The brave, bright and brilliant Alexander

Rating: 10/10 (29 December 2004)

I think to fully appreciate the movie one must be an ex military man from a backward and repressed society living in an enlightened one now and preferably gay.
Oliver Stone did this so well that you can even live yourself into the aspects of every character. The only thing I found a bit distracting was the prevalence of Irish accents which sort of represented most of the "Greek" cast and the slight cardboard quality of the characters worked for me as knowing what military commanders and or officers are like it made sense. The openly bisexual with nature of Alexander's sexuality is believable especially if you understand the morality of the day. However the relationship with Hephaestion is a more than the pederasty of the times. have a look at www.wikipedia.org they have some really nice and accessible pieces on Alexander and his sexuality as this seems to be the only thing in the movie people focus on.
So lets get crude: A national GAY** hero Ruled the known world and had conquered all the major civilizations of the time, gave them in many instances all the trappings of civilization even to extent of influencing their religion. Lets just look at the countries and this is not complete: Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Irak, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern parts of India. He influenced Buddhism to the extent where Buddha is depicted in Grecian dress. He was hailed as the son of Zeus or thus the major god of the Greek pantheon and as such 300 years before Christ a son of a king, also claimed to be a son of a god and ruled the world. Achilles another hero we saw in troy (where the director did not have the guts) was definitely gay too (yes Brad Pit should have had a romantic interlude with a guy). Patroclus was not his "cousin" as stated in the movie but his lover. Alexander and Hephaestion even sacrificed together at the shrines for Achilles and Patroclus at Troy. This once again re affirms the nature of their relationship.
Lets not claim the hero's as solely gay but lets acknowledge that sexual taboo's were not as evident in those days and that sexuality did not condemn one or promote one but was secondary to skill, ability and ambition. Unlike today's society where discrimination is rife and at least 6-10% of the world's population live in fear of their sexual identity being known. Live in fear in areas which Alexander used to rule of being beheaded, stoned or worse (tortured in the most horrible fashion).
Imagine being 25 again. Imagine having led an army of around 40,000 people against an army of around 300 000 and won. Imagine you are one of the most brilliant military commanders and visionaries of your time and can see a united world (we are still trying this 2000 years later and he almost succeeded). Imagine you have experienced all the known cultures of your world.
Now imagine being killed or maimed before you could achieve that. Know that the legacy we have today and the one Alexander left behind differs. And WE have a lot to learn. He was one of the most brilliant heroes of the old world. But by far not the only gay/bisexual man of substance. Throughout, history has shown us, what we harp on about that Oliver stone should have left out of this movie means negating the reality we live in.
That people that are different make a valuable contribution to society.
**Gay:brave, bright, brilliant,alert, animate, animated, blithe, blithesome, bouncy, brash, carefree, cheerful, cheery, chipper, chirpy, confident, convivial, devil-may-care, festive, forward, frivolous, frolicsome, fun-loving, game-some, glad, gleeful, hilarious, insouciant, jocund, jolly, jovial, joyful, joyous, keen, light-hearted, lively, merry, mirthful, playful, pleasure-seeking, presuming, pushy, rollicking, self-assertive, sparkling, spirited, sportive, sprightly, sunny, vivacious, wild, zippy