. But it cemented the idea of Medusa as predator in my mind for a long time. And, in recent years, the monstrous Medusa has become a default allegory for a hated woman in the public eye.
