Category Archives: Film

Oh The Hypocrisy: Iranian Islamists Vis-a-Vis ‘300’

Film, Islam, The Zeitgeist

The Iranian government is angry about the depiction of ancient, Zoroastrian Persia in the film “300.” The Greek accounts of the Greco-Persian wars are certainly replete with description of despotic, luxuriating and effeminate Persians, versus tough, freedom-loving European. But, “Herodotus, the most important Greek chronicler of the Persian empire,” writes Christopher de Bellaigue in The New York Review of Books, found “much in the Persians to praise.” So did Reza Shah and son; they hated Arab culture and identified themselves completely with pre-Islamic Persia.

Not so the clerics who came to power after the Islamic revolution in 1979; they endeavored to expunge the Achaemenids, the Sassanids, and Zoroastrianism from Iran’s historical memory. To Islamists, history begins with Mohammad and his exploits; all that went before doesn’t count.

Shortly after the revolution, Islamic mobs in Iran tried to Talibanize Cyrus’s tomb. Persian names were changed to Islamic names, and references to the Achaemenid kings were banned on the state broadcaster. In post-revolutionary Iran, children were no longer named Darius or Cyrus (but Mo and Hussein, like one presidential candidate).

Oh The Hypocrisy: Iranian Islamists Vis-a-Vis '300'

Film, Islam, The Zeitgeist

The Iranian government is angry about the depiction of ancient, Zoroastrian Persia in the film “300.” The Greek accounts of the Greco-Persian wars are certainly replete with description of despotic, luxuriating and effeminate Persians, versus tough, freedom-loving European. But, “Herodotus, the most important Greek chronicler of the Persian empire,” writes Christopher de Bellaigue in The New York Review of Books, found “much in the Persians to praise.” So did Reza Shah and son; they hated Arab culture and identified themselves completely with pre-Islamic Persia.

Not so the clerics who came to power after the Islamic revolution in 1979; they endeavored to expunge the Achaemenids, the Sassanids, and Zoroastrianism from Iran’s historical memory. To Islamists, history begins with Mohammad and his exploits; all that went before doesn’t count.

Shortly after the revolution, Islamic mobs in Iran tried to Talibanize Cyrus’s tomb. Persian names were changed to Islamic names, and references to the Achaemenid kings were banned on the state broadcaster. In post-revolutionary Iran, children were no longer named Darius or Cyrus (but Mo and Hussein, like one presidential candidate).

'300': Not A Top Pick With Metrosexuals

Ancient History, Critique, Film, Hollywood

“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).

‘300’: Not A Top Pick With Metrosexuals

Ancient History, Critique, Film, Hollywood

“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).