Netflix is in the centre of a row with the Greek government after the launch of its brand new series about Alexander the Great.
Alexander: The Making of a God follows Buck Braithwaite in the titular role as it explores the military campaign of the ancient Greek ruler, who lived over 2,000 years ago.
Conservatives were already flipping out at Netflix for ‘turning Alexander gay’ and now members of Greece’s parliament have weighed in on the issue.
Speaking in parliament, Dimitris Natsiou, the leader of the far-right Christian Orthodox party Niki, too aim at the series’ ‘historical inaccuracies’ regarding Alexander’s sexuality.
The comments come after the series depicted Alexander as being involved in a romantic relationship with Hephaestion, his confidant and close friend at the time.
Calling the series ‘deplorable, unacceptable and unhistorical,’ he then said: ‘[The docuseries tries to] subliminally convey the notion that homosexuality was acceptable in ancient times, an element that has no basis.’
Supporting his comments was the country’s minister for culture, Lina Mendoni, who branded it as ‘extremely poor-quality fiction’ and ‘low content, rife with historical inaccuracies’.
Greek newspaper Eleftheros Typos also published a column this week blaming the 2004 film Alexander, starring Colin Farrell, for turning the new Netflix series into a ‘distortion of the truth’.
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The paper claimed that the Oliver Stone box office bomb from 20 years ago had started a ‘propaganda campaign about Alexander’s homosexuality’.
However, despite the outrage from some viewers and from some figures in Greek politics, some historians and experts on ancient Greece believe Alexander may have been either homosexual or bisexual.
Alexander is known to have been married three times and was the father of at least one child, but the work of ancient historians has resulted in conflicting views in regarding his sexuality.
In particular, British historian Paul Cartledge argued that any attempt to ‘expunge all trace, or taint, of homosexuality’ would be ‘seriously misguided’.
On X, user Joseph Jones said: ‘Alexander was bisexual, having lovers of both sexes. This has been known throughout history and is not breaking news.’
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In ancient Greece, same-sex relationships were fairly common, with men in elite circles, such as Achilles and Patroclus, and Theseus and Pirithous, known to have ‘close emotional bonds’.
And in the Netflix series, Dr. Salima Ikram of the American University of Cairo also argues that Hephaestion ‘really was not just a cherished companion, but perhaps [Alexander’s] greatest love’.
The Netflix series shows him deeply in love with his childhood friend and military commander, as well as making allusions to his relations with Ptolemy, one of his military generals.
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Alexander: Making of a God is available to stream on Netflix.
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