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Destripando la Historia

Year:

2017-

Running time:

4 mn

Number of Seasons:

1

Episodes:

61

Genre:

Musical animated project, HIstorical fiction

Nationality:

Spain

Language:

Spanish

Platform:

Youtube

Director:

Álvaro Pascual “Pascu”, Rodrigo Septién “Rodri”

Producer:

Screenwriter/s:

Álvaro Pascual “Pascu”, Rodrigo Septién “Rodri”

Cast:

Other websites:

Trailer:

Summary
Destripando la Historia is a video musical animated project on Youtube created by Álvaro Pascual and Rodrigo Septién, also known as Pascu y Rodri, which covers many different topics, like historical characters, superheroes, books, holidays, and mythology. While there is large number of music videos dedicated to Norse (7) and Greek (15) mythology, only 3 videos on Ancient Egyptian gods have been released so far (Ra, Goddess Isis, and Horus).
Ra and Sekhmet-Bastet after the salvation of Humanity (Screenshot by author)
The fourth generation of the Heliopolitan cycle: Isis (center), Seth (left), Horus the Elder (far left), Osiris (right), Neftis (far right) (Screenshot by author)
Horus losing his left eye in the battle against Seth (Screenshot by author)
Egyptomania narratives or motifs
In the three videos, Pascu and Rodri make use of different Ancient Egyptian myths from different sources and present them in a lineal, unified meta-narrative. The producers allude mainly to the Heliopolitan cycle, focusing primarily on the god Ra and the fourth generation of gods. All the gods are designed in a style inspired by Japanese anime and have very characteristic Egyptiansing features (including wearing clothing items like nemes and schenti) so that they are distinguishable to the viewer. Some characters are depicted in a complete anthropomorphic form (Horus), others in a zoomorphic form (Ra), but all of them can shapeshift.

The first video, dedicated to Ra, describes the creation of the world and all living beings from the solar god, who is presented as a mascot-like character with a human body, pharaonic attributes, and a chicken head (hence the title of the song, Ra -Chickenman-). Pascu and Rodri emphasize the power of the word as a demiurgic creative force that can be seen in some Egyptian myths. The second part of the video is dominated by two stories: the Destruction of Humanity by Sekhmet, which is taken from the Book of the Heavenly Cow, and the tale of Isis and Ra, where Isis tricks Ra into giving her his real name, and thus his power. This video features an Egyptian-inspired intermusicality of pop culture, as the instrumental music is based on Katy Perry's Dark Horse.

The second video, dedicated to Isis, shows Isis' intelligence and her role in the coronation of Horus. Within the video, we find references to the Osirian myth described by Plutarch and other sources (like the murder of Osiris by Seth and the birth of Horus), the tale of Isis and Ra, and references to the dynastic struggle between Seth and Horus. Isis is sometimes presented as a nurse in the video, a reference to her apotropaic ability.

In the third video, dedicated to Horus, the producers mainly use the trials between uncle and nephew in The Contendings of Horus and Seth from the Chester Beatty Papyrus, but also other minor sources which allude to Horus' relationship with his mother, his scorpion wives, and, to a lesser extent, Hathor. Some of the trials shown in the video appear as described in the papyrus, such as the fight in the form of a hippopotamus or the boat race. Seth's attempted rape of Horus also appears, but it is toned down to make it acceptable to younger audiences.
The videos contain accurate sentences and epithets in Egyptian hieroglyphics (like the name of the gods or litanies to Ra), but other languages typical of geek culture are also evident, such as the Unown alphabet from Pokémon. In addition, all the videos are full of pop culture references taken especially from Japanese animation and videogames, as well as Internet culture, such as memes.

Author: Esperanza Macarena Ródenas Perea

Other information
Quintaros-Soliño, A. and Lorenzo Ibáñez, M. (2018), “Destripando la historia: análisis de la influencia de la intertextualidad y la transgresión en la viralidad de los vídeos con doble receptor”, Anuario de Investigación en Literatura Infantil y Juvenil 16: 95-114.
Open access
Ródenas Perea, E. M. (2024), “Ancient Egyptian myths in a Spanish animated video clip project: Pascu and Rodri’s Destripando la Historia”, 15th Celtic Conference in Classics, July 10th 2024 (in print)
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Project Manager

Abraham I. Fernández Pichel

Researchers

Abraham I. Fernández Pichel - Rogério Sousa - Eleanor Dobson - Filip Taterka - Guillermo Juberías Gracia - José das Candeias Sales
Nuno Simões Rodrigues - Samuel Fernández-Pichel - Sara Woodward - Tara Sewell-Lasater - Thomas Gamelin – Leire Olabarría
Alfonso Álvarez-Ossorio - Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier - Marc Orriols-Llonch


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