More snarky TROY humor...

[eregyrn]

Heh. Thank you for this, suzvoy!

http://www.livejournal.com/users/pennyarcaderss/43606.html

Comments

[erskine.livejournal.com]

Very good!

E.

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

Man, that would have been a better movie. At least more fun.

[rhyo.livejournal.com]

The "summer" movie season is looking worse and worse, as some of my favorite issues (mythology in general and Alexander the Great) stand to get the Hollywood treatment. I read a review of Troy somewhere that said it was the Bush version of a war - it lasted for 10 years in reality but on screen it was only 10 minutes, plus it had cheerleaders and strategic costumes. Sigh. No Haliburton, though.

There are, I think, 2 Alexander movies coming out (maybe one is a miniseries) and I read a long rant by one of the actors playing Alexander who was extremely irritated to be asked about the "homosexual angle"

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

There are Alexander movies coming out? I hadn't heard, actually. So why was the actor irritated -- by the fatuousness of the question, or, by the intimation that a film about Alexander should include homosexuality? (I.e. irritated by the obviousness of it, or irritated because he and therefore the production are in denial?)

[rhyo.livejournal.com]

Damn, I can't find the article, which must have been an interview with Colin Farrell. The impression I got from the article was that the actor was insulted to be thought to be playing a character who could be thought gay, but it's been a bit since I read it.

The movie version is by Oliver Stone (eeeek!) and stars
Alexander: Colin Farrell
Ptolemy I: Sir Anthony Hopkins
Olympias: Angelina Jolie
King Philip II: Val Kilmer
Hephaestion: Jared Leto

http://www.alexander-the-great.co.uk/

But there is also a listing for another version, with Leonardo DiCaprio as the "young Alexander" and Nicole Kidman as his mother: that version is supposed to be out in 2005.
http://romanticmovies.about.com/cs/upcomingreleases/a/alexyoungcast.htm

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

The impression I got from the article was that the actor was insulted to be thought to be playing a character who could be thought gay

Yeah. I can see that happening with some actors, but still, annoying.

I remember thinking that given Brad Pitt was playing Achilles, that we *would* get more overt suggestion of the homosexual dimensions of his relationship with Patroclus, just because I don't think Brad Pitt would care about playing it, the way some actors might.

(Of course, we didn't, really. But that's a different problem.)

another version, with Leonardo DiCaprio as the "young Alexander" and Nicole Kidman as his mother

Yeeeeeeah. Count me out for that one.

[that-cad.livejournal.com]

Well, the first one looks like it's got a fairly good cast. It'll still suck though, I'm sure.

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

I.e. irritated by the obviousness of it, or irritated because he and therefore the production are in denial?


A bit of both it seems.

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

Hmm. See, I can sort of see taking this approach to it, and being actively irritated with the media about their asinine tendency to go for the sensationalistic and ignore the nuance.

Unfortunately for this stance, the way things are polarized at the moment, it's *IMPOSSIBLE* to make a pic about Alexander or about his time period, and "just include their bisexuality because it was an integral part of their culture", *WITHOUT* the pic being described as having a gay agenda.

We're at a point where there's no middle ground. There's the anti-gay agenda (which is how I'd describe TROY, with its excising of any whiff of homosexuality -- unless the audience member is already wearing strong slash-goggles -- and its over-emphasis of heterosexuality, such as in the speech by Hector about the ideals of the Greek warrior including "fight for...your woman!"). The anti-gay agenda is fairly overt and still fairly strong and has been operating in the censorship of media and the rewriting of history for a long time. Therefore, doing any film that tries to redress even a distorted-but-ubiquitous view of history to include homo- or bisexuality is inevitably seen as part of the pro-gay agenda.

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

As an additional note, Brad Pitt, Mr. Very Straight Achilles? Supposedly turned down a role in this film because Jennifer Aniston thought homoerotic stuff would be "bad for his image."

Has she even seen Fight Club?

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

Oh, for fuck's sake. Apparently not.

Or else maybe she thinks that he's too big a star for that now, and he can pass off "Fight Club" as something he did just to establish himself, when actors can't be choosy about what kind of roles they take. Or some damn thing.

Although honestly, I don't think it's down to Brad Pitt, that they excised all the gay stuff from TROY. I think that's down to a decision by the writers/director first. One wonders if he would have listened to Aniston, had there *been* anything homoerotic in the script?