Alexander the Great's Gay Depiction on Netflix Sparks Conservative Fury

Anti-woke campaigners have vented their fury at Netflix over its depiction of Alexander the Great as a bisexual man.

Alexander: The Making of a God charts the rise to power of the ruler of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon, charts how he acquired one of the largest empires in history, spanning from Greece to northwestern India, and also takes an intimate look at his rumored love life.

Released on January 31, the six-part docuseries features historians and dramatic reenactments of Alexander's life and has been one of the top 10 viewed series on Netflix since its debut, according to FlixPatrol.

Early on in the first episode Alexander (Buck Braithwaite) is seen kissing his good friend and possible lover, Hephaestion (Will Stevens).

"Hephaestion really was not just a cherished companion, but perhaps [Alexander's] greatest love," Dr. Salima Ikram of the American University of Cairo says in the series.

Another historian argued that sexual orientation was defined very differently in Ancient Greece, if at all.

"Same-sex relationships were quite the norm throughout the Greek world," Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones of Cardiff University in Wales says in the first episode. "The Greeks did not have a word for homosexuality, or to be gay. It just wasn't in their vocabulary whatsoever. There was just being sexual."

But that was not enough to convince conservatives who got mad at the thought Alexander might have had sex with men.

"Netflix made a new documentary about Alexander The Great. Within the first 8 minutes, they turned him gay," complained the End Wokeness account on X, formerly Twitter.

Another said: "Those who control Hollywood are part of the globalist agenda. Destroying families, spreading degeneracy, dismantling traditions, depopulating US/EU through social engineering... those are their long-term objectives. Nobody to protect Alexander the Great from these satanists."

And a third wrote: "Sad to report that Netflix has turned that pinnacle of hetero masculinity, Alexander the Great, gay."

But others poked fun at conservatives for not knowing Alexander most likely had same-sex relationships.

"The Right are losing their minds because apparently they don't know that Alexander The Great was famously bisexual. 🤣 "I love the poorly educated" - Trump," joked one person.

Was Alexander the Great Gay or Bisexual?

The jury is still out on the definitive answer, mainly because of the lack of concrete evidence via written records, but it is widely acknowledged that Alexander could have been bisexual because he was likely intimate with men, especially those he served with in the military.

He also fathered at least one son and was married at least twice, including to Roxana, with whom he was thought to be deeply in love with, according to Alexandra Birch a history graduate at the University of Manchester in England.

"Sexual orientation was not the defining factor in sex, rather the role that each participant played: the dominant, higher-class, older partner took an active role, and the younger, lower-class partner took a passive one," Birch wrote for The Manchester Historian.

"Nonetheless, homosexual men of the same class experienced social stigma as the passive role was more effeminate," she said. "As Macedonian king, Alexander could partake in sexual relations with anyone, so long as he maintained the dominant role."

Another reason why the question of Alexander's sexuality cannot be definitively answered is because Alexander's bisexuality may have been erased by scholars and LGBT references censored in eras such as the Byzantine and Victorian periods, and possibly right up to more modern times.

"Even in a culture that accepted bisexuality, Alexander and Hephaestion's relationship was an outlier and thus treated differently," wrote George Washington University's Athena Richardson. "My research shows how this same-sex relationship was erased, censored, and altered to fit norms of subsequent cultures.

"Ancient biographers may have conducted censorship to conceal any implication of femininity or submissiveness in Alexander that this relationship dynamic might suggest. As a result, subsequent cultures would have hidden the relationship too."

Birch described how Alexander was so grief-stricken when Hephaestion died that he had to be dragged away from his body, but because of the taboo around LGBT sexualities, we may never know the true extent of their relationship.

"Unfortunately, because of the stigmas against homosexuality and bisexuality, especially that against Alexander's sexual submissiveness to a man, historians may never truly understand the nature of their relationship," according to Richardson. "It is possible that no one in his court entirely comprehended their connection, hesitating to ask out of respect for their king's privacy, and so a true understanding died with Alexander in 323 BCE."