"300" - is a right-wing homophobic war commercial

Many opinions have been written about this movie, and probably the last thing the internet community needs is mine. But I simply couldn’t just say nothing, because, to the movie’s credit, it didn’t leave me indifferent. In fact I felt so strongly about some aspects of the movie, that I decided to come out of my many months of silence and write this pseudo-review, or rather just some thoughts about (or inspired by) the movie.

First, for the record, the movie was very well made. The actors were OK, the special effects very good, etc.
Second, also for the record, I did not expect a historical movie – I was well aware of the fact that the movie was based on the graphic novel rather than the historical events. It was not the distortion of the historical truth that bothered me, as much as WHAT was distorted, and who would benefit from such a distortion.

Basically, in my humble opinion “300” is a pro-war, right wing, army commercial. The parallels with the modern world are just too obvious to ignore.

Here is a short synopsis:
A pro-war overly masculine leader of a western super power, which is famous for its freedom, equality, and liberty, sees the horrible dangers of the onslaught of the Iranians (rulled by a tyrant) and starts an unpopular war, which many of his subjects consider illegal and doomed. He persists, and even though his parliament opposes the war, he uses his executive power and a loop-hole in the law to fight the enemy. There are no homosexuals in his army, only masculine manly men, well renowned for their manliness. Did I mention that these men were very manly? Well they were. Also they were not homosexuals whatsoever!
These non-homosexual testosterone fueled fighting machines die horribly. However, the remaining population of the ass-kicking western super power, is inspired by this sacrifice and stands up against the middle-eastern onslaught of semi-homosexual mutants. They win and a new age begins, the age of freedom and liberty.

Does anything look familiar?
Historically none of this is true, other than the fact that Sparta did indeed have a powerful warrior class and the fact that King Leonidas and Spartans did indeed participate in the battle described (including the 300 that sacrificed themselves alongside 700 other Greeks, thus allowing the remaining Greeks to retreat and regroup)

There are many historical inaccuracies in the movie – costumes, battle plans, participation of other Greeks in the battle, religion, obvious lack of provisions, caricaturesque antagonists, etc. All of this can be written off as a cost of making a good movie. But a few things really rubbed me the wrong way:

1) Spartan society was not democratic (or free or anything of that sort). It was a monarchy. The power of the dual kings of this City-State was limited only by the assembly of the citizens, who constituted a tiny fraction of Spartan population. Most of population was enslaved, while a small number of Spartan warriors ruled over them, using rather oppressive methods.

Why lie about this? Why did they have to have King Leonidas give those speeches about “freedom” and “liberty”? Why did King Leonidas had to say stuff like “free men standing against a tyrant?” I don’t see any point other than helping the intended target audience to make a subconscious connection with the modern political situation, projecting the fictional reality of “300” onto the modern world.

2)  Spartans were homosexuals. Homosexuality was encouraged by state. Mentoring of young Spartans involved more than wrestling, even though the movie would want you to believe otherwise. In the movie King Leonidas calls Athenians “philosophers and boy lovers.” Which is partially true – many Athenians were philosophers, and homosexuality was also extremely common. However King Leonidas’ home culture was significantly more “homosexual” even by the Greek standards. The contemporary Athenians even used the verb “to Spartanize someone” to signify “to sodomize someone.”

Why lie about this? This really has a lot of reasons – for one it would allow the truck-driving country bigots to admit to liking this heavily nude-male-six-pack-leather-bound-crotched movie without being called “a faggot” by their Bud Light chugging buddies. The out-of-place love scene, revealing female costumes, and pointy-nippled oracle dance were probably thrown it for the same reason.
Secondly by describing someone as “philosopher and boy lover” in the same sentence we subconsciously equalize the two. A case could be made that the phrase really describes the anti-war intellectuals of the homeland.
In either case the obvious homophobia of the movie makes it more appealing for the intended audience and also makes it painfully clear who the intended audience is.

Of course anyone with decent education and enough grey matter to balance out testosterone can simply watch the movie and enjoy it as a simple work of fiction. However I really don’t think that the educated minority is the target audience for the political message of this movie.

The effectiveness of this message is impossible to measure, but it looks so perfectly balanced and so well thought out that I don’t doubt its success among the lower class uneducated males who constitute the vast majority of this country’s proto-cannon-fodder.

Ultimately it’s the movie of triumph of balls over brains. And it’s not a compliment. Fuck you, Hollywood, for making this blatant gay-bashing-foreigner-hating-testosterone-fest and making me pay you my hard earned dollars for seeing 2 hours of Republican propaganda...