The Allure of Vengeance
How Gladiator (and similar films) discipled Christian men
Well, the trailer for Gladiator II, Ridley Scott’s 24-years-later follow up to the original Gladiator, has finally arrived.
I have to say, at first glance, it looks quite stunning and I will probably go see it.
As I thought about the trailer more though, I realized that the film looks like it’s going to largely be a retread of the original: noble character is reduced to a slave by bad guy’s machinations, seeks vengeance on bad guy by working his way up through the gladiatorial ranks with the help of a mentor.
It also made me think about the appeal of the original, which I saw as a teenager. Gladiator was a seismic film when it came out, winning both Best Picture and Best Actor at the Oscars. It has since become a modern classic.
Interestingly, the original film also had a big effect on the Christian evangelical subculture that I grew up in, along with several other similar films at the time such as Braveheart, and The Patriot. This was largely due to the fact that Jon Eldridge’s immensely popular Christian manliness book Wild at Heart came out in 2001 and referenced these films heavily. There was definitely this message at the time that men, including Christian men, had lost their “manliness” and sense of purpose, and needed to regain it back. Eldridge’s message was that Christian men needed a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.
I think the appeal of films like Gladiator was that the character of Maximus checks a lot of American Christian manly boxes: he’s a military leader (check) who serves his emperor with honor (check), but also a family man (check) who just wants to get back to his wife and child (double check). The villain Commodus is an effeminate coward and a sexual pervert who has Maximus’ family murdered and tries to have him executed as well. Maximus’ quest involves getting vengeance on Commodus (check) and also saving Rome from tyranny on the side (patriotic check).
The problem here, which I’ve come to realize in the years since, is that this picture is much more American than it is Christian. Jesus is about as anti-vengeance as you can get. He told his Jewish followers to love their enemies, to turn the other cheek when slapped by a Roman soldier, and to voluntarily go a second mile when compelled to carry gear for them. He literally died ignominiously at the hands of the Roman empire rather than fulfill Jewish expectations of a militaristic Messiah.
Not very “manly” at all.
In some ways, I wonder if this Gladiator/manly vengeance films obsession in the early 2000s explains some of the Christian nationalism/Donald Trump fervor among American evangelicals two decades later. We were discipled less by the humiliated and dying rabbi of the New Testament and more by the heroes of American cinema. We learned from Gladiator to thirst for vengeance on our enemies, and that to obtain this vengeance, you have to play the game better than your opponents, just as Maximus has to learn to “win the crowds” in order to get to Commodus. Instead of embracing principle and humility and quiet faithfulness, I see Christian men today embracing power, subterfuge, and domination in order to win a culture war that Jesus never asked us to fight.
The irony of it all is that Maximus apparently failed. At the end of Gladiator he kills Commodus, and tells Senator Graccus to restore the Republic and the “dream of Rome”. The trailer of Gladiator II reveals that this never happened, and that the Empire has continued to slide into decay and corruption. Perhaps this should be a lesson for those who thirst to restore some kind of American Christian empire.
All nations crumble to dust. All power dries up eventually. All vengeance is ultimately fleeting and unsatisfactory.
Let us seek the things that remain.
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Yes, to all of this. Yes, and thank you.
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