Satire: Observations on Gladiator Movies

We'll take a look at three gladiator movies.

SpartacusPhoto byCartoon by Lambert-King

Gladiator movies are an interesting genre. I’ll try to get past the remark that Peter Graves made about gladiator movies in the classic comedy, “Airplane’ to make some salient points. Probably the ultimate gladiator movie is the appropriately named, ‘Gladiator”. First of all, when your name is Maximus, it’s got to give you some serious self-confidence. Serious kudos to the parents that named their son Maximus.

I have a hard time remembering the rest of Maximus’ name but I think it was something like Maximus Testosteronius Baddude. It’s also the kind of name that inspires men to follow that person. Maximus’ adversary also had an interesting name, Commodus.

While Commodus is an interesting name, it doesn’t elicit the same respect as Maximus. It actually sounds a lot like Common. Or even worse, Comode, or Comodius. Really, who’s going to follow somebody named Comodius into battle.

Another big-time time player in the gladiator movie genre is “Spartacus.” Of course, Spartacus was portrayed by Kirk Douglas. Douglas’s chin dimple actually walked away with the Oscar for best supporting actor, but that’s another story.

Spartacus is the story of a slave who led a rebellion of gladiators against the Roman Empire. Ultimately, Spartacus was killed, but not before a whole bunch of guys claimed to be him, ruining his credit.

At least in Spartacus, Spartacus’ wife and son manage to escape death, unlike the family of Maximus. I think gladiator recruiters didn’t make their quotas by citing that sort of information.

Ben Hur is the third gladiator movie we’ll take a look at. We’ll go with the Charleton Heston version. This movie is best known for its chariot race seen. I have to say I would have been more impressed with the chariot race scene if I hadn’t had to drive in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area during rush hour. In the DFW area, every day is chariot race day.

I hadn’t realized that Ben Hur’s problems started with some tiles falling from his roof. It seems like this movie would be a roofing company’s dream. It would be an easy pitch. It could go:

“Ever see Ben Hur? Did you see what happened to him when some tiles fell off his roof? You don’t want to be a gladiator, do you? That’s risky work. Let me give you a free roof estimate. That way you can sleep well at night.”

It’s amazing what you can take away from gladiator movies if you have a lot of time on your hands.