“Everything is a Remix”

The other day I was reading Euripides’s Medea for my English class and I realized–let it be known this was not part of my assignment–that I wanted to create a character like Medea. I didn’t want to rewrite the story of Medea. I simply thought that someone like her would create the perfect villain. Why? Because not only did she prefer to commit the horrible act of murdering her children over having her enemies think she was weak, but also because this fact implied that she preferred to be considered insane to the eyes of society than being considered weak. I don’t know if my character will kill his or her children, but I liked the idea of creating a villain with this horrifying mentality. And I also wanted to have my character announce this ideal in a way that he or she looked as mad but as strong as Medea did in Euripides’s play.

A few days later, I was watching a YouTube video series called “Everything is a Remix“. It talks about how most famous movies are not original, but based on something else. As I watched it, I couldn’t help but remember something one of my high school teachers mentioned. She said that now days it was hard to come up with something original, that most, if not all, new books and stories were based on something old. This led me to try to find a similar video but for books. Sadly, I couldn’t find anything.

Yet, if you think about it, all books are based on something else. This other thing is not necessarily a book, but perhaps an interpretation of a book, a movie or an event. Take The Da Vinci Code for example. It is based on a painting, and on historical events that the author wove together to create a new story. Even the classic A Tale of Two Cities is based on historical events. Some of Shakespeare’s plays, too, were not original, but based on other stories. The Greeks, in a similar manner, based their literature on their interpretation of the world and of stories that had been passed on from generations to generations and that were transformed as they were passed.

I am not saying that the human mind is therefore unoriginal. I am simply stating the source of originality is not necessarily creating something new from scratch, but taking something old and making it new by either interpreting or presenting it differently.

Think about it, surely there must be something you have written that is based on the interpretation of something you read, saw or heard. Or maybe you just decided to rewrite something because you like it for one reason but not like it for another.

After watching the YouTube video, I realized that what I wanted to do with the character of Medea was sort of a remix. Now, I don’t know if I am the only person in Write Anything insane enough to have such a fascination in creating a remix of Medea, but I am sure I am not the only one to have done a remix, so feel free to tell me of some of your remixes.