Posted on 11/19/2004 11:44:35 PM PST by Lord Nelson
RPT-Outraged Greeks say Alexander was not bisexual
ATHENS, Nov 19 (Reuters) - A group of Greek lawyers are threatening to sue Warner Bros film studios and Oliver Stone, director of the widely anticipated film "Alexander," for suggesting Alexander the Great was bisexual.
The lawyers have already sent an extrajudicial note to the studio and director demanding they include a reference in the title credits saying his movie is a fictional tale and not based on official documents of the life of the Macedonian ruler.
"We are not saying that we are against gays but we are saying that the production company should make it clear to the audience that this film is pure fiction and not a true depiction of the life of Alexander," Yannis Varnakos, who spearheads the campaign by 25 lawyers, told Reuters on Friday.
Stone was quoted on the MSNBC.com Web Site as telling the upcoming edition of Playboy magazine that the film's depiction of Alexander could offend some.
"We go into his bisexuality. It may offend some people, but sexuality in those days was a different thing," he was quoted as saying.
While the film starring Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie will be released on Nov. 24, Varnakos said he has already gathered enough information regarding the content of the movie to suggest there are "inappropriate references."
"We have not seen the film but from the information we have already there are references to his alleged homosexuality, a fact that is in no historical document or archive on Alexander," he said. "Either they make it clear that this is a work of fiction or we will take the case further."
This is not the first time Greeks have been angered by suggestions Alexander was homosexual and had affairs with young men.
Two years ago hundreds of northern Greeks from the province of Macedonia, where he was born, stormed an archaeological symposium after one speaker presented a paper on the homosexuality of Alexander. Police were called in to evacuate the participants.
One of the greatest military leaders of all time, Alexander, who was never defeated in battle, conquered about 90 percent of the then-known world before his mysterious death at the age of 32, building an empire that stretched from the Mediterranean to Afghanistan.
Varnakaos said as Stone has the right to freely express himself, the audience should have the right to know.
"We cannot come out and say that (former U.S.) President John F. Kennedy was a shooting guard for the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team and so Warner cannot come out and say Alexander was gay," Varnakos said.
1) Colin Farrell is a terrible actor but has been getting parts anyways
2) That Alexander is portrayed as being gay - another attempt of the left to revisit all our heroes and make them gay.
3) That this bothers the Greeks - OK, that was shameful of me ...
Yes, those are a couple of troublesome things that you mention, however, the unintended consequence of Hollywood using Alexander to push the gay agenda is that we've now got a big budget movie coming out with an English-speaking actor invading and conquering Iran!
But this line IS PRICELESS:
This is not the first time Greeks have been angered by suggestions Alexander was homosexual and had affairs with young men.
Plus, they're trying to sell this movie by making it look sexy and romantic. How about truth in advertising? Angelina Jolie plays his mom, not his love interest. How many guys will go to the moving knowing that? Not to mention all the gay scenes.
Next time they will claim that Socrates was not bisexual
Oops now another Greek mob will get pissed off and burn an American flag when they see my comment...outstanding.
He didn't like women at all?
In the "sexual nomenclature" where do people think the term "Greek Sex" comes from...hmmmmm?
There is hearsay evidence that Alexander and Hephaistion payed homage at the graves of Achilies and Patroklos, Alexander to Achilies and Hephaistion to Patroklos. But that's it. Nothing else. Nada. Ziltch.
http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?paraID=42
On top of that, according to Arian, one of Alexander's leutenants offered to send him an attractive butt boy captive. Alexander reportedly reacted in disgust and said he never partakes of such vices.
So there you have it. Was Alexander gay? No. Was he bi? Maybe, but we really can't tell.
I believe he had two wives and at least one child. So presumably he was at least bisexual, if not heterosexual.
Yes, indeed. Sad that the prosperous culture of Persia was overtaken by Islamic fanatics.
Wasn't he Macedonian? Although later a province of the Greek Empire, Macedonians, at least back then, did not regard themselves as Greek.
It is interesting that the premiere of the movie coincides with the State Department's recognition of "Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia" as "Macedonia". This is an exaple how media hype can be used as Force multiplier to shape public perception.
Macedonia is historical Hellenic province,rooted in history for more then two millennia. "Macedonia" State Department recogized is communist forgery created after WWII. Yet, State Department inked communist fraud, not historical fact.
Under tainted logic "Alexander The Great was Macedonian, State Department recognized Macedonia" the sizable majority of Americans will conclude that present day "Macedonia" is the country of Alexander The Great.
The whole mess was started by Communist dictator Tito who afer WWII chopped off part of Serbia to create new state under fraudulent name Macedonia. He stole the land from Serbia, the name from Greece and then forge new "Macedonian" nation. Inhabitants of "Macedonia" were Serbs, Bulgrars, Greeks, Tzintzars, Gypsies and Turks.
Communists first invented Macedonian langage (butchered dialect of Bulgarian). Once the nation without historical root was invented, Communists in charge started with falsifying history. As a result, many "Macedonians" today sincerely believe that they are descendants of Alexander The Great and consider Churches and Monasteries built by Serbian kings are their own. To top the achievement, communists invented Macedonian Orthodox Church (not recogized by any Orthodox Church).
This is one of the larger scale forgeries of the 20th century, delusion of the masses as if Americans started to believe to be descendant of Mayan Empire.
"Alexander" is entertainment one may choose wether to patron or not.
"Macedonia" is State Department endorsed fraud and Americans have no say wether to be a part of it or not.
This decision has to be REVOKED.
Saying "Macedonian" and "Greek" is like saying Austrians and Germans. Both are Germans but there is a distinction of geography and dialect.
The Macedonians of Alexander's time considered themselves Greeks. The Athenian Greeks looked down on the Macedonians and called them "barbarians" because the Macedonians retained a kingship and never developed city states like those on the Greek peninsula.
These Macedonians - like their southern Greek cousins came to what we now call Greece in waves of conquest settlements. These Indo-European peoples intermixed with the original inhabitants (proto-Greeks) to produce the classical Greek stock.
Scholars are not sure but the theory is: The Macedonians arriving late in the conquest as part of the Greek Dorian dialect tribes were stuck in the north and never intermixed with the original populations because they did not have the melting pot of the city-state. Farm communities tend to stay unchanged because of isolation.
The aristocracy was the Greek Dorain speaking Macedonians - this can be seen clearly from the names of the rulers and who they married - Greek names - Greek Olympian religion - and marriage to other Greeks - like Phiip's wife and Alexander's mother Olympias.
Now because the Macedonians never developed city-states intermixing tended to be less and the peasants may not have been pure Greek. But the intermixing may have varied from region to region - some more Greek some less.
In any case - what did the Macedonians think of themselves? Clearly they wished to be accepted as fellow Greeks.
By the Roman times the "conversion" process of Macedonians mixing in with the aboriginal tribes was complete - a process the Southern Greeks completed a few hundred years earlier.
Lastly, all the above does NOT apply to those Slavic people that currently call themselves Macedonian. They have ZERO relationship with the Macedonians of antiquity - arriving as Slavo-Bulgar tribes into the geographic region of Macedonia in the Middle Ages.
Can you claim that these Slavics intermixed with the local Greeks in the Middle Ages? Yes you can. But by the Middle Ages - the Greek tribal identification ceased to exist (yes the Greeks had tribes and the Macedons was one of them) because of the "blending effect" of the Roman and Hellenistic empires after Alexander. Blending effect being the creating of cities like Thessalonika and Alexandria and Constantinople were people from all over moved to and intermixed and the Pax Romana that allowed peaceful movement and resettlement within the empire.
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