Love

Love, like toga movie songs, is turned upside down and made foolish, instead of painfully romantic. One of the most hilarious musical number in Forum is the love theme between Hero and Philia, which has very loving lyrics, but is made funny by Hero bumbling after Philia like a doofus, as she walks through a series of romantic settings. He swings from a tree grabbing for her as she unseeingly sings of sweetness. He then coos, begging her just to say his name, but she’s forgotten it. Finally they appear in a honey colored, wooded meadow and Hero manages to knock over a tree and behave like a wiggly little puppy.

This scene could act as thesis for what a good toga movie does. It takes traditional elements of toga movies—in this case it’s two lovers who have something keeping them apart—and makes fun of the convention by making the serious things silly.

As seen in Cleopatra(1963), Ben Hur(1925, 1959), Sign of the Cross and countless others, love is the stuff of fiery passion, eternity and a lot of drawn out sappy looks. Cleopatra for example, was essentially a four-hour analysis of power-hungry couple dynamics. When Anthony boards Cleopatra vessel in a Roman port, the scene is filled with sexual tension and plenty of vaginal symbolism as he cuts away the soft hanging surrounding her bed.

Forum doesn’t try to convincingly portray epic love. It makes fun of love and how ungainly and common it is. Before Hero meets his maiden, he attempts cartoon like stunts, such as strapping himself to a catapult, aimed at his ladies window.

Funny Quote:

“Receive, oh bosom, thy fatal blade” This is Hero’s exclamation, when he learns that Philia is sold to another man. His faithful blade misses by half a foot and merely snags his toga. This is parodying the desperate love and loss in toga movie. Think of Cleopatra voluntarily being bit by a poisonous snake at the end of Cleopatra.