I am certainly no expert on Christianity (or Judaism, or Islam . . .). And I have no intention of seeing Mel’s new flick. So I am asking, not beleaguring: How “gay” is Herod in this film? Why would Mel make him gay? Is he a villain? Is there any historical evidence that Herod was gay, or did that start with Jesus Christ, Superstar? Or in Christian mythology around the time they started demonizing homosexuality? Or is this due to Mel’s own documented distaste for gays?
I see some quotes in the Cafe Society thread:
“Herod was unnecessarily portrayed like some kind of first-century drag queen.” (Skammer)
“Herod is portrayed as effeminate but not explicitly homosexual. I think the guy showing all the leg behind him was enough to get Mels’ message across, though. Herod as a drag queen is both ahistorical and unnecessary.” (Diogenes)
“In contemporary times, there are certain mannerisms stereotypically assigned to homosexuals, and others to heterosexuals. Perhaps the biggest ladies’ man ever to live as a Roman nobleman during that period had mannerisms that to us, now, are seen as homosexual? Also, effeminate mannerisms are not merely by default to be considered homosexual, any more than all tomboy-ish girls are lesbians.” (RexDart)
“Christians, I ask you, what’s the hang up with Herod? IIRC, Jesus Christ Superstar also portrayed him as effeminate, maybe even more so.” (DeadJesus)
But they are getting lost in the “bigger” topics of anti-Semitism and violence. What’s your take on this aspect of the film and the historical portayals of Herod? How much is really known about him?
I thought the concept of “being gay” vs. “being straight” didn’t exist back then. At least, I have heard people argue that in gay-related threads on the SDMB. And “you can’t tell if someone is gay from the way they act” as well.
On the one hand, it hardly surprises me that a fundie loon like Gibson would portray a bad guy in a stereotypically homosexual manner. It’s about as odd as Scientology getting a good portrayal in a Tom Cruise flick.
On the other hand, effiminacy hasn’t really been unusual in aristocratic cultures. The idea being that the noblesse would go out of the way to stress the fact that things like physical effort are beneath them. Sort of like the constant fainting for southern belles. And homoeroticism as a stereotype among the Romans isn’t new either. Historically accurate or not, it plays to the idea of Rome failing because of decadence which is popular among many moral majority types.
It is interesting. The only times I’ve seen Pilate dramatized have been J.C. Superstar, and The Last Temptation of Christ. As noted above, Pilate is quite the drama queen in the former, and is played by David Bowie (who made an early career out of sexual ambivalence) in the latter.
I recall Joachin Phoenix’s portrayal of Commodus in Gladiator: Effeminate, incestuous nutcase. And remember that whole “clams and oysters” thing in Spartacus? Seems Roman dignitaries in general must have been the biggest bunch of mincing pansies ever to rule the Western World.
I mean, why else would the empire have fallen? :rolleyes:
I thought it was pilate who was supposed to be the big Mary. Maybe I’m wrong…haven’t seen Mel’s flick yet.
Now that I remember, though, in J.C. Superstar, the guy who plays Herod (Josh Mostel…any relation to Zero?) isn’t especially effeminate. He’s more of a chubby, snotty loafer who can’t be bothered. Herod’s, court is quite the motley group, and I do remember this one dude in a rather skimpy pair of gold shorts (or something of that sort) prancing and puckering around in the background during Herod’s number. The scene is kind of hilarious really, as it’s such a sixties flashback of an “orgy”.
In general, it seems Jesus’ adversaries are portrayed as somehow decadent, and perhaps sexually perverse, in film. Roman elite (and their “toadies”, like Herod) really get smeared that way in many Hollywood treatments, as far as I can gather. Again, hearkens back to the myth that Rome fell from depravity.
There’s no evidence that Herod Antipas was gay/was sexually attracted to men. He was involved in a scandal, but that was over a woman.
Herod Antipas was married to Phaesalis, the daughter of King Aretas of Petra. (Petra, which is in what’s now Jordan, is now in ruins, but at the time, it was the capital of the Nabateans, an Arab tribe, and a major trading center.)
Antipas was visiting Rome and was staying with his half brother Herod Phillip. Phillip’s wife was Herodias, and she was the daughter of Herod Aristobulus, who was a half brother to both Phillip and Antipas. So, Antipas is staying with his brother and niece/sister-in-law, and he and Herodias fall in love, and he convinced her to leave her husband and come live with him. She agreed, on the condition that he divorce Phaesalis.
Phaesalis found out what was going on, and went back to her father. Aretas, as you can imagine, wasn’t very pleased that Antipas would divorce his daughter so that he could carry on an adulerous, incestuous relationship with his niece, and so he invaded, and wiped out Herod’s army and started looting the Gallilee. Herod begged for help from the Roman governor of Syria, who drove the Arab army out.
Herod was portrayed as royalty in the “Louis the 14th” fashion but his court was more Roman in style, complete with court-jester and ladies-n-waiting. If he was supposed to be gay then I missed it.
The movie was very one-dimensional and more than half of it was a continuous beating of Jesus. There were a couple of flash-backs that worked well such as when Jesus was aided by his mother after he fell. Other than that, there was nothing to draw the viewer to the character except pity. The violence was completely beyond the physical realm. I lost count of the number of times he was struck with a multi-barbed whip. There would not have been enough flesh left to recognize if this were remotely accurate.
It was directed toward (pandered to) the sympathies of the devout Christian. There isn’t much more that can be said as a description of it.
I’m not sure what the debate is really about. Mel is free to make any movie he feels like making. It’s his money and his risk. I’m free to say I didn’t like it on any level.
We’re not talking about “back then,” we’re talking about a contemprary movie. Movies are certainly capable of using stereotypes to convey homosexuality, are they not?
It wasn’t just the dress and the mannersims, btw. It’s subtle but in the background of the scene you can see a bare-legged boy toy lounging on Herod’s sofa. Herod returns to recline with him at the end of the scene.
First of all, Eve, the two characters are Herod Antipas, tetrarch (vassal-king) of Gallilee; and Pontius Pilate, Roman Procurator of Judaea. Pilate was the one who tried and convicted Jesus of Nazareth as a troublemaker; in the Gospels, it is stated that since JC was Gallilean, Pilate at first tries to change venue to Herod’s court, but Herod is still reeling from the whole Head-of-John-the-Baptist episode so he’d rather not get involved with yet another religious rabble-rouser.
In JCSS and TPOTC, Herod Antipas is the one portrayed as decadent and debauched (Pilate is merely weak, and will go whichever way the crowd blows). As mentioned here and in the CS threads, when dealing with ancient royal courts, there is a tendency in popular writings and scenery to “shorthand” the concept of “decadent and debauched” by making them effete and sissified. There is, however, nothing AFAIK in scripture or in history that describes Herod Antipas as any way divergent from whatever was the social norm of the time for culturally Hellenized Middle-Eastern nobility. Insofar as that behavior may have meant courtly mannerisms that would contrast with the rough, tough country ways of the average Gallilean, or an acceptance of having toygirls and toyboys alike to pass the idle times, the Bible is silent on it.
Nope, afraid you’re wrong there, as Eve asked in the OP:
See also the thread title.
So the answer would be no, there is no evidence that Herod was gay or bisexual, or that he ever had sex with men. Or that he was effeminate in his mannerisms, or that what we would consider effeminate mannerisms meant that someone was gay or bisexual.
There is a tradition of accusing unpopular rulers of various sorts of depraved sexual activity. See, for instance, accusations against Tiberius, who was a contemporary of Jesus, being accused of having little boys perform underwater fellatio on him.
Haven’t seen the movie, so I couldn’t comment on that.
Well the OP’s question was not as narrow as yo’te suggesting and the gist of this thread had been focusing on Gibson’s portrayal of herod and whether it was intentionall “gay.”
Even in the context of a pure historical question your semantic nitpick is meaningless. Just because people didn’t think in terms of “gay” and “straight” doesn’t mean that people did not actually have sexual orientations which we can now classify as such in hindsight.
Alexander the Great had a long-time male companion. Historians in ancient times have recorded that he had this relationship, that it was a sexual relationship and that it was a love relationship. Alexander had several wives but these were mostly political marriages not romantic relationships. For all intents and purposes, Alexander had a male spouse.
Ancient historians did not say that Alexander was “gay,” but it’s not exactly rocket science for us to determine that he was at least bisexual if not completely homosexual.
Some of the Roman emperors were also said to have engaged in sexual relations with other men, including Caligula, Nero and (as you said) Tiberius. They were also never called “gay” but we can safely say they weren’t entirely “straight.”
There is nothing written about herod Antipas which would suggest he ever had sexual relationships with men, so Gibson’s suggestion of homosexuality in the movie is ahistorical and unnecessary (and I base my opinion on what Gibson is suggesting not based solely on the effeminacy of the character but on the boy toy in the background).
Because Gibson has portrayed at least one effeminate homosexual as a villain before (Braveheart), and has made disparaging remarks about gay people in interviews, it wouldn’t surprise me if he thought that effeminizing Herod would make him seem more evil.
I think you’re probably exactly right. The Roman Empire lasted centuries, and given the average length of an Emperor’s tenure, it’s pretty much a statistical inevitability that some of them would be gay or bi. And given that the Roman elite weren’t exactly the most abstemious crowd, their sexual proclivities in general weren’t much of a secret, it seems. Yet we fixate on the few who happened to pitch for the other team, or maybe liked an oyster once in a while over clams. Worse, it’s been more than a Hollywood cliche to attribute this “decadence” to the Fall of the Roman Empire.
Gibson could probably argue that he attempted to flesh out the Antipas character with a little stereotypical Roman deviance, as part of the general characterization of the unsympathetic elite. A simple dramatic device. However, this is of course predicated on the old notion that gay stereotypes are sinister. In the absense of any evidence whatsoever, Gibson cannot avoid the guilt of using homophobia as a dramatic device for no purpose other than making a particular character seem more villianous.