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Event Website
https://www.mythsoc.org/oms/oms-2024.htm
Start Date
2-17-2024 12:00 PM
End Date
2-17-2024 12:50 PM
Description
Although the television series Our Flag Means Death presents on the surface as a romantic comedy, it is enhanced by mythic elements that infuse the narrative with a clear sense of the fantastic. Here, the pirates exist in a Secondary World that openly draws upon the Primary (both in terms of historiography and legend); hence 18th-century piracy and British colonialism can interact seamlessly with human-to-animal-transformations (paying homage to the Greek myth of Ceyx and Alcyone) without seeming either disconcerting or anomalous – all co-exist comfortably in Faerie. OFMD both inverts and deconstructs mythopoeia; the Primary World myths of the Gentleman Pirate, and of the ‘dread pirate’ Blackbeard are simultaneously further mythologized in the series; in particular, the historical friendship between the two undergoes its own Ovidian metamorphosis, portrayed as a queer romantic relationship, one of many highlighted over the two seasons. Indeed, in a crew that is both diverse and queer, (including queered/Othered bodies, sexualities, and identities), queerness is not only a norm, but embraced and celebrated; the ‘chosen family’ of the Revenge’s crew is also depicted as the ‘norm.’ In terms of storytelling, this raises a pertinent question: When queerness is a normalized and predominant culture, who is being Othered for dramatic tension? This paper will explore the ways in which OFMD identifies the antagonists in a queer world, examining how the show challenges and inverts the definition of the Other.
Included in
Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons, Medieval Studies Commons, Modern Languages Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Other English Language and Literature Commons
Our Flag (and Spaceship) Means Queer: Monstering the Majority Culture
Although the television series Our Flag Means Death presents on the surface as a romantic comedy, it is enhanced by mythic elements that infuse the narrative with a clear sense of the fantastic. Here, the pirates exist in a Secondary World that openly draws upon the Primary (both in terms of historiography and legend); hence 18th-century piracy and British colonialism can interact seamlessly with human-to-animal-transformations (paying homage to the Greek myth of Ceyx and Alcyone) without seeming either disconcerting or anomalous – all co-exist comfortably in Faerie. OFMD both inverts and deconstructs mythopoeia; the Primary World myths of the Gentleman Pirate, and of the ‘dread pirate’ Blackbeard are simultaneously further mythologized in the series; in particular, the historical friendship between the two undergoes its own Ovidian metamorphosis, portrayed as a queer romantic relationship, one of many highlighted over the two seasons. Indeed, in a crew that is both diverse and queer, (including queered/Othered bodies, sexualities, and identities), queerness is not only a norm, but embraced and celebrated; the ‘chosen family’ of the Revenge’s crew is also depicted as the ‘norm.’ In terms of storytelling, this raises a pertinent question: When queerness is a normalized and predominant culture, who is being Othered for dramatic tension? This paper will explore the ways in which OFMD identifies the antagonists in a queer world, examining how the show challenges and inverts the definition of the Other.
