I just got finished watching 300–the movie adaptation of the Frank Miller graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae. Trying to get a read on thoughts before I offer my own I find posts about technique, about the western civ angle, and about its relative lack of emotion.
For me?
These bits stand out:
- How can a society value freedom if it kills its young who don’t conform to societal standards?
- The politicians were extremely weak, almost effeminate, in comparison to the manly male soldiers.
- The Persian army was comprised of Africans, East Asians, Southwest Asians, and at least one white soldier. By contrast the 300 were all white.
- Not only were the Spartans all white, they were all perfect …while the Persian army was not only non-white they were deformed (with a couple of exceptions).
- The strength of the 300 lay in their ability to bind themselves together into a single unit, and this binding was emphasized again and again.
The end result was the most fascistic movie I’ve ever seen. Even though the movie is told from the viewpoint of the Spartans, there is no reason why someone like me would want Sparta to be saved. It doesn’t value racial difference, thinks democracy is a crock (no compromise! politicians are punks!), has stark notions of who is and is not genetically worthy, over-emphasizes military conflict as a means of building city-state unity and security. I supported the Spartan traits of resilience, and perseverance, but this support was not enough to overcome my revulsion at the society we’re supposed to be rooting for. They may as well have been Nazis.
Beautiful? No doubt. Epic? You bet.
Fascist? Yes.
(Edited to add)
Stephen Hunter gets it right, though he doesn’t drop the f word.
Dear Dr. Spence,
I think few of us would want to live in Sparta–but thank goodness some do. The Marines come in handy sometimes.
All the best,
D. Ox
I feel you (though not your handle *lol*). But the Marines don’t (thankfully) have their own state. And at this present moment (thankfully) neither they, nor the country they seek to protect, are exclusive in the way Sparta was.
I enjoyed the movie as a compelling translation from graphic novel to screen. Think about the screen adapatations of Daredevil and Elektra and you see where, particularly from an aesthetic standpoint, the filmmakers didn’t quite “get it”. So, I applaud director Snyder on his ability to capture and recreate Frank Miller’s visual impact. However, Lester, what you write is true: It’s hard to watch the movie as an African American and be completely moved by it’s calls for freedom and independence when there’s not one person of color among the good guys. It’s also interesting how the Western world really understands the concept of freedom, but only, seemingly, in instances when it applies to itself, and less often when it applies to “others”.
Is it just me or is it strange how the movie tries to posit fascitic Sparta as a utopia and the one unintentional act of kindness on the state’s part (the hunchback who escaped the eugenic authorities) comes back to betray the heroes? I loved the battle scenes but I think the film would have been much better if it omitted the commentary about the superiority of Spartan values and focused rather on the band of brothers theme. Such an approach would have deflected criticisms regarding ethnic compositions of the heroes and villians. The movie tries to evoke the organic beauty and lyricism of the Iliad but is much more akin to the Aeneid, a work commisioned by Ceasar Augustus to validate his empire’s existence.
I was thinking something a little different–making both sides as similar phenotypically as they likely were in reality. But you’re right–they dull either the racial angle, or the values angle, and it becomes a much better movie. From our point of view at least.
I like Rob Fields comment. I enjoyed the movie thoroughly. The same way I enjoyed the da vinci code. ..by not thinking too much, and excepting the story, as a story.
There is an intrinsict truth, that comes true always. No matter how bad the telling of the truth.
I’d like to push you on this Ming. Values like honor, truth, and valor, are values that many of us hold dear. But there are clear cases in which these values are used to support political practices we would find abhorrent. Something like The Birth of a Nation has these values in spades, but within a framework of white supremacy. Does the presence of, or the promotion of these values within movies always trump the political framework of the movie itself?
I continue to be a bit dumbfounded by all the fascination with the good looks of the Spartan soldiers reinscribing itself on the little white aesthetic inside all y’alls colonized heads. I saw great soldiers – in fact, I kept seeing this film being played for Marines.
So what I suppose I’m going to have to do is talk about the lessons I saw as most critical to my viewing it as a successful moral tale since for some reason this is rorscharching all wrong in y’all’s twisted heads.
“For some reason…”
If you work on the premise that my head isn’t twisted…what do you think this reason might be?
You’re second guessing people whom you presume aren’t discerning enough to be non-plussed.
Where am I doing this in the posts or the comments?
I couldn’t agree more Doc. I thought the movie as movie was a tremendous work of art, a credit to how far the movie industry has been able to integrate cutting edge technology, the thing was like 90% cgi if not more. I was thoroughly entertained. Especially since I’m right in the middle of reading Herodotus’ History which is a general treatment of the Greco-Persian War.
However the fascist elements were not lost on me at all: eugenics, perfect race as state, outside enemy wishing to degenerate the purity of the nation, xenophobia, homophobia(in ancient Greece of all places!!! Sparta was not free of its own pederasty), etc. the list could go on and on.
Compelling movie, certainly raises a lot of questions and thoughts about what the American movie-going public is concerned about. What about a movie like this connects with them, whether they are attracted to the idea’s of purity put forth throughout, and what kind of purity are they seeking, or whether it’s the honor and glory against all odds aspect, or one of the other numerous themes.
I don’t know, good movie though.
I still haven’t seen it, but am enjoying your review.
Thinking about Miller’s comics and the movies, I wonder about the cinema of sexual immaturity. Miller has always had this sword-maiden thing going on, mixed into his balletic violence. It maps neatly onto his fixation on the Greeks-to-Disney equation of internal character with external appearance – the good-looking awesome fighter guys get, and deserve, the warrior chicks. The ugly therefore bad guys complete the triangle of desire.
Would be interesting to compare with Spielberg, whose entire career is a description of a childlike fear of sexuality. Spielberg’s sexual imagination is of a kid around 8 years old; Miller, a boy around, what, 13?
puts a new spin on the girl robin in the dark knight returns.
Hi Lester,
I agree with your POV on 300, but I love this movie! As a matter of fact I saw it again today on iMax.
While watching today, I payed more attention to the overt/underlying themes of supremacy. If I sat down & broke the details down to the metaphysical I probably would get upset with the film in regards to the race & class aspects.
One question I found asked myself this time around was how in the hell did they get them huge elephants & rhinoceros there on them boats.
Peace,
Bygbaby
That last question is actually a good one. Damn good boats I guess!
I was talking with somebody about this last night. This is the type of movie that, in other circumstances, I’d have been quoting as I was going around smacking fools. And if the action were less numbing I could have at least rolled with the ass-whooping component. As it stands I’ll still buy it for the purposes of class dissection.