Why The Left Hates "300"
FACE
Why The Left Hates "300"
By Ben Shapiro
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
"300" is not a particularly good movie. The comic-book tale of the battle of
Thermopylae (480 B.C.) brims over with excessive nudity and violence. The
dialogue is often laughable -- lines like "This is madness! This is Sparta!"
leap to mind.
David Wenham, who plays a Spartan soldier, narrates throughout the movie;
his narration is guffaw-inducing. "Only the hard and strong may call
themselves Spartans. Only the hard . Only the strong ," Wenham gravely
intones. At another point, over footage of Spartans graphically slaughtering
the oncoming hordes of Persian dictator Xerxes, Wenham intensely growls, "We
do what we've been trained to do. We do what we've been bred to do. We do
what we were born to do." There are no descriptors for this kind of
purposeful anti-subtlety.
Nonetheless, "300" is drawing a crowd. It is drawing a crowd for two
reasons: First, the movie is visually interesting, combining over-the-top
comic-book imagery with live-action realism in the same way "Sin City" did.
Second, Americans are interested in watching movies that pit good against
evil.
The Spartans of "300" are brutal. The opening scene of the movie depicts a
Spartan soldier, standing on a cliff overlooking a valley of skulls,
inspecting a baby to make sure it is hardy enough. If the baby is too weak,
we are told, it will be left for dead. This isn't exactly civilized conduct.
But the Persian hordes make the Spartans look like members of a British tea
club. Xerxes is an androgynous giant of a man with more body piercings than
Christina Aguilera. His camp is full of decadent bisexual promiscuity. He
seeks worldwide dictatorship and threatens Sparta with mass murder of its
male citizens, rape of its female citizens, and use of women and children as
slaves if Sparta fails to submit to his rule.
The Spartans, by contrast, say they are fighting for "freedom." In which
case, "300" is an old-fashioned battle between the forces of freedom and the
forces of oppression.
And the left doesn't like it at all. Many reviewers have panned "300" not on
artistic grounds, or even on grounds of inanity, but on the grounds that the
Spartans in the film are a bunch of jackbooted thugs; that the tyranny they
fight is less tyrannical than Sparta; that good vs. evil is too simplistic.
"His troops are like al Qaeda in adult diapers," writes Kyle Smith of the
New York Post. "Keeping in mind Slate's Mickey Kaus' Hitler Rule -- never
compare anything to Hitler -- it isn't a stretch to imagine Adolf's boys at
a "300" screening, heil-fiving each other throughout and then lining up to
see it again." A.O. Scott makes the obligatory racial point: "It may be
worth pointing out that unlike their mostly black and brown foes, the
Spartans and their fellow Greeks are white."
The Iranians don't like "300," either. Javad Shamqadri, an art adviser to
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, proclaims that "300" is "part of a
comprehensive U.S. psychological war aimed at Iranian culture." "Following
the Islamic Revolution in Iran," explains Shamqadri, "Hollywood and cultural
authorities in the U.S. initiated studies to figure out how to attack
Iranian culture ... certainly, the recent movie is a product of such
studies."
Of course, "300" is not meant to be a historically accurate portrayal of the
battle of Thermopylae. It is a cartoonish movie with a simple theme -- a
theme that resonates with the American public. It is no surprise that the
Iranian regime -- the embodiment of evil in today's world -- objects to a
movie depicting a conflict between ancient Western civilization and ancient
Persian civilization as a conflict between good and evil. And it is not
surprising that the left objects to any movie pitting freedom against
tyranny and coming out squarely on the side of freedom.
"300" is not as morally murky as movies like "Syriana," "Babel" and "Kingdom
of Heaven." The movie has many weaknesses, but its strength lies in its
affirmation that there can be good, there can be evil, and that good must be
willing to withstand evil's best efforts to annihilate it.
~~~~
Saturday last, I saw a History Channel production (2 hours, I think) on the
battle of Thermopylae. That was followed by a 3 hour production called "The
Dark Ages". If you have cable TV, and these come around, I would recommend
them.
On Thermopylae, there was a lot of good stuff besides Leonidas and Xerxes,
like Thermistocles and how the naval side figured in at sea.
"The Dark Ages" covered the fall of Rome to Alaric up to about 1000 AD.
The Vikings were a mess and I can't rid my mind of the "bloody eagle" for
Auelle in an English kingdom (dukedom, princedom, freehold, ...whatever.)
Oh, and now we shall hear why the Left hates Ben Shapiro.......
FACE
Lane Straatman
"FACE" <AFaceIn...@seereplyto.net> wrote in message
news:kg6gv2ppoptqaj2rr...@4ax.com...
junk where a person jumps and doesn't hit the ground for ten seconds? The
realism of that is shown in the wonderful movie "The Departed" with Martin
Sheen's character.
> ~~~~
>
> Saturday last, I saw a History Channel production (2 hours, I think) on
> the
> battle of Thermopylae. That was followed by a 3 hour production called
> "The
> Dark Ages". If you have cable TV, and these come around, I would
> recommend
> them.
>
> On Thermopylae, there was a lot of good stuff besides Leonidas and Xerxes,
> like Thermistocles and how the naval side figured in at sea.
I *LOVE* those shows. The strategy and tactics to many of the decisive
battles in civilization's history are brought back to life usually with
computer characters (ones that don't fly)
> "The Dark Ages" covered the fall of Rome to Alaric up to about 1000 AD.
> The Vikings were a mess and I can't rid my mind of the "bloody eagle" for
> Auelle in an English kingdom (dukedom, princedom, freehold, ...whatever.)
I think the dark ages get a bad rap, usually from people who are simply
anti-catholic. How good was life going to be in a population center without
penicillin?
--
LS
Server 13
> Oh, and now we shall hear why the Left hates Ben Shapiro.......
PWNED
FACE
<inv...@invalid.net>, wrote
>> On Thermopylae, there was a lot of good stuff besides Leonidas and Xerxes,
>> like Thermistocles and how the naval side figured in at sea.
>I *LOVE* those shows. The strategy and tactics to many of the decisive
>battles in civilization's history are brought back to life usually with
>computer characters (ones that don't fly)
>
You've probably seen the one where Julius Caesar builds the bridge across
the Rhine in about 3 days. Marvel-ous.
>> "The Dark Ages" covered the fall of Rome to Alaric up to about 1000 AD.
>> The Vikings were a mess and I can't rid my mind of the "bloody eagle" for
>> Auelle in an English kingdom (dukedom, princedom, freehold, ...whatever.)
>I think the dark ages get a bad rap, usually from people who are simply
>anti-catholic. How good was life going to be in a population center without
>penicillin?
>--
>LS
As it said: Life was brutish, nasty, and usually it was mercifully short.
FACE
FACE
<c-b...@uiuc.edu>, wrote
>FACE wrote:
>
>> Oh, and now we shall hear why the Left hates Ben Shapiro.......
>
> PWNED
Why it's the liar and coward who claimed he had me killfiled.
Server 13
Sorry, pissFACE, wrong computer.
Say, did you ever find an example of a lie of mine, spoogeFACE?
STILL waiting for you on alt.politics.usa.republican, pussy.
FACE
<c-b...@uiuc.edu>, wrote
Dance, little man
Lane Straatman
> On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:25:42 -0500, in talk.current-events Lane Straatman
> <inv...@invalid.net>, wrote
>
>>> On Thermopylae, there was a lot of good stuff besides Leonidas and
>>> Xerxes,
>>> like Thermistocles and how the naval side figured in at sea.
>>I *LOVE* those shows. The strategy and tactics to many of the decisive
>>battles in civilization's history are brought back to life usually with
>>computer characters (ones that don't fly)
>>
>
> You've probably seen the one where Julius Caesar builds the bridge across
> the Rhine in about 3 days. Marvel-ous.
I've been thinking about lately is Aachen. Elsethread they're talking about
how a city is over-reaching its authority with respect to the country. In
places like Aachen, they're from their city furst.
>>> "The Dark Ages" covered the fall of Rome to Alaric up to about 1000 AD.
>>> The Vikings were a mess and I can't rid my mind of the "bloody eagle"
>>> for
>>> Auelle in an English kingdom (dukedom, princedom, freehold,
>>> ...whatever.)
>>I think the dark ages get a bad rap, usually from people who are simply
>>anti-catholic. How good was life going to be in a population center
>>without
>>penicillin?
>>--
>>LS
>
> As it said: Life was brutish, nasty, and usually it was mercifully short.
And that's Hobbes at the end of it.
--
LS