Masculinity in Gladiator II

Hi, welcome to A Manly Podcast. I’m your host Dr. Matthew Manly.

On A Manly Podcast, I talk about issues related to men and masculinity in American culture, and society. In the 2024 election, Trump won the overwhelming support of men across the country. Traditional, manly masculinity is represented far more in American media and culture than more positive forms of masculinity. This is a space to discuss and understand different forms of masculinity and share alternative, more positive forms of masculinity. Let’s dive in.

Gladiator II was one of the biggest macho, action releases of last year and it delivers on exhilarating moments of combat and battle that are wonderful to see on the big screen, but any screen really. But its representation of masculinity through its main characters tends to veer towards toxic, violent, corrupt men.

Now Ridley Scott has been doing historical epics loosely based on history since I was a kid. This film in particular morphs into a political commentary about how toxic men create political systems of corruption that enrich themselves and leave others to suffer. This commentary isn’t the focus of the film though. You don’t make $430+ million at the box office with a tense Roman political thriller about good governance and democratic ideals.

I went on a Tuesday evening about a week and a half after its release and was surprised there was a packed house. It was value night at the theater, but still impressive for any Hollywood film to fill a theater on a weekday night.

Moviegoers like me came to be entertained and we were. If you saw the first Gladiator, they definitely added more theatrics to this one with a man riding a giant rhinoceros and a naval battle scene in the Colosseum complete with sharks in the water.

Scott definitely knows how to make the illusion of film feel real. Watching the bloodlust and corruption of an empire as great as Rome is an escapist guilty pleasure, different than say reality TV shows, but an escapist guilty pleasure nonetheless.

Violent action films are fun to watch. I enjoyed watching Gladiator II, and have enjoyed many other films with the manly, masculine man, or even toxic man as the protagonist or hero. Die Hard with Bruce Willis, which has been a classic holiday movie for a few years now. The first John Wick film, which is excellent. The many iterations of Batman, Marvel superheroes, Glen Powell’s character Tyler Owens from the film Twisters last summer, Dom from the Fast and Furious. All these men have different nuances of toxic masculinity tucked into their characters with more redeeming qualities about family, honor, loyalty to friends, and giving back to their community. We love going to the movies to see nuanced heroes with some bad, but mostly good qualities battle nightmarish enemies and despite all odds, have them defeated at the last second to save the world from doom, utter destruction, etc.

Lucius, the hero and gladiator of the film played by Paul Mescal, is an excellent example of this toxic, ‘violence is necessary for me to succeed’ male Hollywood archetype that permeates American media.

He starts the film as an exile who doesn’t know he’s descended from royal Roman blood. He is a general in the city of Numidia (somewhere in Persia) that is invaded and conquered by Roman General Marcus Acacius. He loses his wife in the battle, and becomes a prisoner of war.

This sets up a revenge narrative where Lucius will battle his way up as a gladiator to kill General Acacius, avenge the death of his wife and colonization of his people.

This sets up a revenge narrative where Lucius will battle his way up as a gladiator to kill General Acacius, avenge the death of his wife and colonization of his people. Ridley Scott picked Paul Mescal for the part after watching the adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel, Normal People on Hulu. He is better known for romance, indie roles and beefed up considerably to play this part. To be an action hero in Hollywood for the most part, you have to exhibit some physical strength. Only recently have skinnier, less beefy men been able to get main starring roles in action films like Tom Holland in Spider-Man and Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides in Dune.

Lucius, like the hero Maximus played by Russell Crowe is a stereotypical manly man. I don’t think I’d be going out on a limb to say he is a hypermasculine man. He’s comfortable beating people to a pulp in whatever arena he’s in, but esepecially The Colosseum. Scott makes the audience feel better about these precarious circumstances because Lucius is a prisoner. He’s forced to fight, or otherwise he’ll die. Gladiatorial combat is very Darwinian, survival of the fittest, kill or be killed. That’s what makes it so exciting: human mortality is at stake. Mescal, who is shirtless a lot, performs the part as much through his body as his voice.

A key scene towards the beginning of the film in which he proves his masculine prowess to his fellow comrades and a Roman audience is the fight against a pack of savage baboons.

Scott uses wild animals throughout the film to show how Rome loved spectacle, and how they use the natural world, living things as commodities of spectacle to live and die for their entertainment. Dr. Ginsberg, a classical studies professor at Duke was quoted in an article saying, “As I tell my students, the Romans are jerks. Very interesting, but they’re jerks.” The Roman Empire had a thriving wildlife trade. Records of animals at the Colosseum show there were lions, tigers, bears, leopards, panthers, bulls, ostriches, monkeys and the people’s favorite, rhinos.

The fight against the baboons is one of the darker, more visceral scenes I saw in a movie last year. I was gripping my arm, the armchair. I could feel my leg muscles tightening. I could feel myself wanting to motion to throw my arms out to protect my face. Even with CGI, Ridley Scott still knows how to immerse an audience in a cinematic story and probably why he admits he’s overpaid.

Lucius quickly realizes the baboons are too fierce for them after watching a man’s face get eaten off. He starts acting like a baboon instead, walking on all fours, mimicking their movements. The baboon looks at him questioningly, circles, then attempts to charge him. Lucius dodges, and then bites a piece of their shoulder off. The baboon shrieks, and steps away holding themselves. He looks at Lucius, as if subjugated by the man’s power and cunning. The other prisoners look towards Lucius as a leader. The baboons all suddenly look on in fear. The scene ends without a resolution to the battle, but we’re pretty sure the baboons did not survive.

Lucius’s masculinity is rooted in power through violence. He understands how to use brute force to subjugate even the most savage opponents. The others give him respect and reverence not just for his combat skill, but saving their lives. His hypermasculinity is necessary for their success and the belief other people have in him as a leader.

Scott makes a point throughout the film to show Lucius is not just a strong, but a smart fighter. He runs a rhino into a wall, breaking off their horn and eventually killing the gladiator on it because of his ability to outsmart them. He also though can go toe to toe in a 1-on-1 sword fight when he battles General Acacius in the Colosseum.

In a later scene that’s quite absurd, in which they reenact a Roman naval battle with sharks in the water, Lucius leads his boat to victory by capsizing the other one. We see one of the men fall into the water, quickly devoured by a hammerhead shark with the bones crunching.

With each progressive battle, he not only fulfills his revenge narrative, but becomes the people’s champion. It is revealed to us about halfway through (and then told to us over and over) that his father is General Maximus from the first film and his mother is Lucilla, the daughter of former Emperor Marcus Aurelius. At the end, he officially takes off his ethnic mask as a Numidian and takes up his royal Roman lineage, [ties to patriarchy and family honor] wearing his father, Maximus’s armor and using his sword in his final battle.

His character evolves through the film from Persian exile to prisoner of war to gladiator and finally champion and leader. At the end, he gives an inspirational speech about giving Rome back to the people, rooting out corruption in politics, and returning the empire to the glory of its days as a democratic republic during the reign of Emperor [his grandfather] Marcus Aurelius.

We are expected to understand Lucius’s character in contrast to Macrinus played by Denzel Washington. Macrinus is an arms dealer who is also the principal investor that brings Lucius to Rome as a gladiator after watching him fight against the baboons. Macrinus promises he will give Lucius vengeance against General Acacius. He does. Towards the film’s end, he becomes advisor to the corrupt emperor and is later killed by Lucius in a final battle outside the gates of Rome.

Macrinus only seeks to enrich himself as an elite politician building his own personal fortune. He is not a man who has earned his role as leader and champion of the people through battle and skill in combat. Our hero is hypermasculine, but he’s not selfish or corrupt, and he has earned the people’s love and devotion.

His killing of Macrinus and his subsequent speech wraps the movie up nicely, but the political ideals and the “return to the glory of Rome” grandstanding rings as hollow, inspirationally because that’s not why people came to see the movie or what it’s really about. The combat and violence mired in toxic masculinity is why audiences are coming to see the film. The story and its themes are secondary to the muscle-tensing, bonkers fights that makes you hope you never time travel to Rome.

Further, Lucius at the end of the film is in a complicated and delicate political situation, one in which he will have to navigate the treachery of Rome’s cunning political leaders to make any real lasting change. Patriarchal and hypermasculine institutional values have only led to more government corruption and worse lives for the people of Rome at the expense of military campaigns. Lucius’s success, his power and hero-like status come from these same institutional values.

The most popular film genre in the US you can guess is superhero films. The second most popular genre though is action films. Americans love watching a manly man saving the day, whether it used to be Robert Downer Jr. as Iron Man or The Rock, probably the best example of an actor who is able to exhibit a macho, masculine persona while still exhibiting a more positive, sensitive masculinity.

Manly men though aren’t the only type of man or masculinity that exists. They are the dominant stereotype in American media, but again they are only one type. And there are many, many different types of masculinity and ways men can express themselves.

I recently read an article talking about “The Noodle Boys” of Hollywood, Timothee Chalamet, Mark Edelstein from Anora, Dominic Sessa from The Holdovers, Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things and the Ghostbusters franchise. They’re wiry, skinny, they have a lanky physique. Even though their films span a handful of genres, they’re bodies signal a softer, more sensitive masculinity for people, something outside that mainstream, manly masculinity.

Then there’s the hit film last summer This Ends With Us, which dealt with the the issue of domestic violence and drew 2 distinct portraits of a toxic masculine lover vs. a more stoic, respectful manly man. Another film from 2024, I Saw The TV Glow was a tragic coming of age tale about a young man who struggled to fit into society, and existed in a wayward, liminal space where they didn’t know how to define their identity or gender.

A majority of men do not see themselves as hypermasculine or highly masculine, but those are the type of male heroes (or at least Hollywood believes) Americans want to see. I feel like mainstream film and television just in the past five years or so has gotten more used to showing different types of masculinity outside that manly, highly masculine man. I hope that trend continues.

There will always be terrific action films like Gladiator II. Let’s hope that there’s continues to be a small slice of the mainstream media cake for a softer masculinity, one not completely enwrapped in beefy muscles and trial by combat.

I appreciate you being generous with your time and listening to this episode of A Manly Podcast. Please subscribe on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m looking forward to sharing about a topic related to men and masculinity each week. On my next episode, I’ll be talking about gift guides, consumerism, and patriarchy. Till next time!