“…a More Sympathetic Reunion…”:

Ben-Hur (1959), Subtextual Adaptation, Sexual Politics and the Art of Homoerotic Performance

Abstract

In this essay I will take a closer look at a legendary ‘gay subplot’ in the history of mainstream Hollywood film production—the unrequited love story between the Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur and the Roman tribune Messala in the 1959 Hollywood “sword and sandle” blockbuster Ben-Hur. I will focus on three heretofore neglected dimensions. First, the extent to which the subplot makes it possible to understand Ben-Hur as a subtextual adaptation of Gore Vidal’s controversial 1948 novel, The City and the Pillar; secondly, how the link between the film and the novel by Vidal sheds light upon the sexual politics of homosexual rights as they were being conceptualized and developed after World War II; and, thirdly, how this subplot, far from having been ‘slipped in’, was fully integrated into the production not only through subtextual adaptation, but also via cinematography, music, and especially dramatic performance.