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This movie has been thoroughly panned, as a movie, but this article speaks to the rub (pun intended). - Perdita
THE GREAT GAY HOPE - Neva Chonin, SF Chron, November 28, 2004
Look, I knew "Alexander" would be a bad film -- it's an Oliver Stone joint, after all. Actually, I hoped it would be horrible enough to rival "The Day After Tomorrow" as my favorite movie of the year. Waxed, tanned bodies, skimpy armor, Aristotle. It seemed so promising -- especially considering the homoerotic overtones of Alexander the Great's life when combined with the appeal of Colin Farrell in the title role. Perhaps, I dared dream, I might yet glimpse the fabled appendage that eluded me in Farrell's previous film, "A Home at the End of the World." (You know which appendage I'm talking about. Oh, yes you do.)
Alas! How could a film go so wrong? No, I'm not talking about the insane script and Farrell's fabulously bleached and feathered hair extensions and Angelina Jolie's brilliantly over-the-top performance as Olympias. These are assets. I'm talking about the shocking lack of man-love between Alexander and his fast friend Hephaistion (played with such blank beauty by Jared Leto). Oh, sure, they coo endearments in the moonlight. They declare undying love. They gaze into each other's eyes with expressions ripe with Meaning. At one point, Alex even asks Heph if he thinks he's divine. Yet every time they lean in for a kiss, some unseen censor's hand swoops down to propel them instead into an awkward, back-slapping embrace. The two men embrace so hard and so often that the cracking of ribs is almost audible.
It's the bear hug as sexual signifier. The relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion is as coded as Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis' "My taste includes both snails and oysters" encounter in 1960's "Spartacus." And I call poo on that. An ancient scribe wrote that Alexander was defeated only once -- by Hephaistion's thighs (not, please note, by his rib-crushing arms). I would say that he's now been defeated twice, thanks to Warner Bros., which reportedly pressured Stone to delete scenes not in accordance with our country's creeping conservatism.
Huh. Remember that Warner Bros. was also the studio behind "Troy," in which the love relationship between warrior boys Achilles and Patroclus was excised from the script. And that, my dears, was more than reinterpretation. As Thomas Waugh, a professor of studies in sexuality at Concordia University, told the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, it was nothing short of "a complete travesty, a denial of the entire (Homeric) legend." American studios aren't the only ones in denial. The Greek government is reportedly in a tizzy over "Alexander." According to the Athens News Agency, government officials complained that "Stone's vision of the life of Alexander the Great would differ markedly from the historical version" if it were to include homoerotic overtones.
Um. What historical version are they talking about? Historian Jeanne Reames-Zimmerman, who points out that the terms "homosexual" and "gay" as we know them don't apply to ancient Greece, also writes, "Alexander was on an extended campaign which kept him constantly moving. So the fact that Alexander's primary affective relationship might have been with another man is not only unsurprising, but perhaps predictable. ... A liking for women need not be false in order for an equal liking for men to be true. As typical of his era and culture, Alexander seems to have been comfortably bisexual."
And the star of "Alexander," for one, is comfortable with his character's comfort. "Back then, 400 years before Christ, that was life as they knew it," Farrell told an interviewer on 365Gay.com. "No man was married to just one woman. And if a man loved another man, he had no problem showing his love for that person in a sexual way."
Ah, but contemporary censors do have a problem with the love that dare not show its face, particularly when a $165 million epic is at stake. In the end, the movie's sole sex scene occurs between Alexander and his first wife, Roxane (Rosario Dawson, looking enraged), who also has the dubious honor of being the only character to strip for the camera (unless we count a brief glimpse of Farrell's toned buttocks). Some double standards never die: Our blond hero has two male lovers on the line, but only heterosexual nookie gets screen time, and only a female body is exposed.
Compare this with director Bill Condon's "Kinsey," in which the famous sex researcher's assistant, played by the luscious Peter Sarsgaard, not only parades in the buff -- which makes sense, since he's taking a shower -- but also dives into a necking session with his boss (Liam Neeson). In contrast to the sap in "Alexander," there's nothing coy or embarrassed about the erotic exchange. It's just logical. And hot. Hotter than peroxide in the Macedonian sun, and apparently too hot for some to handle.
THE GREAT GAY HOPE - Neva Chonin, SF Chron, November 28, 2004
Look, I knew "Alexander" would be a bad film -- it's an Oliver Stone joint, after all. Actually, I hoped it would be horrible enough to rival "The Day After Tomorrow" as my favorite movie of the year. Waxed, tanned bodies, skimpy armor, Aristotle. It seemed so promising -- especially considering the homoerotic overtones of Alexander the Great's life when combined with the appeal of Colin Farrell in the title role. Perhaps, I dared dream, I might yet glimpse the fabled appendage that eluded me in Farrell's previous film, "A Home at the End of the World." (You know which appendage I'm talking about. Oh, yes you do.)
Alas! How could a film go so wrong? No, I'm not talking about the insane script and Farrell's fabulously bleached and feathered hair extensions and Angelina Jolie's brilliantly over-the-top performance as Olympias. These are assets. I'm talking about the shocking lack of man-love between Alexander and his fast friend Hephaistion (played with such blank beauty by Jared Leto). Oh, sure, they coo endearments in the moonlight. They declare undying love. They gaze into each other's eyes with expressions ripe with Meaning. At one point, Alex even asks Heph if he thinks he's divine. Yet every time they lean in for a kiss, some unseen censor's hand swoops down to propel them instead into an awkward, back-slapping embrace. The two men embrace so hard and so often that the cracking of ribs is almost audible.
It's the bear hug as sexual signifier. The relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion is as coded as Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis' "My taste includes both snails and oysters" encounter in 1960's "Spartacus." And I call poo on that. An ancient scribe wrote that Alexander was defeated only once -- by Hephaistion's thighs (not, please note, by his rib-crushing arms). I would say that he's now been defeated twice, thanks to Warner Bros., which reportedly pressured Stone to delete scenes not in accordance with our country's creeping conservatism.
Huh. Remember that Warner Bros. was also the studio behind "Troy," in which the love relationship between warrior boys Achilles and Patroclus was excised from the script. And that, my dears, was more than reinterpretation. As Thomas Waugh, a professor of studies in sexuality at Concordia University, told the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, it was nothing short of "a complete travesty, a denial of the entire (Homeric) legend." American studios aren't the only ones in denial. The Greek government is reportedly in a tizzy over "Alexander." According to the Athens News Agency, government officials complained that "Stone's vision of the life of Alexander the Great would differ markedly from the historical version" if it were to include homoerotic overtones.
Um. What historical version are they talking about? Historian Jeanne Reames-Zimmerman, who points out that the terms "homosexual" and "gay" as we know them don't apply to ancient Greece, also writes, "Alexander was on an extended campaign which kept him constantly moving. So the fact that Alexander's primary affective relationship might have been with another man is not only unsurprising, but perhaps predictable. ... A liking for women need not be false in order for an equal liking for men to be true. As typical of his era and culture, Alexander seems to have been comfortably bisexual."
And the star of "Alexander," for one, is comfortable with his character's comfort. "Back then, 400 years before Christ, that was life as they knew it," Farrell told an interviewer on 365Gay.com. "No man was married to just one woman. And if a man loved another man, he had no problem showing his love for that person in a sexual way."
Ah, but contemporary censors do have a problem with the love that dare not show its face, particularly when a $165 million epic is at stake. In the end, the movie's sole sex scene occurs between Alexander and his first wife, Roxane (Rosario Dawson, looking enraged), who also has the dubious honor of being the only character to strip for the camera (unless we count a brief glimpse of Farrell's toned buttocks). Some double standards never die: Our blond hero has two male lovers on the line, but only heterosexual nookie gets screen time, and only a female body is exposed.
Compare this with director Bill Condon's "Kinsey," in which the famous sex researcher's assistant, played by the luscious Peter Sarsgaard, not only parades in the buff -- which makes sense, since he's taking a shower -- but also dives into a necking session with his boss (Liam Neeson). In contrast to the sap in "Alexander," there's nothing coy or embarrassed about the erotic exchange. It's just logical. And hot. Hotter than peroxide in the Macedonian sun, and apparently too hot for some to handle.
Well, now there's a mother I wouldn't mind doing 
