Oliver Stone laments 'Alexander the gay'

World Net Daily ^ | Jan 1, 2005 | (none)

[BobL]

Oliver Stone laments 'Alexander the gay'

Director admits: 'There was clear resistance to his homosexuality'

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Hollywood director Oliver Stone is lamenting the poor box-office performance of his latest film "Alexander," citing the homosexuality of the lead character as one of the detrimental factors.

Colin Farrell, right, stars as Alexander the Great, with Angelina Jolie and Val Kilmer as his parents. (Courtesy Warner Bros.)

"I still think it's a beautiful movie, but Alexander deserves better than I gave him," Stone said, according to the London Telegraph. "There was clear resistance to his homosexuality. It became the headline to the movie. They called him Alexander the gay. That's horribly discriminatory, but the film simply didn't open in the Bible Belt."

Stone, who also directed films including "Nixon" and "JFK," said he should have sliced the length of his latest movie from three hours down to 2 and a half, "and taken out the homosexuality for the U.S. market and for countries sensitive to such things, like Korea or Greece."

"Kids weren't comfortable with men who hugged, a king who cries and expresses tenderness," he added.

"Alexander," which recounts the life and times of the famed Macedonian conqueror, has been unable to slay the public despite a $195 million budget and well-known stars including Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie and Val Kilmer.

The film has raked in $33.9 million in its sixth week, grossing just $41,000 on only 232 screens over the Christmas holiday weekend, translating into $177 per show.

As WorldNetDaily previously reported, reviews for the film have been harsh to say the least.

Reviewer Jeffery Westfoff of the Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, Ill., wrote "'Alexander' often seems a couple of heartbeats away from turning into a gay porno film."

Philip Wuntch of the Dallas Morning News said, "'Alexander' has aspirations of greatness, hoping to be christened an intellectual super-spectacle for brainy moviegoers. The sad truth is that it will probably numb more brain cells than it will stimulate."

Wuntch notes that in the film, "Alexander prefers the after-hours company of men, considering women to be necessary primarily for reproductive reasons. His true soul mate is boyhood companion Hephaistion [Jared Leto], to whom he says softly, 'I'm nothing without you.' They never exchange an onscreen kiss, but their eyes constantly caress each other."

[BobL]

My point is that in business, you don't disqualify something like 60% of your potential audience for any reason (if you have half a brain). Alexander may have bombed anyway, but by taking out so many potential customers, Stone assured that outcome.

By thanks for the reviews everyone, I didn't realize that the movie was that bad, regardless of the gay scenes.

[Drango]

We liked Sideways.

[Lazamataz]

"Kids weren't comfortable with men who hugged, a king who cries and expresses tenderness," he added.

No, Oliver, the hugging and crying and tenderness were fine.

It was the whole butt-buggering thing that we got queasy with.

Take the LI out of OLIVER and it's OVER.

[SunnySide]

Alexander probably had sex with men or boys, as most upper-class men of his time did


Yes just like the todays pedophiles who can afford to jet off to remote Tsunami prone beach resorts.

[Pembleton Bayliss]

Agree with your point. But my point was Stone and his ilk in Hollyweird do this over and over again. They make movies that insult the majority of Americans; then middle America stays away in droves, then they wonder why and call us racists, sexists, homophobes and bigots. After that then they again wonder why no one will listen to them. Stone's comment about the "Bible belt" shows what he really thinks about you and me.

[ChadGore]

America to Oliver stone: STFU !

[SpyGuy]

I was planning to go to this one, until finding out there there was a political agenda behind it.

Oliver Stone == political agenda. His "movies" are only slightly more veiled propaganda than those by Michael Moore.

[nosofar]

Mrs Drango and I saw Aviator yesterday. Almost walked out, but we were to numb with sleep. Worst movie of the decade.

Not enough car chases in it for you? "Aviator" (the life of Howard Hughes) was a good movie.

[Rockingham]

The supposed case for Alexander's bisexuality is essentially a modern matter of trying to legitimate contemporary bisexuality and homosexuality by way of a supposedly illustrious antecedent. Here is Victor Davis Hanson's response to a question on the subject:

"The movie Alexander the Great delves in to Alexander's bi-sexuality perhaps to generate buzz and to push a political agenda. Would you please comment on the historical record here? Would an accusation of homosexuality have been considered calumny in ancient times?

Hanson: Professor Thornton who writes on our pages has a great book, Eros, which explains ancient Greek sexuality quite candidly without theoretical pretensions. In a word, Alexander was probably not that different from either his father or most Macedonian horse lords in their approach to sex: an interest in the feminine, whether that be women or young boys and girlish adults who served as female surrogates. The key would have been insistence of the male role in all such encounters—and eventual marriage with children. The ancients, or at least the wealthier in the cities, had no problem with what we would call a “heterosexual” (the word does not exist in Greek) male penetrating on occasion feminine males, but would castigate any adult free man who allowed himself to be used in such a passive way—in a manner we see in prisons today. And those who were (dubbed kinaedoi and worse) were probably closest to our sense of what constitutes “homosexual,” though even they were under enormous pressure to marry and sire children. What does all this mean? Probably that Alexander’s sexual life was not all that unusual for the elite and royal culture of Macedon in that age, and surely not central to his military or political career—and even more surely not a reason to hinge an entire 3-hour film on it. I suppose the key difference between our present age and his, is that we heterosexual men believe physical love with a male of any sort constitutes a formal demarcation line—gay or bi—while the Macedonian lords, in the cities and in the barracks, did not think an occasional active role in sex with a feminine-looking or young male detracted from his masculinity—an admittedly strange notion for most of us today."

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/Private%20Papers/Question%20Log/November.html

Here is a longer analysis:

http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson121804.html

And here is VDH's comment on Alexander historiography and recent Alexander books:

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson100904b.html

Ignore the Hollywood gloss, what Stone is peddling is glorification of prison type sexuality of dominance as practiced by one of history's greatest conquerers. Is that really what we wish to have turned loose in the modern world?

[cyncooper]

If you took out the gay scenes, this movie could have easily been a top contender - and, other than a few historians, who would have cared.

Nonsense. It is not widely accepted that Alexander the Great was homosexual so why you cite a "few historians' caring as if the problem would be historical inaccuracy is beyond me.

There were more problems than throwing in that highly suspect aspect.

As to Stone's assertions that "Kids weren't comfortable with men who hugged, a king who cries and expresses tenderness," , more stinky garbage.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

If he wanted to make a movie about a faggot he should have chosen Oscar Wilde. Oscar didn't lay waste to any nations, but he did a pretty good job laying waste to a couple of families.

[cyncooper]

Sorry, but you are wrong to flatly state Alexander was bisexual as if it was documented fact. It most certainly is not.

[Radix]

"Having Angelina Jolie in the film and making the lead character gay is about as dumb of a film making move you can make."

Haven't seen the film and do not plan to.

It appears to be a case though of trying to put something in there for everyone. Hollywood will not learn from such marketing mistakes it seems. They ruined "Pearl Harbor" for similar reasons.

They might want to look again at "Master and Commander" which did not follow the formula, and was a terrific film.

[cyncooper]

Really? I'm surprised as it has gotten such good reviews.

Do I need to point out that Farenheit 9/11 got "good reviews", too?

[longtermmemmory]

The problem was there were NO RECORDS citing he was a homosexual. If anything there was evidence to the contrary. (ie Alexander's letter cursing out a persian who offered him a male boy sex slave. In essence a "how dare you call me a pervert")

There are volumes and volumes of history on the man. There is a HUGE museum dedicated to the man in Thesaloniki Greece. There is the museum at the burial mound of king Philip which had more history. Of course there is also the palace of Alexander's birt in Pella, Greece.

Stone actually went to Greece over a year before starting in order to do research on the Greek hero. He left because they historians were not telling him the PC story he wanted to hear. (visiting a country known as a vaction paradise is no shabby field trip either)

[Brilliant]

Portraying Alexander as gay, and he apparently was bi-sexual, is so "ho-hum" these days. Nothing Hollywood does has shock value. It's all been done before.

Portraying Alexander as straight.... Now THAT would be shocking.

[longtermmemmory]

It is very disturbing that oliver stone wants children to watch acts of homosexual conduct.

[IDontLikeToPayTaxes]

Another thing that sank this movie is that people just don't want to sit through a 3 + hour gladiator movie, I know I don't.

[BobL]

"If you took out the gay scenes, this movie could have easily been a top contender - and, other than a few historians, who would have cared."

"Nonsense."


I may be wrong about being a top contender, but I only meant that he doomed it from the start - and those people in Hollywood do need to make money once in a while. It just blows my mind that they would let Stone squander it.

[cyncooper]

Agreed, and thank you for citing some historical facts on the thread.