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Tongue-tied baby dragon

Michelle and Michael talk about Bernini's Boy with a Dragon, 1614-20. This is from an imaginative tour at the Getty Center: The Supernatural in Art. Created by Getty Museum.

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Video transcript

- [Voiceover] Hi, I'm Michelle. What you're looking at is a statue of Hercules. He is holding a little dragon and he seems to be defeating the dragon because he's so strong. Hercules looks like he's smiling. He's not really looking at it and he doesn't really know what it is. Like he's just playing around with it 'cause he's a baby. - [Voiceover] Hey, you think I asked for this? I'm a dragon, a monster. - [Voiceover] Hello, my name is Michael. The artist, I think, did the sculpture the way it is to show the strength of Hercules and that this is just the beginning. He's in a battle with the lion. He had to shoot down three harpies, I think it was. And then he had to fight two Minotaurs. - [Dragon] So, got my tongue back for a second. Hercules goes on to fight a lot of bad, bad creatures. But I'm telling ya', I'm not evil. Hercules' dad, the god Zeus, his wife got all mad 'cause Hercules isn't her kid, ya' see? And she sent me to kill him. She shoulda sent my older cousin. - [Michael] He's really squeezing that jaw hard but it looks like he did it without any effort, sitting on the dragon like it was a stuffed animal. - [Michelle] The baby dragon probably doesn't have all it's powers like breathing fire. - [Michael] It's very violent. It's still a great sculpture but it's more on the sad side to me, than happy. The dragon might've been a good dragon and I just kinda feel sad for it because it had to die, by a baby.