A brief description of the Greek god Dionysus is that he is the god of wine, theater, and madness. Alcohol brings two sides to people: overjoyed and happy, or uncontrollable anger or sorrow. These emotions can be seen as the two masks associated with Greek theater or drama in general, one smiling and the other frowning.
While I would say many people know this overview, the mythology surrounding Dionysus' birth and events he later became pivotal in are less known. Specifically, Euripides' Bacchae paints an amazing picture of this trickster god as a strongly sexually ambiguous and misunderstood individual.
Dionysus, Bacchus being his Roman name, was born out of the thigh of Zeus, who put him there after his mother, Semele, died with Dionysus still in her womb. To me, the Greek gods who have the most interesting gender dynamics are the ones who are not allowed to be traditionally born of a woman. Like how Athena was born out of Zeus' mind and ended up uncharacteristically masculine, Dionysus operates as her foil.
Where Athena in her appearances guides characters towards victory through cunning or reason, Dionysus obfuscates truth with almost everyone that he meets and enjoys watching the world around him succumb to whatever madness he dolls out. I like to connect this kind of confusion that Dionysus revels in to the contemporary "gender fuck" individuals, typically gender queer people who enjoy others not knowing right away whether they're male or female.
The play starts out with Dionysus setting his own scene, explaining that his family on Semele's side rejects him as a god descended from Zeus. They believe Semele was committing infidelity with a mortal man and proclaimed it was Zeus as a cover up, promptly burning to death for lying. Really, Hera had her killed out of jealousy. Dionysus throughout the play sets up a cruel revenge for his aunts and extended family in Thebes. Being the black sheep of his own family is another unique trans-y trait worth pointing out here. He is not even recognized as one of their own.
When Pentheus, one of the sons of the indignant aunts and current king of Thebes, walks in on his grandfather, Cadmus, and seer, Tiresias, praying and talking of Dionysus, he quips about Dionysus' Bachhae (maenads, raving female followers):
The flame, They say, of Bacchios wraps them. Bacchios! Nay, 'Tis more to Aphrodite that they pray. Howbeit, all that I have found, my men Hold bound and shackled in our dungeon den; The rest, I will go hunt them! Aye, and snare My birds with nets of iron, to quell their prayer And mountain song and rites of rascaldom! They tell me, too, there is a stranger come, A man of charm and spell, from Lydian seas, A head all gold and cloudy fragrancies, A wine-red cheek, and eyes that hold the light Of the very Cyprian. Day and livelong night He haunts amid the damsels, o'er each lip Dangling his cup of joyance!—Let me grip Him once, but once, within these walls, right swift That wand shall cease its music, and that drift Of tossing curls lie still—when my rude sword Falls between neck and trunk!
The bolded and italicized lines
illustrate Pentheus' disgust towards Dionysus not only for creating this
religious fanatical group of women on the outskirts of town, but also
apparently for his feminine appearance. To hold the light of a Cyprian,
as he says, is also an effeminate insult resembling a lewd woman. Reluctance here emanates from Pentheus' mother being wary and untrusting of the supposed illegitimate son Dionysus her whole life, and his general discrepancies with women "succumbing to their nature," and his toxic masculinity being reflected onto Dionysus, being upset with him for not performing as he should.
The Bacchae chorus sings that Dionysus' scorns only those that spurn joy. Modern day joy spurners, one could imagine, would be those who would get upset at the liberties of any marginalized group. When conservatives get mad about some other group apart from their own getting civil liberties, this is what Dionysus would scorn. Hate at the joy and simple liberty of others. Pentheus hated the kind of freedom that the Bacchic mysteries offered the women of the towns that rejected Dionysus.
When a modern town rejects Dionysus, they start out by rejecting its marginalized peoples, spurning their joy out of hatred. And many of those repressed people find their joy by participating in the modern day mysteries, found families, togetherness, and activism apart from their upbringing.
