The Greeks are angry about Hollywood’s Alexander.
Oliver Stone has a propensity for the silver screen shockers. This is as good a forum as any to let the truth about Alexander fly.
So which is it? Is Stone making more out of this than there is, less of it than there is, or is his movie historically acurate in detail capturing the true character of Alexander and his times?
This organization’s intentions are obviously malicious. If it were a simple case of inaccurate film-making, people wouldn’t really care, but since it involves homosexuality they are deeply angered. Does Alexander really need people to come up and defend him? No, they just don’t want people to think that Greece is full of bisexuals, even though everyone knows it was. I don’t know anything about Alexander, and I doubt they do either. This movie ought to be twice as gay though, just to make up for the omission in Troy (slight sarcasm).
I watched a show about Alexander on the History Channel last week and they also said that he may have had male “companions”. I was very suprised because I had never heard that before and I was not aware that it was also in the Stone movie. Interesting…
Rhuiden
Hehe silly lawyers. I beleive (:from History Channel) historical records show Alexander went into really deep greiving when his closest friend died, in my opinion undue for even a mere non-romantic friend.
Edit: 2 posts while I
was typing. Benissimus is right: everuone who studies these sfuff knows it was a lot different back in those days.
Yes, I think he said something like, “They (everyone else) love me because of what I am. He loved me because of who I am.”
Anyway, it would be good if they do take it to court. The court would have to find that he was gay. (A bit like Oscar Wilde…) The court might also find that he wasn’t actually Greek. 
hehehe
Um. They want to force people to put a notice on a movie saying it’s a work of fiction?! Bwaaahaahaahaa! 
Since it’s Greek lawyers indulging in this silliness, I’m now laying odds that in response to this post a few partisans of the Macedon vs. Greece debate will join up just to further that tedious argument. 6:5 in favor.
They do in books! At least it lets an ignorant fella, like me, know whether the story is total fiction, if the main characters are historical but the story around it is fictional, or if the story as a whole is intended as a portrayal of history.
Well, I’d say the presence or absence of the word “documentary” is the equivalent of finding a book in the History or the Fiction section.
The problem with Alexander is that all our remainng sources about him seem to be written by people with strong opinions. 
There’s probably good sanction for the bisexual thing; at the very least, the notion isn’t as absurd as our energetic lawyers seem to think.
Maybe I should pull my Anabasis (Arrian’s about Alexander in India, not Xenophon’s) off the shelf again some day soon.
Um… so to modern Greeks, is any ancient Greek homosexual/bisexual? I’m highly curious what Modern Greece history textbooks are like…
Do we have any Macedonians here?
Its strange that this kind of hoopla can result from this film. There are plenty of other agenda based films to rant and rave about. Stone is a master at crafting these controversies.
Indeed, history and culture suggests that Alexander was bisexual; He was also a drunk and had quite a temper. Why should anyone run to his defense as a paragon of morality?
On the other hand, is there direct evidence that this played a key role in his life and accomplishments? If not why play it up in the film?
I think this is just an attention getter from Stone. Who would have gone to see the picture thinking it was going to be some great history class anyhow? Might as well watch John Wayne’s version of the Alamo rather than read anything else for Texas History.
For a reasonable discussion of the whole was he/wasn’t he thing, see: http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?paraID=42
This whole brouhaha has produced just masses of articles. It even got the classics-l people to stop savaging each other for a while.
For me personally, it has simply expanded my Greek vocabulary in interesting directions.
Since dollar is getting cheaper and cheaper these days, methinks I could some day get, from my wife, the permission I need to buy books overseas. Harry Potter in AG, Arrian’s Anabasis, Intensive Greek Course, etc. etc. , and contribute to textkit. 
It’s a bit late to join this discussion, but as I’m just reading Vergil’s eclogues, I’d like to add that apparently at the very least half of all Roman shephards were clearly gay. And homosexuals.
Theocritus set the stage for that with his bucolics. Evidently in his part of the Greek world shepherds had time for poetry contests. Erudite poetry contests, often about love.
Evidently in his part of the Greek world shepherds had time for poetry contests. Erudite poetry contests, often about love.
They spend a worrying amount of time playing with each others’ “flutes”.
hmmm that must had been ‘classical flutes’… 
Interesting… 
Anyone here going to see the movie?
I was, but I’ve read horrible reviews on it and so now I don’t know.
I saw a clip, and the acting was terrible. I’ll give it a miss.