RATIONALE

Our group explored the repression of traditional themes in favor of more contemporary christian ideals, so naturally we delved into the inherently dark subject matter of the withheld traditional elements, such as incest, as well. We decided to manipulate this idea of forced cultural harmony by looking at how powerful women have become increasingly sexualized over time to fit in with the evolving concept of a woman's place in society.

Both the original text and the movie features elements that were repressed in order to satisfy the current audience. In the textual iteration of the epic, ideals that should have been prevalent were swept under the rug because they contradicted the primarily christian audience, where as in the cinematic conceptualization of the story, used as a representation of society’s changing views on female sexuality, it was the idea of Grendel’s mother being a hag that was transformed so as to appeal to an audience more concerned with sexiness. Instead of being the swamp hag she was portrayed as in the text, Grendel’s mother is a beautiful and dangerous temptress who attempts to seduce Beowulf.

We decided on a prezi because we believed it would be the best way to display the timeline and sliding scale of our extra genre while incorporating visual elements. This prezi will be utilized in our in-class presentation