Alexandria the Marginal
American Christians should ready themselves for a never-ending parade of the following kind of blame-gaming.The online edition of the UK Independent is laying Oliver Stone's failure to sell box office tickets to his movie Alexander the Great squarely at the feet of Evangelicals (read: Homophobes). Quoth the Raven:
But conservative Christians have loudly denounced Alexander as "pro-gay" propaganda from Tinseltown, insisting that Alexander was a firmly hetero hero. To add to the film's problems, the public has stayed away from what was to be the big movie of the Thanksgiving weekend.
You know how it goes. Oliver Stone (who is reputed for his profound love of historical accuracy) Decided to grace the pantheon of history with yet another earth-shattering revelation (still-as-of-yet-unknown to the country who gave us the Pythagorean Theorem).
According to Stone, Alexander was conquered only by the advances of one Hephaestion--boyhood friend, valet, hairdresser, manicurist florist and interior decorator.
In reality, it is the Greeks themselves that are throwing the malevolent gauntlet at the film, and not the Christian Coalition. Funny how relentless attacks against the family of Mel Gibson was not only ignored by the media, but aided and abetted when he neglected to take such a bold leap in The Passion of the Christ. Let Mr. Stone make a stinker of a film, and we resort to the old "Homophobic Public"defense. In the mind of an elitist like Stone, the fault never lies at the shortcomings of the artist, but at the sheer stupidity of their patrons.
Remember John Kerry's own elitist tirade about George Bush's idiocy. (Naw, it couldn't have possibly been your repulsive totalitarian, UN-goosing tendencies, John).
A simple google search of the words "Alexander" and "Protest" will again (as of this date) relinquish only some vociferous jaw-boning by the Greeks (and some Europeans, who probably think they have enough homosexuals now anyway). Rev. James Kennedy's too busy trying to save America's culture--and one doubts he has time to take the cultural jaws of life to the Parthenon.
But the Independent knows there's nothing politically romantic about greeks opposing a liberal director's movie about a greek. It makes much more sense to lob the molotv cocktail at the Puritan Contingent--fresh from burning a Queer Effigy at the ballot box and praying against that Luciferian Lothario from Massachussetts.
Here's the horse-pill you guys are going to have to swallow (since the alternative is a bit indecorous). A general study of greek history, art, culture, and morays pretty much told us outright that the greeks were sporting a big, thriving Castro District right there along the Mediterranean sea ports. You think the Commonwealth of the Hardly-Ever-Dressed sat around contemplating fidelity and the ankle-high toga? One would suppose the Roman bath Houses emerged without precedent. Those Romans ripped off a lot from the Greeks--and ogling all that anatomically-stringent artwork has got to wear on one's chastity after a while. Good thing they have Hemlock in case things get too lacivious.
So the simple fact is: the only ones surprised by a big homo-contingent from Athens are the ones complaining about the ones who already knew it.
The next four years promise to be interesting, as Christians will soon learn that their very belief system alone will single-handedly evaporate the heavily entrenched careers of Senators, federal judges, and box office behemoths. It will also cause cancer, Mad Cow Disease, and Acid Reflux Disorder. Anyone looking for class-action suits for obesity may want to fire up the bandwagon to punish the Galilean Goofs as well.
C'mon, strike while the iron is hot. Maybe it will even have the power to force Oliver Stone to actually sit through one of his own, cinematic fabrications.
But that would be a miracle.
posted by Doofus @ 8:39 PM
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