Big Screen Rome - Amazon Web Services

Messala snidely describes the generous four to one odds as “the difference
between a Roman and a Jew,” another Roman chimes in, “or an Arab,”
linking the two groups in their opposition to Rome. While Judah wants
vengeance by humiliating and defeating Messala, the Sheik targets the
tribune’s financial security, the very lifeblood of Roman imperial conquest.
It is the Sheik who presents Judah with the silver Star of David, the
sacred symbol of the Jewish religion, in the minutes before the chariot
race begins, as he reminds Judah to be true to his faith against the pagan
foreign oppressors: “The Star of David will shine out for your people and
my people together and blind the eyes of Rome.” Wyler’s film somewhat
hopefully affirms the possibility of freedom fighters joining together to
resist the dominant power.
In the realm of gender issues, Ben-Hur follows a visual trend initiated
by the earlier film The Robe in focusing its erotic gaze on the male, rather
than the female, figure. These films tend to objectify and sexualize the
male physique for the eyes of the audience: “the bath scenes of the toga
movie are populated by well-oiled male bodies” (Fitzgerald, 36). But male
nudity in Ben-Hur also implies contradictory images of power and vulnerability,
perhaps in response to changing ideas about masculine identity
and gender roles in the late 1950s. During the bathhouse sequence where
the Sheik cajoles Messala into staking his entire fortune on the chariot
race, the heavily robed Arabs provide a stark contrast to the scantily
attired Romans. Clad only in a small white towel, his arms and chest shining
with pale beauty, Messala’s nakedness openly displays his masculine
potency, but at the same time exposes a certain weakness: the undressed
Messala is seduced, like a woman, by the Sheik’s sugary compliments.
Similarly, the exhibition of Judah’s naked body occurs most prominently
in the scenes where Judah is negotiating the tricky hierarchies of his relationship
with Arrius. As a slave, Judah’s vulnerable nudity is on display in
the galley scene as Arrius watches him sweating over his oar, then in the
consular stateroom when Judah appears only in a loincloth. After he saves
Arrius, Judah demonstrates the new reversal of authority as he stretches to
his full muscular height, almost naked, on the raft where he holds the
Roman commander in chains. Ben-Hur emphasizes a paradoxical image
of masculinity, both as a conventional symbol of Rome’s might in the
sleek muscularity of Messala, but also the will and perseverance in Judah’s
nude humanity. While their spirited slogan is “Down Eros, Up Mars!”
both gods are in evidence in the film’s depiction of unclothed male beauty,
in all its strength and susceptibility.
BEN-HUR (1959) 87