By: James Lawson, Joey Murphy, Kyle Heinsohn, Marcus Brion, Phoebe BensonThe 1997 Disney classic Hercules is set in Greece. It is an animated, American version of the Greek mythological story. Hercules, who is the son of Zeus, becomes mortal and must grow up on earth. In the original story, Hercules accidentally kills his wife and ends up committing suicide before being saved by Zeus and taken to Mount Olympus. The family-friendly Disney version has Hercules falling in love and saving the day. Our group watched the film, trying to analyze it from a sociological point of view; these are our thoughts on Hercules. Throughout most of the film Disney's writers were ethnocentric towards Greek culture, overusing columns and clay pots with holographic images and dedicating the entire beginning of the film to Greek culture. This was caused by the phenomenon known as Sapir-Whorf, which in our sociology books is defined as “Perceiving the word through the cultural lens of one's own language”. If the film had been made by someone from a different culture, it would show more of that culture's norms. Most of the characters in the film are Caucasian and have blonde hair and blue eyes, with the exception of the five sassy African-American gospel singers. Hades has a different skin color and is evil while Zeus and Hercules are tan and Caucasian and are good. On the other hand, the deviant people in this movie have sharp teeth, yellow eyes, and the darkness seems as if it follows them. The film shows stereotypical views of Greek culture, body image, race and gender. There is a stereotype that Greeks are overprotective of their children. When Hercules became famous, he gave to the poor and helped his... half of paper... and gave up living on Mount Olympus with the other gods to be with her. This is another two-fold message, both positive and negative. Sacrifices are necessary in every relationship, but Hercules literally leaves his family for a girl who a few hours ago tried to sell him to the devil (the ruler of the underworld)! Like all Disney films, body types are exploited, whether for attractiveness or comic relief. Meg portrays a very unrealistic body image for girls to look at. Her waist is all but gone and her breasts and buttocks are ridiculously out of proportion to her height and size. Before Hercules even talks to Meg, he notices how beautiful she is. Many times in Disney films the female body is used to attract the male. The mare, who was actually Pain and Panic, uses her body to attract Pegasus. The bait in this case distracts Pegasus from doing “the right thing”.