What I learned from 300

After much delay I finally got around to watching the surprise hit movie 300, an adaptation of a Frank Miller comic book -- oops, I mean "graphic novel." 300 purports to tell the story of the battle of Thermopylae, in which a handful of Spartans and a few other Greeks held off a vastly larger invading army of Persians.

I learned a lot from this movie. For instance I learned:

Ugly people are bad. Pretty people are (mostly) good.

There are a few pretty people who are bad, but fortunately they give themselves away by sneering and grimacing all the time and by concealing the enemy's currency, with which they have been bribed, on their own person so that it can conveniently spill out at an opportune moment.

Strange rhinoceroslike beasts, war elephants, bald giants, and hunchbacked freaks played a significant role in this military engagement.

Sparta was keenly interested in freedom, justice, and logic, and deeply opposed to slavery, injustice, and mysticism.

People who practice mysticism tend to have their skin rot right off their faces, like lepers or Michael Jackson, while people who practice logic have neatly trimmed beards and six-pack abs.

The ancient Greeks waxed their chests.

The Spartans, despite being skilled warriors, fought without armor except for helmets and shields.

The Persians were heavily into body piercing, lesbianism, and androgyny. The Persian king Xerxes seems to have had a thing for circus freaks. He was also about nine feet tall.

People who are heroic tend to shout a lot. The more heroic they are, the louder they shout.

The Spartans said things like, "Freedom isn't free."

The Athenians were known for homosexual activity but the Spartans weren't.

The battle of Thermopylae, contrary to conventional wisdom, took place on a Hollywood sound stage in front of a very large greenscreen, and all the blood was digital.

I'm grateful to the movie for educating me in these matters. Before I saw it, I foolishly believed that Sparta was a rather brutal dictatorship comprised of a small warrior class and a large contingent of slaves called "helots," who worked the fields to produce food for the warriors. Having read E.R. Dodds' classic book The Greeks and the Irrational, I was also under the impression that mysticism played a very large role in ancient Greek thought -- even in Athens, sometimes romanticized as an oasis of rationalism, and certainly in Sparta, which was hardly renowned for its philosophers. I also thought that the Spartans were heavily armored from head to toe. And I had the distinct impression that homosexual relations were quite common among the Spartan military elite, who were, as the movie correctly indicates, separated from all female contact at an early age. I also would have doubted the use of war elephants at this time and place, much less rhinos, which as far as I know have never been used for military purposes anywhere.

Okay, so the movie is hardly an accurate depiction. It's not meant to be. I can live with that, although I would have greatly preferred to see a dramatization of Steven Pressfield's superb novel Gates of Fire, which tells the actual story of Thermopylae and gives us a far keener appreciation of Spartan virtues than 300 can supply. But Pressfield made the mistake of writing an actual novel, not a graphic novel. And graphic novels, aimed squarely at the 14-year-old male demographic that Hollywood covets, are the "in" thing right now. I guess if you're a 14-year-old male, the movie's stilted dialogue, one-note performances, bash-you-over-the-head narration, and over-the-top indulgence in fantasy and fetishism, not to mention its copious videogame gore, would be mighty appealing.

Alas, it's been 32 years since I was a 14-year-old boy, and I can no longer relate to this kind of entertainment. I found the film stupefyingly dull, despite its relentless spectacle -- or maybe because of its relentless spectacle, which wears out its welcome through sheer repetition.

One thing about the movie, however, did interest me, and that is the philosophical or pseudophilosophical subtext. Years ago, when I was in college and for a short time afterward, I was a big fan of Ayn Rand and a follower of her philosophy, Objectivism. Watching 300, I got a distinct whiff of Rand's influence. It's all there -- the strident speech-making, the one-dimensional "larger-than-life" heroes, the contemptible villains, the black-and-white morality that neatly divides the world into us vs. them, the paeans to "logic" and "reason" even in a context where such references make little sense, the blanket dismissal of "mysticism" as something subhuman which is practiced only by subhumans, the equation of good looks with virtue, the equation of unattractiveness with vice, the oversimplified view of complex historical situations, the whole comic book style.* Rand's novels always were more like Classic Comics than genuine literature. And like 300, they appeal primarily to teenage boys.

I know nothing about Frank Miller, but I would bet that he's an Objectivist or at least somebody strongly influenced by Rand. And the movie's director, Zack Snyder, seems to be on the same wavelength. Right now, a movie version of Rand's magnum opus Atlas Shrugged is in development. The director currently attached to the project is Vadim Perelman, whose sole previous credit is the slow-paced, rather naturalistic film The House of Sand and Fog. I think the producers are missing an opportunity. They ought to get Zack Snyder -- or, what the hell, even Frank Miller himself. Somebody possessed of the comic book sensibility that animates 300 might actually be able to make a watchable movie out of Atlas.

Especially if they put in some war elephants.

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*And yes, even the adulation of sacrifice. Rand's philosophy was pro-selfishness and anti-sacrifice, but there is a rich vein of heroic martyrdom running through her fiction, as I discussed here.

Comments

[Chris]

"I learned a lot from this movie. For instance I learned:

Ugly people are bad. Pretty people are (mostly) good."

LOL!

I agree with you on many of this film's exxagerated and flamboyant elements, as well as its dishonest portrayal of Spartan society. Still, I had a blast watching it, my fifteen year old self loves to indulge in this sort of thing from time to time. As one of my coworkers said, one of the most testosterone drenched movies ever.

In regards to Frank Miller, his graphic novels are quite talented and enjoyable to read.

[Adam]

Thanks for giving me even more reasons to not even bother with the movie. I utterly detest Randian Objectivism because it's the least objective, most doctrinaire taxonomy of complaint (a philosophical system it isn't) I've ever encountered.

[Michael Prescott]

"Taxonomy of complaint" - I like that!

David Ramsey Steele wrote that Objectivism "is bluff, bolstered by abuse of all critics."

Zing!

[Urban Mystic Dee]

I enjoyed 300 very much, precisely for many of the reasons you mentioned. I think watching a few dozen beefy guys in leather speedos go on a killing spree is very theraputic. And just what is the difference between a "graphic novel" and a "comic book?" Is one all bonne vie bonne and the other for raggedy commoners?

And if you disliked 300 you'll hate this. It's a parody video I made (not of 300) that might not last very long and is perhapse just as juvenile. It's not real big on graphic violence or sex (though they are both present), but there is excessive foul language throughout.
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=20683878

[Jess]

Here is a parady of 300, found on youtube, that seems to take a bit of the orignal overtones out of the story. It may be a bit more enjoyable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QroZs6q3Ol0

[Nick Stump]

A perfect example of how everything worthwhile is dumbed down so even the most illiterate can understand. I agree with you about Gates of Fire. Pressfield's a remarkable writer.

[Skindo]

--And graphic novels, aimed squarely at the 14-year-old male demographic that Hollywood covets, are the "in" thing right now. I guess if you're a 14-year-old male, the movie's stilted dialogue, one-note performances, bash-you-over-the-head narration, and over-the-top indulgence in fantasy and fetishism, not to mention its copious videogame gore, would be mighty appealing.--

I'm 33 and loved the movie. If you think that this is something for 14 year olds that means only one thing...your old. Maybe you should go and look at The English Patient or The Piano and tell everybody how great they are...