Speaking of the movie by Mel Gibson tentively said to be called ‘The Passion Of Christ’ there are a lot of historically based or themed movies coming out in the next months. A movie called Troy is due in theaters soon. I read there are two movies about Alexander the Great being made.
When watching movies with historical themes one must keep in mind that they are not for the most part accurate even when the director is aiming for historical accuracy. Sometime the director is not trying to be accurate as in Oliver Stone movies JFK (can’t grade because I did not see it) and Nixon (B grade) demonstrated.
I wonder in the Alexander the Great movies (or Troy) are they going to deal with the fact Alexander was bisexual (and pedophile by present US standards). In fact the whole ancient Greek society was bisexual.
High premium was placed on the young male form. I feel a quote from The Republic of Plato as translated by Allan Bloom is in order to underline this point. Socrates says of the nobles of Greece “You praise the boy with a snub nose by calling him cute’; the hook nose of another you say is ‘kingly’; and the boy between these two is ‘well proportioned’; the dark look ‘manly’; and the white are ‘children of the gods’. And as for the ‘honey- colored’ do you suppose their very name is the work of anyone other than a lover who renders sallowness endearing and easily puts up with it if it accompanies the bloom of youth? And, in a word, you people take advantage of every excuse and employ any expression so as to reject none of those who glow with the bloom of youth” (474d-475a).
Of course Socrates was talking about lovers in general and when I say lover I mean as in the lover of wine, music, dance, books etc. It was a philosophical conversation in other words. As for the quote above Socrates was specifically talking about the ‘erotic lover’. It is shocking to some no doubt but it is just part of the human condition to me.
To digress even further I guess this is why homosexuals are always suspected of being child molesters. People have somehow tied homosexuality to pedophilia.
It should be obvious that the homosexual male just like the heterosexual male probably prefer a lover younger than they are (most of the time but not all of the time and younger people sometime prefer older individuals). Youth is valued, but this does not mean that the homosexual male will seek out children any more than the heterosexual male.
Here is a list of some facts about ancient Greece you might be interested in. The Olympic games of ancient Greece were held in the nude (for the most part). Alexander sent his male lover back to Greece to rule as he conquered a large part of the world. Alexander married various women from noble lineages as his forces moved across the world. Some young Greek men had to get use to sleeping with women and one of the ways they accomplished this was by having the women wear sandals to bed for the first few times (that’s funny).
Western text and schools credit the first of almost everything (mistakenly we are finding out) to the ancient Greeks. They should likewise give them credit for the above-mentioned sexual behaviors. Of course I know that these behaviors are or were practiced by many former and present cultures, but not as visible as they were practiced in ancient Greece and to a lesser extent in the ancient Roman Empire.
I also wonder how movies with historical themes can do financially in the US where history is not very popular and many people are ‘history challenged’. We know that movies on events in history can be successful. The movie Titanic (C+ grade) is the number one grossing movie of all time.
I guess one could say that if a historical event is pretty unique, is covered for several grade levels in school social studies and history classes, is covered in social studies and historical text throughout the world to some degree, has a well known director, has some well known and popular actors portraying the characters, has a lot of special effects, is heavily marketed, is liked by most critics, and has very good ‘word of mouth’ then it can be very successful.
In conclusion it is wise to keep in mind when watching movies that are about historical events or use a historical backdrop that what you are seeing can never be completely accurate (the intent of the director is important also). A lot is left out and a lot is added to the dramatization of historic events