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Gladiator with Emma Southon · The Bechdel Cast

0:00
Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast.
0:02
Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have women and them, are
0:05
Speaker 2: all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they
0:08
Speaker 2: have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zeph and bast start changing
0:13
Speaker 2: it with the Bechdel.
0:14
Speaker 3: Cast from the studio that brought you Shrek. It's the
0:22
Speaker 3: Gladiator episode of the Bechdel Cast. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
0:27
Speaker 3: My name is Caitlin Durante.
0:28
Speaker 2: Well, aunt, did I just learn something?
0:31
Speaker 3: I mean it's dream Works.
0:32
Speaker 2: It's dream Works.
0:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so wait.
0:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to introduce myself yet. That is
0:41
Speaker 2: shocking information. Why would this be dreamed? I wow? So
0:46
Speaker 2: they really they really like two roads diverged in a
0:49
Speaker 2: wood for them, and they were like, we're going Shrek.
0:52
Speaker 2: We're putting our money on Shrek. And honestly, I think
0:54
Speaker 2: that that was the right decision for the culture ultimately.
0:59
Speaker 3: Sure.
1:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean we're just getting Gladiator too. Meanwhile,
1:03
Speaker 2: Shrek five wrapped, it's wrapped. Yes, I don't know, I've
1:08
Speaker 2: made that up. I know it's been announced. You don't
1:11
Speaker 2: see Sutton Foster starring and Gladiator the Musical on Broadway?
1:16
Speaker 2: Do we see her playing Princess Fiona on Broadway. We
1:19
Speaker 2: sure do to your straight nominated for a Tony Whoa.
1:22
Speaker 2: But enough about Shrek.
1:23
Speaker 4: I can't believe that Gladiator shocking, shocking, shocking, I would
1:30
Speaker 4: say shocking, Caitlin and I did see Shrek in thirty
1:34
Speaker 4: five millimeter, which should not be a sentence that's so ridiculous,
1:38
Speaker 4: But we did.
1:38
Speaker 2: We invested for like, no DVD. We need to see
1:42
Speaker 2: it in the raw.
1:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, on the big screen.
1:45
Speaker 2: It was awesome. It was literally I think the audience
1:47
Speaker 2: was split in two of like irony pilled, childless millennials
1:51
Speaker 2: and normal families. And we were all having a great time.
1:56
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, nine year olds and thirty nine year old
2:00
Speaker 2: we're all rocking. It was great, ten out of ten.
2:04
Speaker 2: And also Gladiator.
2:06
Speaker 3: And also Gladiator.
2:07
Speaker 2: Now I can't believe that. Okay, a rich conversation already.
2:10
Speaker 2: My name is Jamie Loftis. This is our show that
2:13
Speaker 2: takes a look at your favorite movies using an intersectional
2:17
Speaker 2: feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as a jumping off
2:22
Speaker 2: point for discussion, which is hilarious for this movie specifically,
2:26
Speaker 2: but just for the sake of argument. Caitlin, what is
2:28
Speaker 2: the Bechdel test.
2:29
Speaker 3: Uh, real quick here, because spoiler alert, the movie doesn't
2:33
Speaker 3: pass even a little.
2:34
Speaker 2: Bit, it will not come into play. There's not even
2:37
Speaker 2: an argument for like, well, could it be like no.
2:40
Speaker 3: Right, It's just a media metric that we use to
2:43
Speaker 3: initiate larger conversations about representation. There are many versions of it.
2:48
Speaker 3: Ours is do two characters of a marginalized gender have names?
2:52
Speaker 3: Do they speak to each other? And is there conversation
2:54
Speaker 3: about something other than a man? And we like it
2:57
Speaker 3: when it's a you know, narratively significant conversation and not
3:01
Speaker 3: just throw away dialogue. But again, it won't even come
3:05
Speaker 3: close for this movie. But we will have a rich
3:11
Speaker 3: discussion nonetheless with a wonderful guest that we're very excited about.
3:15
Speaker 2: Gosh, yeah, she's incredible. And this movie is the most
3:19
Speaker 2: fathers and sons coded movie I think I've ever seen.
3:24
Speaker 2: There's so many gosh, so many fathers and so many sons,
3:29
Speaker 2: so many sons. Enough already enough with the fathers and
3:33
Speaker 2: the sons.
3:34
Speaker 3: Yes, which is why we brought on this guest who
3:37
Speaker 3: frames Roman history a little bit differently.
3:39
Speaker 1: So.
3:39
Speaker 3: Our guest is a historian and writer, author of many books.
3:43
Speaker 3: One of which is entitled A rem of One's Own,
3:46
Speaker 3: A History of the Roman Empire in twenty one women,
3:51
Speaker 3: it's Emma Suthan. Hello, welcome, Hi, thank you, thanks for
3:57
Speaker 3: being here.
3:58
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I'm so excited that we have you
4:00
Speaker 2: on the show. Gosh, I mean, I have so many questions,
4:04
Speaker 2: but especially because was it just last year, I flak
4:07
Speaker 2: time is a flat circle. Was it an interesting time
4:09
Speaker 2: for you when the Roman Empire meme was making the
4:14
Speaker 2: rounds at nauseum?
4:16
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. Yeah, as one of the few women
4:19
Speaker 1: in the world that spend significantly more time talking and
4:22
Speaker 1: thinking about the Roman Empire than her husband, it was
4:26
Speaker 1: a fun time. And yeah, it came out was going
4:30
Speaker 1: around just as my book was coming out, so it
4:31
Speaker 1: felt like a marketing campaign specifically for me, which.
4:34
Speaker 2: Was great, incredible.
4:36
Speaker 1: I could be like, look, it's not just like aqueducts
4:39
Speaker 1: and people saying Marcus Aurelius and then.
4:44
Speaker 2: Which this movie doesn't do that much to challenge.
4:46
Speaker 1: It doesn't know, this is why everybody thinks Marcus Aurelius
4:50
Speaker 1: is the only guy that ever existed in the whole
4:51
Speaker 1: of the Roman Empire.
4:52
Speaker 2: I was so curious how you originally fell into this
4:56
Speaker 2: line of study. How yeah, how did you end up
4:58
Speaker 2: as an authority on Roman Empire?
5:01
Speaker 1: I did my A levels in ancient history at the
5:05
Speaker 1: exact time that this film came out, which I only
5:07
Speaker 1: did so in the UK, you get to choose subjects
5:10
Speaker 1: that you're going to do to study, like narrow down
5:12
Speaker 1: to four subjects when you're sixteen. They just like choose
5:15
Speaker 1: a career path. And I did ancient history because I
5:20
Speaker 1: thought it sounded fun, and you got to go on
5:22
Speaker 1: trips to Italy and Greece, and I just was immediately
5:26
Speaker 1: captivated by the Romans and how optly, utterly horrible they are.
5:31
Speaker 1: And I kept trying to leave, Like I tried to
5:33
Speaker 1: do my undergraduate in something else, I tried to do
5:35
Speaker 1: my master's degree in something else, and I just kept
5:37
Speaker 1: quitting and going back and doing Romans. And then I
5:40
Speaker 1: did my PhD and decided I didn't want to be
5:43
Speaker 1: an academic. I just wanted to write books with jokes
5:45
Speaker 1: in instead. And I've been getting away with that now
5:49
Speaker 1: for a decade.
5:50
Speaker 3: So I love that it rocks.
5:53
Speaker 2: And specifically, I mean I will we'll talk about this
5:55
Speaker 2: throughout the episode, but specifically, you have been it seems
5:58
Speaker 2: like one of the few people who have centered women
6:01
Speaker 2: in your histories of room. So when you're like coming
6:05
Speaker 2: up in this space, was that a hard self for people?
6:09
Speaker 2: Was there a demand for it?
6:11
Speaker 1: Like?
6:11
Speaker 2: How did you sort of land on that specific focus?
6:15
Speaker 1: I think because I'm a woman, and I'm also a
6:17
Speaker 1: working class woman, and so so much of what you
6:20
Speaker 1: read about when you're reading about Romans is like five
6:23
Speaker 1: of the most upper class guys you've ever heard of,
6:26
Speaker 1: like Seneca and Cicero and emperors, who are all like
6:29
Speaker 1: the most elite rich men that you can humanly imagine.
6:32
Speaker 1: And I just do not empathize with those people at all,
6:35
Speaker 1: Like I do not imagine myself as them, but so
6:37
Speaker 1: many ancient historians and classicists totally do. They're like me, Cicero,
6:43
Speaker 1: like that's who I would be if I was put
6:45
Speaker 1: in the past, And I just don't at all. So
6:47
Speaker 1: I wanted to find you know, whenever I was studying it,
6:50
Speaker 1: I'd always be like, who would I be in this picture?
6:52
Speaker 1: And I would be like some woman standing at the back,
6:56
Speaker 1: being like this doesn't look like it's going very well. Yeah,
7:00
Speaker 1: basically any given situation. So I'm you know, I like
7:04
Speaker 1: telling those stories and expanding the idea of what the
7:08
Speaker 1: Roman Empire is and what Roman history is, because we
7:11
Speaker 1: have so much information about the ancient world, Like, we
7:14
Speaker 1: have so much and it's all right there, but people
7:18
Speaker 1: are not necessarily interested in looking for it themselves. So
7:22
Speaker 1: I do it for them and then tell them about it,
7:24
Speaker 1: because I'm basically just looking for myself in the past.
7:26
Speaker 2: A gossip about and make it fun.
7:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that they're just inherently funny, so because
7:33
Speaker 1: they take themselves very seriously, but they're not a serious people,
7:37
Speaker 1: and so to me, it's very easy to make jokes
7:41
Speaker 1: about them. And more people should. More people should make
7:43
Speaker 1: fun of them, I think, And that's what we're going
7:45
Speaker 1: to do here today.
7:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is notes of you know, just notes of
7:50
Speaker 2: a crumbling empire, Like, yeah, I get this, I get
7:53
Speaker 2: this vibe. I see myself, I see myself in this
7:58
Speaker 2: crumbling empire.
8:00
Speaker 3: Here we are in one.
8:02
Speaker 2: Bringing it into Gladiator. When did you first encounter with
8:06
Speaker 2: this movie? What is your history with this movie specifically?
8:10
Speaker 1: So this movie came out exactly as I was just
8:13
Speaker 1: starting to study the Romans. So nineteen ninety nine is
8:17
Speaker 1: when I first started studying. In two thousand and when
8:19
Speaker 1: this came out, and so I went with my A
8:22
Speaker 1: level group to see it, and we were seventeen years
8:25
Speaker 1: old and like the worst people that you can imagine,
8:30
Speaker 1: because you know, you have people who have like one
8:33
Speaker 1: small bit of knowledge and therefore they think they know everything.
8:37
Speaker 1: We were those people in the back of the cinema.
8:40
Speaker 1: And I saw it and I thought there was very,
8:42
Speaker 1: very silly, and I remember being vaguely hysterical at all
8:45
Speaker 1: of the Latin because I had done one whole year
8:47
Speaker 1: of Latin, so obviously so.
8:49
Speaker 3: You're fluent, of course.
8:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, but in fairness, I still find that very very funny.
8:54
Speaker 1: And then I just thought it was a very very
8:56
Speaker 1: silly film that was hilarious for astonishing too and half
9:00
Speaker 1: hours and then kind of stopped thinking about it, and
9:03
Speaker 1: since then, for the past like twenty five years, have
9:05
Speaker 1: just been sort of making fun of it, like it's
9:08
Speaker 1: just been it's consistently funny to do Russell Crow oppressions.
9:12
Speaker 1: And went back and watched it again for this but
9:15
Speaker 1: this is the first time I've actually seen it since
9:18
Speaker 1: seeing it in the cinema. Wow, So it was amazing
9:22
Speaker 1: how much I remembered. But I've just been gently feeling
9:25
Speaker 1: bad about how annoying I must have been in two thousand.
9:27
Speaker 1: In the cinema, it's okay, yeah.
9:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're seventeen, that you know, if you're not annoying
9:34
Speaker 2: when you're seventeen, you are the weird one exactly.
9:38
Speaker 1: And I think it deserved the laughter.
9:41
Speaker 2: So it's okay, Wow, we're so polite, you go. I
9:51
Speaker 2: had not seen this movie. Bravely, I just and not
9:55
Speaker 2: because I've even disinterested in ancient rom I hopefull this
10:00
Speaker 2: isn't a polarizing thing to say it, but like in
10:02
Speaker 2: my like public school system, if you were like in
10:06
Speaker 2: advanced classes, they made you take Latin instead of something
10:10
Speaker 2: you could use and so, and I will always resent
10:13
Speaker 2: because I, you know, like really wish I spoke even
10:18
Speaker 2: vaguely conversational Spanish would be so much more useful in
10:21
Speaker 2: my day to day life. But instead I took five
10:24
Speaker 2: years of Latin, and for what I don't know, I
10:28
Speaker 2: retained very little. I remember how to say stupid boy,
10:31
Speaker 2: futuos puiri whoa, And that was all I would really
10:35
Speaker 2: say in the class because all the boys in the
10:38
Speaker 2: class were annoying.
10:40
Speaker 3: Well, if you want to learn and in Spanish. It's
10:42
Speaker 3: one way you could say it is please Chico is stupid,
10:46
Speaker 3: so she could see and how much more useful would
10:50
Speaker 3: so much.
10:51
Speaker 2: My life would just be easier. Anyways, I really did
10:54
Speaker 2: enjoy Latin, and that's why I stayed in the program
10:57
Speaker 2: for five years. And you know, there like historical elements
11:01
Speaker 2: to it. We did these very I have you heard
11:04
Speaker 2: of these, like these Latin education books. I don't know
11:07
Speaker 2: if they were just in the US, but it's called
11:09
Speaker 2: Eka Romani.
11:10
Speaker 1: Yes, I know it.
11:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh my gosh. There is still kind of like
11:15
Speaker 2: a semi thriving tumbler culture around Eka Romani because it
11:21
Speaker 2: was like a story, like I do think part of
11:24
Speaker 2: the reason I didn't leave the Latin program is because
11:26
Speaker 2: of the story. Because you're translating like a story about
11:29
Speaker 2: a family who moves from Oh gosh, I wish I
11:33
Speaker 2: remembered their last name, Aki Romani Hive don't kill me.
11:36
Speaker 2: But they basically they're on this long journey to Rome.
11:39
Speaker 2: They're like an upper middle class family on their journey
11:42
Speaker 2: to Rome. And then for an entire academic year they
11:45
Speaker 2: were stuck in a ditch. It was wild. It was
11:49
Speaker 2: all of book two, all of eighth grade, they're stuck
11:51
Speaker 2: in a ditch. It's so shocking. My cousin was two
11:55
Speaker 2: years ahead of me, and she's like buckle in for
11:57
Speaker 2: eighth grade because nothing happens in Latin in eighth grade.
12:01
Speaker 2: They don't get to Rome until you're in high school.
12:03
Speaker 2: It was like, so the year where they're in the
12:05
Speaker 2: ditch is just ridiculous. Anyways, we learned about Roman history
12:10
Speaker 2: when I was saying Latin, but I just never as
12:12
Speaker 2: far as like Gladiator goes. This is just like I
12:15
Speaker 2: see this poster and I'm like, this movie is not
12:17
Speaker 2: for me. I don't know. Historical epics have never really
12:20
Speaker 2: been my thing, you know, hyper mask movies, I've never
12:24
Speaker 2: really been my thing, and so when I was watching
12:27
Speaker 2: this for the first time, I felt like, yeah, this
12:31
Speaker 2: is really not my thing. So not much changed. However, However,
12:38
Speaker 2: while his you know, character, which I know is like
12:41
Speaker 2: based in some historical truth, while Joaquin Phoenix's character is
12:45
Speaker 2: absolutely diabolical, he is so cunty in this movie. He's
12:51
Speaker 2: like awesome to watch. He's such a diva. I love him. Yeah,
12:59
Speaker 2: so yeah, I if for nothing else other than the
13:03
Speaker 2: Joaquin Phoenix performance, I you know, it was watching Waquin Phoenix.
13:08
Speaker 2: I just didn't know there was a famous movie where
13:10
Speaker 2: Joaquin Phoenix killed Dumbledore. So that was interesting.
13:14
Speaker 3: H the joke man kills Dumbledore.
13:17
Speaker 2: Joker killed Dumbledore. And if that's not a hot topic sentence,
13:22
Speaker 2: I don't know what is.
13:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it was. I don't know.
13:27
Speaker 2: It wasn't for me, but I am very excited to
13:29
Speaker 2: talk about it because it feels like such straight guy porn.
13:34
Speaker 1: Mmmmm yeah yeah.
13:36
Speaker 2: Yes, Kitlyn, was your history with Gladiator.
13:39
Speaker 3: I saw it in high school. I don't think I
13:43
Speaker 3: saw in theaters, but when it like came out on DVD,
13:46
Speaker 3: my friends and I got together for a little sleepover
13:49
Speaker 3: and we watched it. And as far as like appealing
13:52
Speaker 3: to my sensibilities, it does for me more than I
13:55
Speaker 3: think it does for you, Jamie. But for some reason,
13:57
Speaker 3: I never revisited it, and I like kind of remembered
14:00
Speaker 3: nothing about it. And also I didn't learn like anything
14:06
Speaker 3: about ancient Rome in any history class I ever took.
14:10
Speaker 3: There was probably like three days where they're like, hey,
14:13
Speaker 3: remember Julius Caesar, he did this thing. So I know
14:18
Speaker 3: almost nothing to the extent where I thought that Caesar
14:22
Speaker 3: was a last name and not like a title.
14:26
Speaker 2: It's both what I'm so glad you're here. But they
14:30
Speaker 2: all say, like, you're a Caesar, so that's it. That's
14:33
Speaker 2: her last name, but it's also their title.
14:35
Speaker 1: That's his name. Yeah, so his name is Guys Julius Caesar,
14:38
Speaker 1: so is his last name. And then it becomes a
14:42
Speaker 1: title after his air makes it into a title basically wow, okay,
14:49
Speaker 1: yeah wow, and then you get to be a Caesar
14:52
Speaker 1: and then it like loses all of its name meaning
14:54
Speaker 1: and just becomes a title eventually.
14:56
Speaker 3: So it's both Okay, thank you for clarifying that.
14:59
Speaker 2: So glad you're here. You're so glad you're here, because
15:02
Speaker 2: they use.
15:02
Speaker 3: Caesar as if it's a title in this movie. So
15:05
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I thought that Caesar was a
15:06
Speaker 3: last name, but I guess it's been a title this
15:08
Speaker 3: whole time. But okay, that makes more sense.
15:10
Speaker 1: They're also using it very incorrectly in this movie.
15:14
Speaker 3: Was this movie historically inaccurate?
15:18
Speaker 2: The thing that stuck out to me right away and
15:20
Speaker 2: watch may be dead wrong is Lucilla's clothes. They felt
15:26
Speaker 2: very small coded to me.
15:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, they wouldn't log that out of place in a
15:33
Speaker 1: like two thousands, like nice boty women who are married
15:38
Speaker 1: to accountants.
15:40
Speaker 2: Like extraneous ribbons is like a lot of like kind
15:43
Speaker 2: of unflattering fabric. You're just like, hmm, it's looking polyester.
15:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's one of my things is when people use
15:50
Speaker 1: like really fine, like diaphanous, floaty fabrics in Roman things.
15:56
Speaker 1: You're like, how do you think they're making those? Right?
16:00
Speaker 1: That is machine mate, but they love a diaphanous fabric
16:05
Speaker 1: kind of like paying things on film. But yeah, it
16:07
Speaker 1: looks also really did not look that expensive compared to
16:10
Speaker 1: how much they spent on Joaquin's like fancy robes.
16:13
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've clad you okay, because I was like
16:16
Speaker 2: maybe I just don't know for it, but it was
16:18
Speaker 2: like this, this is cruel with me to say, but
16:21
Speaker 2: it was kind of reminding me of the costume design
16:23
Speaker 2: and I Frankenstein. It felt very like I.
16:27
Speaker 3: Party Yeah, Party City vibes.
16:29
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:30
Speaker 3: So anyway, I had only seen this movie once before,
16:33
Speaker 3: although I did when I went to Rome in twenty nineteen.
16:38
Speaker 3: I think it was.
16:39
Speaker 2: Brag am I the only person here that hasn't been
16:41
Speaker 2: a Rome.
16:42
Speaker 3: Maybe, wow, shame shame on you, Jamie. Now I did
16:50
Speaker 3: a tour like a walking tour around the city of
16:54
Speaker 3: Rome that was called Feminist History of Rome. So it
17:00
Speaker 3: was a tour that told events of ancient Rome through
17:04
Speaker 3: a feminist lens. And I was the only person on
17:07
Speaker 3: the tour. It was me and the tour guide, so
17:09
Speaker 3: it was like a very I was just the only
17:11
Speaker 3: person who signed up for it, so it was a
17:14
Speaker 3: very personal It was a date.
17:16
Speaker 2: It was basically a date.
17:17
Speaker 1: And.
17:19
Speaker 3: The tour guide had some pretty like swarfy opinions about things,
17:26
Speaker 3: and like was saying things that were like disparaging of
17:28
Speaker 3: sex workers, and so I did complain about it. I
17:32
Speaker 3: wrote my little review and I was like, get rid
17:35
Speaker 3: of all this swarf rhetoric. But otherwise it's a fun tour.
17:40
Speaker 3: So I learned a little bit at the time. Did
17:42
Speaker 3: I retain any of that information? Sure didn't. So couldn't say.
17:48
Speaker 3: But I enjoyed watching this movie. It's I think better
17:51
Speaker 3: than I remember, not because it's not like, wow, this
17:54
Speaker 3: is like so well written and well performed, but it
17:57
Speaker 3: is entertaining. I feel like the movie does what you
18:01
Speaker 3: as entertained. Russell Crowe's character is encouraged to do, which
18:05
Speaker 3: is like get the crowd on your side, and I
18:07
Speaker 3: feel like me the crowd was on the side of
18:11
Speaker 3: the movie. I had a good time watching it, That's
18:14
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. But there's lots to talk about. So
18:19
Speaker 3: let's take a quick break and we'll come back for
18:22
Speaker 3: the recap. And we're back, okay. So here's the recap
18:35
Speaker 3: of Gladiator. I will place a content warning at the
18:39
Speaker 3: top here for sexual violence and incest. Okay. So we
18:45
Speaker 3: open on text on the screen reading that at the
18:49
Speaker 3: height of its power, the Roman Empire was vast, stretching
18:53
Speaker 3: from Africa to England. A quarter of the world's population
18:58
Speaker 3: lived and died under the rules of the Caesars. Which
19:02
Speaker 3: is a title and the last name I no.
19:05
Speaker 2: No, wait, I want to say EMM a fact check.
19:09
Speaker 2: Is the stuff at the beginning?
19:10
Speaker 1: True? Yes, it is. This is the fight, which kind
19:16
Speaker 1: of makes it funny that they're all very convinced that
19:18
Speaker 1: this is also the end. But this is like what's
19:20
Speaker 1: called the high Empire. This is like the best of
19:23
Speaker 1: times for the Roman Empire. It's like size wise, it's
19:28
Speaker 1: at its peak, and they're only fighting wars now that
19:31
Speaker 1: they are deliberately getting themselves into in order to conquer
19:34
Speaker 1: other people. So this is what is called the High Empire, gotcha.
19:38
Speaker 3: Although the text frames it very differently, where it's like
19:42
Speaker 3: Rome is awesome and they're just trying to kill these
19:45
Speaker 3: barbarians so that they can finally have peace throughout the empire,
19:49
Speaker 3: which is awesome.
19:51
Speaker 2: The values of the movie are very bizarre with regards
19:54
Speaker 2: to that, where it's like they're not avoiding the issue
19:59
Speaker 2: of slavery entirely, and the movie has like some empathy,
20:04
Speaker 2: but then also they're like but ultimately, at the end
20:06
Speaker 2: of the day, it's all about the Roman project, and
20:08
Speaker 2: you're like, I don't know about that.
20:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the rest of the text and I rewrote
20:15
Speaker 3: it and reframed it to this, which is so it's
20:18
Speaker 3: the year one eighty a d. Emperor Marcus Aurelius has
20:23
Speaker 3: been fighting against the barbarian tribes in Germania for I
20:27
Speaker 3: think twelve years now, but there's one final stronghold that
20:32
Speaker 3: the Roman Empire is trying to conquer to uphold its imperialism.
20:40
Speaker 3: So we cut to Germania. We meet Maximus. That's Russell Crowe.
20:45
Speaker 3: He's the general of the Roman army that is readying
20:49
Speaker 3: for battle with the Germanic army, overseeing all of this
20:54
Speaker 3: is Emperor Marcus Aurelius played by Richard Harris of Dumbledore Fame.
21:01
Speaker 3: The battle takes place and the Roman army is victorious
21:05
Speaker 3: thanks to Maximus being so good at war, so good.
21:15
Speaker 3: We then meet Marcus Aurelius's son and daughter, Commodists played
21:20
Speaker 3: by Joaquin Phoenix and Lucilla played by Connie Nielsen. They
21:24
Speaker 3: are on their way to meet their father after this battle.
21:28
Speaker 2: And Commodists and Lucilla are based on real people.
21:33
Speaker 1: They are, Yes, so they are real people. Commodist really
21:38
Speaker 1: was the emperor Nisilla really was his sister, one of
21:41
Speaker 1: a minimum of twelve siblings that he had. Wow, And
21:44
Speaker 1: she really did hate him, and she did also really
21:47
Speaker 1: try to kill him. Good for her, actually, because he
21:51
Speaker 1: made her marry a man that she thought was beneath
21:54
Speaker 1: her status and she took it as an insult.
21:57
Speaker 3: Oh, so she's just lair elitist.
22:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, well so your brothers shouldn't decide who you married,
22:04
Speaker 2: for sure.
22:05
Speaker 3: No, but you know, I mean, everyone in these imperial families,
22:08
Speaker 3: I'm sure was pretty trash.
22:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then I read that real life Commedists had Lucilla.
22:15
Speaker 2: He ended up having her executed, right, He had her
22:18
Speaker 2: like Maroons isld.
22:20
Speaker 1: And yeah, excels for an island. Very nice island, but
22:23
Speaker 1: an island. And then he had her executed on the island. Yeah,
22:25
Speaker 1: due to the murderer attempt.
22:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited to talk about the ending of this
22:30
Speaker 2: movie because it seems just like made up.
22:34
Speaker 3: Okay, So yeah, Commodists is very slimy, he's schemy. He
22:38
Speaker 3: is expecting to be his father's successor.
22:42
Speaker 2: Lucilla.
22:43
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, the main thing we learned about her, at least
22:46
Speaker 3: in the beginning, is that she's horny for Maximus, and
22:51
Speaker 3: it's implied that they had a love affair. At one point.
22:55
Speaker 2: You're like, well, yeah, I guess what else will we
22:57
Speaker 2: learn about a woman?
22:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one that we ever learn about.
23:03
Speaker 3: So Maximus asks Marcus Aurelius if he can be released
23:09
Speaker 3: so that he can return home to Spain to see
23:12
Speaker 3: his wife and his son, who he hasn't seen in
23:17
Speaker 3: nearly three years.
23:18
Speaker 2: It's so john Wick. It's so wife and flash. But
23:23
Speaker 2: she's like mamas, hi you literally all you ever see
23:27
Speaker 2: her to do is like wave and smile, smile and
23:30
Speaker 2: be dead.
23:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, and not have a name. I was no that
23:36
Speaker 1: she does not have a name.
23:38
Speaker 2: She doesn't seed be bothered. She also has access to
23:42
Speaker 2: a hair curler. Yeah, we learned at the end.
23:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's got a crimper.
23:48
Speaker 2: Yeah.
23:48
Speaker 3: And so Marcus Aurelius is like, yeah, yeah, you can
23:52
Speaker 3: go home soon. But first I just want to say
23:55
Speaker 3: that I feel like the Roman Empire has kind of
23:59
Speaker 3: gotten out of ham and maybe I did too much war.
24:03
Speaker 3: So Maximus, I want you to be the next emperor
24:07
Speaker 3: and for you to give power back to the people
24:09
Speaker 3: of Rome and to end all the corruption.
24:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's like, don't worry, I didn't write this down anywhere.
24:15
Speaker 1: Don't Yeah, as a man who notoriously never wrote anything down,
24:20
Speaker 1: it definitely doesn't have a still best selling book.
24:25
Speaker 3: And Maximus is like hard pass, no, thank you, And
24:31
Speaker 3: Marcus Aurelius is like, exactly, that's why it needs to
24:34
Speaker 3: be you and not my power hungry piece of shit
24:37
Speaker 3: son Comedis, and Maximus is like, okay, I'll think about it.
24:42
Speaker 3: Then Marcus Aurelius goes to Comedis and tells him that
24:46
Speaker 3: Commodist is not going to be the emperor. Instead it'll
24:48
Speaker 3: be Maximus. And Commonist does not like this, so he
24:52
Speaker 3: suffocates his father to death.
24:55
Speaker 2: This scene is good. Sorry, it's like, I mean, this
25:00
Speaker 2: is like fathers as well as sons. This is good,
25:04
Speaker 2: it's both. Yeah, that scene is awesome. He's like Joaquin's
25:09
Speaker 2: like crying his eyeliner off. It's awesome.
25:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Commodists is like, hey, Maximus.
25:18
Speaker 1: Bad news.
25:19
Speaker 3: My father died of natural causes. But Maximus can tell
25:25
Speaker 3: that Marcus Aurelius has been murdered, and he tries to
25:29
Speaker 3: alert a couple senators, but before he can, Commodist orders
25:33
Speaker 3: Maximus to be taken away and executed. So a few
25:36
Speaker 3: soldiers ride Maximus into the woods and are about to
25:40
Speaker 3: murder him, but Maximus fights back and kills all of
25:44
Speaker 3: his captors because again, he's so good at war. So
25:49
Speaker 3: then Maximus takes a couple horses and returns to his
25:53
Speaker 3: home in Spain, only to discover that it's been burned
25:57
Speaker 3: and his wife and son were killed clearly at the
26:00
Speaker 3: instruction of Comedis. Maximus is obviously devastated, and he is
26:06
Speaker 3: then abducted by enslavers. He meets another person who had
26:11
Speaker 3: been captured, Juba played by Jaman Hansu, and they are
26:16
Speaker 3: taken to a market of some kind in the town
26:20
Speaker 3: of Zukobar in a Roman province that is now located
26:24
Speaker 3: in present day Algeria. There an enslaver named Proximo played
26:30
Speaker 3: by Oliver Reed, who I believe passed away during the
26:34
Speaker 3: production of the movie.
26:36
Speaker 2: I feel like the casting of Oliver Reed, Eilert says
26:39
Speaker 2: everything you need to know about this movie's respect for women.
26:43
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know about this, so I'll have to
26:46
Speaker 3: learn put.
26:47
Speaker 2: A pin in it. But yeah, I didn't know that
26:49
Speaker 2: he died during the production of this movie. But once
26:51
Speaker 2: I read that, I think it's the halfway mark of
26:53
Speaker 2: the movie, because I just had the Wikipedia in front
26:55
Speaker 2: of me, and once you know, it is very obvious
26:58
Speaker 2: that he died mid production. There's a lot of like
27:00
Speaker 2: they seg him in at some point. Yea, they use
27:03
Speaker 2: body doubles, like he didn't really finish the shoot.
27:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of it is like they had to
27:11
Speaker 1: see gi him, spent a lot of their budget on
27:14
Speaker 1: CGI and Oliver Reed into that they had written and
27:17
Speaker 1: couldn't change.
27:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, very bleak, very bleak. But as we'll discuss later,
27:23
Speaker 2: he was a terrible person. And I'll say it, I
27:25
Speaker 2: don't think we're worse off without him.
27:27
Speaker 3: M okay. Anyways, this character Proximo purchases Maximus, Juba and
27:34
Speaker 3: others to be gladiators who will fight and likely die
27:39
Speaker 3: for the entertainment of others. The enslaved gladiators start to train,
27:44
Speaker 3: but Maximus refuses to participate, so none of the people
27:48
Speaker 3: know how good he isn't fighting yet, but then it's
27:53
Speaker 3: time for the first gladiator battle in an arena. It's
27:57
Speaker 3: like I don't know, ten versus ten people or something,
28:01
Speaker 3: and Maximus and Juba, who are chained together, kick ass
28:06
Speaker 3: and they're the last ones standing, plus this tall dude
28:10
Speaker 3: named Hagen. Meanwhile, back in the city of Rome, Emperor
28:16
Speaker 3: Commedas arrives. Although some people are like boo, you suck
28:21
Speaker 3: and you surp haha get it anyway, Lucilla, no one
28:27
Speaker 3: liked my joke, Lucilla, sorry, sorry, So then Commodis and
28:35
Speaker 3: Lucilla arrive together. She greets her young son, Lucius, so
28:40
Speaker 3: we meet him. Then a senator named Gracis played by
28:44
Speaker 3: Derek Jacobi is like, hey, Commoedis, here's a bunch of
28:49
Speaker 3: things you have to do to fix the city, and
28:52
Speaker 3: Commitas is like oo, no, thank you, and he would
28:56
Speaker 3: rather dissolve the Senate and have one hundred and fifty
28:59
Speaker 3: days of games to honor his father.
29:03
Speaker 1: Which is more days than they had when they opened
29:06
Speaker 1: the Colosseum. So that's a lot of games, a.
29:09
Speaker 3: Lot of games.
29:10
Speaker 2: And this is based in anything.
29:12
Speaker 1: No, this is entirely imagined. Okay, this is like a
29:16
Speaker 1: fundamental misunderstanding of the Senate in quite a fun way.
29:19
Speaker 1: The fact that they keep saying that the Senate are
29:21
Speaker 1: like representatives of the people is hilarious, given that the
29:24
Speaker 1: whole of Roman history is the Senate oppressing the people,
29:28
Speaker 1: like explicitly saying we are not the people and you're
29:31
Speaker 1: not allowed any saying anything for about a thousand years. Yeah,
29:37
Speaker 1: so very very funny that they're like, as representatives of
29:40
Speaker 1: the people, we should be ruling. And then yet no. Also,
29:44
Speaker 1: the whole idea that Marcus Aurelius didn't like games and
29:46
Speaker 1: like banned them and that's why Proximo is like off
29:50
Speaker 1: in Algeria instead of in Rome is very funny. But
29:54
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty days of games is so many
29:56
Speaker 1: days of games, that's six months.
30:00
Speaker 3: Yeah. God, anyway, so this is Commoedis's idea to just
30:05
Speaker 3: have a big fun festival in Rome, and Lucilla Grachis
30:11
Speaker 3: and a few other senators are like, oh no, Rome
30:16
Speaker 3: is doomed now that comedist is in charge. So back
30:20
Speaker 3: in Zuckerbar where Maximus is or I don't know if
30:22
Speaker 3: they've traveled somewhere else anyways, it's not super clear, but
30:25
Speaker 3: he is like gaining a reputation as this like powerful gladiator.
30:32
Speaker 3: He is now known as the Spaniard. And he's in
30:37
Speaker 3: another gladiator fight. It's him versus six men. I think
30:43
Speaker 3: he kills all of them, of course.
30:45
Speaker 1: Because he's so good at war.
30:47
Speaker 2: He's the best at war.
30:49
Speaker 1: That's the one where he cuts the guy's head off
30:51
Speaker 1: with two swords at the same time. Like so good
30:54
Speaker 1: at war?
30:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh good. I mean it's fun to watch him
30:59
Speaker 2: be good at war.
31:01
Speaker 3: So then Proximo tells Maximus that the new emperor is
31:06
Speaker 3: doing all these games in Rome and that Maximus could
31:10
Speaker 3: compete there and be great, but he'll need to learn
31:14
Speaker 3: how to like get the crowd to love him, because
31:17
Speaker 3: that's how you really win. And Proximo reveals that he
31:20
Speaker 3: used to be a gladiator and he was able to
31:23
Speaker 3: win his freedom. So now Maximus is like, hmm, I'm
31:26
Speaker 3: going to try to do that. Maximus, Juba, Proximo, and
31:31
Speaker 3: other gladiators travel to Rome. They marvel at the city
31:35
Speaker 3: and the Colosseum. Maximus has a brief encounter with Lucilla's
31:39
Speaker 3: son Lucius, who has heard tell of this spaniard and
31:43
Speaker 3: is rooting for him.
31:45
Speaker 2: Such an overwritten gooky scene. He's like, yeah, hello, it's
31:50
Speaker 2: am I, the young boy. You're looking for sure, they
31:55
Speaker 2: just let you know, like the air apparent loose, like
31:59
Speaker 2: I'm sure right.
32:02
Speaker 3: And so then it's time for the first gladiator battle
32:05
Speaker 3: in the coliseum that Maximus will participate in. It's him
32:10
Speaker 3: plus a dozen or so men on his side, and
32:13
Speaker 3: he kind of assumes his role as army general again,
32:17
Speaker 3: and he tells them to fight together so that they'll
32:19
Speaker 3: have a better chance at survival. Then a bunch of
32:22
Speaker 3: warriors on chariots come out, a couple of whom are
32:26
Speaker 3: woa whoa whoa women wah. But they die along with
32:31
Speaker 3: all of the other warriors because Maximus and his army
32:34
Speaker 3: of gladiators defeat the other team, and the crowd is living, laughing,
32:39
Speaker 3: loving it.
32:41
Speaker 2: Emma, would women have been in the coliseum fighting.
32:46
Speaker 1: Yes, they would? Oh helly, they did, and they did
32:49
Speaker 1: have women fighting on chariots as well. We have evidence
32:52
Speaker 1: of that, so yes, that rocks. Nothing else about this
32:56
Speaker 1: is reasonable. This is this is a like the battle
33:00
Speaker 1: re enactment thing that they're doing that is a real
33:02
Speaker 1: battle against Hannibal in the Second Punic War, there is
33:06
Speaker 1: like one of the great victories of Roman history. Do
33:10
Speaker 1: you feel like this is maybe where they could have
33:12
Speaker 1: taken some of the budget from recreating other of Verreed's
33:14
Speaker 1: face and put it into extras and put more than
33:16
Speaker 1: like eight people in their battle re enactment because it.
33:20
Speaker 2: Does look a bit like well sparse.
33:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bit sparse in there, but I
33:28
Speaker 1: feel like they fixed this with the second one.
33:30
Speaker 3: Right, we're right, yeah, Okay. So then after this big victory,
33:34
Speaker 3: Commodist approaches this Spaniard wanting to meet him, obviously not
33:39
Speaker 3: realizing who it actually is, and Maximus removes his helmet
33:44
Speaker 3: and he says, my name is Anigo Montoya, Maximus Decimus Olidius,
33:49
Speaker 3: you killed my wife, prepared to die, and it seems
33:54
Speaker 3: like Commodist is about to have Maximus struck down and killed,
33:58
Speaker 3: but the crowd starts cheering from maximis to live, so
34:01
Speaker 3: Commdist lets Maximus live and he walks away, but commedist is.
34:07
Speaker 2: Pick Comist's reaction. I'm so funny. He's such a baby.
34:12
Speaker 2: He's like, no, this bringing looks like even dead.
34:16
Speaker 3: Why is she still alive?
34:18
Speaker 1: They like a gladiat and more than me.
34:22
Speaker 2: I don't get it up. I also love that part
34:27
Speaker 2: of his speech to his dad. I mean it's like
34:29
Speaker 2: heartbreaking in subways. But he's such a baby where he's
34:32
Speaker 2: like all the things you fail you in a person
34:34
Speaker 2: is not like I'm brave, just not in the traditional
34:38
Speaker 2: way you would associate being brave. I'm brave, and you're
34:41
Speaker 2: just like, oh, he's such a little baby.
34:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well we'll discuss further.
34:47
Speaker 2: But uh.
34:49
Speaker 3: That night, Lucilla pays Maximus a visit. He doesn't trust her.
34:55
Speaker 3: He thinks she's in kahoots with her brother, but she's like, no,
34:58
Speaker 3: I hate my brother. I'm trying to help you, and
35:01
Speaker 3: I want you to meet with Senator Gracchus, who's like
35:05
Speaker 3: the Bernie Sanders of the Roman Senate.
35:07
Speaker 2: I don't know. I was really unclear on what his
35:11
Speaker 2: whole deal was.
35:13
Speaker 3: Not sure.
35:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think that he is supposed to just
35:16
Speaker 1: be like a representative of So have you ever seen
35:20
Speaker 1: I Claudius, the BBC TV show I Claudius There's No Reasonstein.
35:26
Speaker 2: And Tanya I Franknstein. Yeah.
35:30
Speaker 1: So there is a very famous BBC adaptation of the
35:34
Speaker 1: Robert Graves book I Claudius, which has Derek Jacoby in
35:39
Speaker 1: it as Claudius, and he's like the one good man
35:41
Speaker 1: in Rome, and it's huge. It's got like Brian Blessed
35:44
Speaker 1: in it, It's got Patrick Stewart with hair in it.
35:47
Speaker 1: It's like a real big like institution in British television
35:51
Speaker 1: and film history. And really Scott obviously is British, so
35:55
Speaker 1: he has specifically cast Derek Jacoby in this role because
35:59
Speaker 1: he is like the face of like good Rome to
36:02
Speaker 1: pretty much everyone in the entirety of Britain.
36:05
Speaker 3: So people who had seen that would know the context.
36:08
Speaker 1: Of exactly and you would be like, this is Derek Jackby.
36:11
Speaker 1: He's like the good guy. It doesn't really matter what
36:13
Speaker 1: anything else about him, we just know that in this
36:16
Speaker 1: context Derek Jackby is always the good guy. Okay. And
36:20
Speaker 1: then he has this name which is also associated with
36:23
Speaker 1: like fighting for people's rights, so he's like he's basically
36:26
Speaker 1: like I've cast Derek Jacoby, I've given him the name Gracis.
36:29
Speaker 1: I don't need to do anything more than that. You
36:30
Speaker 1: can just.
36:31
Speaker 2: Assume, yeah, and everyone will know. Everyone will know. Yeah, yeah, clearly.
36:36
Speaker 2: I mean Caitlin and I knew immediately.
36:38
Speaker 3: We definitely knew.
36:41
Speaker 1: I feel like he might have been making some assumptions
36:42
Speaker 1: about how many people outside of England had seen my Claudius.
36:46
Speaker 2: But.
36:48
Speaker 1: I think that maybe Ridley Scott makes a lot of assumptions.
36:51
Speaker 2: So it's just that, yeah, like how much people the
36:53
Speaker 2: average person knows about the Roman Empire, which feeds directly
36:56
Speaker 2: into the meme of last year where yeah, apparently it's
36:59
Speaker 2: all on a lot of people's minds. Yeah, but I
37:02
Speaker 2: just I'm not among them.
37:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, So Lucilla has, you know, paid this visit
37:08
Speaker 3: to Maximus, and he doesn't trust her, so he's like,
37:13
Speaker 3: leave here, never come again, and forget I even exist,
37:17
Speaker 3: So she leaves. The next day is another gladiator battle
37:22
Speaker 3: where Maximus fights the only undefeated gladiator and all of
37:27
Speaker 3: Rome Tigris of Gaul, and it's clear that commodists had
37:31
Speaker 3: like rigged this battle because like tigers are released into
37:35
Speaker 3: the arena to attack Maximus. But Maximus is so good
37:40
Speaker 3: at war even with tigers, doesn't matter. Yeah, so he
37:44
Speaker 3: defeats them because he's just that good. Comedists and Maximus
37:49
Speaker 3: have another like face to face where Commedist tries to
37:52
Speaker 3: get a rise out of Maximus and insults his wife
37:55
Speaker 3: and son. But Maximus is like, I'm cool, baby, I'm
38:00
Speaker 3: just biding my time until I get a good chance
38:03
Speaker 3: to kill this motherfucker.
38:04
Speaker 2: Cut to Commodists again being like stop.
38:11
Speaker 1: Yep.
38:12
Speaker 3: So meanwhile, Maximus is former servant when he was like
38:17
Speaker 3: general of the army. Cicero comes to see him and
38:22
Speaker 3: Maximus has Cicero tell Lucilla that he changed his mind
38:26
Speaker 3: and wants to meet with Senator Gregis after all. So
38:29
Speaker 3: they meet and Maximus wants Grachis to help him stage
38:34
Speaker 3: a coup to overthrow Commedists via Maximus's army of like
38:38
Speaker 3: five thousand men who are currently stationed in some nearby city,
38:43
Speaker 3: and once Maximus has killed Commodis, he will leave and
38:48
Speaker 3: give the power back to the people of Rome to
38:52
Speaker 3: honor the wishes of Marcus Aurelius.
38:54
Speaker 2: And offer that people are famously good for take a
38:58
Speaker 2: sword for it, I mean obviously, so much about this
39:01
Speaker 2: movie is unbelievable, but like it made my stomach turn
39:05
Speaker 2: because it's like, don't trust him, don't trust him.
39:07
Speaker 3: They don't mean it, Okay. So then Commonist has Grachus arrested,
39:12
Speaker 3: and so Maximus has to fast track his plan to
39:16
Speaker 3: leave and go get his army that night, and Lucilla
39:19
Speaker 3: gives him a little goodbye kiss on the lips to
39:22
Speaker 3: send him off, but Commedist suspects Lucilla is betraying him,
39:27
Speaker 3: so he threatens to kill her son Lucius unless she
39:31
Speaker 3: tells him everything, which she presumably does because then an
39:35
Speaker 3: army comes after Maximus and captures him as he's trying
39:38
Speaker 3: to leave the city. So then Commonist claims Lucius as
39:44
Speaker 3: his own son. He tells Lucilla basically that he will
39:49
Speaker 3: rape her so as to get an heir to the throne.
39:53
Speaker 3: So the stakes are very high.
39:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll talk about that whole speed. It's so thoroughly
39:58
Speaker 2: evil where he's like, if you think about taking your
40:01
Speaker 2: own life, I'll kill your son, and you're just like,
40:03
Speaker 2: ah ah.
40:04
Speaker 3: The stakes are high and he needs to die right now.
40:08
Speaker 3: So then Commonists challenges Maximus to a fight to the
40:12
Speaker 3: death in the coliseum in front of all of Rome,
40:16
Speaker 3: but not before he stabs Maximus in the back, giving
40:20
Speaker 3: him a big boo boo, so that Comedist has the
40:24
Speaker 3: advantage in this battle. So the fight begins, and Commonists
40:29
Speaker 3: is a better fighter than I expected, because it makes
40:32
Speaker 3: it seem like, oh, I've never been on the battlefield,
40:35
Speaker 3: so I'm like, he probably can't even wield a sword.
40:37
Speaker 3: But he's kind of better than I thought. But he
40:40
Speaker 3: still does lose when Maximus stabs him in the throat.
40:45
Speaker 3: But Maximus is losing a lot of blood and so
40:48
Speaker 3: he's like knocking on death's door. But he tells this
40:53
Speaker 3: army dude named Quintus, who had betrayed Maximus earlier in
40:57
Speaker 3: the movie, so I don't know why he's good again.
40:59
Speaker 3: But he tells Quintus to free the enslaved gladiators to
41:04
Speaker 3: reinstate Senator Gracis, who presumably will give the power back
41:09
Speaker 3: to the people of Rome because he said so, which
41:12
Speaker 3: again the senators famously did, And then Maximus collapses, dies
41:18
Speaker 3: and reunites with his wife and son in the afterlife,
41:24
Speaker 3: and the movie ends with Lucilla, Lucius, Juba, Gracis, and
41:28
Speaker 3: others carrying Maximus's body out of the coliseum the end. Yeah,
41:35
Speaker 3: I like it's so corny.
41:36
Speaker 2: But when Juba is like not yet, not yet, I
41:39
Speaker 2: was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. It makes me think.
41:44
Speaker 3: So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and
41:46
Speaker 3: we'll come back to discuss.
41:57
Speaker 2: And we're back. And we're back, Emma, I want to
41:59
Speaker 2: kick it to you to start. We like what stuck
42:03
Speaker 2: out to you more than anything.
42:06
Speaker 1: More than anything one, the amount that they talk about
42:09
Speaker 1: the idea of Rome just really sticks out to me.
42:13
Speaker 1: They talk about it as a dream, as an idea,
42:16
Speaker 1: as like a vision of something, and they're never specific
42:20
Speaker 1: in any way about what this is, just so that
42:22
Speaker 1: it is kind of non specifically good and involves the people,
42:26
Speaker 1: and that what is happening now is non specifically bad.
42:30
Speaker 1: But they just as constantly all of these very like
42:33
Speaker 1: pompous lines about like once there was an idea of
42:37
Speaker 1: Rome and it was just an idea. You had to
42:39
Speaker 1: whisper it, and it has been blown away because people
42:44
Speaker 1: have said it too loudly. And you're like, what, I've
42:46
Speaker 1: genuinely no idea what you're talking about, Like, I don't
42:50
Speaker 1: know that you know what you're talking about but that idea,
42:53
Speaker 1: like they're constantly talking about like this dream of Rome
42:56
Speaker 1: or idea of Rome, which I've just seen Megalopolis. Oh,
43:00
Speaker 1: and they do the exact same thing, So that really.
43:03
Speaker 2: Stuck at all. I still haven't seen it near enough.
43:06
Speaker 1: If you've seen Gladiator, you're not too far away from
43:10
Speaker 1: the shea just wild ride that isless. But they do
43:14
Speaker 1: the same thing when they just talk about the idea
43:16
Speaker 1: of Rome constantly without ever saying what it is. And
43:20
Speaker 1: also just how incredibly straight it was. It's just I
43:29
Speaker 1: think I said to somebody, it's a movie about boys
43:32
Speaker 1: and their relationship with other boys for boys, Like there's
43:37
Speaker 1: no women, there's not even any, Like all of their
43:40
Speaker 1: relationships are so straight, like there's not even anything. Like
43:44
Speaker 1: how do you make men who are nearly topless in
43:49
Speaker 1: skirts with their legs out, sweating and covered in blood
43:52
Speaker 1: fighting not sexy at all? Like how have you made it?
43:56
Speaker 1: They're seterosexual?
43:58
Speaker 3: Not gun made it sexy? But this movie, right, didn't
44:02
Speaker 3: make it sexy?
44:03
Speaker 2: No, I don't. I mean, really's got correct me if
44:06
Speaker 2: I'm wrong, I'm like, he does not make sexy movies.
44:09
Speaker 3: He really doesn't, not especially I.
44:12
Speaker 2: Can't really think of what I think maybe he's tried to,
44:16
Speaker 2: but I can't think of a really Scott movie that
44:19
Speaker 2: I'm like, that movie was hot, it's not really his Like.
44:22
Speaker 1: No, he's unbelievably be good at taking sex out.
44:24
Speaker 2: Of stuff, which is a shame because you're like you're saying,
44:26
Speaker 2: I'm like this. I tried to look back on the
44:30
Speaker 2: original marketing of this movie, and it is like being
44:34
Speaker 2: pretty explicitly marketed to men, which feels like even if
44:38
Speaker 2: you're going with the straight washing of the marketing campaign,
44:41
Speaker 2: it feels like a big missed opportunity to not be
44:44
Speaker 2: like marketing. Look at this movie full of sexy guys fighting,
44:48
Speaker 2: Like yeah, this movie should have been marketed to everybody,
44:50
Speaker 2: but it's so like caught up and it's like hyper
44:52
Speaker 2: masculine agenda. And going back to your first point, I
44:58
Speaker 2: was also sort of like, I don't know. The politics
45:00
Speaker 2: of this movie to you were so confusing because it
45:05
Speaker 2: like has a clear interest in showing you know, at
45:08
Speaker 2: least some range of like oppression and privilege, but like
45:14
Speaker 2: absolves Rome from that, where it's like, well, is Rome
45:17
Speaker 2: not responsible for that? Like I just found the whole
45:21
Speaker 2: Like it's like they vaguified the idea of Rome so
45:24
Speaker 2: much because it's like, well, like if you talked about
45:26
Speaker 2: it too much, wouldn't it make it seem like a
45:28
Speaker 2: pretty evil imperial project. But we're not supposed to think that, Like,
45:33
Speaker 2: I don't.
45:33
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, it is a big and bi evil imperial project.
45:36
Speaker 1: So like the from the very beginning when they're like
45:38
Speaker 1: fighting the German barbarians who were just hairy in order
45:44
Speaker 1: to have peace, one mustn't one peace. They never won peace,
45:49
Speaker 1: and to like, it's a war of expansion, that's a
45:52
Speaker 1: war of aggression by.
45:54
Speaker 3: The Romans taking land, killing people needlessly.
45:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, all my store there wars. The war was where
45:59
Speaker 1: they turned up and just like murdered people until they
46:02
Speaker 1: took all of their land. Right, So then being like, ah,
46:05
Speaker 1: this is the glory of Rome, Like, yes, Marcus Aurelius,
46:08
Speaker 1: this is the.
46:08
Speaker 2: Glory of Rome.
46:09
Speaker 1: This is exactly No one has ever seen the column
46:12
Speaker 1: of Marcus Aurelius, but he did make a big column
46:14
Speaker 1: that depicted all of like his wars, and it's literally
46:18
Speaker 1: just Marcus Aurelius and his empire and his imperial army
46:22
Speaker 1: stamping on the faces of German people and they're pretty explicit,
46:26
Speaker 1: and it has like if you can google it and
46:29
Speaker 1: look and see how much they really love showing themselves
46:33
Speaker 1: like fighting and stamping and oppressing people, and they really
46:37
Speaker 1: like imagery of the people that they have conquered looking sad,
46:41
Speaker 1: like really sad. So they can't be explicit about well,
46:46
Speaker 1: the actual dream of Romans because it is conquering people
46:48
Speaker 1: who aren't Roman and then killing them and then making
46:51
Speaker 1: them fight for fun.
46:53
Speaker 2: It's like in this movie just seems like it's coasting
46:55
Speaker 2: on vibes kind of and like coasting on like the
46:58
Speaker 2: osmosis idea of what ancient culture was like versus any
47:03
Speaker 2: interrogation of what it actually was like, because it's weird,
47:06
Speaker 2: Like you still get the feeling based on how he's
47:09
Speaker 2: framed that. Like Maximus at the end of the day
47:11
Speaker 2: like liberated people, but he really just liberated like ten.
47:15
Speaker 1: Guys, Like did ten guys he knew?
47:19
Speaker 2: Right, He's like, wait, please release my friends and then
47:23
Speaker 2: continue the imperial project goodbye, Like that is what he
47:27
Speaker 2: does at the end, right, Like I don't know.
47:29
Speaker 3: Pretty much, yeah, yeah, for sure, everything else is fine
47:32
Speaker 3: real quick. I didn't even make the connection when I
47:34
Speaker 3: said top gun, but that's directed by Tony Scott, which
47:37
Speaker 3: is Ridley Scott's brother. Oh my god, Tony Scott's making
47:41
Speaker 3: the horny boy movies and then Ridley Scott's making this
47:46
Speaker 3: sexless god that okay boy movies.
47:49
Speaker 2: Well that's the thing about brothers and brothers. There's one
47:52
Speaker 2: horny one and one not horny one, right, right, right, right, right, Yeah,
47:56
Speaker 2: that's just the time honored trope. Right.
48:00
Speaker 3: I mean, this movie is basically a story about two men.
48:04
Speaker 3: One who is evil because he's power hungry and has
48:07
Speaker 3: a fragile male ego. So at least the movie does
48:10
Speaker 3: like villainize those characteristics. But then it's like, but the
48:15
Speaker 3: other guy is good because he's so good at war
48:20
Speaker 3: and helping the Roman army to expand their empire by
48:25
Speaker 3: murdering and stealing land. But the movie frames it is like, no,
48:29
Speaker 3: he's good because he has honor and he actually rejects
48:33
Speaker 3: imperial rule and he wants to give power back to
48:36
Speaker 3: the people. And it's like, first of all, that wasn't
48:38
Speaker 3: even his idea, you.
48:39
Speaker 1: Know, he just glombs onto that because someone off is
48:41
Speaker 1: it to him?
48:42
Speaker 2: Really?
48:43
Speaker 1: Also, he's the only person that does any murdering in
48:46
Speaker 1: this film. Like the amount of innocent gladiators who are
48:48
Speaker 1: also in slaves. Yeah, who was just doing that job
48:52
Speaker 1: that he murders brutally and then shouts to everybody he's
48:56
Speaker 1: the only guy that does any actual, like real nasty killing.
49:00
Speaker 3: He does crimes, and.
49:02
Speaker 2: He's framed as like an organizer, but I like not
49:06
Speaker 2: really seeing the not really seeing the vision for what
49:11
Speaker 2: he's up to do. It kind of remight be the
49:13
Speaker 2: Waquin Phoenix character, which he was like based on a guy,
49:16
Speaker 2: but is a character remight be of It's not quite
49:19
Speaker 2: but like how we used to talk a lot about,
49:21
Speaker 2: like the patriarchy the guy kind of trope where it's
49:24
Speaker 2: like there's one character who's so super evil that you
49:28
Speaker 2: kind of don't notice or seriously consider what the other
49:31
Speaker 2: characters are doing because this is the most evil guy
49:34
Speaker 2: of all time. He is like not just an imperial
49:39
Speaker 2: piece of shit, he also is oppressing his sister, who
49:42
Speaker 2: were supposed to like. He's also like he killed his father,
49:46
Speaker 2: who were supposed to like. But because he's like oppressing
49:49
Speaker 2: these people, we're supposed to like, we're not thinking about
49:51
Speaker 2: what the other people are doing and what their goals
49:53
Speaker 2: are because Waquin Phoenix is so like he literally in
49:57
Speaker 2: a few scenes was like reminding me of Molif, Like
50:01
Speaker 2: he's going for it. He's like diva villain and he's
50:06
Speaker 2: great at it. But I feel like it almost sort
50:07
Speaker 2: of like makes it easy to like, YadA YadA away
50:10
Speaker 2: what everyone else is doing, because we have to kill
50:13
Speaker 2: the worst guy.
50:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the best guy is Maximus.
50:18
Speaker 2: Because he's the other guy.
50:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, the other guy that's in it, and he's nice
50:24
Speaker 1: and simple and the like Waku Phoenix has got too
50:27
Speaker 1: many fancy quothes on.
50:29
Speaker 3: Right, and all all Maximus wants is just to go
50:32
Speaker 3: back home and see his wife unnamed, unnamed wife.
50:39
Speaker 1: She could be anybody. She has no characteristics other than
50:43
Speaker 1: being married Maximus.
50:45
Speaker 5: On once soever, this is something that comes up with
50:49
Speaker 5: I mean, we need to talk about Juba as like
50:51
Speaker 5: a whole other discussion, but the friendship that is established
50:56
Speaker 5: between Maximus.
50:57
Speaker 2: And Juba, I'm on board on paper, but the way
51:00
Speaker 2: that they bond is so vague, where Like Juba's like,
51:04
Speaker 2: my family is alive and Maximus is like, whereas mine
51:07
Speaker 2: is dead. That's all they talk about. There's no even
51:11
Speaker 2: like from a writing standpoint, how many opportunities are there
51:14
Speaker 2: in the space of that scene to give a specific
51:16
Speaker 2: example of like something about my family that I miss
51:20
Speaker 2: that Juba could connect with, or like whatever it is.
51:23
Speaker 2: But they're just like me, wife alive, me wife dead.
51:26
Speaker 2: No names, no descriptions, no reason as to why. I mean,
51:30
Speaker 2: they seem like they both buried for love. But we
51:32
Speaker 2: don't even know. We can't be sure.
51:34
Speaker 3: No, the most we get is Maximus saying, my son
51:38
Speaker 3: likes to ride ponies.
51:41
Speaker 2: The end. Really good, really good, really good stuff, best
51:45
Speaker 2: original screenplay.
51:48
Speaker 3: Well, let me take a little detour and provide some
51:51
Speaker 3: kind of development context which informs why this story is
51:56
Speaker 3: like historically inaccurate gobbledy good, called gobbledygook, but so. Writer
52:02
Speaker 3: David Franzoni traveled across Europe and the Middle East by
52:07
Speaker 3: motorcycle in the early seventies. He says, quote, everywhere I
52:12
Speaker 3: went in Europe there were arenas. Even as I went east,
52:16
Speaker 3: going through Turkey, I began to think to myself, this
52:19
Speaker 3: must have been a hell of a franchise. And then
52:22
Speaker 3: he read a novel called Those About to Die, which
52:29
Speaker 3: I think is about the Roman Empire question mark. I'm
52:32
Speaker 3: not even sure, but it gave him the idea for
52:34
Speaker 3: the movie Gladiator, and then he also read Historia Augusta
52:40
Speaker 3: and from that he chose Comedis. Okay, am, I saw
52:45
Speaker 3: you recoil in Horror, so yeah, please please inform.
52:51
Speaker 1: The story or Augusta is like a notorious source. It
52:54
Speaker 1: is probably a novel as far as we are, like,
52:58
Speaker 1: we think that it's probably historical and like slightly trashy
53:01
Speaker 1: historical fiction, like not Hilary Mantel levels of historical reaction.
53:07
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's basically pretends to be biographies, but it
53:10
Speaker 1: has loads of stuff. It's definitely not true in it,
53:12
Speaker 1: but it also has lots of stuff that we don't
53:13
Speaker 1: know whether it's true or not. So read in the
53:17
Speaker 1: History of Augusta is Yeah, it's like picking up I
53:19
Speaker 1: don't know Philip A. Gregory novel, being like, well, obviously
53:21
Speaker 1: I know about Judas now, so it's.
53:23
Speaker 2: Like, so it's it's like an ancient airport book.
53:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is.
53:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's exactly what got it. Well that's what this writer,
53:32
Speaker 3: David Franzoni.
53:33
Speaker 1: Used, So I'm glad that he's got all the good stuff.
53:36
Speaker 3: From that, he was like, oh, comedist sounds like a
53:39
Speaker 3: good character to like center and make my villain and
53:43
Speaker 3: so he, you know, presented this idea to dream Works
53:49
Speaker 3: of Shrek Fame, of course, and they brought Ridley Scott
53:53
Speaker 3: on board to direct, and he signed on because he
53:58
Speaker 3: was shown an image of a painting called and I'm
54:04
Speaker 3: probably gonna pronounce this wrong, but it's an eighteen seventy
54:07
Speaker 3: two painting called Police Verso where it's just like a
54:12
Speaker 3: gladiator fighting in a I don't know if it's the
54:15
Speaker 3: coliseum or some kind of battle arena, but it's supposed
54:19
Speaker 3: to portray the Roman Empire in all its glory and wickedness.
54:24
Speaker 3: And Ridley Scott was so captivated by this painting that
54:28
Speaker 3: he was just like, yeah, of course I'll direct the movie.
54:30
Speaker 3: And they're like, well, you don't even know what the
54:32
Speaker 3: story is or anything, and he says, I don't care,
54:35
Speaker 3: I'll do it. So he agrees to direct a movie
54:38
Speaker 3: based on a painting that looks like it could be
54:41
Speaker 3: a frame of the movie Gladiator. So he's on board.
54:45
Speaker 3: Then another writer, John Logan, is brought on to do
54:49
Speaker 3: some rewrites, and we can talk about a change that
54:54
Speaker 3: he made later on, but basically, Franzonian Logan completed a
54:59
Speaker 3: second draft the screenplay in late ninety eight. They started
55:03
Speaker 3: shooting shortly thereafter, but Russell Crowe kept being like, oh,
55:07
Speaker 3: this script is so undercooked, and there were all these
55:12
Speaker 3: like complaints about the script was always changing. During the
55:16
Speaker 3: shooting of the movie. Ridley Scott kept being like, okay, actors,
55:21
Speaker 3: writers and producers, what do you think what should happen?
55:24
Speaker 3: Like that, he was there just like constantly changing the story,
55:27
Speaker 3: like a lot of lines of dialogue were ad libbed
55:29
Speaker 3: by the actors.
55:31
Speaker 2: I'm always blown away like hearing stories about gigantic budget
55:35
Speaker 2: movies like this where they're like it's like day one
55:38
Speaker 2: of a one hundred million dollar movie and they're like, so,
55:41
Speaker 2: what should happen we do?
55:42
Speaker 1: You're like, what my favorite thing is that their strength
55:47
Speaker 1: and honor thing that Russell Kirk keeps saying is him
55:50
Speaker 1: misremembering his own school motar.
55:53
Speaker 2: Wait really yeah, Yeah, that's so funny.
55:56
Speaker 1: He just felt like they should have something that they say,
55:58
Speaker 1: So he was I'm going to do my st and
56:00
Speaker 1: that's not what his school watched.
56:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, his school motto. I think it translated to like
56:05
Speaker 3: truth and virtue or something, but in Latin. Yeah, and
56:08
Speaker 3: then it's like strengthsen on or close enough. So and
56:12
Speaker 3: then Okay, more hilarity ensues from this point on because
56:15
Speaker 3: another writer, William Nicholson, was brought on to do another
56:20
Speaker 3: rewrite of the script, and he made the Maximist character
56:24
Speaker 3: like more sensitive. I guess he was the one who
56:27
Speaker 3: kind of reworked the friendship between Maximus and Juba. He
56:31
Speaker 3: developed the like afterlife through line that they often refer to.
56:37
Speaker 3: But Russell Crowe didn't like a lot of this writer's dialogue.
56:41
Speaker 3: He called it garbage. And then he was like, I'm
56:44
Speaker 3: the greatest actor in the world, but even I can
56:46
Speaker 3: make garbage sound good. So he's over here being like,
56:50
Speaker 3: I'm the greatest actor of all time.
56:51
Speaker 2: I mean, does he know what his performance in ley
56:54
Speaker 2: Miz is gonna be like? Because they may be a
56:59
Speaker 2: little too close to the there, rus.
57:02
Speaker 3: And then apparently the line where he says like in
57:06
Speaker 3: this life or the next, I will have my vengeance,
57:08
Speaker 3: he like refused to say that line at first because
57:11
Speaker 3: he thought it was so corny. So you know, it's uh,
57:15
Speaker 3: it's basically Russell Crowe behaving the way that Joaquin Phoenix's
57:19
Speaker 3: character behaves throughout the entire movie, just being like so bitchy, like.
57:25
Speaker 2: Evil men are such divas.
57:28
Speaker 1: Apparently it's just been revealed as well in the press
57:31
Speaker 1: tour for Gladiator too, that Waking Phoenix nearly walked off
57:35
Speaker 1: set on like day one. He was like, I don't
57:37
Speaker 1: want to do this, Like I'm just like any of you.
57:41
Speaker 1: I don't want to be here. And really Scott had
57:44
Speaker 1: to like beg him to stay and persuade and stay.
57:46
Speaker 1: So it's just like men's egos smashing into each other
57:49
Speaker 1: for however long it took to shoot this.
57:52
Speaker 2: Oh lord, I mean, and if you look, I just
57:55
Speaker 2: I had to keep reminding myself as I was watching
57:58
Speaker 2: this movie, I'm like, this is the director of film
58:00
Speaker 2: and Louise how it likesn't? How does that? I mean
58:04
Speaker 2: it's Callie Corey's script that's out because otherwise you're like
58:07
Speaker 2: clearly left to his own devices. He doesn't know what
58:09
Speaker 2: the fuck he's doing with, Like there's too many men
58:12
Speaker 2: I don't see. I want we looked down this top line.
58:16
Speaker 2: I'm saying that there was a co composer who is
58:20
Speaker 2: a woman. That is the only woman I'm seeing in
58:23
Speaker 2: this like top creative line. It is fellas all the
58:26
Speaker 2: way down. Also, just a quick side note, Caitlin. I
58:29
Speaker 2: know you're a Hans zimmer Stan. However, this man loves
58:33
Speaker 2: to self plagiarize himself. Oh my god, it's the score
58:36
Speaker 2: of Pirates the Caribbean.
58:38
Speaker 3: Yes, you're like, think.
58:40
Speaker 2: Of another riff, you hack, like unbelievable, right, So I
58:45
Speaker 2: guess it was him plagiarizing himself when he wrote the Pirates.
58:48
Speaker 2: Pirates He's like, oh, probably these, And it's true. I
58:51
Speaker 2: didn't see glad. I didn't know. I didn't know.
58:54
Speaker 3: Hmm, well now we know hack fraud.
58:57
Speaker 2: Isn't he like one of those composers that like kind
58:59
Speaker 2: of does it in a factory way too? I think?
59:02
Speaker 1: So.
59:02
Speaker 3: I can't really speak to it, just because I don't know.
59:05
Speaker 3: The main thing is that I did see him in
59:07
Speaker 3: concert one time, and it wasn't even him. It was
59:10
Speaker 3: like his orchestra, so he wasn't even there, but it
59:14
Speaker 3: was his music, sir.
59:16
Speaker 2: Any Anyways, yeah, he was self plagiarizing hard in Pirates.
59:21
Speaker 1: Didn't even know.
59:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had the same thought.
59:24
Speaker 2: And dun, dun, Dunnah, you're like, what.
59:26
Speaker 3: What that's right? So well, let's talk about the women
59:31
Speaker 3: that are on screen. All take two of them. So
59:38
Speaker 3: Maximus is his wife, who never gets a name. As
59:41
Speaker 3: we've mentioned, she is majorly fridged. For any listener who
59:45
Speaker 3: is unfamiliar with that term, it's come up on the
59:48
Speaker 3: show from time to time, but if this is your
59:50
Speaker 3: first episode, for example, fridging is a term that was
59:53
Speaker 3: coined by Gael Simone in the late nineties. It refers
59:57
Speaker 3: to a trope where characters who are women face disproportionate harm, violence, assault,
1:00:05
Speaker 3: death to serve as plot devices, generally to motivate characters
1:00:10
Speaker 3: who are men. And this is like happening to a
1:00:12
Speaker 3: tee in the case of the wife of Maximus. And
1:00:19
Speaker 3: I foreshadowed this earlier, but one of the credited writers,
1:00:23
Speaker 3: John Logan, who made some changes to the script. One
1:00:27
Speaker 3: of the changes he made was that Maximus' family would
1:00:31
Speaker 3: be killed off to motivate Maximus' desire for revenge, So
1:00:36
Speaker 3: that was his choice. But yeah, as we said, we
1:00:40
Speaker 3: only see his wife in a few flashbacks. She has
1:00:44
Speaker 3: no lines of dialogue, we don't know her name.
1:00:47
Speaker 2: She looks like she's about to go to prom nineteen
1:00:49
Speaker 2: ninety eight. Like, it's like so bizarre.
1:00:53
Speaker 3: Why wouldn't we have a flashback where like she and
1:00:57
Speaker 3: Maximus are interacting and speaking to each other, and like
1:01:00
Speaker 3: doing anything to characterize her.
1:01:02
Speaker 1: Weirdly, we only have flashbacks to a scene where he's
1:01:05
Speaker 1: not there. They repeatedly flashback to the scene where they're killed,
1:01:09
Speaker 1: right if it's consistently, he's remembering a time when he
1:01:14
Speaker 1: wasn't there, So he doesn't even remember meeting her, the
1:01:18
Speaker 1: birth of their child, like their wedding day, any of
1:01:22
Speaker 1: the wonderful experiences that they must have had together because
1:01:25
Speaker 1: he loves her so much. Yeah, he just imagines her
1:01:29
Speaker 1: being killed basically and looking happy in the moments before that.
1:01:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, the wind is blowing through her hair and she's beautiful.
1:01:37
Speaker 2: In addition to like the I mean severe under characterization
1:01:40
Speaker 2: and the fridging of his wife, I also was noticing
1:01:45
Speaker 2: like so much of even with Lucilla, like all of
1:01:48
Speaker 2: the relationships to women, it's almost, without exception, told and
1:01:52
Speaker 2: not shown, Like we learn when Lucilla is talking to
1:01:57
Speaker 2: Caesar at the beginning. She's like, we have a complicated relationship,
1:02:01
Speaker 2: but we love each other, and You're like, I guess
1:02:03
Speaker 2: I'll just have to take your word for it. I guess,
1:02:05
Speaker 2: like I not really seeing it. He has minutes to live,
1:02:09
Speaker 2: but sure, I guess we're just gonna have to take
1:02:10
Speaker 2: your word for it. The relationship between Maximus and Lucilla,
1:02:13
Speaker 2: they're like we used to date and it was complicated.
1:02:15
Speaker 2: I'm like, I guess I'll just have to take your
1:02:17
Speaker 2: word for it, because this is all I'm getting for this.
1:02:20
Speaker 2: The only like relationship we are shown is the most
1:02:23
Speaker 2: predatory relationship between a man and a woman, because we
1:02:26
Speaker 2: are explicitly shown Commidis's behavior towards Lucilla, the elements of incest,
1:02:32
Speaker 2: the oppression, the threats of violence, all of that were shown.
1:02:36
Speaker 2: But any like affectionate relationship with a woman is You're
1:02:39
Speaker 2: just like told it happened at some point off screen
1:02:42
Speaker 2: for sure.
1:02:43
Speaker 1: Except for the bit where Marcus Aurelia says, I wish
1:02:46
Speaker 1: you were a boy.
1:02:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yes, that's the only affection that he boy,
1:02:52
Speaker 2: this would be much better. Oh my gosh, I agree.
1:02:55
Speaker 2: So yeah.
1:02:56
Speaker 3: This is a line that happens pretty early in the
1:02:58
Speaker 3: movie where Marcuslius approaches Lucilla and says, if you had
1:03:03
Speaker 3: only been born a man, what a Caesar you would
1:03:06
Speaker 3: have made. You would have been strong, but would you
1:03:09
Speaker 3: have been just? And I feel like that is what
1:03:13
Speaker 3: the movie is trying to do with her character for
1:03:15
Speaker 3: the rest of the movie, because there's like different moments
1:03:18
Speaker 3: where we're not sure if she can be trusted, if
1:03:21
Speaker 3: she is on her brother's side, or if she's going
1:03:25
Speaker 3: to do the right thing and like try to get
1:03:28
Speaker 3: him out of power, that kind of thing.
1:03:30
Speaker 2: I will say that.
1:03:31
Speaker 3: There are a few moments where she takes action that
1:03:35
Speaker 3: does impact this story to some degree, where you know,
1:03:40
Speaker 3: she sets up a meeting between two men, and she
1:03:45
Speaker 3: does some other stuff probably, But for the most part, yeah,
1:03:49
Speaker 3: we only ever know her in contexts that are often
1:03:54
Speaker 3: traumatizing to her, or we see her in the context
1:03:58
Speaker 3: of being the his mother to a son who I
1:04:02
Speaker 3: believe that's who the sequel will center around. Is it Lucius?
1:04:07
Speaker 2: Is that Paul mescal It is? So yeah, whoa, that's fun. Yeah,
1:04:13
Speaker 2: I'm gonna see it. I'm going to see it. I
1:04:15
Speaker 2: want to see everyone's legs. I hope really Scott learned
1:04:19
Speaker 2: that we want to see the legs linger on the legs.
1:04:22
Speaker 1: Linger one legs just a bit. Take the tops off.
1:04:25
Speaker 1: No one even takes the top off in this, Like
1:04:27
Speaker 1: he gets stabbed and they don't take his top off.
1:04:30
Speaker 3: Not enough nipples for sure.
1:04:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, take a page from your brother's books, really and
1:04:36
Speaker 2: show us the legs.
1:04:37
Speaker 3: The people want the legs. Yes, so yeah, the women
1:04:41
Speaker 3: in the movie are I would say, not characterized well shocking.
1:04:46
Speaker 2: Or only characterized on the basis of their relationship and
1:04:49
Speaker 2: oppression with and by men, which, like, its always hard
1:04:53
Speaker 2: to talk about, especially at a historical piece, because it's
1:04:56
Speaker 2: like you can't shy away from the reality of that.
1:04:59
Speaker 2: It's not you should rewrite history to be like women were,
1:05:02
Speaker 2: you know, included in equal measure. But there's no like
1:05:06
Speaker 2: respect for her personhood, Like we just don't know anything
1:05:10
Speaker 2: about her. So I was curious. I don't mean to
1:05:12
Speaker 2: put you on the spot, but like in this era,
1:05:15
Speaker 2: in a story like this, what are historically accurate ways
1:05:20
Speaker 2: that women could have been more meaningfully included in a
1:05:22
Speaker 2: story like this.
1:05:24
Speaker 1: Well, even if you just had Lucilla, you could have
1:05:27
Speaker 1: had her have some agency, and like she basically just
1:05:30
Speaker 1: reacts to the people around her. She reacts to Comma,
1:05:32
Speaker 1: she reacts to Maximus, apart from the bit where she's
1:05:34
Speaker 1: like Gracus, come over here, and she just as quite
1:05:39
Speaker 1: reacting to people around her. But there's like various points
1:05:43
Speaker 1: where you see her with female attendants, and then the
1:05:47
Speaker 1: two lines that she says to somebody who are not
1:05:49
Speaker 1: a man are just men's names. At one point she
1:05:52
Speaker 1: says Maximus and the other time she says commedist is
1:05:55
Speaker 1: over there. But like you could have had some scenes
1:05:58
Speaker 1: with her talking to these women, like she surrounded by
1:06:00
Speaker 1: these women and you see her with them, like just
1:06:03
Speaker 1: put into or three scenes where she is discussing something
1:06:07
Speaker 1: with any of her sisters. There's like five of them,
1:06:11
Speaker 1: or like we're not paying historically accurate, we could have
1:06:14
Speaker 1: had several of them alive. Or you could just have
1:06:16
Speaker 1: her talking to her intendants or her friends and just
1:06:20
Speaker 1: have her be like, you know, engaged in an intellectual
1:06:24
Speaker 1: manner and plotting or having a reaction that is her
1:06:27
Speaker 1: own reaction and isn't just like in the context of
1:06:30
Speaker 1: her talking to her brother, or have her talking to
1:06:34
Speaker 1: somebody who isn't Maximus about what she wants to do,
1:06:36
Speaker 1: Like why does she want to get rid of her brother?
1:06:38
Speaker 1: Does she just want to get rid of him because
1:06:39
Speaker 1: he is threatening to rape her and murder her son,
1:06:42
Speaker 1: or does she actually have some feelings about like what
1:06:44
Speaker 1: her father plans for the empire are, Like I have
1:06:47
Speaker 1: no idea what is her motivation?
1:06:49
Speaker 2: You could just get outside of her own oppression. Yeah, yeah,
1:06:54
Speaker 2: because again really we're told it feels like very like meant.
1:06:57
Speaker 2: And also I mean I've only seen it like half
1:07:00
Speaker 2: asleep at a motel eight, so I would say I
1:07:02
Speaker 2: haven't really seen the movie. The Last Duel. I do
1:07:06
Speaker 2: think that like Ridley Scott later in his career at
1:07:09
Speaker 2: least attempted to address women's role in history a little
1:07:14
Speaker 2: more thoughtfully than in this movie. So like this is
1:07:17
Speaker 2: not but it feels very of the time to we're
1:07:20
Speaker 2: just told, oh, you're really smart, like Dumbledore says, you're
1:07:24
Speaker 2: really smart, but we don't really get to see her
1:07:26
Speaker 2: act on that at any point.
1:07:29
Speaker 1: But she genuinely did, like in history plot against her brother,
1:07:32
Speaker 1: she did try to kill him. She was exiled for it.
1:07:35
Speaker 1: Like show her doing this stuff rather than her just
1:07:38
Speaker 1: being like a conduit for men doing this stuff. Right,
1:07:41
Speaker 1: it feels so simple. But I do feel like this period,
1:07:44
Speaker 1: this film to me feels like it really fits in
1:07:46
Speaker 1: to that like One Man is Going to Save the
1:07:49
Speaker 1: World period of films that you've got in like nineteen
1:07:51
Speaker 1: ninety nine two thousands, like Matrix and like Fight Club,
1:07:55
Speaker 1: and like all of those films were like one guy
1:07:58
Speaker 1: is going to come and overthrow of the things.
1:08:01
Speaker 3: The chosen one exactly.
1:08:04
Speaker 2: But there's just like no shred of satire to this
1:08:07
Speaker 2: movie at all. It's so earnest.
1:08:09
Speaker 3: When you said Shred, I thought you were gonna say Shrek.
1:08:12
Speaker 2: And this brings me back to my main problem Shrek.
1:08:17
Speaker 3: Okay, wait, in Shrek one, remember when he like goes
1:08:20
Speaker 3: into basically a colosseum and.
1:08:22
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, they do a gladiator's boof, don't they. They
1:08:25
Speaker 2: kind of do a wouldn't have been too early because
1:08:28
Speaker 2: it came out the next.
1:08:28
Speaker 3: Year probably, so I don't know if they were pulling
1:08:32
Speaker 3: from it. But Farquad is like kill the ogre and
1:08:35
Speaker 3: then he is like the gladiator that defeats all of
1:08:38
Speaker 3: the soldiers and then he has to go rescue Fiona.
1:08:41
Speaker 2: Comedists and Farquad should be in the same conversation, and
1:08:46
Speaker 2: it is a cultural failing that they're.
1:08:47
Speaker 1: Not yes, yes, being right right here right now.
1:08:54
Speaker 2: But yeah, I totally agree with you, Like this is
1:08:57
Speaker 2: very of the era to have this sort of like
1:09:00
Speaker 2: one great man narrative and to do it to like
1:09:03
Speaker 2: justify some like historically fucked up imperialism. I'm curious. I mean,
1:09:11
Speaker 2: I know we have other stuff to talk about too,
1:09:13
Speaker 2: but in terms of like the legacy of Gladiator, how
1:09:17
Speaker 2: big of an influence does it have on like how
1:09:19
Speaker 2: we think about the Roman Empire, you know, a quarter
1:09:22
Speaker 2: century later?
1:09:24
Speaker 1: Huge, I would say huge. It comes up constantly, which
1:09:27
Speaker 1: is why even though I hadn't only seen it that
1:09:30
Speaker 1: one time, I could have quoted quite a lot of it,
1:09:34
Speaker 1: like the entirety of the like I'm the husband of
1:09:37
Speaker 1: a murdered wife and the father of a murdered son,
1:09:40
Speaker 1: and I will have my vengeance in this life or
1:09:43
Speaker 1: the next, like and all of the like hand running
1:09:45
Speaker 1: through the through the wheat that goes on for ages,
1:09:48
Speaker 1: and like big chance that I could have quoted without
1:09:52
Speaker 1: like if if havn't seen it, because people talk about
1:09:55
Speaker 1: it a lot, like people love it. Yeah, it reignited
1:09:58
Speaker 1: a lot of that kind of big historical epic stuff.
1:10:03
Speaker 1: And the HBO's Rome comes like not long after this,
1:10:07
Speaker 1: and largely because Gladiator says that we can do big,
1:10:12
Speaker 1: big Rome films again after the sixties. And yeah, so
1:10:17
Speaker 1: it has this huge impact and people talk about it constantly.
1:10:20
Speaker 1: And when you tell people that you're a Roman historian,
1:10:23
Speaker 1: they'll be like Gladiator.
1:10:25
Speaker 2: Yes, so this is we're hunting you right now.
1:10:29
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's it's good though, because I like
1:10:37
Speaker 1: it is something that is constantly around, but now it
1:10:40
Speaker 1: is because it's coming back to cinema and he's doing
1:10:43
Speaker 1: it again and with the Scout. Now doesn't have any
1:10:46
Speaker 1: rains on him at all, Like he has been allowed
1:10:51
Speaker 1: to do whatever he likes, and he has more computer
1:10:54
Speaker 1: technology and more money and more men, and so it's
1:10:59
Speaker 1: kind of great because you who knows what stuff he's
1:11:01
Speaker 1: going to be able to talk about he's going to have.
1:11:03
Speaker 1: There's like a whole industries in academia that are just
1:11:06
Speaker 1: talking about all the things that are wrong, and Gladiator.
1:11:08
Speaker 1: They've got another like thirty years worth that coming ahead.
1:11:11
Speaker 1: So he's so it's great.
1:11:13
Speaker 2: Really, faur Redly, Yes, the Roman historians will never be
1:11:17
Speaker 2: out of work because of how wrong you are.
1:11:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, how little he cares about historical accuracy. It's great.
1:11:24
Speaker 1: He's done it for the Napoleonic guys now and.
1:11:26
Speaker 2: Oh great, yeah, because he did the boon less.
1:11:29
Speaker 3: I humiliatingly saw Napoleon in theaters, and.
1:11:33
Speaker 2: The only person I know who's seen it.
1:11:35
Speaker 3: I don't know why I saw.
1:11:36
Speaker 1: It, and and I laughed so hard. It's so boring.
1:11:43
Speaker 2: It's so boring.
1:11:45
Speaker 3: Yeah. Something I lament is that the movie Caligula did
1:11:49
Speaker 3: not have the same cultural impact as Theadiator. Have you
1:11:52
Speaker 3: seen Colligular?
1:11:54
Speaker 1: I am obsessed with the movie Colligular. I have seen
1:11:57
Speaker 1: the movie Currigular about fifty times. You know you're my
1:12:01
Speaker 1: real friend. When I make you watch Cligula and then
1:12:03
Speaker 1: I make you choose which cut because I currently own five,
1:12:05
Speaker 1: I was like, didn't it that they just like re
1:12:07
Speaker 1: released one of the cuts in theater? This is a
1:12:10
Speaker 1: new cut, Yes, the ultimate cut, which is cut to
1:12:13
Speaker 1: the original Gorvadale film with what they Gorvidale script. Wait
1:12:17
Speaker 1: whoa and Yeah, Cligula unfortunately did not have the same impact,
1:12:21
Speaker 1: and you do have to remind people that exists, which
1:12:24
Speaker 1: is a shame because it's just wild in every cut.
1:12:28
Speaker 3: Could you describe for our listeners in a couple of
1:12:31
Speaker 3: sentences exactly what Cligular the movie is.
1:12:34
Speaker 1: So Coligo of the Movie is a nineteen seventy nine
1:12:37
Speaker 1: film financed and produced by Bob Guccioni, who owned Playboy
1:12:41
Speaker 1: and not Playboy, who owned Penthouse magazine and was made
1:12:46
Speaker 1: with a huge budget in Italy, with these huge sets,
1:12:50
Speaker 1: with an art house director and a Gorveradal script, and
1:12:55
Speaker 1: has quite an a list like Theatrical Car. So it's
1:12:58
Speaker 1: got Peter tool Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowell in it, all
1:13:04
Speaker 1: of these kind of big names. And then there were
1:13:07
Speaker 1: some quite intense arguments about the production because it is
1:13:10
Speaker 1: supposed to be a pornographic film, high class pornography. Bob
1:13:13
Speaker 1: Gocci only felt that it wasn't pornographic enough, so he
1:13:16
Speaker 1: filmed his own pawn on the sets and edited it
1:13:19
Speaker 1: in and everybody tried to have their name taken off
1:13:22
Speaker 1: of it, and what it ended up with being a
1:13:24
Speaker 1: very very expensive mashup of quite low quality pornography and
1:13:31
Speaker 1: Peter Retchel and Malcolm McDowell doing acting. And as a result,
1:13:36
Speaker 1: it is a truly bizarre watch and endlessly fascinating.
1:13:42
Speaker 2: Wait come back and cover it with us.
1:13:43
Speaker 1: I was like, let's do, yeah, please do cligular.
1:13:47
Speaker 2: We owe you a caligular episode for making you do
1:13:49
Speaker 2: the Gladiator episode. You were you were old. Oh I
1:13:55
Speaker 2: almost saw the new cut in theaters, been like, I
1:13:56
Speaker 2: think I need to see the original first. And then
1:13:58
Speaker 2: I just I haven't seen any of it.
1:14:00
Speaker 3: I don't know which cut I've seen.
1:14:01
Speaker 1: I would watch the Imperial Cup. None of them really
1:14:04
Speaker 1: make any sense. No, I will talk about this. If
1:14:07
Speaker 1: you don't, don't me, So.
1:14:09
Speaker 2: Please do come back, like next year to do Kligig
1:14:13
Speaker 2: because we've we've never covered like a pornographic. We've never
1:14:17
Speaker 2: covered porn.
1:14:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a huge oversight on our part.
1:14:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, short, short sighted. And getting back to Gladiator.
1:14:24
Speaker 2: Gladiator is so unsexy. It's like a proto Marvel movie
1:14:29
Speaker 2: with the amount of like set. It's like aggressively hetero
1:14:33
Speaker 2: but completely sexless and has everything to do with fathers
1:14:37
Speaker 2: and sons.
1:14:38
Speaker 1: Very fathers and sons.
1:14:40
Speaker 2: I don't really have anything to even say about the
1:14:42
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess the only interesting father and son
1:14:45
Speaker 2: relationship I or the one I was interested in was
1:14:48
Speaker 2: between Caesar and Commonists. Like that was juicy to me. Yeah,
1:14:54
Speaker 2: and that like you know, like Caesar's like nipping at
1:14:57
Speaker 2: something interesting by being like, well, you know, he acknowledges that, like, well,
1:15:01
Speaker 2: part of the reason you're fucked up is because I
1:15:03
Speaker 2: was not a good parent to you.
1:15:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, which you're like, Yeah, the commonist is like, you
1:15:07
Speaker 3: never hugged me, and that's why I suck.
1:15:10
Speaker 1: That's why I'm a Nazi now.
1:15:12
Speaker 2: So you're like, it's a little it's a little overly simplistic,
1:15:15
Speaker 2: but I did at least like that there was. But again,
1:15:18
Speaker 2: it just felt so like disjointed in the way because
1:15:21
Speaker 2: it's like Caesar has talked about so uncritically by everyone else,
1:15:25
Speaker 2: but it's like, but he did, you know, fail in
1:15:28
Speaker 2: this way where he was like unable to show his
1:15:32
Speaker 2: children meaningful affection. He sort of like hints at that
1:15:36
Speaker 2: in that one conversation we get with him, and Lucilla'd
1:15:39
Speaker 2: be like, hey, pretend that I'm like an awesome dat
1:15:41
Speaker 2: and she's like, haha, how funny would that be if
1:15:43
Speaker 2: you were. So it's like he has failed as a parent,
1:15:47
Speaker 2: and it's like that is an interesting sort of back
1:15:49
Speaker 2: and forth to explore of like someone who is like
1:15:51
Speaker 2: succeeded professionally but failed personally. But it's just like even
1:15:56
Speaker 2: though we know that about him, it really kind of
1:15:59
Speaker 2: never comes up again. It's more just like we need
1:16:01
Speaker 2: to honor his legacy and not that like Commodist's brutality
1:16:05
Speaker 2: needs to be further contextualized. I like that they included
1:16:09
Speaker 2: that though, like that there is at least in this
1:16:12
Speaker 2: story some context as to like why he is so
1:16:15
Speaker 2: desperate for affection from fucking anybody, and that if he
1:16:20
Speaker 2: doesn't receive that affection, he will respond with violence and entitlement.
1:16:24
Speaker 2: Like I felt like, you know, his character, even though
1:16:27
Speaker 2: he's so over the top, was contextualized well. But then
1:16:30
Speaker 2: it just they don't really do very much with it.
1:16:32
Speaker 2: You just see him being brutal and then he dies
1:16:37
Speaker 2: the end.
1:16:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, I tend to agree that that was I mean,
1:16:41
Speaker 3: that was the most like fully realized narratively as far
1:16:44
Speaker 3: as the father son dynamics, there are at least three
1:16:47
Speaker 3: others that I clocked. Because there's the Maximus and his
1:16:51
Speaker 3: father figure Marcus Aurelius, because you know, Marcus is like, hey, Maximus,
1:16:57
Speaker 3: you're the son I never had, and Maximus loves him
1:17:01
Speaker 3: as a father, and he spends the whole rest of
1:17:03
Speaker 3: the movie like trying to carry out Marcus Aurelis's wishes
1:17:06
Speaker 3: for Rome. So there's that, There's Maximus and his son
1:17:12
Speaker 3: who is killed, and I guess going very briefly back
1:17:17
Speaker 3: to his wife. Of it all, at least it's not
1:17:22
Speaker 3: just like the woman who is not characterized or not given.
1:17:25
Speaker 2: A name, because women and children are uncarrieds. Yeah, women
1:17:29
Speaker 2: and children last, said Ridley Scott.
1:17:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ridley Scott watched Titanic and he said no, no, no,
1:17:37
Speaker 3: no no, I'm.
1:17:37
Speaker 2: Going to do this up the office. Children last.
1:17:41
Speaker 3: So there's there's that dynamic, which is just another thing
1:17:43
Speaker 3: that's motivating Maximus to get his revenge, the fact that
1:17:46
Speaker 3: his son was brutally murdered. And then there's Maximus and Lucius, who, Okay,
1:17:52
Speaker 3: tell me if I'm way off here, but I feel
1:17:54
Speaker 3: like the movie was like vaguely kind of implying that
1:17:57
Speaker 3: maybe Lucius was Maximus's by iological son from the affair
1:18:02
Speaker 3: that he may or may not have. I couldn't tell
1:18:05
Speaker 3: if that's what the movie was trying to like hint
1:18:08
Speaker 3: at or not.
1:18:09
Speaker 1: But I was like, I think though, Okay, kept having
1:18:12
Speaker 1: them be in like they had so much of their relationship,
1:18:15
Speaker 1: and then right when they had the meat, it was
1:18:18
Speaker 1: very much a moment of connection between the two of them.
1:18:22
Speaker 1: He was like, I'll be rooting for you, Spaniard, and
1:18:24
Speaker 1: then now it's revealed obviously that he is his biological son.
1:18:28
Speaker 2: Oh and glad hear too.
1:18:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is confirmed. Yes, it is confirmed. Okay, well
1:18:33
Speaker 1: that Lucius.
1:18:35
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense.
1:18:36
Speaker 1: It is the biological child and is going to come
1:18:38
Speaker 1: back and be given Maximus the sword and go on
1:18:42
Speaker 1: my damn face.
1:18:43
Speaker 2: I was like, weird that these two are connecting. That
1:18:46
Speaker 2: makes totals.
1:18:47
Speaker 3: Well, that means that Maximus cheated on his wife.
1:18:49
Speaker 2: Then no, but he loved her so much. You don't
1:18:52
Speaker 2: understand because of the same age.
1:18:54
Speaker 1: They are the same age, so how does that work.
1:18:56
Speaker 3: He had sex with Lucilla and his wife basically at
1:18:59
Speaker 3: the same time, So he cheated on his beloved wife.
1:19:03
Speaker 2: So Maximus is a dog.
1:19:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a freaking dog. Although maybe I don't know monogamy.
1:19:07
Speaker 3: Was there polyamory in ancient Reme?
1:19:11
Speaker 1: No, not with free people, no, I see, I see yeah,
1:19:16
Speaker 1: and slave people is a different matter, but free people no, right,
1:19:19
Speaker 1: So he's a dog and definitely no empresses.
1:19:22
Speaker 3: That's gondsing. That gets you excelled, right exactly because women
1:19:26
Speaker 3: are property exactly. Yeah, So lots of father son dynamics.
1:19:33
Speaker 2: And then there's also I would argue Maximus and Proximo.
1:19:37
Speaker 2: Oh sure, there's kind of like a another like at
1:19:41
Speaker 2: least mentorship energy between the two of them that is
1:19:46
Speaker 2: ultimately resolved. Here's where I'll just insert I feel bad
1:19:49
Speaker 2: by saying I'm glad Oliver Reid's dead. That's a little harsh.
1:19:52
Speaker 2: He did struggle with alcoholism his entire life, and I
1:19:56
Speaker 2: don't want to minimize that. However, he said some of
1:19:58
Speaker 2: the most vile things of women throughout his life that
1:20:02
Speaker 2: I've ever heard, Like, was just a lifelong mask off misogynist.
1:20:05
Speaker 2: Loved to go on TV and talk about how poorly
1:20:08
Speaker 2: he thought of women.
1:20:09
Speaker 1: How you know, he.
1:20:10
Speaker 2: Just was like, I don't know. His politics were awful.
1:20:13
Speaker 2: He was like a mask off misogynist going back to
1:20:16
Speaker 2: the seventies. If you were casting him, it's something you
1:20:20
Speaker 2: would have known about him already. So just for for
1:20:24
Speaker 2: what it's worth, I don't mean to minimize his struggle
1:20:27
Speaker 2: with addiction, but he was an asshole and I didn't
1:20:30
Speaker 2: even know that that was something that, like my boyfriend
1:20:32
Speaker 2: knew off the top of his head. He was like, oh,
1:20:34
Speaker 2: look at Proximo over here. I was like, why did
1:20:38
Speaker 2: men know so much about glad Eater? But they do?
1:20:41
Speaker 3: Do they really do they do?
1:20:43
Speaker 1: I would also say that you have Commodists and Lucius
1:20:46
Speaker 1: as well, and he's trying to very much take Lucius
1:20:48
Speaker 1: under his wing, true, reading to him and teaching him
1:20:52
Speaker 1: this history. And then when he says he's going to
1:20:53
Speaker 1: adopt Lucius and have him, he's taking him away. So
1:20:58
Speaker 1: he wants to be his father.
1:21:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are six many others some possibly, Yeah, they're
1:21:06
Speaker 3: all right.
1:21:06
Speaker 2: It's very they're sharing daddies like and then and then
1:21:11
Speaker 2: there's like the relationships between men that are not father son.
1:21:15
Speaker 2: There's obviously the tension between Maximus and Commitists. There's the
1:21:18
Speaker 2: friendship between Maximus and Jubba. Like, there's just so many
1:21:22
Speaker 2: pairings of men, it's infinite.
1:21:25
Speaker 3: To go to Juba real quick. It feels like a
1:21:28
Speaker 3: classic example of a black character who exists solely to
1:21:32
Speaker 3: serve the story of the white protagonist. Yeah, that's really
1:21:36
Speaker 3: all we kind of get with that character.
1:21:39
Speaker 2: I agree.
1:21:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then to return to Proximo really quickly. So
1:21:43
Speaker 3: he's this like he's an enslaver. He is exploiting and
1:21:48
Speaker 3: profiting off of being this like gladiator guy coach. I
1:21:53
Speaker 3: don't know, but so he's a bad person, yeah, but
1:21:56
Speaker 3: then he has this like redemption basically he's killed, but
1:22:00
Speaker 3: it is framed to me at least as this like heroic, like, oh,
1:22:03
Speaker 3: he did the right thing because he let one of
1:22:06
Speaker 3: his enslaved gladiators go and he kind of sacrifices himself
1:22:12
Speaker 3: for the greater good. And it's just like, well, why
1:22:14
Speaker 3: does this like enslaver capitalist get a redemption? Didn't see
1:22:20
Speaker 3: why that was necessary at all. So yeah, the men,
1:22:23
Speaker 3: the men in the movie, they're they're kind of bad.
1:22:27
Speaker 3: It's just so underthought.
1:22:29
Speaker 2: This is like revealing what a brain dead child I was.
1:22:33
Speaker 2: Because Jaimon Hansu, I've seen him in a ton of
1:22:36
Speaker 2: movies over the years. He's been in a shitload of things.
1:22:41
Speaker 2: The thing I primarily associate him with, though, is the
1:22:45
Speaker 2: fact that he used to be married to Kimoraly Simmons
1:22:48
Speaker 2: but occasionally appear in her reality show Komoralley Simmons Life
1:22:52
Speaker 2: in the fab waan whoa, I don't know. And that
1:22:55
Speaker 2: was where I was like, I've seen this guy. I've
1:22:57
Speaker 2: seen this guy, and the answer could be so many things.
1:23:00
Speaker 2: He's in Marvel movie, he's the New Shazam. He's been
1:23:05
Speaker 2: in so much shit. But I was like, oh, he's
1:23:08
Speaker 2: to be married Komorley Simmons and that's my brain rot
1:23:11
Speaker 2: jumping out. Love it Life in the Fab Lane.
1:23:14
Speaker 3: I don't know what that is.
1:23:15
Speaker 2: You never will.
1:23:16
Speaker 3: He's in beauty shop never Forget.
1:23:19
Speaker 2: And as I was looking, I felt like such a loser.
1:23:22
Speaker 2: As I was looking through as IMDb, I was like,
1:23:23
Speaker 2: I hate that. I connected it to probably his randomst credit.
1:23:30
Speaker 1: But not even an acting credit.
1:23:33
Speaker 2: Nope, he was just being a husband sometimes on that show.
1:23:36
Speaker 2: I loved come Life in the Fab Lane.
1:23:39
Speaker 3: I love it when a guy is like, I'm the
1:23:42
Speaker 3: husband you see sometimes that's sort of my favorite way
1:23:45
Speaker 3: to see a man on screen. I mean, he seemed
1:23:48
Speaker 3: fine with it.
1:23:48
Speaker 2: I don't think he was in the show very much,
1:23:50
Speaker 2: which I would avoid as well. Who wants to be
1:23:53
Speaker 2: on an ereality show when they're already a successful actor?
1:23:56
Speaker 2: Seems like a lateral move. But anyways, that's my embarrassing admission.
1:24:02
Speaker 2: But yes, like he's yet another character who I mean,
1:24:05
Speaker 2: I feel like half the time he enters the scene Juba,
1:24:08
Speaker 2: that he's just there to ask like, hey, how about
1:24:11
Speaker 2: that dead wife Maximus? Like that's like.
1:24:15
Speaker 1: Kind of round by Maximus and be his like little
1:24:17
Speaker 1: sidekick that does' he's told and yeah, right, also the
1:24:21
Speaker 1: only character that we see, like we see much more
1:24:24
Speaker 1: of his body than we do anybody else, Like you
1:24:27
Speaker 1: see basically his entire naked butt. True, he is the
1:24:31
Speaker 1: only man that you see any like flesh of which
1:24:36
Speaker 1: felt really objectifying in a way that was I would
1:24:39
Speaker 1: hope he wouldn't get away with now, I guess.
1:24:41
Speaker 2: But yeah, right for your only black character that you
1:24:45
Speaker 2: get to know, Yeah, m hm. Yeah. And again, it
1:24:48
Speaker 2: just feels like there is so many, like at a
1:24:51
Speaker 2: lot of points in this movie, so many opportunities to
1:24:55
Speaker 2: give more insight into history with the inclusion of his character,
1:24:59
Speaker 2: give more in into this character if you don't feel
1:25:02
Speaker 2: like including history, but they just opt to do like nothing,
1:25:07
Speaker 2: just vague man platitudes that are only really supporting Maximus's story.
1:25:14
Speaker 2: I don't know. I also think that there is something
1:25:16
Speaker 2: too I didn't I meant to look into if there
1:25:20
Speaker 2: was sort of like academic writing to this extent, But
1:25:23
Speaker 2: just how it seems like, especially like in Western cultures,
1:25:27
Speaker 2: people are way more comfortable interacting with stories about slavery
1:25:31
Speaker 2: and slave uprisings when the protagonists are white.
1:25:35
Speaker 3: For sure.
1:25:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this feels like it's very much in conversation
1:25:39
Speaker 2: with that, and so are a lot of I mean,
1:25:41
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of these. You know, if
1:25:42
Speaker 2: you go back older historical epics will very frequently like center, like,
1:25:48
Speaker 2: if it's a story about slavery, the protagonist is white,
1:25:52
Speaker 2: and I think like the implication is so they'll be
1:25:54
Speaker 2: easier for you to root for instead of, you know,
1:25:57
Speaker 2: engaging with the West's own hist with slavery in any
1:26:01
Speaker 2: meaningful way.
1:26:03
Speaker 3: Very true. Does anyone have anything else they'd like to
1:26:06
Speaker 3: say about Gladiator?
1:26:09
Speaker 1: The last thing I'm going to say is that the
1:26:12
Speaker 1: Nazi imagery when Commodace is entering Rome and there are
1:26:17
Speaker 1: straight up direct recreations of shots from Triumph of the Will.
1:26:23
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I did not pick up on that.
1:26:27
Speaker 1: God yeah, which is a very specific thing to be
1:26:30
Speaker 1: saying about commodis making him explicitly a Nazi and explicitly
1:26:34
Speaker 1: Hitler at that point in his return to Rome. And
1:26:37
Speaker 1: if you go back and look, you can like everything
1:26:39
Speaker 1: is regimented, everything is blue, everything looks like Berlin, And
1:26:43
Speaker 1: there are specific recreations of Triumph of the Will shots,
1:26:47
Speaker 1: which was.
1:26:48
Speaker 2: A statement really cool.
1:26:53
Speaker 1: Is not a subtle man as a general rule.
1:26:56
Speaker 2: No, I know how many times am I going to
1:26:59
Speaker 2: give really Scott past because he did ultimately direct Filma
1:27:02
Speaker 2: and Louis. We just have to give that to the screenwriter. Anyways,
1:27:08
Speaker 2: this movie doesn't pass the Bechtels, has no and of discussion,
1:27:11
Speaker 2: even have to name too women. Oh my god.
1:27:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:27:16
Speaker 3: Yeah. But our nipple scale, though, is still way better.
1:27:22
Speaker 2: I love very low.
1:27:24
Speaker 3: It's where we rate the movie on a scale of
1:27:27
Speaker 3: zero to five nipples. Examining the movie through an intersectional
1:27:32
Speaker 3: feminist lens, I will give it half a nipple for
1:27:37
Speaker 3: the pretty clear indictment of male fragility in the commedist character.
1:27:46
Speaker 3: Like that is something that's very clearly displayed, that he
1:27:49
Speaker 3: has a very fragile male ego and that he's power hungry,
1:27:53
Speaker 3: and those qualities are vilified. So that's pretty much all
1:28:00
Speaker 3: all I can say for the movie. It's, as we've said,
1:28:05
Speaker 3: all of these historical epics almost always center men. Women
1:28:11
Speaker 3: are ancillary characters. Their stories and lives and accomplishments are
1:28:16
Speaker 3: very rarely the focus. This movie is no exception. But
1:28:20
Speaker 3: that's why people should read your book, Emma, which we'd
1:28:23
Speaker 3: love to hear more about in a moment. But yeah,
1:28:25
Speaker 3: I'm going to give the movie one half nipple, and
1:28:29
Speaker 3: I will give it to the part where Proximo is
1:28:34
Speaker 3: like talking to some merchant who had sold him giraffes,
1:28:38
Speaker 3: and he's like, the drafts got me, he said, the
1:28:41
Speaker 3: drafts you sold me won't mate. They just walk around
1:28:44
Speaker 3: and eat you sold me queer giraffes. So I'm giving
1:28:47
Speaker 3: my half nipple to the queer drafts.
1:28:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, queer icons as close as we get to queer representation,
1:28:56
Speaker 2: and Gladiator is the giraffes. Yeah, Caitlyn, I'm gonna meet
1:29:02
Speaker 2: you at half a nipple, and I'm I'm gonna even
1:29:05
Speaker 2: like more give it to the one Quen Phoenix performance,
1:29:09
Speaker 2: even more than a script, because I think that like
1:29:12
Speaker 2: he I mean, he's great, and like it's just I
1:29:15
Speaker 2: like that he really leaned into the weepy baby element
1:29:21
Speaker 2: of like because I feel like you could have also
1:29:23
Speaker 2: played those same words with a lot of like how
1:29:26
Speaker 2: could this be? You know kind of thing, but he's
1:29:28
Speaker 2: just like playing it as the like display of kind
1:29:32
Speaker 2: of pathetic emotion that it is. And I really enjoyed
1:29:36
Speaker 2: his performance in this movie. And other than that, like
1:29:41
Speaker 2: sorry to fans of this movie, I found it quite boring.
1:29:46
Speaker 2: I was not enjoying myself. I was playing Neopets for
1:29:53
Speaker 2: part of it. For some of the action scenes, I
1:29:55
Speaker 2: was like, I'm gonna feed my Neopet because that's like
1:29:59
Speaker 2: the lowesome depression I'm at. Right now, I'm back on Neopets.
1:30:02
Speaker 3: I was just gonna say, I'm rather shook that you're
1:30:04
Speaker 3: playing Neopets at this juncture in time.
1:30:07
Speaker 2: I at this late stage, I am playing Neops. Neopets.
1:30:11
Speaker 2: We could talk about another time. But Neopez literally taught
1:30:14
Speaker 2: me capitalism, and now I'm back, like Neops is capital
1:30:19
Speaker 2: I had a mortgage when I was twelve on Yos. Yeah,
1:30:23
Speaker 2: this is exactly.
1:30:24
Speaker 1: Why I won't play any of those games.
1:30:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, not that like I'm like, we should have more
1:30:29
Speaker 2: games about capitalism for children. But I think that I
1:30:31
Speaker 2: learned more about like how money works on Neopets that
1:30:34
Speaker 2: I learned at school or from my family. I had
1:30:37
Speaker 2: a bank account, I had a mortgage, and the way
1:30:43
Speaker 2: that you make money is by playing games. And that's
1:30:48
Speaker 2: kind of how Gladiator. No it's not, I uh know,
1:30:52
Speaker 2: this is food. I don't know. I feel like what
1:30:55
Speaker 2: it is an interesting example of and I'm so glad
1:30:57
Speaker 2: that you were with us. I'm about to you know,
1:30:59
Speaker 2: give us accurate historical insight into what this time may
1:31:03
Speaker 2: have actually been. Like, is how influential, Like when movies
1:31:08
Speaker 2: like Gladiator are wildly influential, it can take decades and
1:31:11
Speaker 2: decades to roll back the kind of lazy hollywoodification of
1:31:17
Speaker 2: actual history, and that I know, like it is a
1:31:21
Speaker 2: tendency to be like, oh well, like the you know,
1:31:22
Speaker 2: impact of movies is overstated. It reflects the culture. That's
1:31:25
Speaker 2: all true, But also especially with something this specific, it's like,
1:31:29
Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds like you've been gladiatoring against gladiator
1:31:34
Speaker 2: for your entire career. Yeah, it's just wild.
1:31:38
Speaker 1: As soon as you start writing about gladiators, you have
1:31:40
Speaker 1: to say first things, first, gladiator games are nothing like gladiators.
1:31:45
Speaker 1: Gladiator is the worst a fiction of gladiatorial games. And
1:31:49
Speaker 1: then you just have to dismountle that for ages.
1:31:51
Speaker 2: But god, and yeah, then you can never actually start
1:31:54
Speaker 2: making the point you're going today.
1:31:57
Speaker 3: Also, I really like the part where it's I think,
1:32:00
Speaker 3: like second glad Eater battle in the movie, and he
1:32:03
Speaker 3: like has just killed a bunch of people and the
1:32:05
Speaker 3: crowd is kind of like lukewarm, and then he goes
1:32:08
Speaker 3: are you not entertained, and it's like me after every
1:32:11
Speaker 3: stand up show.
1:32:12
Speaker 2: I was just like to say, that was very like
1:32:15
Speaker 2: stand up coded to me was I was like, Oh,
1:32:19
Speaker 2: someone's doing bad at the store.
1:32:22
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:32:22
Speaker 3: He basically turned on the crowd be like, Oh, I
1:32:24
Speaker 3: guess you guys are too. You don't get my references?
1:32:27
Speaker 2: Okay, you freaking snowflakes.
1:32:30
Speaker 3: You're like, yes anyway.
1:32:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, So half nipple and I'm gonna give it to
1:32:37
Speaker 2: I'm going to give it to Joaquin Fhoenix's tears.
1:32:40
Speaker 3: Oh beautiful Emma, how about you?
1:32:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think half nipple is very fair, and I'm
1:32:45
Speaker 1: also going to give it half a nipple. But I'm
1:32:47
Speaker 1: going to give it also to Waqi Phoenixy's performance, but
1:32:50
Speaker 1: for a different reason, because I feel like there would
1:32:52
Speaker 1: have been a real strong temptation to play that role
1:32:55
Speaker 1: feminized and with a lot, especially with Roman emperors, you
1:33:00
Speaker 1: find that they are played as very feminine and a Femineit.
1:33:05
Speaker 3: Almost like a queer coding kind of.
1:33:07
Speaker 1: Thing exactly, and that is very much what they've done
1:33:10
Speaker 1: with the second one from what I can see you
1:33:11
Speaker 1: at the trailer. But Waquing Phoenix did not make that
1:33:14
Speaker 1: decision he made this decision to play it very masculine
1:33:19
Speaker 1: and to not make this a queer character or an
1:33:22
Speaker 1: effeminate character as they have so often, and for that
1:33:26
Speaker 1: I appreciate him. And I'm specifically going to give it
1:33:29
Speaker 1: to his cute little white outfit that he wears in
1:33:32
Speaker 1: his death scene where he looks like a statue like.
1:33:34
Speaker 2: His little Yeah, his little Jesus Christ superstar.
1:33:38
Speaker 1: Exactly a plus little outfit.
1:33:41
Speaker 3: Amazing e.
1:33:42
Speaker 2: But thank you so much for a joint Like I
1:33:45
Speaker 2: just I can't imagine, like how we would have done
1:33:48
Speaker 2: this episode without you.
1:33:50
Speaker 3: We would have been like, must be pretty historically accurate.
1:33:54
Speaker 2: It's a documentary and we'll just go with that. There
1:33:57
Speaker 2: was one woman in all of Rome, kind of oh.
1:34:00
Speaker 1: That's the only one that ever existed. Yeah, it's amazing
1:34:02
Speaker 1: how they managed to survive.
1:34:03
Speaker 2: A smurf like society. Could you tell us a little
1:34:07
Speaker 2: bit more about your work and where we can find it.
1:34:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I have a book out right now which
1:34:13
Speaker 1: is called a Rome of One Zone, which tells the
1:34:15
Speaker 1: story of the whole Roman Empire from foundation to the
1:34:18
Speaker 1: fall of the West, through the lives of twenty one random,
1:34:22
Speaker 1: semi random women. Very few empresses, so mostly just women
1:34:25
Speaker 1: who lived in the Roman Empire at different times and
1:34:27
Speaker 1: how their lives are affected by war and politics. It's
1:34:30
Speaker 1: got no battles in it and very few senators, so
1:34:34
Speaker 1: it's only fun stuff and no like boring stuff. Yeah,
1:34:39
Speaker 1: and you can buy that in any good bookshop. I
1:34:42
Speaker 1: also have one about which has gladiatorial games in it,
1:34:44
Speaker 1: called A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,
1:34:47
Speaker 1: which is about Roman murder and has a whole chapter
1:34:50
Speaker 1: about gladiatorial games if you want to know how they
1:34:52
Speaker 1: really worked, in which I take the pace out of
1:34:54
Speaker 1: Russell Crowe. And I also have my own podcast which
1:34:58
Speaker 1: is called History Is Sexy. We answer questions that are
1:35:01
Speaker 1: sent to us by listeners who would like us to
1:35:04
Speaker 1: research a question they have about history that they don't
1:35:07
Speaker 1: have the time or inclination to research themselves.
1:35:10
Speaker 2: Amazing oers, thank you so much for joining us, and like,
1:35:14
Speaker 2: please come back for Caligula, Please have me back. Oh
1:35:17
Speaker 2: my heart is now set on it. It's done, so
1:35:19
Speaker 2: it's happening.
1:35:21
Speaker 3: You can follow us on Instagram at Bechdelcast. You can
1:35:25
Speaker 3: subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon, where you can get
1:35:31
Speaker 3: access to two bonus episodes every single month, plus the
1:35:35
Speaker 3: entire back catalog of over one hundred and fifty bonus episodes,
1:35:39
Speaker 3: all on hilarious, amazing, brilliant, genius themes that Jamie and
1:35:44
Speaker 3: I concoct in our little laboratory.
1:35:48
Speaker 2: Oh and you're wondering are they going to cover Hot
1:35:51
Speaker 2: Frosty on the Matreon in December? Well, I'm really pushing
1:35:55
Speaker 2: for it. I'm really pushing for it. The more I
1:35:58
Speaker 2: learn about Hot Frosty, the more it begging for discourse.
1:36:02
Speaker 2: And you can get our merch over at teapublic dot com.
1:36:04
Speaker 2: Slash the Bechtel Cast for all of your holiday And
1:36:10
Speaker 2: on that note, we saved Rome. Were you not entertained?
1:36:16
Speaker 1: This note what you came for?
1:36:19
Speaker 2: Bye Bye.
1:36:24
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