Reply #19: 300 is a right-wing movie intended to prepare Americans ideologically for war with Iran

[invictus]

Review:
http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=reviews&id=9207


Snyder has been coy about his own politics in the wake of the release of the film, but looking at the extra scenes gives you an idea of either where he stands or how well he has channeled Frank Miller. Gorgo’s speech to the council in the third act could be given by Republicans on the House floor to argue in favor of the next troop ‘surge’ in Iraq, and it’s hard to believe that the words were written after 9/11 and after the invasion of Iraq without the echoes of modern debate ringing in the writers’ ears.

Of course the whole thing echoes. The forces of Western logic and reason must make a stand against the hordes from the Middle East. The Persians – now known as the Iranians, by the way – have a seething mass of subhumanity to throw at the Spartans, and all of the Persian forces are fighting for a false god, in this case the tyrant Xerxes (it’s worth noting that Leonidas and his men think their own religious establishment is full of shit as well). Lots of lip service is given to freedom (which is sort of silly, since the Spartans held slaves, but it’s all depending on your point of view I guess – they wouldn’t want to be the subjects of Xerxes) and Gorgo actually says at one point that freedom isn’t free – it’s like she just came from a showing of Team America.

It gets better when you have Leonidas talking about how he must break the laws of his own country to save it by getting it into war – this is the kind of rationalization George W Bush might have made about the pre-war fabrication of intelligence if he had the self-awareness. This is another new scene, by the way, so while Miller’s book came out in the last years of the 20th century, this dialogue is pure post-Iraq.

Some of you reading this might think I’m criticizing these elements. I’m not at all. 300 is very much a movie John Milius could love the shit out of, and I appreciate that. Films don’t need to reflect my personal political viewpoint for me to enjoy them, and 300 is not so blatant as to be propaganda or so unsubtle as to take you out of the movie. And to be honest, you can’t tell a really good story about a bunch of guys fighting to the death without regrets from a liberal standpoint. I wouldn’t want to live in Sparta, but I can appreciate their point of view. And I’m not enough of a liberal to think that we can wish away all of our problems – I know that it takes unpleasant men, like these Spartans, visiting violence upon enemies to clean up situations every now and again. Plus there’s no way to argue that the Spartans are wrong; while Leonidas gets the blame for starting the war (he kills the Persian messenger who comes to demand fealty to Xerxes), the Persians were coming anyway. This doesn’t gibe with the Iraq situation at all, of course, unless you’re making the false connection between 9/11 and Saddam.

There are other, more troubling, critiques to make. Xerxes is presented as a huge, effeminate figure. In a moment directly from the graphic novel, Xerxes is at his most threatening not when facing Leonidas but when he comes up behind him and places his massive hands on his shoulders. The frame drips in homophobia here, and later, when Ephialtes visits Xerxes in his camp, we’re shown the kind of sexual deviancy the Persian godking gets up to. Among the horrors are lesbians and people of indeterminate gender; I don’t think this is a scene that reflects a conscious homophobia and puritanical streak – first of all, it’s mostly straight out of the book, but mostly it just feels like an extension of fascism’s disgust with sexuality. It’s a juvenile attitude, and one that Miller’s work is filled with – his male characters have to stay heroically celibate (Snyder does add a sex scene between Leonidas and Gorgo, and makes sure to show them going at it in most of the positions, which is sort of admirable (especially in Imax)). The truth is that I would rather hang out with the Persians than the Spartans – the parties are much better, and you probably get to sleep in.

But what’s funny about the whole film is how it is unable to control its own metaphors because of the ambiguity of the Iraq situation. Is Leonidas a stand in for Bush? Or could Xerxes be Bush? After all, he’s the invader, coming in with a multi-national coalition with more forces and better technology than the Spartans have. The Persian comes from a corrupted culture of depravity and sexuality, while the Spartans are all about moral rectitude. And being a smaller force, the Spartans are very willing to engage in savage tactics that the Persians see as outside the rules of war. It’s not hard to imagine an insurgent in Iraq strongly identifying with Leonidas and his men. And it’s actually harder for us in the audience to really identify with these guys – I mean, who among us is the least bit interested in dying for our beliefs?