Link to Articlefrom Mandatory that came out last year, during 300s 10 year anniversary.
Washington Post had an article that went into how the far-right worships 300, both the fiction and the real life events.
Basically it's easy to sum all of this up as being on Miller and his toxic political views, but he is not the orchestrator of the myths of the foundation of western philosophy. The 300 story is everywhere in the western world. Snyder and Millers 300 just took it to Hollywood and a whole new audience.
In some ways it is almost gospel. 300 shows the heroic struggle and that it's worth dying for. Even if you're outnumbered, you should think of Leonidas and protect your home from the evil foreign hordes from the east.
Hitler admired the Spartans greatly for their eugenics, strong slave state. It's not a coincidence that totalitarian thinkers see the fascination in Spartans military prowess from killing the weak of society. The dream is to have a small state of elite warriors and cut off the disabled, the weak- those who need handouts and those who want to mooch.
To add to injury the Spartans where traitors to greece itself and would later align with the persian enemies to get back at Athens. Hilariously in the film, Leonidas accuses them of being gay pedophiles, but in reality that shit was rampant in sparty as well. There is this oozing of homophobic yet homoerotic mixed signaling in the film. This clutch of vain halfnaked oiled up beefcakes in small briefs and waxed bodies, contrasting with this ultra macho manliness.
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Do you agree that 300 is a problematic film, or do you think it's reaching? I loved 300 when it came out, but the more I think about it upon reading things like this, the more I think this film is fucked.
There are films that are controversial today where I think there is a good argument on both sides of the spectrum (The Last Samurai being an example), but this film is different, and that Washington Post article goes into detail about why the Spartans where not at all like they where portrayed in the film.
Washington Post had an article that went into how the far-right worships 300, both the fiction and the real life events.
Every year, Golden Dawn, an anti-immigrant Greek neo-Nazi party, holds a rally at a rugged mountain pass once known as the "hot gates," because of the sulfuric springs bubbling beneath. It's the site where a small band of Spartan warriors stalled the might of the advancing Persian empire almost 2,500 years ago. The Golden Dawn members gather, torches in hand, around a bronze statue of the Spartan King Leonidas — who famously perished alongside his 300 companions — sing the national anthem and chant far-right slogans. "Greece belongs to the Greeks!" goes one cry. "People! Army! Nationalism!" is another.
Basically it's easy to sum all of this up as being on Miller and his toxic political views, but he is not the orchestrator of the myths of the foundation of western philosophy. The 300 story is everywhere in the western world. Snyder and Millers 300 just took it to Hollywood and a whole new audience.
In some ways it is almost gospel. 300 shows the heroic struggle and that it's worth dying for. Even if you're outnumbered, you should think of Leonidas and protect your home from the evil foreign hordes from the east.
Hitler admired the Spartans greatly for their eugenics, strong slave state. It's not a coincidence that totalitarian thinkers see the fascination in Spartans military prowess from killing the weak of society. The dream is to have a small state of elite warriors and cut off the disabled, the weak- those who need handouts and those who want to mooch.
To add to injury the Spartans where traitors to greece itself and would later align with the persian enemies to get back at Athens. Hilariously in the film, Leonidas accuses them of being gay pedophiles, but in reality that shit was rampant in sparty as well. There is this oozing of homophobic yet homoerotic mixed signaling in the film. This clutch of vain halfnaked oiled up beefcakes in small briefs and waxed bodies, contrasting with this ultra macho manliness.
______________________
Do you agree that 300 is a problematic film, or do you think it's reaching? I loved 300 when it came out, but the more I think about it upon reading things like this, the more I think this film is fucked.
There are films that are controversial today where I think there is a good argument on both sides of the spectrum (The Last Samurai being an example), but this film is different, and that Washington Post article goes into detail about why the Spartans where not at all like they where portrayed in the film.
