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You can't please all of the people all of the time
So, I went to see the 300 this afternoon. I wanted to like it, I really did. I had tried to check my historical sensibilities at the door and suspended my disbelief, and, especially given the mood I've been in lately, I was all too eager to watch some ass kicking--but you know what? I actually left the theater despising it.
Oh, the visuals were neat, the male bodies nicely sculpted, the fight scenes interestingly staged, but, seriously? Every racist stereotype, every homophobic prejudice taken and run with. It pushed all the wrong buttons, pandered to prejudice, and I'm actually appalled.
(And don't tell me that this is based on reality. Xerxes was likely as white skinned as Leonidas, who, by the way, was one of two kings. Sparta was not a democracy in any modern sense of the word but a society built on slave labor. Historically, Spartans were known as lacking in art, culture, learning and philosophy--and placing no value on such things. So, white men fighting for liberty, rationality, freedom, democracy, civilization, etc. against ethnically monstrous hordes of cowardly exotics enslaved to a false god. Yeah. Sounds just a little familiar.)
I know a lot of people enjoyed this movie, and I really wanted to, but just no fucking way. I can't turn off my brain to that extent. And in the world we unfortunately live in today, I can't write this off as just harmless stupidity in the name of "entertainment."
If you disagree or think I'm overreacting, I'm, despite my vehemence, happy to discuss. So, what did you think?
Oh, the visuals were neat, the male bodies nicely sculpted, the fight scenes interestingly staged, but, seriously? Every racist stereotype, every homophobic prejudice taken and run with. It pushed all the wrong buttons, pandered to prejudice, and I'm actually appalled.
(And don't tell me that this is based on reality. Xerxes was likely as white skinned as Leonidas, who, by the way, was one of two kings. Sparta was not a democracy in any modern sense of the word but a society built on slave labor. Historically, Spartans were known as lacking in art, culture, learning and philosophy--and placing no value on such things. So, white men fighting for liberty, rationality, freedom, democracy, civilization, etc. against ethnically monstrous hordes of cowardly exotics enslaved to a false god. Yeah. Sounds just a little familiar.)
I know a lot of people enjoyed this movie, and I really wanted to, but just no fucking way. I can't turn off my brain to that extent. And in the world we unfortunately live in today, I can't write this off as just harmless stupidity in the name of "entertainment."
If you disagree or think I'm overreacting, I'm, despite my vehemence, happy to discuss. So, what did you think?
no subject
I actually do find JRRT a bit offensive as well—but not quite as much, since his world is a fantasy and he was somewhat of a product of his time. I was more pissed at Jackson and Co. for just running with it. I remember watching one of the making of specials and one of the technical people bragging a bit about how far and wide they'd researched "exotic" (my word, not theirs) cultures to get the Haradrim's look, and thinking, are you smoking crack (not the good kind)?
But for me, this one is far, far worse. I actually disagree with you about it being a stretch to associate the Spartans with America. Yes, if you think it through it doesn't work, but the movie uses much of the same rhetoric that the administration does (and their rhetoric makes just as much sense). I don't think it's an overestimation of people's stupidity that they would subconsciously or consciously associate the good guys, fighting alone for "justice," "reason," and "freedom" with the US (with the effeminate Athenians, oops, I mean Europeans, not pulling their weight) against the "mysticism and tyranny" of the chaotic, teeming hoards of the irrational East who are out to destroy all that is good and free and who view the Westerners as "blasphemous" (the repeated use of this word was particularly interesting). Even if people don't go that far, it still leaves the viewer with an image vilifying certain (unrelated) groups at a time where all we need is more blind, stupid stereotyping to flame the ignorance and excuse the warmongering.
And if the box office results are anything to go by, the movie is being watched by more than just a more "highbrowed" crowd. It's really quite like a video game brought more fully to life.
Also, despite the manly slashy vibe between whatzhisname and the captain’s son that slathers may pick up and run with, I have to say that this movie was really quite pleased to make a point of associating homosexuality and effeminate type characterizations with evil. I had thought we were somewhat over that by now.
And, by the way, historians do have some idea of what the Immortals wore. It wasn't loose black clothes with a mask. Maybe I'm off base with this, but they put me in mind of ninjas wearing noh type masks. So, at least to my mind, the movie didn't limit its stereotyping to just dark skinned groups. I actually thought that while I was watching the movie, but as I was leaving the theater, I did hear some idiot male in his 20s talking to his friend about the "samurai." This type of stupidity is what, to my mind, you get when conflate racial stereotypes in the interests of finding a shorthanded way of provoking a the lowest type of visceral reaction in your audience.