The infamous Sirens appearing Homer’s The Odyssey are some of the most famous monsters to appear in the book. They are easily identifiable and serve as a microcosm of the books’ major themes and characterizations found within. Despite this, however, there are not many depictions of Sirens in media. Those that do exist are only present in extremely specific conditions. A Greek mythology-based story, direct retelling of The Odyssey, or something to do with pirates. Most of these portrayals are the same though. Seductive women attempting to make men stray away from their purpose.  

One of these such examples is the Sirens from the God of War series. God of War is a video game series that takes place during ancient Greece. Due to this, many famous stories and myths make an appearance in it. One such is the Sirens, depicted as scantily clad, voluptuous women with rotting flesh for faces. It’s pretty sexist. Many adaptations of the Sirens follow this route, making them alluring to men before revealing the dark truth. They are not pretty. The Sirens only value to the men in these versions is their bodies. They are trying to ‘trick’ men into being with them, reinforcing the theme of women making men cheat in the Odyssey.  

A good, less sexist, and more accurate depiction is the one in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Sea of Monsters. It’s fairly true to the original. The Sirens are shown to be bird women, with no aspect of them meant to turn old men on. They attract people with their deepest desires, similarly to Odysseus in The Odyssey. The character Annabeth decides to mimic Odysseus and listen to the Sirens to gain wisdom. The Sirens don’t try to seduce her, they instead show here a vision of what she wants a la the Mirror of Erised. This section is a faithful adaptation that makes the Sirens seem cool without making them a poor metaphor for women as a whole. 

Another poor version of the Sirens is the sirens from Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides. Once more, the Sirens are shown to be seductive and naked. The main reason I brought it up though is that it plays into the bastardization of the Sirens. It makes them mermaids. Somewhere along the way, the concept of the Sirens blended into folklore with mermaids, and now the two are the same in the eyes of the public. There is some interesting social commentary on how people treat the two different stories about women as the same and force them together. 

The Sirens are near and dear to my heart. Their concept is interesting, but the themes and imagery behind them make it hard to engage. Especially with how they are still portrayed today. Despite about 1500 years passing, we still have similar views on gender that the ancient Greeks did. This needs to change. I hope that by reading this passage and analyzing it, we can begin to move past such limited views.