The Anti-300 Debate?

It happens time and time again that people completely forget that sometimes going to see a movie can be fun and entertaining...and that's it. Not everything in this world has to be a political statement. You're exactly right when you say that it's just a movie. Nowadays it seems like everyone is seventy-eight years old and they completely neglect the thirteen year old kid inside that just wants to enjoy life.

For God's sake if we can't even enjoy ourselves at the movie theater, where in the world CAN we escape to? I am an amateur filmmaker in a New England film school and it blows my mind how many other potential filmmakers here have no interest whatsoever in making films to entertain. I'm the only one that wants to make the next Indiana Jones.

I for one, will be in line first thing tomorrow for 300 and I cannot wait to actually enjoy myself for a change without thinking too much about it.

Art has no obligation whatsoever to anyone.

I'm a persian...and i LOVED THE MOVIE!!!!...alongside the amazing action scenes i was laughing my ass off on how a million other persians would be pissed off. I mean,yea ...they showed us persians as something completely other than who we really are...but,they did it so awesomely,it doesn't really matter anymore :D !
To all the persians who are pissed off, make the same movie but with a persian twist if you really care...and if you don't,just shove it and enjoy the show.Get a reality check,History is written by the victors ppl...and in this age Hollywood rules!

My short version of my pro-300 arguement: The narrative structure of 300 is based around one character (David Wenham's Delios) narrating the story to others. He is a Spartan who was at the battle and thus has a negative view of them. Also in the style of story-telling at the time he will hyperbolize the story, making the immortals actual demons, really tall men even taller, and giant soldiers into hideous monsters. It is no way a reflection of the Film Makers, but rather a clever and artistic way of having cool elements thrown in by letting a Spartan mythologize the story.

Oh and I checked out Gibson's petition and heard this elsewhere where people say it was "proven some Spartans were homosexuals." Well, I'm sure along the line some where, but it is by far not well documented.

Many prominent scholars (Plato, Lycurgus, Plutarch, and Cicero) described the system in Sparta as chaste, but erotic in its pederastery. Meaning older men would be partnered with young boys at the discretion of the boy and the man would become the mentor. These scholars say that no sex was involved.

The erotic aspect comes from the spartan body image which lead them to accept nudity and oiling of the body to better show it off. Also, with military training and wrestling, which could be done oiled and in the nude, it's clear many might call that "gay."

But it was a method of the time and while our society may look upon it differently, many scholars of the time consider the Spartans to not have been homosexual.

Modern scholars cast the net of homosexuality upon the Spartans because of their Greek association and a lack of Spartan recorded history being left behind. Scholars assume "The greeks did it and the spartans lived when the greeks did so they're probably similar."

However, history and fact show that the Spartans varied greatly from the Greeks and most other civilizations at the time.

Good point. It's just a movie, so who cares?

Besides, if you were actually paying attention to the movie, the whole movie was told by David Wenham's character. He was a Spartan and what Spartan would tell a story that spoke favorably of the Persians. He was supposed to make them sound like savages and such.

Do they expect a Spartan to tell a story and make their enemy, the Persians, sound like honorable and wonderful people?

r u serious? if some writers or director make a movie that americans were savages who have had africans as thier servents, will u be hppy about it. everything and anything has its place like histroy which is our past and origins.

Miller could show Persians eat their own hearts if he wanted to.

It's called freedom of artistic expression and whoever uses it is automatically submited to all kinds of criticism.

That's how it works.

There is no argument over art that one shouldn't express at all.

In response to a few posts below, the critics of the movie do not want to stop the artists' freedom of expression(for instance in the form of passing some form of legislation to regulate speech). It is not an attack on liberalism and freedom, rather its a questioning of the ethics of the filmmakers and an insight into our cultural sensibilities. This isn't a Political discussion, rather its a cultural one with political implications.

What bothers me, and fascinates me at the same time, is that this film plays into stereotypes of "West" vs "East". To break the binary down, it is "Masculine" vs. "Effeminate" (homosexual looking Persian King), "white" vs. "black, brown, and monstrous", "democratic" vs. "demagogic".

Further playing into this stereotype, especially on the last point, is that the Spartan's worldview was centered around the idea of "freedom", which is definitely not the case. At the risk of being anachronistic in my historical analogy, the Spartans are probably the best example of ancient totalitarianism.

Therefore, what separates me from Dr. Nasab and the petitioners isn't only the fact that the Persians were misrepresented, but that the Spartans were as well; and in the process, it played into the dichotomy between "democratic and free" vs. "Imperial and oppressed"

My main point of critique, as a person concerned with sociological issues, is that this film buys into the hysteria of the moment that has pitted America versus the Middle East, and has recently wanted to continue this aggresssion against Iran. There should be no room in our civil discourse, whether in entertainment or politics (if you wish to make that dichotomy), for a film like this during a tense moment of diplomacy with the another nation. The public should have rejected this and seen through its aesthetic (which really looks like nothing more than an over-budgeted Evanescence music video).

If anyone is interested in this line of inquiry, especially into the dichotomy between "self" and "other" (West vs. East), and is interested in philosophy and critical thought, I point you in the direction of none other than the acclaimed professor at Columbia University, Edward Said. His book, "Orientalism" (published in 79) shook the foundation of the academy and has led to a whole new form of scholarship.

To maybe send Brock in a different direction of thought, the INHERENTLY political nature of man has been talked about since time immemorial. It really started with the Greeks (Ironically) with Plato. It was then suppressed for over 1400 years after St. Augustine differentiated between the "City of Men" and the "City of God" and thereby theorized against man's political nature. It comes back in the 19th century through Hegel and it has slowly been making its way back into our worldview ever since.

Another explanation could be that in highly political times, cultural artificats become politicized too. If we end up going to war with Iran, this film may be criticized by future generations of an example of propaganda similar to that of the SS. Sorry for the extreme example, but I just want to emphasize the point that power is ultimately implicated in knowledge (See Michel Foucault).

I will blog on this later on my blog

http://thoughtandtheory.blogspot.com

I will enable comments because I would love to hear back from everyone!

Signed,

Navid (Third Year, UC Berkeley, Double majoring in rhetoric and history)

It is a proven scholarly fact that the Persian Empire in 480 B.C was the most magnificent and civilized empire. Established by the Cyrus the great, the writer of the first human right declaration, Persians ruled over significant portions of Greater Iran, the east modern Afghanistan and beyond into central Asia; in the north and west all of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the upper Balkans peninsula (Thrace), and most of the Black Sea coastal regions; in the west and southwest the territories of modern Iraq, northern Saudi-Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, all significant population centers of ancient Egypt and as far west as portions of Libya. Having twenty nations under control, encompassing approximately 7.5 million square kilometers, unquestionably the Achaemenid Empire was territorially the largest empire of classical antiquity.


Based on the Zoroastrian doctrine, it was the strong emphasis on honesty and integrity that gave the ancient Persians credibility to rule the world, even in the eyes of the people belonging to the conquered nations (Herodotus, mid 5th century B.C). Truth for the sake of truth, was the universal motto and the very core of the Persian culture that was followed not only by the great kings, but even the ordinary Persians made it a point to adhere to this code of conduct.


We did not expect Warner Bros. Picture company, as one of the world's largest producers of film and television entertainment to ignore the proven obvious historical facts, and damage its own reputation by showing the Persian army at the battle of Thermopylae as some monstrous savages, and thus create an atmosphere of public mistrust in its content, and hurt the national pride of the millions of Persians while doing so.