Gina Gershon discusses Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces and its influence on her work. She calls out Campbell's claim that female characters are destinations rather than heroes as "bullshit," pointing to how the hero's journey structure dominates Star Wars, Back to the Future, and The Hunger Games.
Hero with a Thousand Faces was a super important book to me because I remember I had a really incredible professor who was teaching mythology.
I love the idea that structurally, we see it in films, we see it everywhere, the structure of the hero's journey, from Star Wars to Back to the Future, The Hunger Games. But I said to him, you know, these are all male stories, like, where's the female hero story? Joseph Campbell basically said she doesn't have to go on the journey, she's kind of the destination. And honestly, I just, I thought That was bullshit.
Okay, so the big question: how did A Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell change your life?
I mean, it— I think it changed my life because it
