https://x.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1807761088101982678
First look at ‘GLADIATOR 2’
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) July 1, 2024
In theaters on November 22.
(Source: https://t.co/0rnS4zFGwH) pic.twitter.com/8h5WeKP86Z
Also some Denzel:
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/paul-mescal-pedro-pascal-gladiator-ii-first-look
The folk are cautiously optimistic:
And this:
!kino discuss
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I have nothing against denzen washington, great actor, love him, esp in man on fire. But like isn't he a BIPOC? in rome? in power?
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Ancient Romans didn't have a concept of race, wiki says he was a former slave turned into a rich merchant, that sort of stuff hapenned in Rome and you could achieve citizenship despite being a freed slave. The Roman Empire was multicultural and multiethnic, black people were still rare but it's not far-fetched, unlike making half the british gentry and the Royal Family black like in Bridgerton
!historychads
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Didnt they have a concept of race as in "everyone who isnt us is a barbarian". Also didnt they hate !germs?
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that meme fits so many groups so well
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Of course they could differentiate between human beings and Germonkeys; that has nothing to do with race. You might as well bring up their knowledge of the differences between buffalo and goats.
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It was cultural, not racial, especially in the late Empire. Caracalla (he also made all provincials citizens of the Empire) and his father Septimius Severus were Carthaginians, and there were several provincial emperors like Trajan (from Hispania).
The Germanic tribes were outside the Empire and still culturally unroman. But later you end up with Generals of germanic ancestry. The Romans were much more xenophobic during the Republic than the Empire.
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All history nerds need to either turn out full 1488 or full commie
Which way, historyman?
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The eternal (((Canaanite))) has taken over Rome
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Surely they could see and describe the physical differences between a subsaharan and a most likely tanned Mediterranean Greek like Cleopatra. IIRC even Philip the Arab was described as being more than culturally different.
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I think it broke down on fault lines we would consider really weird today though. Like there weren't enough black people for anyone to care that much about them, but the West and East didn't trust each either.
At some point by the early medieval period at least they did have a pretty coherent theory of race. It was all about what latitude you're from. As you go farther north you get bigger, stronger, whiter, dumber, and more honest.
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It's called neurodivergent
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They would definitely come out as odd looking (exotic maybe?), but nothing indicates Romans ever treated people poorly because of skin color. Large cities like Rome itself would receive thousands of foreigners and provincial merchants so they would be use to odd looking features.
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i read that he's just playing a rich merchant or something. that's totally possible for the empire. i wouldn't even begin to ask questions until they made a subsaharan emperor. i know hoteps think septimus was black, but nope.
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Eh at least it's Denzel the guy is a great
Shakespearean actor, he's done Julius Caesar 
on stage before 
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Lightest skinned Italian actor they could find
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The character could be Sicilian.
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Race was legitimately seen very differently during the Empire. You could be seen as Roman while being black. Coming from the provinces was originally more of a taboo problem than race would have been.
It's one of the few times burger identity politics don't necessarily break history.
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The Roman Empire had vast outcome disparities between various identity groups, but the Romans weren't r-slurred enough to use this as justification for discrimination the way the US is doing now.
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Especially in the Late Republic to 1st Century AD. This film is set in the 3rd century and by then Caracalla had made everyone born in the Empire a citizen. Plus they had so many emperors and senators of Provincial origin no one gave a frick anymore.
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who cares he's a black chud i LOVE him
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Denzel is /ourguy/?
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Lol Redditors are gonna bring up how 1 of the emperors was a bipoc for sure !historychads
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It's at least somewhat plausible this time, not like trying to put blacks into rural medieval Bohemia. Not likely, but plausible enough to put in a movie. I mean it's fricking Gladiator, you don't expect it to be 100% historically accurate.
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