'Gladiator 2 should have been the gayest blockbuster of 2024'

Ahead of Gladiator II's arrival, Paul Mescal told Attitude that his blockbuster sequel isn't just for the "bros." According to him, it's also for "the girls, the gays, the mums, the dads" and everyone in between. But let's be real. It's mostly for the gays.

Paul's thighs alone have the strength to crush the straight out of any "bros" who might be watching. Let's not underestimate the power of Pedro "Daddy" Pascal either (as the internet once fondly dubbed him). Dressing him up in a leather skirt is essentially cat nip for gays of all ages, uniting us more quickly than a mere Pride parade ever could.

Throw in some campy performances from Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger as two manic queens emperors and you've got yourself perhaps the gayest blockbuster of 2024. It makes sense really. Gays are descended from the Romans, after all. Where do you think gay sauna culture comes from?

But actually, Gladiator 2 could and should have been so much gayer.

Now, I'm not a stickler for historical accuracy. Give me a colosseum full of sharks any day. But if you're going to make a Roman gladiator movie in 2024, you can't say "no homo" and pretend that Lucius wouldn't have been necking every guy he sees. Especially when everyone's so muscly and hot in their togas and skirts.

The closest Gladiator II comes to acknowledging this reality is through the character of Macrinus, a devious slave turned socialite whose face actually comes up first when you google the words "Chaotic Bisexual." What little evidence we have of his queerness, aside from that chaotic bisexual energy, is one offhand remark where he mentions that he doesn't always like women (in that way) and then laughs it off with his mate.

A comment is also made about "milk" at some point (??), but let's not get into that.

The ever-brilliant Denzel Washington, an absolute fox still at the age of 69, has since revealed to Gayety that his character was actually supposed to be more explicitly queer. Not like Onlyfans explicit, but still undeniably bisexual with a kiss scene between Macrinus and another man.

"I actually kissed a man in the film but they took it out, they cut it, I think they got chicken,” Washington said. “I kissed a guy full on the lips and I guess they weren’t ready for that yet. I killed him about five minutes later. It’s ‘Gladiator.’ It’s the kiss of death."

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Who "they" might be isn't clarified, although he's presumably alluding to people higher up who work at the decision-making level in Paramount studio. So, yep. The Straight Agenda™ strikes again. Or does it?

A few days after Denzel's comments made headlines, TMZ reported that the smooch in question was actually "an improvised take of which there were many for the scene." The kiss and other improvised moments (that weren't in the script) "ended up on the cutting room floor as a story choice."

In short, "No prejudice went into making the decision." Or at least, that's what TMZ were told.

Scott has also since spoken out, saying that the scene Washington spoke of was improvised and wasn't even filmed as he told Variety on the red carpet: "No, that’s bulls**t... They never did. They acted the moment — it didn’t happen."

When asked to clarify, the director added: "No. It didn't happen because they acted the moment." And Washington has since said the kiss was blown out of proportion, adding: "It really is much ado about nothing. They’re making more of it than it was. I kissed him on his hands, I gave him a peck and I killed him.”

Should we believe this? The gays believed Global All Stars would be the best season of Drag Race yet, so it's safe to say we're a gullible bunch. But even so, it's hard to take these quotes at face value when so many Hollywood movies have promised us queerness only to cut or censor these scenes at the very last minute.

Marvel alone has queer-baited us multiple times in films like Thor: Ragnarok and Wakanda Forever. And that's before we even bother to look beyond the MCU. The gays have been burned so many times that we're practically flaming for real at this point.

But whatever the reason for cutting that kiss might be, it doesn't explain why queerness was so absent in a film where hot, sweaty men loom so large in the foreground. Making a straight Gladiator film is like making a straight Cher movie. It just doesn't sit right.

Bizarrely enough, you could argue that Russell Crowe's original Gladiator movie was gayer — and that was released in 2000, five years before those cowboys pitched a tent on Brokeback Mountain and 17 years before Elio Perlman had a peachy time in Italy.

Ok, Gladiator wasn't actually gay, not in a traditional sense, but the giraffes sure were.

Let me explain. Remember that scene when Antonius Proximo (played by Oliver Reed) moaned about the giraffes he bought? "They won't mate," he complained. "They just walk around, eating, and not mating. You sold me... queer giraffes. I want my money back."

A quarter of a century ago, we had queer giraffes, and now a canonical bisexual isn't even allowed to kiss a guy on screen? A Roman guy, no less. We used to be a country…

But even so, Gladiator II is still pretty gay. You can take away our smooches and even our LGBTQ+ identifying giraffes. But you can't take away the homoeroticism of the film, all the gay sexual awakenings Paul and Pedro especially will be responsible for. And I think that's beautiful, even if the "bros" Mescal speaks of might not.

Gladiator II is out in cinemas now.