Ridley Scott was on a run when he handed down Kingdom of Heaven, a Crusader Epic that seemed ambitious and ballsy so soon after 9/11. A bomb that was initially torn to shreds by critics and panned by the audience, Kingdom of Heaven’s Director’s Cut was released almost immediately with more mixed results. While some can see the steady hand of a master filmmaker, others wondered why Scott had changed so much history with the effect of making a more racist and more sexist film. Dave Anderson returns to the Hacienda to go with me scene by scene through this problematic but engaging story of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Listen to us argue about history, plot, and what the Leper King can tell us about the Second Gulf War. The Super 70 Podcast is available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, and my website at www.thatdylandavis.com. All music on The Super 70 Podcast is provided by Rozalind MacPhail whom you can find on SoundCloud.com. Works Cited: Tyerman, Christopher. God’s War: A New History of the Crusades. Belknap Press, Cambridge. Pages, Meriem. From Crusading Queen to Damsel in Distress: Re-Imagining Sibylla of Jerusalem in Kingdom of Heaven. Gender and History Vol. 30 No. 3. October 2018. Pp. 696-703 Hayes, Dawn Marie. Harnassing the Potential in Historiography and Popular Culture When Teaching the Crusades. The History Teacher, Vol 40. No 3 (May 2007) pp. 349-361 Biddick, Kathleen. Unbinding the Flesh That Remains: Crusader Martyrdom Then and Now. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Volume 13, Number 2-3, 2007, pp 197-225. Duke University Press. Pages, Meriem. Saracens Abroad: Imagining medieval Muslim Warriors on the Silver Screen. Essays in Medieval Studies, Vol 32, 2016, pp5-21. West Virginia University Press. Schlimm, Matthew Richard. The Necessity of Permanent Criticism: A Postcolonial Critique of Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. Journal of Media and Religion, 9; 129-149, 2010 Routledge.
