"What is your profession?" - Refuting an Idiot's Review of '300'.
[This was written over a month ago but I held onto it to republish on the blog.] I just got back from seeing "300". Before ever leaving for the theater, I'd already seen criticisms from the professional whiners, and by the time I got back, I realized they were even more spectacularly wrong than I'd already guessed. On AlterNet, Steve Burgess begins with a hysterically bed-wetting attack on anyone who actually dares to enjoy the movie:

Someday soon, you may ask a new acquaintance that question, and just maybe -- because it takes all kinds -- your new friend will reply, "My favourite movie is 300."

If this happens, back away slowly. Your new friend probably kills cats for fun. Worse -- your new friend may be George W. Bush.

...OK.

Burgess makes a couple of valid points about the way the violence and sex in the movie is handled (note that valid does not always equal true), then attacks the plot:

The plot -- don't blink now -- is this: 300 brave Spartans, led by the heroic Leonidas (Gerard Butler), guard a pass against the Persian hordes commanded by King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro). There's a small bit of politics thrown in, and the aforementioned boinking (featuring Lena Headey as Queen Gorgo). But it's mostly just the glorious, sexual thrill of slow-motion violence and orgasmic geysers of spurting blood. Really. Such unabashed tributes to slaughter are usually delivered with a wink in slasher films, but 300 does not know how to wink. It is deadly serious in the way that so often provokes giggles.

Burgess is upset that a war movie is, in fact, a movie about a war. Really. This bothers him, but the fact that Leonidas has a thick Scottish burr does not.

The hardcore hilarity, though, is saved for the final section, in which Burgess is shocked to learn that the "small bit of politics" of the film (and, in fact, of history), a small bit of politics that becomes such a point of obsession that it consumes half his review, differ from his own. This, he cannot forgive:

There's virtually no development of the Persian side, almost no real sense of who they are and why they are so scary -- except that there's a whole lot of them, and their leader Xerxes is seven feet tall, like Darth Vader and with pretty much the same voice. When it finally arrives, the big sacrificial climax doesn't even make a lot of sense. It's just heroic.

Most war movies expect you to have some cursory understanding of the history involved: Few World War II epics, for example, feel compelled to spend the first hour "developing" the Third Reich in order to make sure the viewer understands why they were bad. Certainly, the film could've done a better job explaining the tactical reason the Spartans stayed to die, but the fact that many people are unfamiliar with the Battle of Thermopylae, potentially a pivotal reason that our civilization even exists today, is more of a statement about public education than it is about the film 300.

However, for those of us who aren't obsessive pacifists, the film made it perfectly clear who the Persians are and why they are scary: They are a neighboring empire that have come to impose their law upon the Greeks. The Greeks already have their own laws, and are completely happy with them. If Burgess needs more explanation to see why the Greeks and Persians would then have an irreconcilable difference, he's beyond repair, because this is more or less how most wars go down.

Regardless, 300 will likely be a masturbatory experience for the Ann Coulter crowd. Cruel, militaristic Sparta is the ideal; weak, artsy Athens is mocked, particularly in a scene where Athenian soldiers are revealed to be potters, sculptors, poets. Brave men who leave what they love to defend their country? Bah! Weaklings, according to this flick.

I was waiting for this scene. It never came.

What Burgess likely saw was the meeting of the Arcadians, whom Burgess  apparently confused with Athenians. The Arcadians bring the trash-talk on themselves by accusing Leonidas of bringing an inconsequential number of soldiers to the field and, therefore, not being serious about fighting Persia. Leonidas counters by pointing out that, in fact, the Arcadians have brought no soldiers to the field, but rather blacksmiths, sculptors and artists who happen to be carrying spears. They're never insulted as being cowardly, but rather as being incompetent compared to the Spartans - one is a group of professional soldiers, the other a minimally trained and poorly equipped militia. It's a real military problem now, and it was a problem then.

Does Burgess think that the Spartans should instead be awed that the Arcadians decided they'd rather not have "what they love" destroyed and thereby opted to defend it? Certainly, it's a decision that requires courage, but it's the kind of courage that people should be expected to have, especially given that the alternative is pretty bleak.

Regardless, Sparta is hardly "the ideal". It's cruel and militaristic. They practice a kind of ancient eugenics, beat their kids and throw them out into the wilderness to toughen up, it goes on. However, 300 is, in fact, told from the Spartan point of view. From the mystical Oracle to the monstrous Ephialtes (his name a Greek word for "nightmare" even today) to a Persian enemy perceived to ride monsters and wield supernatural forces, everything is meant to be a romanticized, dramatic and distinctly Spartan retelling of events, the way someone who had been there and understood the world the way the ancient Greeks did might've remembered it. In fact, the whole movie is driven by the narration of a Spartan retelling the story of the battle. This should be clear to any observer, but not to Burgess, who is so warped that he imagines people who don't agree with him politically see 300's Sparta as a happy utopia. He'd prefer a portrayal in which self-hating Spartans loudly mourn their own faults to the point of surrender.

As a tribute to a particular world view, 300 could play on a double bill with Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will.

300 is now not just pro-Bush propaganda, it's Nazi propaganda. Then again, Burgess can't tell the difference: The Nazi reference is so random that one can sense the coming of a wild outburst of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), an affliction closely related to Tourette's.

...and here it is!

And no doubt it will be screened at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. President Bush will certainly relish a film in which King Leonidas tries, and fails, to get authorization from Sparta's governing council for an attack against the forces of Persia, a.k.a. modern-day Iran. Leonidas goes ahead anyway. History calls him a hero. So much for congressional funding.

This should go down with Michael Feingold's Village Voice theater review that, in the first paragraph, suddenly called for the systematic extermination of all Republicans, then happily goes back to analyzing the play.

Unfortunately for Burgess, history doesn't call Leonidas a hero for going to war without the approval of his legislature: That was artistic license to get the story told a bit more concisely. Historically, the Greek city-states correctly assessed the apocalyptic threat before them, assembled a war council at Corinth, and collectively mustered about 7,000 to fight at Thermopylae. The Spartan King Leonidas was only allowed to take 300 men due to their religious festival, the Carneia (during which time it was not permitted to send the Spartan army beyond Sparta's borders), but did so with the consent of the council, while the Olympic games, also a religious obligation, prevented many other Greeks from joining the force at Thermopylae.

Absurdly outnumbered but better equipped and holding ideal terrain, the Greeks did remarkable well. However, when it became clear they would be flanked and ultimately destroyed, other Greeks returned to their home cities. The Spartans chose to stay and hold back the Persians to the bitter end, buying their fellow Greeks time to organize a resistance but knowing that they themselves would certainly die. It's for that that history remembers them as heroes.

It's another case of Burgess completely missing the point: The Battle of Thermopylae isn't an inspiring story because a rogue warlord picked a fight, it's an inspiring story because brave men knowingly fought and died for something greater than themselves: The preservation of their culture and way of life. This entire concept is, from his tone, clearly somewhat alien to Burgess: All he can see is propaganda supporting a war against Iran. (Nevermind any relevant assessment of just how bad of a thing for our way of life it might be if Iran acquires nuclear weapons: Burgess has an unfeasible worldview to defend, and that is his priority here.)

There's even evidence that the film consciously grasps at this clash-of-civilizations message. "Today we will rid the world of mysticism and tyranny," shouts a Greek soldier, leading a charge against the Persians moments after we have seen an image of dead Spartans in Christ-like poses.

To me, they pretty much looked like they were laying on the ground stuffed with arrowheads. I could be wrong, but I don't think that's exactly what happened to Christ. (Sorry to spoil the film's ending for anybody, but it's in all the history books. When you watch a World War II movie, you don't generally go into it expecting the Japanese to pull it out at the last minute.)

Either way, one would imagine the Spartans were also keenly aware of the "clash of civilizations" message, given that another civilization had come to subjugate theirs. The comic book the movie was inspired by was written in 1998, long before the current "clash of civilizations" popped into anybody's head, and as it happens, the residents of one particular part of the world have had a long history of attempting to destroy a particular civilization, and it's been a recurring theme throughout human history. That's why some people get deeply concerned about the large number of religious leaders in that part of the world who today preach that all of mankind should be forcibly converted to their way of life, even more so when they start blowing people up for that purpose.

A movie about one of these events does not have to be a metaphor for another, unless a person is so narrow-minded that they can only see things through the lens of their own current situation. That isn't healthy, and neither is Burgess: his problem isn't that he thinks what happens was wrong, it's just that he quietly wishes reality would go away and stop raising questions about his personal ideology, because his ideas fare poorly under scrutiny.

Most of the bloodthirsty teens in the audience won't care about that stuff, of course. But Dick Cheney will cream himself. I guess Dick can use a little diversion. He's had a rough year.

Burgess has, too, running out of medication two days before writing this review.

Of course, some actual Persians are distressed at the film, as well:

Dear Warner Bros. Picture Company,

We the undersigned, through this letter, protest your irresponsible, unethical and unscientific actions.

This letter is in concern of making the movie, 300 by your company, which, according to all historical documents, is fraudulent and distorted, and its broadcast guarantees the violation of undeniable international legal rights.

Presumably, this is found in the Big Book of Undeniable International Legal Rights, the same ones that the Iranian basiji militias read from before murdering political dissidents.

It is a proven scholarly fact that the Persian Empire in 480 B.C was the most magnificent and civilized empire.

Established by the Cyrus the great, the writer of the first human right declaration, Persians ruled over significant portions of Greater Iran, the east modern Afghanistan and beyond into central Asia; in the north and west all of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the upper Balkans peninsula (Thrace), and most of the Black Sea coastal regions; in the west and southwest the territories of modern Iraq, northern Saudi-Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, all significant population centers of ancient Egypt and as far west as portions of Libya. Having twenty nations under control, encompassing approximately 7.5 million square kilometers, unquestionably the Achaemenid Empire was territorially the largest empire of classical antiquity.

Yes, it was. As a matter of fact, that was exactly what the Spartans were worried about: Xerxes intended to keep on making it larger, right through their backyards. Bragging about how gigantic the empire was doesn't seem like a good approach, if one's goal is to shed an image as conquerers.

Based on the Zoroastrian doctrine, it was the strong emphasis on honesty and integrity that gave the ancient Persians credibility to rule the world, even in the eyes of the people belonging to the conquered nations (Herodotus, mid 5th century B.C).....

Not all of them, apparently: The Spartans and other Greeks were somewhat lacking in enthusiasm, and the Egyptians regained their independence at least twice before the collapse of Persia itself. Xerxes' predecessor, Darius, faced constant rebellion across his Empire.

We did not expect Warner Bros. Picture company, as one of the world's largest producers of film and television entertainment to ignore the proven obvious historical facts, and damage its own reputation by showing the Persian army at the battle of Thermopylae as some monstrous savages, and thus create an atmosphere of public mistrust in its content, and hurt the national pride of the millions of Persians while doing so.

While announcing our disgust at such a heresy, we demand an immediate historical review and quick apology from the responsible people.

Bear in mind that Iranian television features a popular show called Zahra's Blue Eyes. The plot? That the Israeli government kidnaps Palestinian children to steal their organs and keep their politicians alive forever. This is not a problem, but 300 is.

The only thing particularly monstrous that the Persians were depicted as doing was trashing a village and hanging the residents from a tree. Also, for some reason, Xerxes is an eight foot tall metrosexual covered in bling, which we can all agree is creepy, but he at least offers the Greeks several compromises, all of which are refused because the options still involve being annexed by Persia.

The Spartans, on the other hand, are depicted hurling a helpless messenger down a well, throwing unhealthy babies into the garbage, building a defensive barrier from the corpses of their enemies, and executing wounded Persians while their king happily eats a shiny red apple. Somehow, the Greeks have managed to avoid petitioning Warner Brothers about this, but the 50,000 "Persian" signatories to the above petition are just blind with rage:

Bycott not only WB movies, but all Amercian products, everything! This is unbelievable what they are doing to us. No wonder why they are most hated country in the world!

I'm taking bets on how many people who signed the petition watched the movie first, or if these are simply the same personality types who formed angry mobs and burned down random embassies because some Danish newspaper published some cartoons the angry mob never actually saw.

Considering that Xerxes was such a whackjob that he reportedly had the ocean whipped for disobeying him, I'd say the Persians didn't come off so bad - the film omitted Xerxes beheading the corpse of Leonidas and ordering it crucified - especially considering that, again, the story is told from the Spartan point of view. (For the author and signers of this petition, it should be noted, that the Persians were conquering the world is not problematic at all: They had the "credibility" to do so. This must be the same credibility that "the scholars" have when proving that Achaemid Persia was the most magnificent civilization that existed anywhere, ever.)

Similar insanity can be found from Dana Stevens in Slate, who apparently believes that the movie demonizes elephants and lesbians, simply because they were seen with the Persians. Stevens does not require nine paragraphs to violate Godwin's Law with a pointy stick, instead requiring only the opening sentence to reference The Eternal Jew, another Nazi propaganda film. However, instead of rambling on about how the filmmakers were aware of historical parallels, Stevens is upset because she thinks the filmmakers weren't thinking of the current situation. It's irresponsible to release this film now, or something. I guess we're supposed to revise both history and fiction when reality becomes socially awkward.

How can there be this many idiots wallowing in their own angst over a movie?