Return of “sword and sandal” movies reflects increased militarism 

TORONTO, May 27, 2005 -- The revival of the “sword and sandal” movie genre in such recent epics as Kingdom of Heaven, Alexander, Gladiator and Troy tends to coincide with a rise in militarism in U.S. foreign policy, according to York researcher Carmen Sanchez.

 

Sanchez, a political science lecturer in the York Centre for International and Security Studies (YCISS), notes that the original epics were characteristic Hollywood features of the 1950s and early 1960s, a time when the Cold War was intensifying and conservative values held sway in the U.S.

 

“Audiences were asked to identify with the main protagonists (independent heroes representing freedom-loving America) versus the Roman imperial oppressors (hegemonic forces representing totalitarian Russia),” Sanchez says.

 

Forty years later, America has rediscovered this role on the world stage, according to Sanchez. Now the liberation of oppressed peoples and the rooting out of terrorist organizations and governments are once again at the heart of U.S. foreign policy, but Sanchez feels the latest crop of films display a sympathy for imperialism not evident in such earlier movies as Spartacus, Ulysses, The Trojan Horse or Hercules.

 

Why is it relevant to study these “toga” films? Sanchez suggests that the movies help spread and legitimize particular ideas among the general populace at critical moments in a country’s history. In a research paper, entitled The Return of the Sword and Sandals Movies – Legitimizing Militaristic Values and Imperialism, she examines the recent revival of sweeping epics set in the days of antiquity.

 

Although there isn’t a toga in sight, Sanchez sees the recently released Crusades-era epic, Kingdom of Heaven, as portraying similar ideas about who constitute heroes and villains to those in Gladiator, Troy and Alexander, albeit in subtler ways. While some critics have suggested the film is a critique of current American policy in the Middle East, Sanchez feels the depiction of good and evil is not much different from the other recent epic movies.

 

Sanchez explores the choices the directors made in portraying the heroes, the causes for war and the nature of peace. "These representations are in particular fundamentally problematic because Western empires are depicted both as in need of protection and as bearers of positive attributes,” she maintains. “Peace, in turn, then becomes associated with their victory and imperial domination.”

 

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