So I know I am a few months late for writing a review for the film 300 but I have a 1 year old so I don’t get to the movies that often. Give me a break.
I am writing this because a friend of mind asked me to. He was interested in my take on the film due to my current study of Islam and the Middle East. Specifically he wanted to know if I felt the film was as racist in its depiction of Persians as some have claimed. So here goes…
The film is simply okay. It is a highly stylized depiction of the Battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 Spartans hold off the Persian Empire’s advance into Greece. Or to put it a different way; a bunch of buff dudes run around in speedos in what must be the most homoerotic thing I’ve seen since the volleyball scene in TopGun. The argument against the film is that the Persians are depicted as bloodthirsty and barbaric, but that doesn’t hold up for me. Xerxes is depicted as over 7 feet tall and androgynous with this weird echoey voice, the Immortals look like rotting corpses, there is some huge monster-looking dude, the traitor is a deformed hunchback and there is the biggest damn battle-rhino I’ve ever seen (not that I knew a battle-rhino was a thing but whatever). The point is, it is too silly to be offensive. This is so far from the reality of what the Persian Empire was or Iranians are today that I have a hard time seeing it as stereotyping. I can see why some were offended but to me it is as if someone made a film depicting all Americans as green with three eyes. It has no relationship with reality.
Tony Kashani, a film professor, wrote a very good piece taking up the opposing view. He outlines all the reasons that 300 is racist, homophobic and so on. He also has some quotes from Frank Miller himself expressing take on current events. Mr. Miller is not exactly enlightened. While I think Professor Kashani reads too much into 300, and comes down a little hard on comics in general (he teaches the profession that gave us White Chicks while knocking the profession that gave us Maus), I do feel he illustrates the arguments against the film quite well and it is worth reading if you have the time.
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