Meet the Spartans

Have you watched movie-Meet the Spartans?What do you think about it.I think that Americans can ruin everything ,but especially history.I am sick of watching SPARTANS acting like gays!I know that comedy has to be funny but they chose wrong way to make us laugh.

It's just a spoof, and it looks funny. C'mon, 300 is the most spoofable film in recent years, there's so many lines and quotes that can be made hilarious. Just because they've done one about history doesn't mean that 'Americans can ruin everything.' What a sweeping statement.

This topic doesn't belong here, the General Discussion is meant for RTW.

Moved to the Arts.

Originally Posted by mikoli

Have you watched movie-Meet the Spartans?

Never have, never will.

Originally Posted by mikoli

What do you think about it.

I think it will probably be the worst movie since Epic Movie, which was the worst movie since Date Movie.

Originally Posted by mikoli

I think that Americans can ruin everything ,but especially history.

Please God don't tell me you think this movie at all represents, attempts to represent, or even tries to make people think it is representing history. This is a crap spoof put together to try to make fun of other hollywood movies.

Originally Posted by mikoli

I am sick of watching SPARTANS acting like gays!I know that comedy has to be funny but they chose wrong way to make us laugh.

Wait, where else have you seen spartans acting like gays?

Never would give this a try. It's utter year 2007 pop-culture nonesense. Its existence is a testament to the filth that can pass as a comedy movie in this day and age.

Don't we already have a thread like this?

Originally Posted by mikoli

Have you watched movie-Meet the Spartans?What do you think about it.I think that Americans can ruin everything ,but especially history.I am sick of watching SPARTANS acting like gays!I know that comedy has to be funny but they chose wrong way to make us laugh.

Sparta had state sponsored homosexuallity. Just to point that small fact out that all Spartan boys were expected to take a male lover

Sparta had state sponsored homosexuallity. Just to point that small fact out that all Spartan boys were expected to take a male lover

I have never heard nor read anything like this and I read a lot about Spartans. Can you provide me with a source, please?

Originally Posted by Fabius Maximus

I have never heard nor read anything like this and I read a lot about Spartans. Can you provide me with a source, please?

I can't provide with one off the top of my head but I'm pretty sure he's more-or-less correct in that older man/younger boy relationships were encouraged, but A: They were often pederastic, not just homosexual

B: They weren't 'gay lovers' in the sense you think of it today because....

...C: It was part of the military subculture - the older man was essentially a mentor to the younger and could be punished for his cowardice etc.

I thought that was more common among other greeks like the Athenians...

I wouldn't put my name on it, if I were you; the only sources that can be linked with homosexuality are found in plays. Yet, the Athenian writers had Plato hanging from a basket, preaching for the moon or every Athenian farting all day long: and we know all too well that no one farts as much as the Captain!

To tell you the truth, I don't even know how this whole greek homosexuality\pederasty thing started in the first place...

Originally Posted by The Super Pope

Sparta had state sponsored homosexuallity. Just to point that small fact out that all Spartan boys were expected to take a male lover

I thought that was more common among other greeks like the Athenians...

Still, I will have to agree with the_mango55 100%. Date Movie was the biggest piece of crap i had ever seen, until Epic Movie, and now this...Past experience has tought me that those movies suck...and I wont repeat the errors of the past...so I wont watch that thing...

Originally Posted by The Super Pope

Sparta had state sponsored homosexuallity. Just to point that small fact out that all Spartan boys were expected to take a male lover

That's a rather absolute statement.

The fact of the matter is that we have two major sources regarding the society of the Spartans--that is, the Lacedaemonian Homoioi: Xenophon and Plutarch.

Plutarch, writing from centuries in the future, asserted that the every promising youth had a lover who acted as his sponsor. Far from "state-sponsored", but nonetheless indicative of an accepted, wide-spread practice.

Xenophon, writing from within Lacedaemonian society, describes mentor-student relationships that he specifically qualifies as non-sexual--comparing the idea of a mentor having physical relations with a student as akin to a parent doing the same with their child. He uses the word "lover", but his work is written with the Athenian aristocrat in mind--who did subscribe to the concept of pederasty.

Both Xenophon and Plutarch describe rituals, ceremonies and dances that both claim were meant to induce attraction between the young men coming out of the Agoge (and thus into society) and naked young women coming into their adulthood. Those, unlike pederasty, were state-sponsored. Similarly, they both qualify many of the rules and regulations in place as being designed to heighten sexual longing between husband and spouse, for the purposes of better odds at quality procreation and stronger progeny.

Heck, Spartan society--again, according to both Xenophon and Plutarch--even had punishments for confirmed bachelors.

I have no doubt that the Spartans had their share of bi- and homosexual individuals, but all of the above are at odds with the idea of a society actively encouraging that sort of bond.

By contrast, we have the parodies of Aristophanes and the anecdotes offered by Plato--neither of whom lived within Lacedaemon. The former especially had every reason to ridicule the strange enemy to the south.

Originally Posted by gaius valerius

Lol. This statement is particulary funny. If you were to live in 6th or 5th century Greece, you'd be indulged in a world of bisexuality, pedophily, nudity, and much, much more. A typical argument with little concern for historic reality, then again, this isn't the right forumsection to discuss these things.

Again, that would depend on what region, polis, or even social stratum you were dealing with. Xenophon, who never shied away from the topic and belonged to a social class (aristocratic Athenian) that celebreated pederasty, specifically points out in his work on the Lacedaemonians that there are states that would fit under this category (Elis, Thebes) and others that wouldn't.

In Athens, an aristocratic young man of breeding and status would be considered a suitable liaison for a "mentor" who himself had grown up with that concept. Would a metic? What about a citizen's son whose family had no real wealth, status, or claim to fame?

Too many broad generalizations and assumptions...

Originally Posted by Fabius Maximus

To tell you the truth, I don't even know how this whole greek homosexuality\pederasty thing started in the first place...

There's no doubt it existed; too many sources point to the custom. The question is how widespread it was. Just looking at Athenian law regarding schoolchildren, teachers, etc., it's obvious that a healthy majority of citizens did not want an older "mentor" hanging out with their sons at gymnasia and such.

Originally Posted by Phoebus

There's no doubt it existed; too many sources point to the custom. The question is how widespread it was. Just looking at Athenian law regarding schoolchildren, teachers, etc., it's obvious that a healthy majority of citizens did not want an older "mentor" hanging out with their sons at gymnasia and such.

Like tight-short-wearing P.E. teachers...

Originally Posted by mikoli

I am sick of watching SPARTANS acting like gays!I.

Lol. This statement is particulary funny. If you were to live in 6th or 5th century Greece, you'd be indulged in a world of bisexuality, pedophily, nudity, and much, much more. A typical argument with little concern for historic reality, then again, this isn't the right forumsection to discuss these things.

Originally Posted by gaius valerius

Lol. This statement is particulary funny. If you were to live in 6th or 5th century Greece, you'd be indulged in a world of bisexuality, pedophily, nudity, and much, much more. A typical argument with little concern for historic reality, then again, this isn't the right forumsection to discuss these things.

Indeed, there's a reason Leonidas calls the Athenians "boy-lovers". Nearly all powerful males in the Hellenistic world had a wife and a younger male lover. Even Alexander the Great had a male companion. It was quite the norm back then.

Originally Posted by Il Duce

Indeed, there's a reason Leonidas calls the Athenians "boy-lovers". Nearly all powerful males in the Hellenistic world had a wife and a younger male lover. Even Alexander the Great had a male companion. It was quite the norm back then.

Or you could refer to my post in page for for evidence to the contrary.

There were certainly individuals who did have such relationships. Alcibiades comes off the top of my head, Lysander might have been one (his relationship with Agesilaos was written of later in history, but Xenophon's description of the king makes it a likely proposition), Epaminondas came from a society that valued such relations, etc.

And then there are others, from Athens and without, who are never mentioned as having homoerotic affairs. At any rate, my point is that we have to avoid generalizations and stereotypes. They do no service to history.

Originally Posted by The Super Pope

For a good source, Paul Cartledge's 'The Spartans: An Epic History' ...

Which relies on Plutarch and, despite providing and citing evidence to the contrary, argues for only one side of the debate.

quicker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_pederasty

Also, less accurate and more one-sided. The evidence the article itself cites mostly focuses on Italian art and Cretan Doric raditions--the same ones that Athens' aristocracy likely pantomimed. It arrives at conclusions provided by favorable sources, but ignores sources that outright counter theirs. Given that the favorable data was written centuries after the contrary, contemporary ones that were written by someone who lived in Sparta, I'd say that's fairly telling.

Bottom line? State-sponsored pederasty in Sparta is probably a big a myth as the idea that there was equality of wealth among all Spartans. The only difference is that the former is more of a recent creation than the latter.

Actually, schoolteachers are specifically mentioned (well, maybe not as wearing tight shorts). But, hey, try also complete strangers.

Appararently some things haven't changed in centuries. :nauseated:

The bottom-line is that classic Greece had a very different conception of sexuality and nudity than the by christian moral haunted west.

I'm merely responding to generalizations and assumptions, that's all. The fact of the matter is that Greece was a varied enough place that very few statements can be made that can stick to all the disparate regions and city-states encompassed by her. In this case, we're talking about sexuality, and I stick by my original post. Where your subsequent post is concerned, though, I wholeheartedly agree.