Greeks Protest Cameron's Next Religious Exposé

01/13/2008

By Chris Mikesell

SPANAKOPITA, GREECE—This small town on the island of Crete was thrown into turmoil, October 21, when James Cameron announced his next documentary project. On the heels of his Lost Tomb of Jesus film, the producer of The Terminator and Titanic has begun filming Olympus: Mountain or Molehill? The film is the result of discoveries Cameron made while vacationing in the region.

“I was on a vacation-slash-scouting trip,” Cameron said, “looking for the right place to film my next feature, Piranha III: When Tilapia Go Bad, when I found this graveyard up on a small bluff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Inside there were headstones with the names Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, and more. A cluster of graves like this can only mean one thing: the Greek Immortals were more mortal than we thought.”

Cameron took a vanful of reporters to the scene, marked by a sign reading
Nekropolis Petios.

“The first word clearly means Graveyard,” Cameron translated. “The second appears to be a very ancient word. It has no counterpart in the language today, but we—that is, my hand-picked band of freelance scholars—think it means “of the Gods.”

Even as a group of angry locals began assembling on the hillside, Cameron took reporters quickly through the site, pointing out the markers that initially caught his attention.

“That one there with the head of a dog on it has the word Zeus below it. Clearly a reference to the Arcadian Zeus Lykaios, or Wolf-Zeus, tradition.

“And there, Athena with the carving of an owl above it. Yeah, it looks like a parakeet, but the makers of these humble graves must have had only crude tools to work with.”

The name Poseidon was on a small marker with a fish above the name. A cat marked the resting place of Artemis, goddess of the hunt and moon.

“Our researchers are looking into the connection between Apollo and ferrets, Ares and iguanas, Hera and goats, not to mention previously unknown gods and goddesses like Bugsy and Miss Frisky,” said Cameron. “Not everything has been passed down in popular myth, so we’re excited by what discoveries they’ll have for us.”

Shortly thereafter, the townsfolk demanded that the filmmaker and reporters leave their pets to rest in peace. Cameron addressed the controversy at his hotel over baklava and tea. “Well, of course they’re going to say that. The Christians protested us, too. Nobody wants the truth revealed.”

Cameron says his next documentary will focus either on Gods of the Mayans (“Quetzalcoatl? Looks like a Lost World dinosaur to me!”) or the Vikings. “Give global warming a bit more time and we’ll find what they’ve been hiding under those fjords,” Cameron said, “believe you me!”

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