300

Bring ‘em on!
A Review of the film: 300
Director: Zack Snyder
Studio: Warner Brothers, 2007

Red-state fascism fuses with its Spartan and German predecessors in Zack Snyder’s slash-and-slaughter film, 300, which retells Hitler's favorite racist fable of how 300 white Aryan Spartans fought and died in a suicidal defense of Western "civilization" against a Persian (i.e. Iranian) army of 2.5 million African and Asian soldiers at the Battle of Thermopylae. Can you believe those bodybuilding Spartans in their leather bikini briefs butchered 100,000 Persians apiece?

In the film, there is much talk of fighting for something called "freedom." But the only freedom that we see on display is the freedom of the Spartan commander-in-chief to circumvent the will of the Spartan assembly, violate international codes of conduct, and commit whatever war crimes he pleases--such as the systematic slaughter of wounded enemy troops. So long as the order comes down from their Leader, morality does not matter.

Rush Limbaugh would be delighted. There are subhuman enemies to ridicule and revile galore. There are "uppity" African-Iranian envoys, with chains around their heads and rings in their noses, who need to be shown their place--down a bottomless well. There are traitorous Spartan legislators, with their pockets full of Persian gold, peddling appeasement in the guise of a "realistic" foreign policy. There are even sultry lesbians going at it--for all those shy straight boys out there.

The only form of "reprehensible" sex that isn’t shown is male gay sex. For that is something that teenage boys are intensely afraid of. And that very fear becomes an unconscious driving force for the film, as in the transparent "temptation" scene between King Leonidas of Sparta and King Xerses of Persia. "Better dead than bed!" becomes the Spartan king’s motto. And that is how we see him in the closing shot of the film--a martyred freedom-fighters, penetrated by arrows (Oh, Mary!) everywhere.

For a warlike nation like ours, 300 sends a dangerous message, especially to unstable teenagers: namely, that martyrdom for one’s country is a form of machismo ecstasy that establishes one’s manhood for all times.

For more stills from the film that reflect the views just expressed, click here

Recommended reviews include Battling Evil with Abs of Steel by Eli Clifton, The Truth Behind 300 by Cyrus Kar, and A Racist and Insulting Film: 300 vs. Iran by Gary Leupp.

P.S. A recent joint Israeli-Greek practice attack on Iran was codenamed "Glorious Spartan '08."