Sliding Between Erotic and Non-erotic Readings

Indeed, the meaning of these physical poses can be slippery since the visual tropes allow for a sliding between erotic and non-erotic readings. The image on the right mirrors that on the left, the two sets of bodies grappling in strikingly similar poses. There is a definite erotic subtext to the image on the right - the film’s story, in part, involves the romantic interaction of these two figures. Not the eyes locked, which to me evokes the images of the battlefield encounter of Achilles and Penthesileia when he stabs her and falls in love with her at the same moment.

How then do we read the image on the left? The background promises a heterosexual component to the story, and note that in contrast to the poster on the right the men do not look at one another during their struggle. Indeed, there is a recurring avoidance of eye contact between males in these posters, expressing a kind of anxiety around the gaze. But within the charged erotics of the sword-and-sandal poster, it is sometimes hard not to read - or reread - male interactions in a sexual way. The best of these posters maintain a visual ambiguity, allowing the viewer to project his (and her) fantasies and desires onto the image.