300

[Aaron]

So I saw 300 back when it came out with my wife and didn't put much thought in to it. It was what it was a movie version of a comic based very loosely off a legend of a famous battle. It had passable action and ok special effects, the music was good though. Then I started to notice a rather spirited debate popping up around this movie on the internet, namely around the themes of racism and slavery. There are a fair number of people who are up in arms over this movie, thinking it portrays the Persians as barbarious savages and the Greeks as noble defenders of freedom and almost in an "Aryan" light, partially because they practiced slavery and eugenics.

So what say you? Should we be disgusted by this movie or should we pay no more attention to it then we would would any other product of Hollywood?

[Granitehewer]

Well considering the Aryans migrated into northern india through turkmenistan, and that 'Aryan' just means 'civilised', i think that most critics of the film, severely misuse the term, as a homage or rememberance of 20th century racial atrocities,which deserve more sanctity and respect for the legions of dead innocents, than to be brought up by a comic book adaptation.
The modern greeks today are very arguably not purely Hellenes due to slavic migrations, germanic volkswanderung etc, any promotion of the ancient greeks shouldn't really bother anyone.
The Achaemenids' sphere of influence into egypt and parts of nubia and the kingdom of kush, wouldn't merit such a high proportion of negroid officers, so if anything, i don't regard the film as racist, for that point alone, but merely using darker ethnicities to be contrasted against the whiter peoples, for dramatic effect, to show a clash of opposing worlds.
But alot of my friends and i noticed one thing, on a lighter note; the topless wenches in 300, noteably the oracle and the queen, had strange breasts....
Although the greek members of my family, whinged incessantly about the akkadians not being seen in such a good light, in relation to what really happened, but 300 isn't for xenophon or herodotus buffs, its pure adrenaline fun!
Personally i did see it as a reflection of the war on terror, with a small amount of civilisation (note american and its vassels) making a stand against the 'foreign hordes'(the golden calf of darius, resembling the golden calf in the sinai desert,when the jews went astray, also a symbol of the astray nature of the third branch of the abrahamite tree ie islam, at least in the eyes of several christian apologists).....whilst the other greeks (american populace, and large tracts of europe) looked on apathetically.
Its not motivating me to sanction any action against iran, was just a cool film!
(ps I'm away for two weeks, from thurs, will really miss all of you, and your points)

[Granitehewer]

εδω ειναι Σπαρτη
(this is sparta!)

[Sionnach Glic]

To be honest I just thought of it as some badly researched action movie.
They cut out a lot of the more unpleasent parts of Spartan society, and focussed almost completely on the Spartans. I think the other groups that fought with them got a grand total of two mentions. The naval battle was non existant and the Persians were absolutely rediculous.

On racism.
I can't be sure about the racist parts, I saw the movie once and have no desire to watch it again. I thought the Spartans constant howlings about freedom were irritating and hipocritical in light of the fact that they kept slaves. I have no idea why the Persians all looked like extras from Lord of the Rings and I see absolutely no need to portray them as monsters.
I wouldn't call this movie racist, but I would call it stupid.

[Teaos]

I am one of those weird ones who really liked it. I had heard bad things about it when I went to see it so wasn't expecting much but I thought it was fantastic.

[Graham Kennedy]

I absolutely loved 300; saw it three times at the cinema.

I don't think it was racist, as such. It did show the bad guys being nasty and evil, but so what? Most movies do that, and there's nothing wrong with it in my mind. The whole point of the movie was to be gloriously over the top in its depiction of what happened!

[Ivan_Only]

I thought it was a good movie.

I am not surprised by people being up in arms about it. It seems any thing Middle-East'ish will upset someone. I say, make the book and/or movie and ignore all the people complaining about it.

[Graham Kennedy]

I saw a review of the movie Zulu once that complained because it didn't show things from the Zulu's point of view. Talk about missing the entire point...

[Tsukiyumi]

Right. Perspective was the entire point.