The homoerotic scene cut from Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Spartacus’
While the likes of The Shining, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange might take the spotlight when it comes to the works of Stanley Kubrick, one must not look beyond his 1960 epic historical drama Spartacus, starring Kirk Douglas in the lead role as a slave who leads a rebellion against Rome in the ancient era.
Featuring a truly brilliant cast including Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin and Tony Curtis, Spartacus serves as an early insight into Kubrick’s genius as a director, and it won four Academy Awards, including ‘Best Cinematography’ after being nominated six times.
Even despite the truly iconic nature of Kubrick’s film, there’s a slice of its history that did not make the final cut version. In fact, there is a deleted homoerotic scene that takes place between Tony Curtis’ slave character Antoninus and Laurence Olivier’s Roman senator, Crassus, which serves as a testament to Kubrick’s willingness to challenge societal norms.
The scene in question was written by Dalton Trumbo but was later removed over censorship concerns. It takes place in a Roman bathhouse and sees Crassus suggest that he expects his servants to please him sexually. “Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?” he asks. “It is all a matter of taste. And taste is not the same as appetite and, therefore, not a question of morals, is it? My tastes include both snails and oysters.”
Antoninus proceeds to bathe his master in an undeniably sexually charged and suggestive fashion. Homoeroticism was not uncommon in ancient Rome, of course, but in the conservative realm of 1960s Hollywood, sexual acts between men, especially those depicted on screen, were perceived as obscene, so Kubrick’s decision to include such a scene was met with scorn from the studio executives.
This studio decision is a great shame because the scene actually adds layers of nuance to the characters of Spartacus and examines the power dynamics between them. The power-mad and ruthless Crassus shows a rare moment of vulnerability with his slave Antoninus, but the removal of the scene leaves Olivier’s character rather one-dimensional.
The film was, therefore, sanitised, but the legacy of the scene thankfully lives on, proving that at least Kubrick was aware of the kind of relationships that occurred in ancient Greece. In recent years, there has been interest in restoring the scene to the film, which would serve as a fitting tribute to our times and our admiration for the director himself.
