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Fundamentally Immoral Trick - How Gladiator Cheats


Absolutely gorgeous movie, great action scenes and a classic story but it cheats in a major way. The gladiators that Maximus and his buddies must fight are almost invariably costumed or have their faces hidden or dehumanized in some way to hide the fact that its just one gladiator killing another gladiator to amuse the mob. Of course the only opposing gladiator we get to know is Tigris of Gaul and in the end with his mask off he becomes very human - and of course Maximus spares him. In the movie Spartacus, they are very clear about the ugly slaughter of gladiators by one another.

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Part of it is because of the way the MPAA rates movies. Gladiator was able to escape getting an R rating because the most gruesome deaths were of characters whose face you never see.

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A man without a face becomes something less than human.

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Gladiator escaped an R rating?

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No it did not.

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