Sparta @ MindSay

Although I’m not much of a movie goer, my kids took me to see 300 this past weekend. I’m sorry to say that I was not pleasantly surprised.

Hollywood has never produced many movies of either artistic or literary merit. And over the past several years, the formula-writing has gotten so bad that one can almost always predict not only the outcome but even the next scene. And it’s somewhat dumbfounding how Hollywood’s screen writers can’t find tension, suspense, and excitement in story lines that have stood the test of time without injecting absurd extraneous scenes into them. In the case of 300, the screen writers have taken a story of heroic self-sacrifice that has withstood 2500 years of time and turned it into a freakshow.

The prologue begins with a voice over claiming that the Spartans were the last hope for preserving Greece, reason, and justice. Well, they failed.

Armies are forever being sent to war for lofty ideals and in spite of winning or losing, the ideals perish. The Great War was The War to End All Wars. Somehow or other, winning it didn’t accomplish that. And the Second World War was the War to Make the World Safe for Democracy. My, my, my! Look at just how safe democracy is today. But that young men are sent off to war to die for great lies is not news, so on to the movie.

I knew the afternoon was going to be a bummer when the young Leonidas is attacked by a lone wolf. Wolfs are pack animals. Then comes the racism: the first two Persians Leonidas gets to speak to are black. Strange how all the blacks in the movie are on the Persian side, and everyone on the Greek side is lily white. Then there is the Persian armored corps—a rhinoceros and two elephants. I waited with baited breadth for the lions, tigers, and great apes, but alas, the great king, Xerxes,  could only manage to muster one rhino and two elephants which were no match, of course, for the Spartan 300. Then there are the freaks, Ephialtes, the Greek traitor who leads the Persian army around the pass at Thermopylae, and the hideous Persian giant who wields a massive battle axe. The progeny of Ephialtes, I have no doubt, are all now American businessmen or politicians. The Persian giant, on the other hand,  who tosses Spartans right and left, easily could have been felled by a well placed Spartan spear, but alas, in that scene not a single Spartan has a spear at hand even though it was the principal Spartan weapon. But miraculously, in the next scene, every one of the 300 has a spear. Then there is the aftermath of the Persian cavalry charge during which the Spartans dispatch both riders and horses at will. Although the battlefield is littered with Persian bodies, not a single horse cadaver is anywhere to be seen. Then there are the bloodless torsos. During the many battles, splatterings of blood are seen flying here and there, but when someone is beheaded, the heart pumps no blood from the severed aortas. So even the vaunted 300 were, in reality, also freaks, since their heads were attached to bloodless torsos. Then there is the allusions to lesbianism within the Persian harem but no mention of the notorious Spartan male affection for young boys. But the most egregious absurdity comes at the end. Leonidas, the Spartan King trained from childhood as a warrior, hurls his spear at a nearby Xerxes and misses.

So much for the Hollywood nonsense. What lesson does this movie teach. Does it extol the bravery and self-sacrifice of the 300? Think about it. The 300 march off to defend Greece and fail. They die in vain. Why? Because of the superior Persians? No. Because of the freaks and Persian armor? No. Then why? Because Spartans are also traitors and their Greek allies are cowards. What an uplifting lesson to teach. Solders of the world take note. In spite of your bravery and willing self-sacrifice, you die for naught; you will be undone by traitors, cowards, and politicians.

Some claim that 300 is a neo-con attempt to pump up support for our draft dodging president’s and vice president’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Be brave and strong, stay the course, emulate Spartan virtue, the victory will be ours! Sure it will, just as it was for the Spartans. In reality, the movie’s last scene in which a Spartan army of 10,000 has been assembled to march forth and avenge the deaths of the 300 is a complete lie. There never was any such Spartan 10,000 that saved Greece. The Spartans never did defeat the Persians. That task was left to a Macedonian—Alexander the Great.

And are the Spartans a people to be emulated? Well, the National Socialists of Germany in the 1920s and 30s thought so, and look what got them.

Zack Snyder, the filmmaker, must surely have been a student of Leni Riefenstahl’s and the screen-writers, admirers of Joseph Gobels. But the propaganda in 300 would even make him blush. And what of the laudatory reviewers? Bill Walsh of The Weekly Standard and David Kahane of The National Review and their ilk are merely Hollywood whores.  Better still, since these people admire the Spartans so much, perhaps Snyder, Walsh, Kahane, their ilk, and the screen writers, are all also pederasts.

Kingzjewel got her Indian name back in October. It's very pretty and for some reason I always saw her that way.  However, if I were to ever get an Indian name, I'm pretty sure it would be Angry Owl! Man, this pacifist crap is hard! How do you people do this? The husband is quite the pacifist. Damned artist. He often says he doesn't understand my "fightiness". ("Fightiness" was a term first coined by Environgirl to describe my choleric disposition.) I told him "Look at it this way, you and a I are like Greece and Sparta. I'm Sparta damn it!"  He thought it was a very funny way of describing us, but he agreed it was apropos. 

God help me because next month there will be at least a dozen posts that will piss me off.  I will probably be asking the doctor for a prescription of Valium.

I had to hide the last box of thin mints, and they got to last me till i see another girl scout, which could be an entire year.

Isnt it awkward to make eye contact with somone you were friends with years before when your walking thru the halls or somthing? Its really weird how I normally look away real fast instead of asking them how lifes been.

Me and Rebecca...and Megan I guess lol, got in a marker fight today in wellness. It was, fun?

Me and Luc are going to see sparta again soon hopefully. Mabye Jim will rember us

Off to do more laundry.