Please can we talk about Gladiators?

[musicalfrog]

And how bloody amazing they are at smashing female stereotypes on primetime television, to a mostly family audience?

I almost can't believe it's on the BBC!

We have gorgeous, feminine Gladiators who aren't afraid to flex their muscles and be dominant, a range of different personalities in how they present themselves.

And the female contenders are showcasing a range of presentations from feminine to more masculine but not a hint of "I should really be a man" among them. They sometimes work in traditionally more male dominated areas such as the prison PT.

These are incredible role models for our daughters!

Well done Gladiators 👏

What about Cyclone?

I get what you're saying but the kids need someone to boo!

If it's too sanitised people will just switch off.

Just look at my username and have a guess who my favourite gladiator is! 😍She's my girl crush at the moment... . Tall and leggy with gorgeous blonde hair and a gorgeous face. Absolutely stunning. But also quite fierce ... 😱😄

I absolutely agree that the female gladiators are such good strong role models, who show girls that they don't just have to be typists and secretaries (or be in any stereotypical female roles ...) They can be strong and powerful sports women.

I think they're incredible and all the women are so attractive, and so stunning. I love watching it. I prefer watching the women to the men. What's that about? I swear I'm not gay. Probably. 😆

We love Gladiators in our house too. I'd like them to reign in some of the bad tempered stuff a bit, for the little ones watching (eg Viper tore up a kid's poster last week)

It was the talk of the playground in EYFS on Monday.

He's a very comedic villain.

I mean I don't think a bunch of jacked up steroid users are good role models for kids personally.

The documentary about the US gladiators on Netflix is worth a watch...definitely not with your kids though (sex drugs and graphic injuries).

Fair point about the 'roids. 'Giant' has publicly admitted to it (not that it'd be credible for someone with those measurements to do otherwise), and I very much doubt that he's alone on that score.

It's very right and proper of course that there are very distinct male and female categories. This Saturday just gone's QF [was it?] between the bald woman & the woman in a Hijab was of a very high standard, I thought.

A small/petty gripe, but I'd like to see just one of the female gladiators trying out an at least halfway short haircut. Other than that, excellent.

We’re fans of the show in our house but I don’t believe the men in particular achieve that naturally. I strongly suspect some chemical help is being used. 💉

Well that was just from my daughters mouth so her impression. And cyclone is a second series addition, and the only one. So I do think good role models, but still making separations between men and women by aggressive and nice behaviours.

It's great that a family teatime show has so much emphasis on fitness and the potential of the human body. The contenders are pleasingly ordinary (working mums, PE teachers, regional accents etc) as well as being super-athletic.

Some years ago the Guardian (when still readable) did a Where Are They Now feature on the 90s gladiators which was interesting. Apparently Wolf was a really decent bloke in real life.

This series we've been talking about how several of the women gladiators (Sabre especially, also Cyclone, sometimes diamond etc) aren't very gracious or sporting. Whereas the men often are. It was a bit different in season 1. In the last couple of episodes Comet and Athena have been really sporting - I prefer this to all the attitude after a round.

With respect you are generalising a bit there!

This isn't the US and I'm sure they are not all on steroids.

My focus for the thread was intended to be on the women but somehow along the way it has shifted towards the males. 😕

of all of them, both sexes, for my money only 'Legend' really has the acting chops/comic timing to convincingly, or at least entertainingly, pull off a contrived persona. I'd much prefer that the others stuck to good sports(wo)manship.

These days if they did that, the Guardian might have to hold their noses because Sharron Davies was Amazon in the fourth series.

I wonder what would happen if a TW rocked up wanting to compete against the female contender. How would the producers react? What would their decision be and would they be set upon by protestors?

I have also been watching this with pride with DD and DS and talking a lot about how big and strong the female glads are.

I also love how the men's outfits are as revealing as the women's!!! Not necessarily so I can admire their muscles but just because it's another reinforcement of them all being the same.

Thing is all those things were true of the original series, it just didn't enter peoples heads in those days. You everything from "pretty" Jet to fierce Rio and Nightshade, contenders like Eunice, true sportsmanship to bad boy Wolf (by far the best villain of the 3 incarnations). They were role models for kids back in the day and a nostalgic nod to family weekend TV you won't really get back in an internet driven society.

A particularly touching moment last show was Fury finding a banner with her name spelled in sign language, indicating the inspiration to deaf young people.

One would hope any trans-identified contestant would be quietly rejected on safety grounds alone. The amount of injuries even in single sex competitions over the years would make their "inclusion" insane.

I work in a school and so many of the girls want to be Gladiators.
There's hope for the future!

@kiterunning both my kids love it and my primary school aged daughter wants to be a teacher and a gladiator when she grows up.

This is too damn adorable!! 😍

As a super sporty girl myself, I could not agree more. As a child I built large bicep muscles as all I did was climb trees, drainpipes, hang off monkey bars etc. I adored the original Gladiators in the ‘90s as they did things I was interested in (climbing! 😂) My DD (3) is similarly already racing up walls at Clip n Climb and wowing everyone at soft play/parks, so I cannot tell you how delighted I am that she now also has this back on TV to watch, she loves it! I’m over the moon as a lifetime super fan 😂

We love it in our house too. It's been great for getting DD (5) interested in getting fit - she can be quite reluctant to leave the house but enjoys it when we're out, so it's been good to talk about how running around etc can make her fit and strong, ready to be a gladiator/contestant. I also like that they don't all win/lose with good grace, again because it's let us talk about being a good/bad winner/loser outside of the, it turns out highly emotionally charged, context of playing board games at home. Also really nice to see such a range of contestants. Yesterday, i found DD trying to tie a scarf around her head like the Muslim contestant (who's name I have forgotten but DD had remembered).

I completely agree. My 7 year old DD loves the show and particularly the women.

Another thing I love about this series is that all the gladiators seem to have really impressive athletic backgrounds. Olympic sprinters and rugby players etc. The women just as much as the men. And they are obviously all so nice and encouraging of the competitors - even the comedy villains are more comedy than villains. Great role models.

And of course the single sex element is something I fully support! It’s so important for kids to fully understand why it is important to preserve.

It's the other way round. I remember listening to a podcast where the original gladiator girls were saying it was their choice how skimpy they went, some of them just wanted to show off their athletic bodies.
I think they're told what to wear in the new series and it's not allowed to be too skimpy. If you look at Dynamites Instagram for example every other post is her in a barely there bikini - some of them are obscene! She's obviously told to cover up a bit for the show.

Just found this thread - we watch it as a family and love it. And, as others say, it’s a joy to watch powerful women and men competing by sex categories - hope that never changes. There was a stat on series two, relating to Diamond - I think it was that only 0.5% of women are over 6ft. I almost had to prod my telly and check it was the bbc who were issuing these facts. I suspect that stat doesn’t take into account all the 6ft plus ‘women’ they feature in their news reports!