Historical Context: Dionysus & Gender
Dionysus is an ancient Greek deity known as the god of wine, fertility, ritual madness, theatre, and religious ecstasy. His godly jurisdiction made him an essential part of ancient Greek daily life – wine production was a significant source of wealth and a cultural identifier among ancient Greeks. Furthermore, in the city-state of Athens, drama was an integral part of religious and civic life. The second-biggest festival of the year was a theatrical competition in honor of Dionysus.
While real-life theatrical revelry was an important part of Dionysus-worship, the myths about his origins and habits myths were even wilder. In Dionysian myths, the god attracted followers, often women, who left behind their social roles and became utterly entranced. In their trance-like state, these worshippers became filled with ecstasy; they would drink wine, live in nature, and be totally overcome with sexual, violent, and hedonistic urges. In these myths, the tearing apart and eating of a live animal often presents itself, eventually becoming a part of real-life Greek and Roman rituals in honor of Dionysus.
To the Greeks, and later the Romans, Dionysus represented an upending of the social order. In myth, he seduced his devotees into utter wildness and made them forget their human roots. He was associated with sexual freedom, and freedom from social hierarchies based on wealth and status. One of the main social structures Dionysian worship called into question was gender. In myth, the god entranced women away from their heavily-regulated roles and wives and mothers, and made them dangerous, wild, and powerful. His very image and presentation was different from that of other male gods in the Greek pantheon; he often wore clothing associated with women, where other male gods were portrayed nude. According to scholar Eric Csapo, his traditional masculinity is called further into question by his “sleek hair, unfamiliarity with wrestling” and avoidance of outdoor activities. In addition to the tearing apart and eating of live animals, Dionysian worshippers often dressed in the clothes of the other socially-sanctioned gender as part of their rituals. In 692 CE, well after the heyday of ancient Greece, young people cross-dressing and upending rules of gender in Dionysus-worship were still common enough that the church fathers in Constantinople issued a decree outlawing it.
While ancient Dionysus worship allowed for the deconstruction of gender and other social rules within a set length of time or specific religious context, it may have paradoxically served to reinforce these same social strictures at all other times. According to Csapo, publically-sanctioned rituals of status reversal can reaffirm the importance of social rules after. If everyone is allowed to break the rules of society for one day a year, they might be more content to uphold them at all other times. That being said, Dionysus’ reputation as an agent of chaos and revelry was powerful enough that it is still working today.
In Hurricane Diane, Dionysus is a butch permaculture gardener named Diane. She is still gender-nonconforming, just like she was in ancient Greece. As a butch lesbian, her very presence requires some of the women she interacts with to question their notions of what a woman can be, what a woman can look like, and who they can find attractive. In this reimagining of the Dionysus myth, Madeleine George envisions Dionysus not as a tool to reinforce the social order, but as someone who asks humans to question and ultimately leave behind their social comforts, habits and rules, including gender roles and heterosexuality.
Sources: Acting Like Men: Gender, Drama, and Nostalgia in Ancient Greece, "Riding the Phallus for Dionysus: Iconology, Ritual, and Gender-Role De/Construction", and "Performance Beyond The Binary: Towards An Intersectional And Intersexual Theatrical Discourse".
