Evidently, you guys have never seen, "The Day the Fish Came Out " (1967). For some reason, two guys scamper around a Greek island, alternately, in and out of skimpy white undies while American sailors run wild like frat boys do during spring break. 
Complete with fag hag Candice Bergen!! :eek: My God, the title tells it all!!!
What was so homoerotic about Top Gun? I’m thinking that is has to be pretty damn hot & sweaty that it bears mention 21 years later.
And Tango & Cash? All I can remember of that movie was how bad it was. Why are you people devoting perfectly good brain cells to remembering these movies??
Hmm. Perhaps the confusion comes from the labeling. If you call 300 homoerotic it almost seems like it can only be homoerotic. But it also holds lots of appeal for the straight ladies out there, and is quite entertaining to us straight guys who like a manly movie about manly men acting manly. I know I do. And I think we can all admit that.
Maybe it’s just that calling an action movie homoerotic isn’t that brilliant of an insight so one might assume that homoerotic means only homoerotic, to add some depth to the claim.
Isn’t the whole point of an action movie to appeal to men? 300 is just a really good action movie. So it’s very appealing to straight and gay men. So what are we fighting about?
:dubious:
Completely out of line, foolsguinea. Using someone’s sexuality as an insult is questionable behavior even for the Pit, so it’s not even remotely appropriate for any of the other fora. Don’t do this again.
Way back in the day, I worked at a movie theater. So, personally, I’m not wasting any perfectly good brain cells – it’s all in there as part of the scar tissue.
What was homoerotic about Top Gun was the same thing that is homoerotic about anything else – men placed together into a context that is eroticized. In that case, the “male bonding” realm of the figher pilot subculture. Even the introduction of Kelly McGillis and a few other token chicks didn’t detract overmuch from the male-bonding-without-shirts-on going on. There’s a relatively good riff on Top Gun’s homoeroticism in Clerks or some other slackerish movie that I can’t recall… damn scar tissue.
I just saw 300 and I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that if 300 is gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that) then I don’t want to be straight. Basically, the gist is only Spartan women produce Spartan men, and compared to Spartan men, most normal men don’t even match up to Sparten women.
As for Top Gun, Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer and friends playing shirtless sweatly beach volleyball is pretty gay (once again, not that there’s anything wrong with that).
And you’re just lyin. I can’t speak for WhyNot but there’s nothing defensive (what does that mean, anyway? Like “hypocritical”, it’s one of the most casually overused accusations these days) in anything I’ve said, least of all my unanswered questions of post #55 in which I ask for your specific comments on this film, since you’re claiming my specific comments are illogical. My premise is that 300 is not an especially homoerotic film. My arguments include claims that the combat in the film, while exaggerated and stylized, is not particularly erotic, let alone homoerotic. My initial foray was that Jarhead, which contains a “field fuck” scene, as well as Jake Gyllenhaal cavorting wearing only a Santa hat over his penis, a shower scene and some borderline misogynistic material, qualifies as a “gay” movie far more than 300.
Got an actual argument instead of an ad hominem? By all means and with full red-carpet invitation, present it.
Personally, I think the most homophobic mainstream movie of recent years was De-Lovely. If anyone asks, I’d be happy to explain my reasoning.
I won’t even accuse those who disagree of defensiveness.
Here’s an illustration of what “defensive” means (also one of the funniest things I’ve read on the Dope for a while):
So it’s suddenly clear: you simply don’t understand the term. At least, your personal definition is greatly at odds with the standard definition.
Um, “homoerotic” does not equal “homophobic.” Maybe that’s part of the definition problem you’re having.
Cool, kinda like me. I’m only accusing defensive people of being defensive; disagreement has nothing to do with it.
Calmly, I’ll just say that’s anther lie. I don’t believe you actually find it humourous, but rather find that saying it is serves as another lame ad hominem attack sparing you the burden of supplying actual evidence. You quote a single declarative statement of mine and call it “defensive”? That’s not an explanation, it’s a cop-out.
Feel free to explain what your definition is, or what you feel the standard definition is and, if you please for I am asking for the third time, provide examples from 300 that meet this definition
Um, there’s a large gap between that paragraph and the one above, which I thought was a sufficient indicator that it represented a different subject. Since homophobia has also come up for discussion in this thread, my comment was relevant to that topic and not whatever definition problem you’re having. Next time I’ll insert ten carriage returns instead of just three. I don’t believe that you believe I’ve actually confused the terms “homoerotic” and “homophobic”. This is the same empty ad hominem I described above.
Then can you supply an example of me being defensive? A real example?
Dude, to the extent that “homoerotic” means anything, **300 **is homoerotic. Do some research. It’s just simply patently ridiculous to say that this movie, among the most homoerotic movies ever made, in 100 years of movies being made, is not homoerotic. It betrays either a total misunderstanding of all the concepts under discussion, or a dishonesty that I can only imagine is defensive. You choose.
It’s obvious that you’ve made no attempt to discover the established, standard definition of the word “homoerotic”; that you’ve simply assigned it a meaning based on your own subjective experience. (Do you think it means that anyone watching it is gay? or that, on a literal level, all the characters are gay? or what?)
So please, just so we know what we’re talking about, what do you understand the word to mean? I’m fascinated to hear a definition that could possibly exclude 300.
I’m sorry, if it’s that obvious, then supplying a specific example should be, I assume, easy. Sure, there are a lot of well-built guys wearing scanty clothing. Is that particularly homoerotic? Would a documentary about Olympic swimmers be equally homoerotic? Does “homoerotic” refer to anything a homosexual (male in this case) finds or might find arousing? Is Pumping Iron homoerotic? If all a film needs to be homoerotic is a guy walking around with his shirt off, showing a good set of abs, than the category of homoerotic films becomes a pretty large and unwieldy one.
Well, I just looked it up in a few online dictionaries and it doesn’t appear to be a particularly expansive word. Merriam-Webster describes it only as “marked by, revealing, or portraying homosexual desire”, while Barteby.com says the similar “1. Of or concerning homosexual love and desire. 2. Tending to arouse such desire.” Homosexual love doesn’t appear in the film among the Spartans, though homosexual lust is staged in Xerxes’ harem (though this is a ploy to recruit Ephialtes, which I guess makes it about as homoerotic as lesbian porn videos marketed to heterosexual men). Does the kneeling demanded by Xerxes indicate homosexuality? If it does, does that mean historical Japan and China were homosexuality-driven nations? Kneeling before higher-ranked members of the aristocracy was common before western influences discouraged the practice. Does using a spear or sword indicate homoeroticism? This might have come as a surprise to the millions of historical warriors who used these weapons right up until the advent of gunpowder. Kneeling and spears become homoerotic in the eyes of modern audiences who are ignorant of how (and how frequently) these concepts were applied in antiquity.
My earlier question about scantily-clad spear-wielding African warriors in cheesy jungle pictures remains - if 300 is so obviously, blatantly, inescapably homoerotic, are those films even a little homoerotic? If not, why not?
If there exists a homosexual who was aroused by this film… sure, I guess for him it qualifies as homoerotic. I’m sure there were plenty who were aroused. I’m sure there are plenty who were aroused by Fight Club, too. Is Fight Club a homoerotic film? Years from now when 300 has been surpassed by even splashier CGI epics and its Blu-Rays are sought by hardcore fans, maybe most of them will be homosexuals because this particular film appeals to them. If in 2010, you can cite an article that shows 300’s has equal or greater lasting appeal with homosexuals than heterosexuals, like Jason and the Argonauts and Top Gun, as referenced by others in this thread, I’ll cheerfully admit that 300 can be said to be widely viewed as a homoerotic film because there are lots of people who happen to hold that view, rather like diamonds being valuable because enough people say they are.
For the moment, though, I’ll wait until the jokey immature “Musclemen = TEH GAY! Kneeling = TEH GAY!” meme dies down.
Well, I think that purposely making men fight in close quarters in much less clothing than they used in real life qualifies it, but since lissener also thinks so, I will refrain from agreeing further with the premise of the thread.
Indeed. If Leonidas is “gay,” then maybe I should start looking at the other team’s brochures.
I mean…shacking up with queen Gorgo on a regular basis and being able to kill tens of thousands of Persians with sticks and bronze swords? I’ll sign up for that brand o’ gay on the spot! 
Anyway…now that I’m thinking about it, should we consider the oft-used “dance around a table singing motown into a hairbrush” scene you see in all the “chick flicks” these days as “homoerotic”? I mean, it’s so…girly.
Okay, now we need something for 0 gladiators. I would suggest the film version of Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time” because it is devoid of any flavour of eroticisim.
Whatever it’s meaning is, some people seem to love to toss it into certain things straight males enjoy, which can lead it to be read as a puerile way of needling the breeders.
If you think that’s a misinterpretation of it’s usage, all I’m saying is that that’s how it comes across to me.
Jesus, I’ve been in high school showers surrounded by 20 male cocks, and young shiny, male bodies (let’s clarify NOW: this was when I was in High School), and as far as I was concerned, there was nothing homo-erotic about it. It was called showering after soccer practice. And, yeah, we’d notice and even make fun of other guy’s dongs. (a memorable line, “my god, Jason, you could fuck around a corner with that thing.”)
Call it gay. I don’t care. I never once had a fantasy involving a single one of those dongs.
When I hear someone say “that movie was homoerotic”, it means nothing more to me than “it turns on gay guys who are too closeted to rent porn”. But, it certainly seems to be used to disparage stuff that straight males enjoy.
Great! Now we’ve got a scale!
0 gladiators = no homoerotic content; example: A Brief History of Time.
100 gladiators = chock full of homoerotic content; example: Brokeback Mountain.
100+ gladiators = gay porn.
So, how many gladiators does The 300 rate? How many for Top Gun?
I have a question…
if 300 is homoerotic, does that mean I’m not allowed to enjoy the view? Do I need to take a sex change before I can watch it?
I haven’t even seen the trailers, but was thinking of checking out the French movie theaters to see if it’s on yet… the posters sure look, ah, nice.
Are you kidding? A man with a brain like that is HOT!
Wait, are you a straight woman thinking you need to change to a man, or a straight man thinking you need to change into a woman to be able to enjoy it? (Sorry, I’ve never known your gender or if I did, I shamefully forgot what it was)