Sirens in popular culture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The following are a selection of prominent popular culture references to the mythological Sirens.

Contents 1 In print 2 In television 3 In film 4 In music 5 In theatre 6 In computer and video games 7 Miscellaneous

[edit] In print

• In Terry Brooks' Shannara series there is a species of carnivorous plant called 'Sirens' that grows on the Battlemounds in the Eastlands. The plants have poison thorns which they are capable of launching at prey. They lure their prey within reach with an illusion of a beautiful woman singing.

• In the comic strip FoxTrot, Paige Fox is represented as a Siren in Peter Fox's dream of the Odyssey.

• There is a Marvel Comics superhero named Siryn, whose mutant power is an ability to use a 'sonic scream,' much like Banshee, her father. Both characters' names come from mythological characters best known for their vocal abilities.

• The DC Comics-character and Titans-foe Siren is a mermaid and uses her singing as her main weapon.

• In the Phantom of the Opera book, Phantom, by Susan Kay, Erik (The Phantom) guards his house by singing underwater, and luring people to their deaths, under the persona of 'The Siren.'

• In Laurell K Hamilton's Danse Macabre book, Anita Blake runs into a family of sirens who can arouse people through their beauty and their ancient magic. The mother, and her three half-vampire sons hope that Anita can awaken the ability for lust in the siren-mother's eldest son through the medium of her own magic.

• Siren is Monster in My Pocket #79. She appears to be allied with the evil monsters, as she as shown near Warlock in the first issue. The evil monsters are generally shown in crowds and indistinguishable in most panels, however.

• In The Source of Magic, the second of the long-running Xanth series of fantasy novels by Piers Anthony, the Siren lures men with her song in order to seek companionship. The danger is that her sister is the Gorgon, who turns them to stone with a glance. Both are innoncents, however, and do not understand the danger they pose.

[edit] In television

• In the final season of Sailor Moon, one of the Sailor Animamates (Sailor Galaxia's cronies) mentioned is Sailor Aluminum Siren. In the anime, she doesn't sing, but just as her name suggests, she lures victims to their doom, by disguising herself in human form and when she has the opportunity tries to extract their star seeds but fails, turning them into phages. In Materials Collection, it mentions that she has the power to manipulate songs and that her hobby is ballads.

• An episode of the BBC comedy Red Dwarf entitled Psirens featured repulsive creatures who could create the illusion they were beautiful women. They did this hoping to lure unwary travellers to them so they could suck out their brains with a straw.

• In the 2003 Pax Network made-for-cable movie Mermaids, the mermaid character Venus played by actress Nikita Ager had a siren ability that allowed her to enchant and hypnotize male characters.

• In The Simpsons episode "Tales from the Public Domain", Odysseus (Homer Simpson) and his crew are sailing by and hear an enchanting song. They imagine that the women singing would be gorgeous nymphs. Unfortunately, it turns out that the "gorgeous maidens" are Homer's very unattractive twin sisters-in-law. When the crew sees them, they gasp out of shock and disgust and sail away as quickly as possible.

• Melinda Clarke plays a siren on an episode of Charmed titled "Siren Song".

• In an episode of Stargate: Atlantis, the character Dr. Rodney McKay is trapped in a puddle jumper under several fathoms of water. His subconscious creates the hallucination of Lt. Col. Samantha Carter. She discourages him from going with his plan to use the ship's engines to ascend because it won't work and will only drain power. She tries to distract him by seducing him and kissing him, but he quickly realises what she's trying to do and ignores her, declaring: "I see what you're doing, Lt. Col. Siren!"

• From April 21, 2006 on, the NBC soap opera Passions featured the character of Siren, a mermaid in love with Miguel Lopez-Fitzgerald.

• In the Batman TV series, a villain named Lorelei Circe (a.k.a. The Siren), played by Joan Collins, appears in episode 97, titled "The Wail of The Siren". The episode aired on September 28, 1967.

• In the Disney Channel's own show So Weird the character Carey Bell was entranced by a siren he met in a performing bar who wanted to run away with him.

• In a Sony advertisment two women travel out in search of the siren call and record the song using Sony MiniDisc recorders. Playback of the song in an urban environment causes unusual events such as cars spinning in circles.

• "Home Sweet Homer", an episode of DuckTales based on The Odyssey, featured the sirens as resembling beautiful female ducks, but actually being angler fish-style "lures" on the head of a single giant monster.

• Sirens are briefly mentioned in American Dragon: Jake Long in the episode Dragon Summit and will make a future appearance in the show.

• The character Angel (Experiment 624) is a siren-like genetic experiment whose song can turn good people evil.

[edit] In film

• Elle MacPherson, Portia de Rossi and Kate Fischer starred as sirens alongside Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald and Sam Neill in John Duigan's Sirens (1994) a mildly erotic comedy. The basic (fictional) plotline being that a young English clergyman and his wife are drawn into an enticing world of lascivious art while attempting to persuade the genuine Australian artist Norman Lindsay (played in the film by Sam Neill) to withdraw a controversial work of art from an upcoming exhibition. Once on the artist's estate, however, the couple find themselves increasingly drawn into a more sexually liberated world by Lindsay's family and his three beautiful models.

• Three "Sirens" were featured in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?

[edit] In music

• It Dies Today recorded an album in 2006 called "Sirens," a concept album of sorts, with imagery relating to the seductive powers of Sirens.

• Tim Buckley wrote and performed a song called "Song to the Siren" which has been covered by many artists including, perhaps most famously, the Cocteau Twins.

• The Chemical Brothers released a separate song also called "Song to the Siren" on their 1995 debut album Exit Planet Dust.

• A Siren is featured in Radiohead's first single, "There There", from their sixth album, Hail to the Thief.

There's always a siren

singing you to shipwreck.

(don't reach out, don't reach out)

Steer away from these rocks

we'll be a walking disaster

(don't reach out, don't reach out)

• The British synthpop band Erasure has a song entitled Siren Song on their 1991 album Chorus:

Ever faithful I endure to listen for the sound of the siren song

Ragged whispers of imprisioned sisters

Cutting through real life, drawing me nearer...

Hearts that cry diamond tears, spirits that walk for a thousand years

Hear them calling on that darkest morning

Pulling me under, my thoughts disappear...

• The song "Siren" by Tori Amos is featured on the Great Expectations Soundtrack.

• The Finnish heavy metal band Nightwish also has a song called "The Siren", which describes a man tying himself to the wheel of his ship to resist the beautiful siren of the sea:

Lady with a violin playing to the seals

Hearken to the sound of calling...

Who tied my hands to the wheel?

The zodiac turns over me

Somewhere there my fate revealed

I hear, but how can I see...

I tied myself to the wheel

The winds talk to my sails, not me

(Come to me...)

• The song Blood, Milk and Sky by groove metal band White Zombie is about falling under a siren's spell.

The siren sings a lonely song

of all the wants and hungers

The lust of love a brute desire

the ledge of life goes under

Divide the dream into the flesh

Kaleidoscope and candle eyes

Empty Winds scrape on the Soul

But never stop to realize

• Heavy Metal band Savatage has a song called "Sirens" on their debut album of the same name, Sirens, released in 1983.

• The band Steely Dan released a song entitled "Home at Last" that made reference to Odysseus's adventure with the Sirens. The chorus is as follows:

The danger on the rocks is surely past

Still I remain tied to the mast

Could it be that I have found my home at last?

• The Cream song "Tales of Brave Ulysses" also references the Sirens:

And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids,

And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave Ulysses:

How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,

For the sparkling waves are calling you to kiss their white laced lips.

• My Dying Bride recorded a song called "Le Figlie Della Tempesta" (translation: "daughters of the storm") on their 2001 album The Dreadful Hours. This song is widely believed to be about the call of sirens:

Before I go down

Cleave to me

Kiss and drown

Weave your web of lies

Catch the drifters by

The wind brings them in

To the den of your sin

Caught by your divine spell

Locked within your wishing well

Ice as eyes lured my soul

Look of lust froze me cold

Many lies holds your body

A true feast for all to see

Men will fall to her song

Women too, won't last long

• Neil Young mentions the sirens in his song "Don't Let It Bring You Down" from the album After the Gold Rush from 1972. They're mentioned in a rather mythological context since the second verse start off by referring to a blind man, a clear allusion of Tiresias, the blind and sex-altering prophet of greek mythology. The second verse:
  

Blind man running through the light of the night

With an answer in his hands:

"Come on down to the river of sight,

And you can really understand

Red lights flashing through the window in the rain

Can you hear the sirens moan?"

White cane lying in the gutter in the lane

If you're walking home alone

[edit] In theatre

• The Siren was a Broadway musical in the style of an operetta, which played at the Knickerbocker Theatre on Broadway in 1911.

[edit] In computer and video games

• A Siren can be summoned by characters in many games of the Final Fantasy series; she can usually inflict silence upon the player's opponents. She is often the fourth summon made available to the player, following the fire-, cold-, and lightning-based summons.

• In the video game series Star Control, one alien species is a race of beautiful blue women named "Syreens". Also, their ships can use mind-control to beckon crew from enemy ships to work on theirs.

• The characters Elle, Flameshe and Monique in the console role-playing game Legend of Mana are sirens. Flameshe is a mermaid, while Elle and Monique are bird-like from the waist down and have wings (though Monique's are decidedly more plant-like than bird-like). Elle (the only playable siren) suffered grief when she realised that her singing had caused the ship to crash and vowed to never sing again, until her friends convinced her that she should not be ashamed of the fact she is a siren. Monique is known for singing to unseen fairies to have them magically light the lamps she crafts.

• In God of War, the protagonist Kratos has to find and defeat three sirens and their minotaur minions in the desert.

• In the Playstation 2 game Rygar, the final Diskarmor the player obtains can be used to summon Siren to aid in battle. She attacks using water and ice-based attacks.

• Sirens also feature (although only rarely) in the video game Castlevania. On the occasions that they do appear, their physical appearance is never the same. As a character, the Siren is merely a stronger version of a harpy, a "spellcastress", and takes its original mythological form.

• "Siren" is a class in the video game Tactics Ogre: Knights of Lodis. Instead of being an enchantress (a position taken by the "witch"), the Siren is a magical powerhouse, capable of using the strongest of offensive spells with devastating results.

• In the video game Sudki there a boss monster that is a siren.

• The Naga Siren is a controllable unit in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne

• In the PC game Black and White 2, Siren is an epic miracle where a beautiful woman appears over the landscape causing enemy units to be drawn to her and, if weak enough, convert to your side.

[edit] Miscellaneous

• Sir3n is a popular culture magazine.

• The Starbucks logo features an image of a Siren (according to Starbucks' Carol Pucik and a press release on the history of the logo[1]) in the centre (though, more accurately, the depiction is closer to that of a melusine or a two-tailed mermaid).

• The Siren is the mascot of The Buffalo Seminary, a non-sectarian school for girls in Buffalo, NY.