Alexander The Gay?

No stranger to controversy, Hollywood filmmaker Oliver Stone has come under fire from modern day Greek lawyers for suggesting in his new biopic “Alexander” that Alexander the Great was bisexual-which is generally accepted as common knowledge. Stone was quoted as saying (before the film’s release on November 24) that ‘ . . we go into his bisexuality. It may offend some people [as it did the Greeks], but sexuality in those days was a different thing.’

Having shot several features in Thailand previously, Stone also shot large segments of “Alexander” here as well, and African extras were recruited on Khaosan Road to appear as Nubians in his latest epic. And while Alexander’s sexuality shouldn’t raise any eyebrows in the Land of Smiles, Stone’s depiction has riled the nationalistic Greeks.

While the Greek lawyers admit to not having seen the film starring Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie, they said they objected to references to Alexander’s “alleged homosexuality, a fact that is in no historical document or archive on Alexander.” Of course, historians in those days-unlike today may not have mentioned or cared about a leader’s private sexual tastes and practices, although man/boy love was an integral part of ancient Greek culture. “The Persian Boy”, by lesbian novelist Mary Renault chronicles albeit, imaginatively, the relationship between Alexander and his Persian catamite. Interestingly, Alexander was also unduly fond of his horse.

One of the greatest military leaders of all time, Alexander, who was never defeated in battle, conquered about 90 per cent of the then known world before his mysterious death at the age of 32, having built an empire that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Indus Valley.

Uptight Greek lawyers are demanding that Warner Brothers include a reference in the title credits that Stone’s “Alexander” is a fictional tale and not based on official documents on the life of the Macedonian ruler.