Question

How does the movie Ben Hur (1959) problematize male friendship and the male body?

Answer 1

the novel itself is rife with suggestions that there is more to the boys’ friendship than one might imagine, coming as it all does from the pen of a Civil War general. Take that strange “Eros is dead. Mars reigns!” line. Eros? Never mind that Eros was a Greek god, not a Roman one. (Cupid was the Roman one.) He was in both cases the god of desire, and it was not the desire for material objects. Eros was all about sex. So when Messala makes his transition from Judah’s friend to his enemy, he alludes to their former status as two boys in love.

The Fifties was in fact a time when America was intrigued and horrified by homosexuality and homosexuals. A novel in which a homosexual male desire lies just beneath the surface was a perfect choice for source material for a 1959 movie.