Three West

Ahhhh dare I rip this beloved movie apart? … Actually I’d love to for the simple fact that so many people blindly love it. This movie delivers socially horrific messages with pretty pictures.

First things first; I had a problem with the whole process of creating certain types of men based on a desire to be the ultimate in human representation and also something greater than nature itself. It represented a group of people who in their severe insecurity desperately needed to be bigger than life; they imagine that possibility only to be achieved by becoming what they perceive as more formidable than nature’s worst or scariest predator or element (wolf/beast, immune from the cold, etc.). Although this perception of animals, the elements, etc. as being these formidable harsh things is immature and reveals a lack of understanding for the specific principles and forces that are at work in these worlds. I mean, a growling wolf doesn’t kill for fun or to prove it’s a force to be reckoned with.

Also, if you are a group of people who are afraid of death or don’t accept the cycle of life or your place in it, you embrace death to its ultimate, ignoring death’s true purpose. So in this movie they created people who pretty much live to die… defeating life’s purpose and also creating a society where no one is truly attached emotionally with each other. The reality will then be that you aren’t going to have a society where men can nonchalantly offer up their son’s lives for death at war claiming “I can easily replace him”, and have a society that cares about each other and it’s survival as a whole. That’s a contradiction some seem to think can exists and make sense. I mean, training your people to defend each other and the land you need to occupy to survive needs no “honor code” for justification. What was presented in this film is a whole other psychological beast.

Strictly from a story writing point of view, all history aside, we had basically 300 hundred ridiculously buff men in capes, panties and sandals, easily demolishing non-white races, a guy who claims to be a god but can’t even control his own emotions or one who will let some cat jump up in the air for like a damn hour and cut his hand off …. and the most ridiculous of all… armies of millions who can’t seem to figure out how to use THEIR shields?? I’m just saying… when there’s no challenge, it’s just a joke. With all they can imagine their perfection to be, it would only take one critical thinker to get the idea to spray all 300 of them with kerosene and throw a torch….

If it weren’t for the sole fact that it was said that women of Sparta were valued, I wouldn’t even go here with the male/female thing but since they did tell that lie, I had to point some things out. The love scene was the perfect example of the value of women in this film – just a fuck. She stroked his ego, then became a receptacle, and then became the ultimate in “her support of him”. It would have turned out differently had the shots been of both of them. For the entire film however, there was only one woman with a hint of power and even she wasn’t shit and had to whore for her man when he left; while all the rest of the women were carrying water and pots and looking like peasants…. They weren’t even valued enough to be allowed to raise their sons to adulthood. I mean, when the main female wanted to get support for her man and his little cape wearing buddies, she didn’t huddle up with all the other valued women and get some results.

“He praises the film for its portrayal of “the Spartans’ heroic code,” and of “the key role played by women in backing up, indeed reinforcing, the male martial code of heroic honor,” while expressing reservations about its “‘West’ (goodies) vs ‘East’ (baddies) polarization.””

Since when did servitude and blind support = women are valued? I guess valued as long as they back up and reinforce male martial code. Otherwise, it’s in the well you go.

There was historical truth in 300 based on the Battle of Thermopylae, the battle and the themes of the rest of the movie are two different things. The director kinda boasts about how historically accurate the film is but then hides behind it being a fantasy film when he gets ripped on about it.

My overall point is this, there are quite a few movies that offer a distorted and/or false portrait of cohesive societies of old. This was one of them. The Greeks huddled up to keep themselves from being defeated by the Persian Empire. Nothing wrong with that. That makes perfect sense. It was historically significant in that the Greek city states came together to repel this threat. That makes for a substantial film. But 300 just used that historical event to say something else … mans superiority over everything, and weak vs. strong based on being the best bringers of death, and their warped version of masculinity (truth be told any animal (including man) male or female will defend its self and its loved ones with ferocity if living in a functional community). There were many functional cultures in Europe and many other parts of the globe who weren’t punks but at the same time, didn’t make themselves conquers of nature and man simply because they could be good bringers of death. They defended themselves when there was a threat and took care of each other as a community as a basis for their sustainable survival.

I can appreciate a good fantasy film. But knowing the power of film in a society where children, young people, and adults get their life meaning from TV and videos, it is dangerous to present stories with some historical truth as exaggerated historical fantasy or as if it’s something one should aspire to be even when it was jacked up back then. I mean, if these folks were interested in presenting a fantasy film that had a period effect, they could have made up a much more interesting storyline with better and more challenging characters. I have a hard time believing this movie didn’t have a main message about who is weak and who is not based on ethnic and sexual grounds and is using a bit of history as a shield.

And of course there is the selective “historical truth”:
“Touraj Daryaee, associate professor of Ancient History at California State University, Fullerton, criticizes the central theme of the movie, that of “free” and “democracy loving” Spartans against “slave” Persians. Daryaee states that the Achaemenid (Persian) empire hired and paid people regardless of their sex or ethnicity, whereas in fifth-century Athens “less than 14%” of the population participated in democratic government, and “nearly 37%” of the population were slaves. He further states that Sparta “was a militaristic monarchy with a council of elders which decided political matters, but it was not a democracy.””

Living in a culture where everyone is disconnected, it is easy to throw out substandard truths and attract people to concepts and realities they are missing from their lives. It’s unfortunate. This is also how Hitler was able to get an entire country on board for utter madness. He offered them a distorted truth and motivation for achievement of something the majority of Germans needed in their lives.