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jackAccording to 300:
* Fighting is good
* Physical perfection is good
* Having slaves is good
* Posing pouches are good
* Slaughtering helpless enemies without mercy is good
* Following the letter of the law is good
* Diplomacy is bad
* Being deformed or black is bad
* Acknowledging having slaves is bad
* Gold bikinis are bad
* Sending waves of people to die in your stead is bad
* Mysticism is bad
I won't say whether I thought it was good, but I expected it to be very interesting, and it was. Thanks to Becky for arranging it! Comments on the film will be controvertial. I think I can fairly say it was a very visual film, and I think very true to comic. Oh, and funny in several places, without being over the top. And it's funny to hear the entire cambridge cinema sniggering at the homoerotic bits :)
From what I can tell, it was even fairly true to history. I don't know the history, but I had a shufti at wikipedia and the only thing that stood out was that there was originally a greek army of *some* size, but that retreated when outflanked, and the 300 held the rearguard only at the end.
I've opinions on both sides. I don't think the Persians were necessarily supposed to be a snub to people in Persia now. And Xerxes was sort of cool. But Greeks and Iranians are not that different, swarthy, or mediaranian, or whatever, but in this someone drew a line on the map and said "everyone on this side is white, as in american, and everyone on that side is black, as in african", and when everyone on the other side is also blatantly evil, it is disturbing.
Ditto deformities. No-one is in the middle (apart from maybe Xerxes). The only greeks who aren't paragons of physical perfection are horrendously deformed and evil.
Sparta is shown as rough and tough and better than everyone else. Which is sort of cool. But unlike many other societies, it's not suggested they're doing what they have to to survive, but that slaughtering any children not physically perfect is an end in itself. Sorry, I'm ranting.
* Fighting is good
* Physical perfection is good
* Having slaves is good
* Posing pouches are good
* Slaughtering helpless enemies without mercy is good
* Following the letter of the law is good
* Diplomacy is bad
* Being deformed or black is bad
* Acknowledging having slaves is bad
* Gold bikinis are bad
* Sending waves of people to die in your stead is bad
* Mysticism is bad
I won't say whether I thought it was good, but I expected it to be very interesting, and it was. Thanks to Becky for arranging it! Comments on the film will be controvertial. I think I can fairly say it was a very visual film, and I think very true to comic. Oh, and funny in several places, without being over the top. And it's funny to hear the entire cambridge cinema sniggering at the homoerotic bits :)
From what I can tell, it was even fairly true to history. I don't know the history, but I had a shufti at wikipedia and the only thing that stood out was that there was originally a greek army of *some* size, but that retreated when outflanked, and the 300 held the rearguard only at the end.
I've opinions on both sides. I don't think the Persians were necessarily supposed to be a snub to people in Persia now. And Xerxes was sort of cool. But Greeks and Iranians are not that different, swarthy, or mediaranian, or whatever, but in this someone drew a line on the map and said "everyone on this side is white, as in american, and everyone on that side is black, as in african", and when everyone on the other side is also blatantly evil, it is disturbing.
Ditto deformities. No-one is in the middle (apart from maybe Xerxes). The only greeks who aren't paragons of physical perfection are horrendously deformed and evil.
Sparta is shown as rough and tough and better than everyone else. Which is sort of cool. But unlike many other societies, it's not suggested they're doing what they have to to survive, but that slaughtering any children not physically perfect is an end in itself. Sorry, I'm ranting.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 06:39 pm (UTC)And the emperor-king was a Goa'uld
no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 10:15 pm (UTC)Okay, now I -have- to see it =P
no subject
Date: 2007-03-29 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-29 01:13 pm (UTC)ROFL. That was it! That describes it perfectly.
Hey, how are you these days? I haven't heard anything from you for ages, bar some fanfic on livejournal :)
no subject
Date: 2007-04-03 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-29 07:59 am (UTC)I read it as straightforwardly duplicating the propaganda of the time; the fact that the ancient Greeks were biased in favor of their own achievements should not be surprising.
Nobody would conclude from this film that modern Spartans were paragons of physical perfection and could only be defeated through treachery. Likewise nobody should conclude from it that modern Persians are divided into greedy imperialists and craven slaves and can only win the most uneven of fights, unless they already had a prejudice in mind.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-29 10:37 am (UTC)The deformities comment probably is as there were deformed Mystics, a spartan and weird sword handed guy and they were all bad.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-29 01:12 pm (UTC)I don't have a problem with demonising the enemy (though I thought they overdid it). Nor with having people of correct nationality. But I'm not sure they *did*. All the big bad Persians seemed to not be *Persian* (coffee-coloured?) but *black*, as in African, as in how someone used to dividing people into black people and white people would see black. If they were all different I'd be happier at that "greek against everyone" feel.
It's not necessarily a problem, it could just be coincidence. But when so much else in the film was (metaphorically) black and white, it gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Does that make sense?