Lisa Maurice – Roger Corman's Female Gladiators: The Arena (1973) and The Arena (2001)

The pioneering work by scholars on the role of the ancient world in film has raised the issue of how such movies utilise that period in order to address modern issues and concerns. Recent scholarship in the wake of the hit movie, Gladiator, has in particular highlighted how the film draws parallels between modern American society and that of imperial Rome in order to pass social comment and criticism on the former. To date, however, the female gladiator of the big screen has been somewhat neglected. Yet in 1973 Roger Corman produced an exploitation movie set in the Roman empire, and centring around a group of female slaves who are trained as gladiators. Almost thirty years later, the movie was remade by the same producer. Both movies have the same essential story; yet there are very striking differences between the two versions, differences that reveal more about the issues facing modern society than they do about ancient Rome. These differences fall into four main categories: changes in setting, in plot, in characterisation and in emphasis, all of which contribute to a very different overall tone between the two films, and point to diffences in the periods in which they were produced.