Gladiator E126: Are You Not Touching Grain?

The Shuffle Bois return to the well of 2000s Sword and Sandal films with the movie that started it all, Ridley Scott's 200 film Gladiator. After setting the table with some historical context about how the Roman Empire worked and the nature of actual historical gladiators, they turn to the film itself. They discuss the film's very end of history take on Roman history and politics, the nature of spectacle in a highly stylized film, the sexless hedonism of Gladiator, and its anachronistic view of patriotism. They close out with Ben giving a little book report on a wacky late antique primary source on the emperor Commodus and lamenting the film that might have been.

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