Glicked weekend has come and gone, and as predicted, both films are boffo at the box office. But even though Wicked is decidedly for the gays, I’m here to tell you that Gladiator II is equally—if not more—suited to homosexual tastes.
That fact should have been clear from the poster alone, which features a tantalizing up-the-skirt shot of mega-hunk Paul Mescal as he kneels in the ring, readying himself to throw sand in the eyes of a bloodthirsty rhinoceros ready to charge him. It’s a poster that proudly announces: if you enjoy the sight of hot men in metal skirts and flowing dresses, this movie is for you!
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But Paul Mescal’s thick thighs are (somehow) not the gayest thing about Gladiator II. There’s another reason why this movie is fast becoming my personal Roman Empire: Denzel Washington’s incredible performance as a scheming, ruthless, messy Roman bisexual.
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By now we all know the story of the late lamented gay kiss that was cut from a previous version of the film, as attested to by Washington (and denied by Ridley Scott.) But that kiss isn’t strictly necessary: Washington’s performance is gay in a Shakespearean sense. As Macrinus, a Roman nobleman plotting to seize power from the empire that enslaved him, Washington brings a delicious flamboyance to the proceedings. There’s betrayal, backstabbing, plotting, and planning—and when Macrinus looks over Mescal’s sweaty, butch Lucius, one of the newest gladiators in his impressive stable, there’s more than a hint of lust in his eyes. “Women aren’t always my taste,” he tells another Roman nobleman during a private conversation—but we knew that anyway. It’s in the way he moves, pouncing on the camp potential of scene, letting his delight in his superior intelligence shine through in every interaction. As Macrinus—a figure loosely based on a real Roman emperor who rose to power through conspiracy—Washington doesn’t have to break from subtlety to sell us on his queerness. All he has to do is move through the decadent world of late-stage Rome, a glint in his eye, rings on his fingers, and a delighted chuckle surfacing in the face of the empire’s downfall.
Washington’s performance uses every last inch of his incredible range, taking cues from some of film history’s messiest bisexuals of antiquity, including Laurence Olivier’s famous turn as Roman general Crassus in Spartacus, the sword-and-sandal epic that spawned a million imitations (Gladiator included.) “I eat snails and oysters,” Olivier tells his new slave (a young Tony Curtis) in the now-famous bathtub scene that was cut from the film for being too openly queer.
Even if straight audiences were mystified by this scene, gay people knew exactly what it was about. Olivier, a bisexual actor in a straight marriage, was breathing life into the history of so many gay and bisexual men who flourished in positions of power during the Roman empire. The role created a precedent for this kind of figure who seemed ripped from the pages of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: the menacing, quietly scheming gay villain who feels no shame about his queerness. And today, that figure is more welcome than ever. We’ve moved past the era where queer characters could only show up onscreen as devious, deeply coded villains, which means we’re finally at the place where we can appreciate them for the c*nt serving divas they truly are. And Washington’s Gladiator II performance is one of the best examples in recent memory.
Much like the ahead-of-its-time snails and oysters scene from Spartacus, the cut kiss wasn’t strictly necessary to cement Gladiator II as a bisexual movie. Let’s be real: if it’s a movie about ancient Rome, there are going to be gay people. But it’s Washington’s performance that seals the deal. It’s the kind of character only a veteran actor could create, someone whose secret power shines through with every look, every glance, every subtle nod, every scene-stealing moment. In a year that’s been full of transphobic rhetoric and anti-gay sentiment, it’s exactly the performance we needed.
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