The movie 300 has finally arrived in Morris, and I saw it last evening. I’d heard a lot about this film, in particular that it was loaded with relationships to current events—the war in Iraq, in particular, with arguments for it being pro-war, anti-war, a jingoistic propaganda film, etc. The arguments are all wrong. I could tell exactly what this movie’s hidden meaning was: it’s a retelling of the creation-evolution struggle! “But of course!” you’re all saying to yourselves, “It’s so obvious, now that you mention it!”
Look at the beginning. It’s all about how the Spartans are the products of intense selection; the weak are culled from birth through adulthood, resulting in a collection of perfect physical specimens … exactly like all evolutionists. Unlike the real world, where our modesty compels us to conceal our awesome physiques beneath our lab coats, in the movie the Spartan products of evolution proudly expose their muscular pectorals, washboard abs, and snugly cupped packages. The Spartan women are also fierce and beautiful, like all evolutionist women. If everyone only accepted evolution, they too could look so ruggedly handsome (←note clever ‘framing’, in which I appeal to layperson’s machismo and vanity).
Speaking of pectorals, there were also many shots of bulging chests and masculine nipples; clearly a nod to developmental constraints in evolution and the discipline of evo-devo. I appreciated Frank Miller’s acknowledgment of the field.
The manly beards of the heros also reflected the historical significance of the bearded scientist. Leonidas’s beard reminded me of that of Thomas Hunt Morgan, the great geneticist, who (little known fact) was also a burly brawler with a loud Scottish bellow, yet simultaneously well known for his gentleness with mutants. TH Morgan would also have allowed Ephialtes to live, and would have encouraged him to breed, exactly as Leonidas did.
The Spartan’s opponents were a slavish, poorly disciplined mob trying to defend themselves with shields of straw, and who followed a mad god. Need I say what side of the creation/evolution wars they represent? Their army also contained monsters and grotesques which were symbolic of the unrealistic, impossible logic of creationism … and the monsters were easily dispatched with the sharp blades of the Spartans. Charging imaginary creationist war rhinos are stopped dead with a single precise jab from the warriors of Reason. Xerxes himself reminded me of the flashy degenerates of the evangelical movement, portraying themselves as godlike while indulging themselves in perversions in their tents. The fondness for whips clearly marks him as a model of James Dobson.
Even the schisms within the evolution side were accurately portrayed. At the beginning, the heroic Leonidas has an audience with the inbred, grossly deformed Greek ephors who tend to the oracle. Leonidas says that reason demands that they mobilize the Spartan army; the ephors say they must wait for the sacred holidays to end, and that the gods must be obeyed. Oh, yeah: it’s the outnumbered atheist, frustrated by the theistic evolutionists. And of course they march to oppose a god, setting an example for the appeasers who stayed out of the battle.
The battle scenes were exactly how I imagine my arguments with creationists going: limbs are lopped, vitals pierced, foreskins snipped, blood fountains over the landscape, and the horde keeps coming, keeps being shattered and riven, and keeps falling. Admit it, people—when you were watching the gore fly, weren’t you thinking, “Hmmm…that reminds me of a Pharyngula comment thread…”?
I confess, though, that I’m a little disturbed by the ending. (Spoiler alert: everyone dies! That can’t be right. I’m sure that in the real world, the godless evolutionists are going to walk all over the ravening creationist horde. Right? Right? The movie would have been vastly improved if Leonidas and his band had marched out and conquered the whole world, preferably before breakfast.
Still, even when the 300 uncompromising, militant warriors fall, they inspire 10,000 more to rise up and crush the god-followers at Plataea, so maybe I’ll accept it as a happy ending.
(I hear the local theater may be getting Grindhouse soon. I’ll be sure to explain the atheistical/evolutionary significance of that to you when I see it, too. I would have explained the godless ferocity of other recent movies I’ve seen at the Morris theater, like Finding Nemo and March of the Penguins and The Departed, if they hadn’t been so bloody obvious. 300 is a subtle movie that requires delicate analysis to expose the full meaning.)
WOW! I guess scientists DO know how to communicate ;)
V. entertaining.
But- I’d be more impressed if you (or anyone) could explain David Lynch’s ‘INLAND EMPIRE’ to me.
(I’m not shouting- the movie title is capitalized.)
I just saw 300 as well. It is awful on every level.
Details, history, cliches, wrong in so many ways is was
almost funny.
Ahahaha. Hilarious.
What afterthought said. Horrifyingly bad in every possible way.
I posted this in a different blog, wondering if 300 is not only against creationism, but principally against religious conviction and authoritarianism in general. Indeed, Xerxes does present himself as a god who wants Leonidas to kneel before him, and the priests in the movie are foul creatures.
But it all becomes clear when at one point one of the Spartans states: “This day we rescue a world from mysticism and tyranny.”
Why, I say Leonidas is PZ! Beard and everything.
I didn’t know you had such a sense of humor, professor.
I enjoyed it as a big, dumb, loud fantasy movie.
No, it’s hardly a documentary, but when you realize that the entire thing is a “campfire story” told by Dilios after the fact (literally around a campfire) the fantasy aspects of the story make sense.
As a friend of mine pointed out, historical accuracy would have required naked Spartans. Might have still have large audiences, but probably different audiences… :)
Cheers,
Paul K.
…where our modesty compels us to conceal our awesome physiques beneath our lab coats…
This is about getting on the 2008 calendar isn’t it?
That’s disappointing, but not surprising. Just like Troy. It’s sad because I read these stories when I was very young and could hardly imagine what the people, places and events looked like. I always hoped someone would make some good, accurate, detailed movies out of them.
Isn’t it funny how Hollywood has this mindset that they can “improve” on narratives that have captured people’s imaginations for thousands of years?
I’m waiting for the sequel, starring James Spader (or maybe Jonathan Frakes) as Themistocles — that sneaking, weaselly, champion of democracy-through-bribery who saved classical civilization.
Very entertaining and inspiring post, pi zeta. But the flaw in your analogy between spartans/persians and evolutionists/creationists is that you could not, if the survival of the world depended it, find 300 scientists who would sacrifice themselves for anything, much less an idea. I say that based on 25 years of college science teaching with workmates (I will not use the word colleagues) who are intelligent, are knowledgable in their fields, and are anywhere from good to excellent teachers. Yet the vast majority soil their pants when they are faced with the need to confront their supervisors, or even other professors, concerning issues which are critical to the running of the institution, their own welfare, or the good of their students. I don’t think my workmates are much different from teachers at other colleges. In other countries the first thing the opposition does is jail/kill the teachers, students, and intelligentsia. In this country the opposition can afford to laugh at us.
PZ — You have just made my entire morning. Thank you. :-)
David Livesay, afterthought — 300 is almost a panel-by-panel remake of Frank Miller’s graphic novel of the same name. It’s a fantasy based on the Battle of Thermopylae, not a documentary. So blame Miller, not Hollywood.
Will you Mota-Fukin Foos just give this pro-evolution based debate up already?! Im having my arse fried eternal-tandoori style, down here, because of my fuckup which is now carried on as a means for a proxy-war by you morons!
Holy crap, you’re telling me all those crazy mutants AREN’T REAL?
…
…
Priceless, PZ! I really did Laugh Out Loud.
I liked that “We will fight in the shade” scene, where the volley of creationist rhetorical arrows darkened the light of public understanding, but not one of those arrows struck home to wound the evolutionists.
…
…
The 300 we did not see – the role of Xerxes – a 3 way fight for the throne between BillyBoy, MoonieJohnny, and BooBoo Behe. Philly John is of course the priest of the invaders – spouting gobbledegook that even his own have trouble understanding. The van is brought up by cannon fodder and crapheads such as Davey and Slave’ador – walking cheerfully into oblivion singing the praises of their cowardly master(s) who within are terrified of confrontation, but put up a brave front all the time. and then what about the extras – those scampering vermin? That’s the Lost Cause Casey – they are the attack mice dressed up as rhinos!
Miller has said that he based his comic on his childhood memories of the movie “300 Spartans.” So 300 is a fantasy movie based on a comic book which was in turn based upon the childhood recollections of another hollywood movie.
Trying to attack it for its lack of historical accuracy is simply absurd. Its like attacking the LOTR trilogy for not be realistic. They are both fantasy movies, and should be enjoyed as such.
Last night “The Ten Commandments” was aired. I don’t know how closely it followed the book (yes, the movie was actually based on a novel, noted in the credits). How common is it for such movies to approach historical and cultural accuracy? Even if the historical event was no more than a few hundred years ago? Or few months ago?
That’s a beautiful example of why I detest literary analysis: you can see anything in anything.
Ths Sprtns sr knw hw t lmnt th dfctv. Jst lk th thst phlsphr Ptr Sngr f Prnctn dvcts.
Y jk, bt y ls gv lt wy PZ.
I saw “Grindhouse” yesterday, and as it happens, it is a metaphor for the evolutionist/creationist battle (or at least the first half is–the second, Tarantino half is just a talky serial-killer/car-chase movie). SERIOUS SPOILER ALERT. “Terror Planet” is a movie in which a small band of humans (evolutionists) resistant to a chemical (religion) which has turned nearly everyone into drooling, mindless zombies (fundies) have to fight their way out of a small town (bible-thumping mindset). There are prodigious quantities of blood, guts, and zombie slime (oh, I dunno, antiquated belief systems?), and as usual, the only sure way to kill a zombie is by destroying its brain. It’s fun.
Also, Rose McGowan has her leg ripped off by zombies and eventually has it replaced by a machine gun slash rocket launcher. I don’t know how that might be related to the evolution/creation struggle, but you better believe it’s worth the price of admission all by itself.
Me, and I thought it was all about gayness.
I once read a post on talk.origins from an entomologist who refused to let his children see the animated Woody Allen movie “Antz” because the anatomy of ants wasn’t correct. It wasn’t that the ants were talking, falling in love, suffering existential doubts or even punching the clock that disgusted him. He didn’t want the kiddo’s to learn about ant anatomy in any way that might be inaccurate.
We are all impressed that you know more about the history of the Spartans than most people. We bow down to you, but good God man, you must be incredibly naive to ever expect a movie regarding any historical event to have anything more than a passing acquaintance with the truth. Sometimes a movie is just a movie, and the themes underlying the movie are more important than any factual misrepresentations.
I wonder if the entomologist also forbade his children from watching “Alice in Wonderland” on the grounds that rabbits don’t run about on two legs. I wondered if he forbade them from watching “The Wizard of Oz” on the grounds that monkeys don’t have wings. I wondered if he forbade them from watching “Toy Story” on the grounds that T-Rex was not anatomically correct.
Before we saw 300, my son told me about all the differences between the historical record and the battles as described in the movie, because his class had just completed a 9-week segment on Ancient Greece. He loved the movie all the “wrongness” notwithstanding. My only dislikes were the scenes in which the special effects team and the director showed off a bit too much in the zooms and jarring switches between slow and fast motion. I cringed that they used the line “Freedom isn’t free” as Leonidas deserves far better than that. But those are only quibbles compared to a fun movie.
Yes, there were sly statements about the dirtiness of the priestly class, but overall the movie was an adaptation of a comic book version of a historical event.
And thanks, PZ, for being so sly about making fun of the Creationist equation between Darwinism and eugenics.
I think after you read this, and think a little, you’ll find even more humor in the sitch.
“Their shields built from talkorigin links, their swords forged in the fires of a thousand Dawkins lectures…”
Anti Atheist said, above,
“Those Spartans sure knew how to eliminate the defective. Just like the atheist philosopher Peter Singer of Princeton advocates.
You joke, but you also give a lot away PZ.”
Strawmen can be pretty scary when encountered in the dark.
If everyone only accepted evolution, they too could look so ruggedly handsome
So now it comes out. PZ is no Darwinist. He’s a Lamarkian.
I think he’s only a Larmakian if he thinks their rugged good looks they acquire when they accept evolution get passed down to their kids.
Nescio-
After a long discussion about the homophobia in this movie, a gay friend of mine informed me that it was really about the “gym gays” (the spartans) versus the “club gays” (the persians). We all agreed that this interpretation was the most likely to upset the director and was therefore the best.
Beth
I just want to remind everyone that the 300 Spartans rose up again in 3 days and moved to Lansing, MI, and we celebrate this every spring (except in Ann Arbor).
No, you’ve got it all wrong.
Clearly, 300 is all about illegal immigration.
I think the rhino represents Intelligent Design. The spear that runs it through represents….I dunno…Kenneth Miller?
Joseph: I think after you read this… –the word this is highlighted but no linky shows.
Poppa Zebra must have gotten light-headed from too much Easter candy. What’s his next fantasy? That a cigar could be just a cigar? That Dipsy and La La aren’t secretly working for Al Gore’s conspiracy? That Bazooka Joe’s eyepatch isn’t a symbol of the limited vision of secular humanists?
There were problems with that analysis. The main one is that unlike creationists of today, the Persians had more strategic options to them than they used. Case in point, they never fired arrows while they were charging in with their slave troops. Such a tactic could easily have defeated the Spartans when they left their phalanx formation, and it was a shame they didn’t fire the arrows until after all their troops had been driven off a cliff.
I’m pretty sure the troops of creationism are already throwing everything they’ve got at science, and despite their large numbers, they don’t have that many options available other than to ban science outright or seed it with creationist propaganda, both of which have already failed in the past. I’m fairly certain Dembski & Friends will never find that goat path. Hey, speaking of allegorical references… “goat path?”
Bravo, sir. Brah. Veau.
Pyramus is on the right track regarding Grindhouse and Planet Terror, but he doesn’t go far enough.
SPOILERS: The entire movie is actually a demonstration of evolutionary mechanics. Most obviously is the fact they’re dealing with a virus which they’re immune to, that the survivors are fated to eventually repopulate the planet. The doctor even says, “We ARE the antibodies.” It’s simply showing mutation within a species and survival of the fittest (both in terms of immunity and blowing shit away with lots of guns).
To demonstrate stabilizing selection one of the zombies, a vector for the virus, instead of straight-up killing one character, pops one of his huge nasty boils and wipes it all over him, thereby favoring virulence over aggression and immediate efficacy.
Finally, there’s a running joke with Rose McGowan’s character, who periodically mentions her various “useless talents,” all of which end up saving her ass at key points in the movie. If you can think of a better demonstration of neutral mutations becoming a means of survival in a changing environment, I’d like to see it. END SPOILERS
I liked Death Proof, though.
But the flaw in your analogy between spartans/persians and evolutionists/creationists is that you could not, if the survival of the world depended it, find 300 scientists who would sacrifice themselves for anything, much less an idea.
Not even for their PhD theses?
Very clever and funny!
As I said, embedded in a set of other lightbulb jokes at Chad Orzel’s scienceblog:
I dreamed this one up while waiting on line, with wife
and son, to see “The 300” at an IMAX theatre:
Q: How many Spartans does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: 301. You need 300 to hold off the Persian army of 1,000,000 soldiers, while 1 unscrews the old bulb and screws in the new one.
My son informs me that his college newspaper has a mock-advice column: “Ask a Spartan.” Questions by students about disagreement on exam grades include advice on how best to decapatitate professors and deans and carry their heads on spikes.
One review of 300 that got it right, and which I recommend that one consider (most critics missed the point):
Movie Review of 300
by Howard Waldrop & Lawrence Person
http://locusmag.com/2007/WaldropPerson_300.html
Directed by Zack Snyder
Written by Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, and Michael Gordon (based on
the graphic novel by Frank Miller & Lynn Varley)
Starring Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West, David Wenham,
Vincent Regan, Michael Fassbender, Tom Wisdom, Andrew Pleavin, Andrew
Tiernan, Rodrigo Santoro, Giovani Cimmino, Kelly Craig
Howard Waldrop: If Cecil B. DeMille would have had CGI around while he was planning the 1956 Ten Commandments, he would have never stopped crapping his pants…. [truncated]
Paul K.:
Yep. That’s about the long and the short of it. Who cares if it wasn’t historically accurate? Taken strictly at face value, it was a fun, well-produced, well-executed movie with some interesting visuals and a much-needed twist on the stock Hollywood good-triumphs-over-evil plot archetype.
I have a hard time taking any of the more serious exegeses seriously, and while PZ is obviously more invested in making creationists look silly, I think he also does a good job of exposing the inherent silliness of reading anything beyond “blood guts yeargh yeargh” into a big-ticket action/fantasy film like this one.
And sometimes a movie really is just a movie. Iran needs to get over itself and stop pretending that they’re not the ones trying to pick a fight with us.
Yeah, I saw all of that, but the movie I’m still trying to figure out is Narnia.
Narnia:
Both The Chronicles of Narnia and the New Testament contain Jungian archetypal imagery. But they are really about Evolution versus Creationism.
Although C. S. Lewis was an evangelical Christian who probably slipped into something approaching Creationism and Intelligent Design of Fauns and Centaurs, one may, by the PZ Principle, analogize:
Aslan ~ Darwin
Calormenes [enemies of Aslan and Narnia, described as dark-skinned people with a garlic-scented breath, who wear turbans and pointy slippers, and are armed with scimitars] ~ Fundamentalist Islamic Creationists
Narnia [as one major landmass surrounded by an ocean] ~ the England of Darwin
Cosmologically, the world of Narnia [flat, geocentric, has stars with a different makeup than our own, and that the passage of time does not correspond directly to the passage of time in our world] — Flat Earth and Young Earth Creationists
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ~ The Voyage of the Beagle
I could go on, but these make the point. Connect the dots…
I cringed that they used the line “Freedom isn’t free” as Leonidas deserves far better than that.
You’ll notice that the movie slid over the fact that the noble Spartan warriors depended on slaves who they treated abysmally. Sorta like grad students, now that I think about it.
Iran needs to get over itself and stop pretending that they’re not the ones trying to pick a fight with us.
Riiiight. The way they’ve invaded and occupied Canada based on lies about biological weapons, and have started claiming now that the US has biological weapons which justify them bombing Chicago – sure sign of Iranian aggression.
I read an interview with Frank Miller about 300 the comic, where he admitted that he knew about the unpleasant aspects of the Spartans but left them out intentionally, saying “I didn’t want to render Sparta in overly accurate terms, because ultimately I do want you to root for the Spartans. I couldn’t show them being quite as cruel as they were. I made them as cruel as I thought a modern audience could stand.”
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20014175,00.html
So there’s that.
It didn’t bother me that 300 was inaccurate. That the movie was screamingly racist did bother me. I’m not sure it’s such a hot idea to get teenagers thinking that Xerxes as a 7-foot tall bisexual basketball player who led a zillion darkies in a war of extermination against a handful of hyper-caucasian musclemen. I’m pretty sure that the look of Leonides’ wife Gorgo is a visual quotation of female nudes from Nazi propaganda.
I don’t think there’s an easy answer to the question of the moral responsibility of popular art. I’m pretty sure it’s a real question, though.
Nietzsche wrote somewhere that intellectuals in the 18th Century toyed with the glorification of barbarism, violence, and cruelty, but the next generations didn’t know they’d been kidding.
No more abysmally than any other slave-owning society until the 19th century.
I hereby award and F- to all that who complain about the historical accuracy of a movie that is quite obviously not even attempting the slightest amount of accuracy above and beyond the basic concept of a small group of Greeks performing a suicidal but heroic defense of their homeland from a foreign invader.
I mean really, what made you think they were even trying to be accurate?
I believe I said it rawked in my post for 300.
It was pretty awful. Luckily my friend works at the local theater so we were able to see it for free. When we left my husband just shook his head and said: ‘well, I guess the lesson of the movie is that the white people always win. No matter the odds…they’re gonna win.’ (While the 300 are defeated the movie reminds you at the very end that the Persians were eventually forced out by the Greeks.)
I actually thought Death Proof had too much set-up for its payoff, and thus Planet Terror was the better of the two for me. Not by much, though. The whole ordeal was wonderfully great.
Grindhouse gets my seal of approval.
Now I can’t wait for ‘Thanksgiving’ the rest of the “previews” to come out.
Nescio (23) and Beth (30):
Have you seen this? Probably the funniest take on the movie (which I have to admit I’ve not seen, but after seeing the link, I figure the movie itself will be anti-climactic.
all thecultural stuff flying around it aside, i just didn’t like the movie. the visuals were quite bland and boring, compared with Sin City, the characters even for a fantasy were as shallow as a saucer of milk, and i honestly didn’t care if they lived or died. my disbelief was not suspended at all…which is necessary for a movie like that. the beginning scene with the wolf was all right, but it hardly established why i should give a shit about the baby-killing (not fetuses, but actual babies! that’s messed up!) spartans. they constantly proclaimed why they were so great, but did jack shit to show me.
seemed like a waste of time and money to me.
I wasn’t looking for accuracy going in to the film (and I did enjoy its silliness), but what bugged me about the film were all the moments when you couldn’t tell if the silliniss or campness or humour was intentional or just bad writing/directing. For instance, I didn’t expect them to spend the entire film in a phalanx, but you’d have thought after Leonidas’s speech about how one weak link in the formation means ruin, they’d have lasted more than 30 seconds before charging out of formation and chucking their spears away. Or that the Spartans might have actally used the chasm to their advantage instead of fighting out in the open the whole time.
Sigh… Two thousand five hundred years that wasn’t messed up at all.
We should all keep in mind that it’s not clear thatThermopylae accomplished much; The Persians managed to get as far as Athens and burned the Acropolis when they found that Themistocles had evacuated the city.
The Spartans did not participate in the battle that really ended Persian expansion, Salamis. Nor did they do much at Platea, the battle where the Persian core of Xerxes’ army was slaughtered in the field.
Athens beat Persia at both these more decisive battles even though all Attica had been ravaged.
-B
So it is just a movie.
Is 24 just a TV show.
Then why anyone cries about
US soldiers watching it to
get advice on how to torture
their prisoner.
“Speaking of pectorals, there were also many shots of bulging chests and masculine nipples; clearly a nod to developmental constraints in evolution and the discipline of evo-devo. I appreciated Frank Miller’s acknowledgment of the field.”
Perfection
The inaccuracy by itself wouldn’t bother me. (I might enjoy cheerfully blatant dishonesty.) The homophobia might not bother me if it were historically accurate. The combination ensures I’ll never pay to see this movie.
“Athens beat Persia at both these more decisive battles even though all Attica had been ravaged.”
But who wants to watch a movie about a bunch of boy-lovers?
It was passable, but Planet Terror was far superior. In Death Proof, Tarantino got a little too enamored of his quirky dialog and drew out the conversation scenes to the point where they got annoying.
The car chases were cool, though, although I can’t figure out how to relate them to the evolutionism-creationism wars.
Personally, I can’t wait for the Nazi werewolf women movie myself. ;-)
PZ’s analysis is novel, amusing, and enlightening. Good call, professor. ;-)
Treating the film as nearly pure fantasy is probably the best approach.
Sparta was not exactly a free society in the way implied by the film. But it certainly works, for better or worse, as a metaphor for the struggle between an idealized Land of the Free and Home of the Brave (aka the USA) against a demonized Axis of Evil Part Deux (aka Iran) — even if casting the quasi-democratic western good guys guys as spartan and the tyrannical indoeuropean bad guys as decadent is fiercely and unintentionally ironic.
sigh… preview… preview… haste makes waste…
Everything after “Hmmm” should have been unblocked. Sorry.
For a great description about the Persian-Greek battles try the book ‘Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West’ by Tom Holland. Its an excellent read.
You have the sides reversed.
One side is an invader with massive material superiority. The other is defending their homeland with nothing but their courage and willingness to die for their cause.
If you see this as a metaphor for the war in the Middle East, there’s no avoiding the fact that the US is the *Persians*, not the Spartans. (This doesn’t really change the irony though – both sides at Thermopylae were slave-owning monarchies.) And if we want al-Sadr’s weapons, we’ll have to come and take them…
“I just saw 300 as well. It is awful on every level.
Details, history, cliches, wrong in so many ways is was
almost funny.”
Funny, that’s my review of your post.
Cripes, there are really people who are criticizing the movie for not being historically accurate? Yeah, and that stupid Spiderman movie butchered Arachnology something fierce!
OT, but regarding the creo wars, Johnny Hart, of BC, died this weekend.
Chris,
Nooo. No, I do not. Neither do I see the film as a metaphor for the current situation in the Middle East. You misunderstand me, but the failure to communicate is mine. In my haste I failed to adequately explain myself, which left my comments open to reasonable (but incorrect) interpretations such as yours. Let me try again.
The film works as a metaphor (see above) for those who wish to see it or promote it as such. And I do not mean as a metaphor for what’s happening in Iraq (if that were the case, I would agree with you completely) but as a metaphor for the larger fight, which I’ll talk about in a moment. Also, historical inaccuracies and racial implications aside, and regardless of the intentions of the filmmakers, the movie could be seen or used as a propaganda piece aimed at preparing the American mind to accept a militaristic solution to the problem with Persia – oops, I mean Iran.
Surely you know how the Right likes to frame its favorite issues and how it likes to portray itself within those frames: As the underdog, as the last bastion of liberty and morality in a dangerous and decadent world, as holding fast and standing alone against innumerable internal and external threats against Our Way Of Life. For the Right, it’s Us (the realist minority) Against The World. And only We know what needs to be done and have the guts to do it. Most of our allies refuse to stand with us. Our own media mocks us. There are Enemies Within who are treasonously corrupt, immoral, or gutless appeasers. The inhuman forces which threaten us from without are slavish yet maniacal in their service to their leaders, who are of course insane megalomaniacs. No atrocity is beyond them.
In short: The Right sees itself as Leonidas et al. Not just in the fight against Terror or the Axis of Evil, but against all the forces that threaten it – which includes people like you and me. The fact that the film is not in every aspect consistent with this metaphor is irrelevant to whether or not the metaphor is effective. Have you ever known The Right to let factual inconsistency get in its way?
I still believe the film is best seen as an historically-based fantasy, and to leave it at that – but as we’ve seen, interpretations will differ.
On a related topic, check out Jeff Sharlet’s new piece in Rolling Stone, Teenage Holy War.
My only beef with Sharlet is that he says he’s so completely irreligious, he’s “not even religious enough to be an atheist.” Sorry Jeff, but implying that atheism requires a degree of religiousity wrongly promotes the notion that atheism is a religion. Surely you can’t mean that.
Sounds like Too Cool For School Syndrome. See also: Scott Adams (when he’s not on one of his visualization kicks).
Well, I liked it. Of course it’s not historically accurate; it’s based on a Frank Miller comic book. I liked it for the visuals. I mean, you can’t tell me that giant monster wolf wasn’t awesome.
You mean, like, “I’m so cool, I’m hot?” LOL … Yes, at a glance perhaps, but this is different. Sharlet is not Adams. Adams dabbles in whatever you want to call his non-Dilbert dabbling (philosophy? satire? metaphysics? biology? comedy?) but writing about religion is what Sharlet does. I have no problem with him trying to state how much of a non-theist he is, but he should know better than to toss off a phrase that gives ammo to the “atheism is a religion” mob. Sigh. It’s not a big deal, and being a-theistic himself he’s clearly no adversary of the atheist, but… sigh.
Fatmop: I think the Athenians wre hardly as much into boy love as the Spartans were. But who cares? Athens did more to save western civ than the Spartans ever thought aout.
As others pointed out, it wasn’t historically acurate (not that it was trying) which is some cases was good, after all who would want to watch a movie where the Spartans practiced institionalized pedophilia.
That should be institutionalized.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to criticize the film for being historically inaccurate. The reason people don’t criticize Spiderman is that there was no real or legendary person named “Spiderman.” If you want to create a fantasy, you should at least have the imagination and originality to invent your own characters, as the creators of Spiderman did.
If you’re going to borrow characters from history or legend, you take on a responsibility that’s just not implied if you make up your story out of whole cloth. Just imagine what a movie some idiot creationist could make if he made a “fantasy” based on a character named “Charles Darwin.” Would you say “it’s just a movie” then?
what should be? is it insane?
The parts of the film involving Leonidas’ wife were added for the film, and not part of the original graphic novel, which I have just read. From that perspective, I thought the graphic novel was better.
Miller himself openly admits (in response to criticism) that the Spartans were almost certainly practitioners of institutionalised homosexuality and paederasty, but of course if you yourself are a Spartan, you’re going to downplay that and point to the fault in others. Miller also stated that if his characters’ opinions were simply and solely a reflection of his own, his work would be boring, and he’s right. He’d be soapboxing, not entertaining.
Ultimately it does come down to enlightened abstract concepts against tyranny and religious mysticism (even if you leave ‘justice’ out of it). From that point of view, the war is still on, between the ideological descendants of the same two sides.
It didn’t matter that the Spartans had slaves; Leonidas’ point is that the 300 who marched to sell their lives were all free men; they took no slaves with them into combat.
And the tale is openly told from the Spartan point of view; of course they are going to demonize their enemies. But how are you going to tell it from the Persian point of view, because from that point of view it was essentially a temporary and very Pyrrhic victory.
The Helots were really more like serfs than what we commonly call slaves. To me the significant fact is that they outnumbered the Spartans by about 3 to 1, yet their sacrifice isn’t mentioned in most retellings. Some even fail to mention the 700 Thespians.
That’s not a fair criticism, since their 300 best warriors were dead at the time. What the stand at Thermopylae accomplished was to buy the Athenians time to prepare their naval forces to defeat the Persians at Salamis, so without Thermopylae, you don’t get Salamis.
But Salamis only forced the Persians to retreat back to Asia. Their real comeuppance was Plataea, when the Greek alliance led by the reconstituted Spartans took the fight to the Persians and kicked their asses out of Greece permanently.
But the really important point you’re missing, as any Greek will be happy to tell you, is that Thermopylae represents the real birth of the Greek nation out of the various city states that banded together to resist being taken over by the Persians.
Maybe in Miller’s novel, but not according to Herodotus. There were about 400 Thebans, held against their will, who were released before the final battle. The 900 or so Helots remained and died along with their Spartan masters.
Well, I suppose that’s the legend anyway. It kinda assumes that your “any Greek” knows about the Persian Wars, and nothing about the Peloponnesian ones.
Real history is actually complicated.
Miller himself openly admits (in response to criticism) that the Spartans were almost certainly practitioners of institutionalised homosexuality and paederasty, but of course if you yourself are a Spartan, you’re going to downplay that and point to the fault in others.
Why would they have considered it a ‘fault’?
Oh. Like an American who sees the American Revolution as the birth of the United States has to know nothing the Civil War? What are you saying?
Yes, history is complicated. That doesn’t mean that no one but you understands it.
I find it interesting that people have focused on the historical aspect of my criticism.
1) I didn’t even care about the silly stuff like cave trolls and Rinos. I figured that was “poetic license” or something.
2) History was but 1/3 or my criticism.
What I found funny were the details like:
-> Arrows that would not go through cardboard due to the artistic design (close zoom was hard to miss)
-> The fact that the last “darken the sky with arrows” dealy would have killed Xerxes and all nearby as well as Leonidas.
-> The crucifiction pose at the end was just silly
-> The physics of having a head cut off without the body moving (Yeah, necks are that weak)
-> All those arrows going into, but not through the shields (yeah, right)
-> Xerxes being gayish (Not that there is anything wrong..)? Really now.
I liked “Smokey and the Bandit” way back when so it is cool to like bad movies. Just don’t pretend this is not a bad movie.
I liked the queen character though. I guess that shows I am a feminist. Was the guy who betrayed her supposed to be GWB? (kidding, it was really K. Rove.)
#69: You’re right, I misinterpreted what you said in exactly the way you thought I did. I intended to skewer the position you describe, but wrongly assumed that you actually *held* that position. Sorry.
#76: Even authors of alternate history have that responsibility. Characters who are historical figures must behave in a way consistent with their actual historical actions and character – as much as can be predicted, what the actual historical figure would have done under the circumstances. You don’t get to rewrite the personalities of people that actually existed.
If Miller had written the same story using his own original characters I don’t think he would have gotten nearly as much criticism (except maybe for the clichedness of the setup). But there was an actual human being named Xerxes, and Miller pretty clearly slandered him. Bad form.
#78:
What a revealing comment.
If you’re a Spartan, that isn’t a fault. It’s a normal part of life in your society.
It’s only if you’re a modern faux-Spartan, who simultaneously believes that some of the Spartans’ customs were vile and wants to look up to them as heroes, that you’re going to have that impulse to bowdlerize history, to polish the heroes who weren’t quite shiny enough on their own.
Both sides were slaveholding monarchists (did anyone trying to cast Leonidas as a champion of freedom bother to notice that he was a king?), fighting over dominance over a particular land area in a particular generation. It wasn’t a battle of good versus evil. Either victory or defeat would have been temporary. But those brutal truths are so much less appealing than Miller’s fiction, aren’t they?
Chris,
No need to apologize. You would have to know me pretty well AND be able to read between the lines in order to get what I was trying (and failing, badly) to say the first time around. Anyway, I’m glad we’re on the same page now.
Next up: Xerxes vs. some chick with a machine gun where her right leg used to be.
So then what do you make of Shakespeare’s histories? Especially given that the license he took with history was often for expressly propagandistic purposes.
To be fair though, the real Xerxes did have Leonidas’s decapitated body crucified.
But it certainly works, for better or worse, as a metaphor for the struggle between an idealized Land of the Free and Home of the Brave (aka the USA) against a demonized Axis of Evil Part Deux (aka Iran)
You mean a completely fake image, except for actors posing in homoerotic macho uniforms?
Yeah, that could work…
I am critical of them for exactly that reason, but two points are worth noting:
1. They are still great literature. (I mean, honestly, do you think this movie measures up to the same artistic standards?)
2. Shakespeare didn’t have access to the same scholarly historical sources of which Miller could have availed himself had he chosen to do so, so it’s unclear how much propaganda Shakespeare himself added to the narratives and how much he simply imbibed from his sources. Shakespeare wasn’t a historian, after all. He was a popular writer whose writings reflect his political and social milieu. Of course he was biased. So was Herodotus.
Can we get back to the fact the evolutionists are hot? In my undergrad days I always suspected there was more going on under those lab coats than was apparent to the average on-looker.
If the admissions PZ has made above are accurate, is there any way we could make the lab coats more diaphanous – and the lab assistants more writhe-y? a little Oracle Gurl action might have brightened the otherwise tedious, 4-hour ‘extraction of lycopene from tomatos’ afternoon labs I remember so clearly.
PiatoR (#88) … Yeah, basically. (See my followup at #69 for clarification.)
=)
John – I think in the case of Oracle Gurl, “writhey” really means “epileptic” … sorry!
If the admissions PZ has made above are accurate, is there any way we could make the lab coats more diaphanous – and the lab assistants more writhe-y?
Get rid of all lab shakers and vortex machines?
I assume that we are going for equal opportunity exploitation, and the males will be wearing nothing but leather Speedos under their lab coats?
Apropos suggestive lab practices, guess where my friend likes to defrost Eppendorf tubes…
I can’t speak for the others, but I wear a pair of pantlegs supported by garters under my lab coat.
You know, this is exactly the way I interpreted the Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers.
My analogy is better since Dembski is a goblin.