And how are you all doing on this fine day? Good? Great.
Honeybunny and I had a great breakfast and now we’re both reading web news and stuff. It’s still early morning for us (never mind it’s almost two o’clock :) ).
Last night we went to see Alexander. The Great. Or, as we came to see him after three hours in the cinema, Alexander the Pussywhipped Crybaby.
This, my dear people, is a horrible movie. It’s just a big, very, very big disappointment. I haven’t been so let down by a movie since Troy.
I brushed up on my history just now by looking up facts on the web. Alexander was one of the greatest warrior overlords of all time. At the age of 25, Alexander was: “the king of Macedonia, leader of the Greeks, Overlord of Asia Minor and Pharaoh of Egypt, and Great King of Persia”. He founded over 70 cities, he linked “the entire area from Greece in the west, north to the Danube, south into Egypt and as far east as the Indian Punjab”.
Primarily a soldier, Alexander was an acknowledged military genius who always led by example, although his belief in his own indestructibility meant he was often reckless with his own life and that of those he expected to follow him. The fact that his army only refused to do so once, in the 13 years of a reign during which there was constant fighting, indicates the loyalty he inspired.
So, you have this amazing historical figure, who conquered what was then all the known world and then some, and you decide to make a movie about him. What do you describe in the movie?
His military genius? No. His cunning as a politician? No. His brilliance as a scholar? No. His curiosity as an explorer? No.
No, no, no - you show his supposed obsession with his mother, his supposed obsession with his father, and his gentle, feminine gay side.
Well, after all, he was gay; he must have been gentle and feminine. You show one of the greatest warlords as a pussywhipped crybaby.
From the very beginning Alexander is portrayed as a child under the great influence of his mother, denied love from his father, craving the throne. And instead of leaving such childish behavior in his past, the authors of the movie use it constantly thought to give us fake Freudian explanations for his actions in the future. So, the great warrior becomes a weak slave of his mother’s ambition, and a psychotic lunatic haunted by his fathers ghost. Does this sound like a man who is able to conquer lands and lead vast armies? This doesn’t sound like a man who can tie his own shoes!
And the there’s the matter of the whole I’m-so-in-your-face-gay thing.
Alexander the Great was gay, yes (or bisexual, whatever). But Alexander the Great was not a Gay Overlord; he was an overlord who was also gay. Can you see the difference? By putting so much emphasis on the fact that he was gay you get the idea that the authors are trying to tell you – look, even gay guys can fight. Wow. Who would have thought it? Even gay guys can fight. Even gay men can act like, just imagine this, men.
By playing his gay dimension for all that it’s worth, Alexander is shown as a gay guy, who is basically so sensitive and of course in touch with his feminine side, like all gays are in the minds of straight people, that he weeps throughout the movie and has great pains at killing a fly, let alone a few people. A man like that could not be a president today, let alone an overlord in those days. He wouldn’t last a week.
In three hours the story of the greatest emperor-warrior of the past turned into a story of a man who cries a lot.
And, of course, so that the movie would not be a piece of shit, but a complete piece of shit, there’s the “subtle” all-American propaganda.
Alexander is attacking Persia (the place where today’s Iraq is), and he gives this long pep talk to his troops that they are fighting to defend the Macedonian/Greek freedom! Hey, they are invading Persia, they are the bad guys, the conquerors, and he’s talking about defending the freedom of a country a sea away! Can you say Bush? It was so “subtle”, even without the great eagle (trick question – the symbol of which country is an eagle?) flying overhead the whole time.
My advice to you is: if you want to know something about Alexander the Great, pick up a history book or google for it. Don’t go see this movie; it’s just three hours of pain in the butt.