print“The 300 and their brothers-in-arms were not only Greek heroes, but ours as well. Yet the most absurd —and obscure —argument against this proposition contended that the Spartans could not have been fighting for individual liberties, since they themselves were part of a militaristic, collectivist, statist society. The Spartans fought so that their women and children would not be enslaved and they not slaughtered by the Persians. The right not to be slaughtered and the right not to be enslaved —what, pray tell, are they, if not the ultimate individual rights? To claim members of a flawed society cannot fight for individual liberties is a non sequitur.”
The excerpt is from my new WorldNetDaily column, “‘300′: Not A Top Pick With Metrosexuals.” (WND’s title.)
I hope this addresses some of the critical comments BAB readers leveled at me in an earlier discussion. My libertarian critics (at least those who are on the right side of the Lincoln debate) might want to consider, in this context, whether they would philosophically disqualify members of the Confederate States as legitimate defenders against indisputable Northern aggression, because some Southerners owned slaves (384,000 whites out of more than 8 million, to be precise).
Ilana,
Thanks for making me laugh out loud. I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised when guys who are fussy about things like draperies can’t keep their eyes off a movie full of scantily clad men, as their minds wander while gazing longingly at those incredible spears. I am surprised that anyone printed these musings as if they had any value, though.
Thanks for wading through the muck of those reviews so that I won’t have to do it for myself. I would have found them most nauseating.
The reviews must have been written before word got to the Iranians. It seems the movie has hurt their feelings, portraying them in ways that make them look like a primitive warrior culture. I would have expected most of the reviewers to pick up on that angle and excoriate the movie for this inexcusable insensitivity.
–John Danforth–
Manly virtues have been erased by our culture. Women control and men, from boyhood, have been raised to defer to a female perspective on everything. Cute and clever is the new masculinity. If I were picking a fight with someone the Spartans and the Ghurkas would be way down the list of my preferences. In other words, courage and devotion to duty were sacred to Spartans and it’s hard to have a battle without blood and gore. I look forward to seeing the movie.
Ilana,
This is a spirited and intelligent response to the movie. The effort to use the existence of slavery in Greek society to disparage the defenders reflects the usual multicultural hatred of Western civilization and its cultural roots. Are we supposed to believe that the Persians had abolished slavery, which was common to all ancient societies?
I could go on at length about historical anachronisms (and will on my blog review): showing a series of individual combats rather than hoplite battle, the design of the swords, using battle pikes as throwing spears, and Spartans fighting naked behind an aspis (shield, which is too small and too light) – but the director specifically said he was aware of all of this and chose to present a stylized version of the classical hoplite. And who will tell him he can’t do that when the Greeks themselves did so on their pottery and wall frescos?
Sparta was all that has been said, truly horrifying in some respects, such as the KKK-like Krypteia. But – they also achieved a primitive version of checks and balances with the dual kingship and the ephors, and in 500 years Sparta was never ruled by a tyrant, never occupied by a foreign power and never had a civil war.
Spartan women had a status higher than any other Greek state, including Athens. They managed estates, exercised naked and dressed to show their arms and legs – scandalous! And when Alcibiades, during one of his frequent exiles from Athens, fathered a son with the Spartan queen, the king helped run him out of town but dared not touch his wife. The queen openly called the child, Alcibiades.
The Athenian democracy is more to our taste, but they had their excesses as well. The senseless, but popular and ultimately disastrous expedition to Sicily for example. And the fact that every Athenian commander at one time or another suffered fines, banishment, even execution shows how the democratic mob loves to raise its heroes high – but equally loves to cast them down.
Free institutions did not spring full-grown like Athena from the brow of Zeus. They evolved in a number of places, most often by painful trial-and-error. But we can with some confidence, point to this era and say, that if the first models had been destroyed at birth, the West would not be what it is, and what it may become.
And BTW, though a proud Southerner, I too am on the “wrong side” of the Linclon issue.
http://rantsand.blogspot.com/
Ilana,
Thank you for finally allowing my eyes to read a favorable critique of “300�!
True, as an American male, I did enjoy the visual treat and the violent, and as you pointed out, swordplay.
Today’s society retreats from the reality of consequences when a blade moves through flesh as it did in times before we could watch a sanitized video of a falling bomb flying into a building.
Thank you for putting the historic perspective on its key importance of saving western civilization. I’m not so sure we will be able to turn back the next Persian attempt I fear.
Sincerely,
Paul Edmondson
Hello, Elena,
Good job with the column on “300”. I believe you hit the nail on the head with regards to the jellyfish who have reviewed this film and worried about the violence.
On the other hand, as someone who has waited for this movie to come out for a long time, I won’t be going to see it. I am a 40 year old, Christian mother of three (ages 17, 10, and 3), and have been around long enough to be able to handle seeing “battle gore” and the violence that accompanies wars simulated on-screen. However, everyone that I have talked to about this movie is staying home because of the sexual content. Two orgy scenes and a lesbian scene are keeping me, my husband, and my teenaged son from watching this movie.
I know that this movie is based on a graphic novel (one that I have not read, by the way), and they have taken some mighty odd liberties (Xerxes, for example). But honestly, as much of a stickler for true and honest depictions of history as I am, those showy and kind of weird interpretations of historical characters aren’t the things that are putting us off. It’s that this film has been heavily marketed to teenage boys (check any video gaming, geek-gadget, or sports site), and is FULL of sexual content. For most people thinking of a historical battle movie, it would be considered ridiculously gratuitous.
The boys that we know personally (all of my son’s friends, most who are also homeschooled and church going, good kids), have talked about this movie for a long time. Battles, history, the underdog fighting an oppressor- all these are themes they’ve mentioned while discussing this movie with us and with each other. When I told my son of the sexual content of this movie, he was more than a little irritated; he’s been waiting a LONG time for this movie, but won’t see it now.
Well, that was rambling! I’m sorry that I wasn’t more concise.
In any case, the violence has barely been discussed in our circles, that’s a part of war and battle- hand to hand combat in any age is a very brutal way to fight. But the sensuality and gratuitous sexual content of this movie is being discussed as the reason that no one we know is going to see “300”.
I haven’t seen this movie yet, but from your review, I think it will find a home in my collection. I don’t listen to what any of movie reviewers say any more except for Michael Medved.
Bloody? Do these idiots have any concept of how up-close & personal ancient warfare was? Have they ever thought about the mindset it takes to be a participant in that?
I can readily understand why Christians like Gini, above, would not see this movie due to scenes of sexual promiscuity. However, what interests me here is the depiction of a handful of brave men fighting to the death against the Persian army, whom you accurately term “Barbarian hordes.” [I used Herodotus’ term for the Persians.] Many are loath to use such descriptions today: we’re told that every people and culture are deserving of the same regard. They are not; and where is the harm in pointing this out?
Also appalling are attempts by some “male” reviewers to diss the film solely on the basis of demonstrated masculinity by Thermopylae’s Spartan defenders–as if masculinity is a thing of the past, and must now be replaced by “sensitivity,” “political correctness,” and every other false construct that has emerged from academia in the past 50 years. Instead, modern mythology places female combatants equal to male combatants in the absolutely nasty, brutal business of warfare. This is yet another lie, and any woman worth her estrogen knows it. Unfortunately, many women contributing significantly to today’s public discourse are not worth their estrogen.
I like the manly part of the Spartans, but I can’t get past the Spartan State forcing parents to leave deformed babies on the side of the hill for predators to eat. That’s probably because I have a profoundly retarded sister.
Miss the inspirational forest for the sex trees? It’s the best movie I’ve seen in some time. Real heroes are inspiring. Thanks to IM for a review that had more masculine virtue then all the other reviews combined.
One subject that fits in well with this is the high rates of PTSD presently being suffered by US troops. It’s a direct result of our feminine culture becoming dominant. Soldiers know parents will get the vapors if the truth be known, so they shut up. The pride, as well as the horror, remains uncelebrated by a decadent and girlish society. By failing to help these fine young men embrace their accomplishments we doom them to years of sleepless nights and an inability to fit into the society around them
Spartan women told their sons, “Either with your shield or on it.” Many will hear this and misunderstand that it helped to inoculate sons from the affects of PTSD. Mothers were telling their sons that it’s OK to fight to their full measure. So much has been lost.
I can see how the battles of 300 could be gory, but I’m not sure that they have to be *that* gory. I don’t really have any problem with some violence in films, but when it becomes overdone, I become uncomfortable. It’s one of the main reasons why I don’t see things like Kill Bill and the like – it seems to celebrate the glory of sadism. Of course, 300 isn’t about a sadistic revenge story, but I disgress… I still dislike seeing human beings being brutalized in the worst ways on a large screen. I’m just odd that way.
It wasn’t gory enough if anything. They use dark lenses that mute the affect of blood and gore. This is not reality, which was much worse.
When the reality of war is muted, it leads to an intellectual (versus visceral) view of what takes place. Jorge and his minions led us into the present war because they have the mute button on. They are high tech butchers, distanced from the reality and made stupid by it. How much more inhumane can one be than to reject, by not wanting to hear and know, the actions of ones own soldiers?