They say history is written by the victors, and that’s certainly true of Alexander The Great, a Macedonian king who fashioned himself a god among men and went on to create one of the largest empires in history.
But for many, many years, whoever was writing Alexander’s story was leaving out a very crucial detail: The dude was gay—or “bi” probably fits the bill even better.
However you might want to look at it, there are now plenty of experts who have gone on record to acknowledge that, yes, one of history’s most powerful military commanders was part of the LGBTQ+ community (of course, no one was actually calling it that in 300-something BC, but you get it.)
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It’s an observation that’s really rankled the ire of a certain type of history buff, i.e. homophobes who like to pretend straight white guys are solely responsible for the miracle of modern civilization. And it’s a fact that once again has found itself under the spotlight and is receiving quite a bit of scrutiny.
And that’s all thanks to a new dramatized documentary on Netflix called Alexander: The Making Of A God, a six-part miniseries that reexamines the man’s rapid rise to power and—spoiler alert!—scandalous death at 32 (which is good as proof as any that he was gay because any young twink will tell you that hitting your 30s feels like death anyway).
Just how gay is Alexander: The Making Of A God?
At the time of writing, Alexander currently stands at #2 on Netflix’s ranking of the top TV shows in the U.S., proving that there is a real appetite for history lessons out there—at least when said history lessons are this sexy.
That’s because Alexander: The Making Of A God isn’t your typical docuseries. Oh sure, there are plenty of historians hamming it up in talking-head interviews and excitedly dishing out the drama as if it weren’t thousands of years old. But it also offers up fairly compelling reenactments of epic battles and clandestine meetings, keeping you rapt in the story with a little spectacle and a whole host of gorgeous actors looking fire in period-appropriate clothing.
Honestly, it’s not all that different from an episode of Spartacus, except, instead of the intermittent softcore sex scenes, we occasionally get to watch khaki-clad archaeologists dig around present-day Alexandria, Egypt.
Related:
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These guys served it ancient city style.
But we will have you know: The Making Of A God doesn’t skimp on the gay stuff either. It only takes about six minutes for the first episode to travel back to Illyria, circa 336 B.C., where Alexander (played by Masters Of The Air‘s Buck Braithwaite) has been banished from his father’s kingdom and apparently spends his days playing sparring—nearly nude!—with his bestie Hephaestion (Will Stevens).
A moment where Hephaestion tackles his pal to the ground and remains pinned on top of him, their faces centimeters apart, will have you shouting, “KISS!” at the TV screen. Is it just us, or was that intentionally homoerotic?
Well, we have our answer in the very next scene, when the two buds are bathing together and begin to make out, smashing their beautifully chiseled bodies up against one another. The extra-steamy, man-on-man moment makes all that homoerotic stuff on The History Channel look chaste by comparison. It truly didn’t need to be this hot, and yet? We’re glad it is.
Related:
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As our narrators tell us, Hephaestion—one of Alexander’s two closest friends alongside Ptolemy—was “not just a cherished companion, but perhaps [his] greatest love.”
While the guys sensually caress one another, we’re told that “same-sex relationships were quite the norm throughout the Greek world. They didn’t flat-out call it “gay,” or even hav a word for homosexuality—”it just wasn’t in their vocabulary whatsoever.” Instead, “there was just being sexual.”
Why homophobes are mad at Alexander: The Making Of A God
So, you mean to tell us nobody gave a sh*t about who was gay back then, and just let everyone love who they wanted to love? Oop, there goes ancient history again, pushing that woke agenda on us!
We’re joking, of course, but—surprise, surprise—that seems to be the reaction from some conservative viewers who apparently did just want to tune in to The Making Of A God for the same old stodgy history lesson they could’ve read on Wikipedia.
(Side note: Imagine watching something—anything—for the sole purpose of having it just affirm everything you already know and believe. What the hell is the point of that? Don’t we want the things we watch to challenge us, excite us, and open our eyes to new possibilities? We digress…)
Some of the “shocked and offended” reactions to Alexander and Hephaestion intimate connection in the series are just downright hilarious:
Y’all… Netflix didn’t “make” Alexander The Great gay. It’s called history, babe—learn some!
History repeats itself: The controversy around Alexander (2004)
But we’ve been here before. The same sort of complaints arose when director Oliver Stone’s 2004 epic Alexander hit theaters, which dared to show the ancient warrior as the (literal) bi king he really was, played by a beautifully coiffed Colin Farrell with an effete Jared Leto as his lover, Hephaestion.
Christians and conservatives even went so far as to boycott the movie. And while Alexander was one of Hollywood’s most notorious box office bombs, that had less to do with the fact that it dared to “queer” ancient history, and more because it was a total mess. (For our money, the 2014 re-release edit Alexander: The Ultimate Cut is a much better version of the movie, and well worth a watch.)
Anyway, we’re pleased to see Alexander: The Making Of A God doing so well on Netflix—maybe enough folks will see it so we can stop trying to re-write history. Your cunning and cutthroat military strategist and all-power leader? Yeah, he thought guys were hot. Deal with it!
On that note: We don’t want to oversell anything; Alexander and Hephaestion might have a couple super sexy scenes right there at the beginning of episode one, but that’s about as hot and heavy as The Making Of A God gets. Still, their relationship plays out through the remainder of the series in a way you might find compelling. Who knows, you might even learn something!
And if learning’s not you’re thing, you can always just skip right to ogling the hunky actors who play our ancient history homos. Check out some hot shots from Buck Braithwaite and Will Stevens’ Instagram pages below:
Related:
Unfortunately, this gay British actor is so hot he’s making us thirsty for Henry VIII
Wait, Max Parker plays Henry VIII in Netflix’s ‘Blood, Sex, & Royalty’? Consider us royally flushed!
carllonghorn
These freaking conservatives want everything about history whitewashed – they don’t want any gay heroes, any Black anything, and they don’t want their kids taught real history and what really happened to minority groups through time. They won’t rest until everything looks like the 1950’s TV series Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Donna Reed, etc.
rand503
Wait til they find out about Sparta, and the legendary Band of Brothers.
GlobeTrotter
The question itself is misleading – Alexander the Great was NEITHER gay NOR straight. People of his time and culture had a completely different definition of sex and sexuality than we do today. What we today call “homosexuality” would have been unrecognizable to people living in Alexander’s world. Men were allowed to have lovers of BOTH sexes, but there were very strict cultural rules governing which role each partner played in the relationship. Their culture at the time specified that the male partner with the higher status HAD to be the dominant partner, the male partner of lower status HAD to be the submissive partner. It would have been considered very shameful, maybe even illegal, for a higher status man to assume the submissive role.
For example if a free man slept with a slave man, then he HAD to be the dominant partner. If an older married man had a younger unmarried man, then the older man HAD to be the dominant partner. The male head of household had to be dominant partner in ANY sexual relationship with any member of his household (wife, male/female slaves, etc.). A male senator would have been dominant over a free unmarried male. The king/son of a king (e.g. Alexander) would have been the dominant partner in EVERY sexual relationship, whether with a male or female partner.
There was no such thing as someone living a “homosexual lifestyle” back then as we know it today. Every male had a duty to marry and become the head of his own household. This had LEGAL implications as the male head of household had certain legal and religious rights and obligations. Even if you had “homosexual” inclinations, as we’d recognize them today, you still had to take a wife and start your own household. Homosexuality as we know it today, i.e. living permanently with a male partner, simply did NOT exist in Alexander’s time and culture.
As for women, they had few rights. In Alexander’s day they had to be covered in public and they were completely subservient to the male head of their household, which was either their husbands or their fathers. Women taking lovers was rare, as they were expected to tend the home and raise the kids. I suppose wealthy women would have had the free choice to sleep with their male or female slaves.
Chrisk
I’d say Alexander would define himself as Pansexual.
GlobeTrotter
I don’t think either Alexander or any of his peers would have had the slightest clue what you’re talking about. Heterosexuality, homosexuality, pansexuality, bisexuality and all the other “-sexualities” just didn’t exist in his time. It would be like us today trying to imagine what people 2500 years in the future will think about sexuality – it’s completely IMPOSSIBLE to fathom.
dbmcvey
Men fell in love with and had sex with other men in that time. That did happen.
GlobeTrotter
Sure they did, but this proceeded along completely different rules from what we know today. They wouldn’t have considered themselves “gay” or “bi”, nor would they have understood any of the terms we’ve coined since the last 200 years or so and their implications. Furthermore, unless there was something seriously wrong, they would have had wives and children, not to mention duties as husbands to their wives and father to their children.
That’s why it’s so misleading, even improper, to call them gay, homosexual, bi, etc., basically judging them by our modern standards – standards that did NOT exist at the time.
monty clift
It’s misleading to say that they didn’t have words for homosexuality. Maybe they didn’t call themselves gay or bisexual, but let’s not pretend that they didn’t know what sexuality was.
GlobeTrotter
I don’t remember saying they didn’t have words for homosexuality or that they didn’t know what sexuality was. My point is that they wouldn’t have understood OUR definition or culture of homosexuality, bisexuality, etc. They lived in a different culture and in a different time from us, with different rules, different norms and different understandings of sex and sexuality. We’re separated by some 2500 years – they didn’t have “gay” relationships and “gay” men as we know it today. Yes, men slept with other men 2500 years ago, but they would have also had their wives and their children and they would have had roles as husbands and fathers to fulfill as dictated by their society and culture of that time. It would have never occurred to two men to fall in love and sail off holding hands into the sunset as we would do today. They would have been lovers, but they would have also been husbands, and fathers, and farmers, and expendable soldiers in the service of their king, etc.
Joshooeerr
The problem with outlining the social codes of any time or culture is that not everybody dutifully coloured within the lines. It’s a bit like pointing out that Catholics cannot divorce and remarry. Except for all the Catholics who divorce and remarry. So, for example, Elagabalus, who was Roman Emperor for four years, was very much a femme Twink and submissive sexually. The notion that all homosexual relationships of old conformed to the “dominant older/more powerful” and “submissive/younger/less powerful” construction is obviously ridiculous, as anybody with any sexual experience knows. Things are not always what they appear to be. And powerful macho guys are very often “butch in the streets, femme between the sheets”. In fact, it’s a recognised sexual syndrome among those who wield great power.
GlobeTrotter
I distinctly said that these were CULTURAL expectations for THAT time and space. Of course there would have been exceptions, just as there are exceptions today in our cultural understanding of things. However those few exceptions confirmed the rules as they existed at that time. Did everyone 2500 years ago obey their cultural dictates as they pertained to sex and sexuality? Obviously not. However where these cultural rules and expectations observed by the vast majority of people at the time? Most certainly YES!
Bosch
Sexual orientation is a measurable biological configuration. It doesn’t matter how they understood sexuality; if a man is attracted to men, then he’s attracted to men, period.
dbmcvey
While the ancients may not have had a word for it, they did write about it and discuss it. Sexual orientation may or may not have been a concept, but it was there and acknowledged.
Georgeiv2
Thank you sir for the voice of sanity I am pissed off at the way we try to impose todays labels on history, Homosexual is a modern term and many men in the past were happy to raise a family and have a “special 2 friend at the same time !
Brian
You’re just making s* up.
Major
I started watching the show last night and for a second I thought I was gonna need to get some poppers. LOL
Seriously….
The show is good so far. I do like the way they are presenting the story/history of Alexander.
And they picked some pretty men and women to be in this movie part of the documentary, that’s for sure. Alex and his buddies are HOT! and Alexander’s mother, Olympias, is a beauty!
I’ll be finishing the series tonight after RuPaul’s Drag Race and Untucked.
ZzBomb
Omg your first line slayed me LOL!
That probably did it for me to check it out now. Thank you
Invader7
Poppers in 3…2….1….
Chrisk
“I get 2 minutes into Alexander: The Making of A God and @netflix couldn’t even make it that far with out making the guy gay, Christ.”
Umm.. does dumbass realize this isn’t a fictional character? All he’s doing is exposing his stupidity.
It’s good to see history displayed accurately and not sanitized for the sensitive Religious Loony Tunes/Bigots.
Invader7
Exactly !
Celtic
The people (men) at that time had the luxury of not having to define themselves sexually. In Warrior culture, having a strong bond with a mate — including the sexual bond — was common. (Think Spartans.)
By all measure, Alexander was bisexual — again, a term not even conceived in the era of Alexander. They were not burdened with several hundred years of puritanical bullshit contrived first by the Roman Church (filled with homos, by the way) and then Puritan America. The beauty of this historical fiction is how normal it was to have sex with either gender. The potency of male bonding was more than psychological. It was physical and emotional. And, shameless. The “moden” world could learn some lessons.
Jon in Canada
Oh please!
Before Monotheism spread like a plague from Judea (Palestine) to the world, the Pagan Gods ran the show and they, like humans, were capricious, horny and didn’t care who they did just like their adherents did; it’s almost as if they were made up to reflect the times. Having same sex partners was not uncommon and while there were rules to follow, depending on which culture you belonged to, it was open and not at all a controversial reality. Then came the Jewish god, followed by his probably gay kid (I mean 12 guys and no women?!) and later some warmonger named Mohammed and everything went belly up with no more belly down. History, unvarnished or cleaned up, is not for the faint of heart; these days everything must be sanitized, sterilized and cleansed, talk about an enema.
snpwm
Hello Jon in Canada! You are so correct and funnyyyyyy! Enjoyed very much your comment!!
FreddieW
I thought everyone knew he was gay. My mom told me that in the 70’s when I watched some movie where Alexander laid his head on his lover’s chest.
fur_hunter
……. Wonder how many F..UC. …KING evangelical fundamentalist MORONS will be canceling NetFlix after this??? None of them can tolerate factual history. I mean, Jesus was over 30, not married, lived and slept with 12 men, kissed Judas and told Peter that He loved him…….. EXCUSE ME!!!!…….. Take out the name of Jesus and put ANY MAN’s NAME there and those Dumb $ H!Ts would be waving that damn book in the air, screaming he was an abomination and going to Hell…… Got it?…. What can I say?
dbmyers
You said it just fine! Thank you. I will mention Mary Renault’s incredible historical fiction Alexander trilogy, particularly the second volume, “The Persian Boy”. Renault footnotes and lists her historical sources for all direct quotes and historical events. The other two novels are called, “The Fire From Heaven” and “Funeral Games”. I highly recommend them – be sure to look at the footnotes.
Invader7
Hopefully the religious bigot’s heads will explode at the same time and we’ll ALL be spared their increasing suppression…
snpwm
So well said dear Fur_hunter! So well said! Kudos!
monty clift
I assume that the recent resurgence of these kinds of remarks has something to do with that greasy-looking grifting clod who calls himself “Metatron.” Ever since I saw one of his garbage videos on LGBT history, his gladiator-wannabe Incel fanboys have done nothing but spam their dumb comments on just about every other related topic. These so-called history buff dudebros know next to nothing about actual history, but boy do they like to huff their own farts.
LumpyPillows
What I need to know is what were his pronouns? Kidding.
Bosch
I learned about Alexander the Great’s bisexuality in 7th grade, in the early 90s. Why are these people pretending like it’s new information?
smittoons
I take exception to this article saying Colin Farrell in his ridiculous wigs and dye jobs was “well-coiffed.” Considering descriptions of Alexander’s physical appearance are still subject to plenty of differing opinions, going with less extreme styling would have been prudent. Between that, the bizarre decision to have all the Macedonians’ accents match Farrell’s Irish brogue, the messy unmemorable battle scenes, and the long-winded stretches of narration by a bored-out-of-his-mind Anthony Hopkins, that movie was one of the decade’s biggest wasted opportunities.
strap2900
If homophobes knew anything about ancient history, they would know that homosex wasn’t a big deal in those times. Many rulers had slave boy lovers, and don’t forget the orgies.
Invader7
For sure do NOT forget the orgies !!!
dbmcvey
Look at the myth of Zeus and Ganymede.
Kangol2
Gotta love the right-wing nutter who thought that joke about a “black trans” actor in this documentary was funny. Sorry, MAGA crank, but it crashed like a lead balloon!
Brian
When they try to make other people sound ridiculous, they use that really exaggerated language. But then they’re the ones who end up sounding ridiculous. And they’re blind to that.
Diplomat
This is one seriously hot show.