(no subject)
http://www.slate.com/id/2161450/
"Directed by Zack Snyder, whose first feature film was the 2004 makeover of the horror classic Dawn of the Dead, 300 digitally re-creates the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., where, according to classical history and legend, the Spartan king Leonidas led a force of only 300 men against a Persian enemy numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The comic fanboys who make up 300's primary audience demographic aren't likely to get hung up on the movie's historical content, much less any parallels with present-day politics. But what's maddening about 300 (besides the paralyzing monotony of watching chiseled white guys make shish kebabs from swarthy Persians for 116 indistinguishable minutes) is that no one involved-not Miller, not Snyder, not one of the army of screenwriters, art directors, and tech wizards who mounted this empty, gorgeous spectacle-seems to have noticed that we're in the middle of an actual war. With actual Persians (or at least denizens of that vast swath of land once occupied by the Persian empire)."
Tell a Persian that Iraqi's and Afghanis are Persian. I'm sure it will show them how educated and understanding you are of the problem in the middle east. They will immediately want to be your friend.
"Here are just a few of the categories that are not-so-vaguely conflated with the "bad" (i.e., Persian) side in the movie: black people. Brown people. Disfigured people. Gay men (not gay in the buff, homoerotic Spartan fashion, but in the effeminate Persian style). Lesbians. Disfigured lesbians. Ten-foot-tall giants with filed teeth and lobster claws. Elephants and rhinos (filthy creatures both). The Persian commander, the god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is a towering, bald club fag with facial piercings, kohl-rimmed eyes, and a disturbing predilection for making people kneel before him."
Yeah! How dare they not add some diversity to the Persians! What were they thinking!? Making them all Persian and African, like they were in fucking HISTORY. There should have been some white people thrown in to the mix, and some Africans added to the Spartans. Who needs historical accuracy when you're trying to be mildly realistic.
"Another of the Spartans' less-than-glorious customs is the practice of eugenics, hurling any less-than-perfect infant off a cliff onto a huge pile of baby skeletons. Unfortunately for the 300 at Thermopylae, this system of racial cleansing isn't foolproof: One deformed hunchback, Ephialtes (Andrew Tiernan), manages to make it to adulthood and begs Leonidas for a chance to serve Sparta in the 300. Sure enough, when he's turned down, the hunchback confirms his moral weakness by accepting Xerxes' offer to join ranks with the Persians."
I'm glad people that have no clue about military history feel the need to comment on how angry factual history makes them. Next thing you know there will be a movie in which for hundreds of years armies are primarily composed of mercenaries out to loot and pillage conquered territory rather than being noble knights.
" "might be greeted with muted enthusiasm in the Middle East." Replace the words "muted enthusiasm" with "a roadside bomb," and you've got yourself a tagline for the Baghdad premiere."
Dude. If you change the script so that the characters saying things not even approaching the meaning of the original line than the movie takes on a whole other context. Check it out man. That's some freaky racist shit.
"Directed by Zack Snyder, whose first feature film was the 2004 makeover of the horror classic Dawn of the Dead, 300 digitally re-creates the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., where, according to classical history and legend, the Spartan king Leonidas led a force of only 300 men against a Persian enemy numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The comic fanboys who make up 300's primary audience demographic aren't likely to get hung up on the movie's historical content, much less any parallels with present-day politics. But what's maddening about 300 (besides the paralyzing monotony of watching chiseled white guys make shish kebabs from swarthy Persians for 116 indistinguishable minutes) is that no one involved-not Miller, not Snyder, not one of the army of screenwriters, art directors, and tech wizards who mounted this empty, gorgeous spectacle-seems to have noticed that we're in the middle of an actual war. With actual Persians (or at least denizens of that vast swath of land once occupied by the Persian empire)."
Tell a Persian that Iraqi's and Afghanis are Persian. I'm sure it will show them how educated and understanding you are of the problem in the middle east. They will immediately want to be your friend.
"Here are just a few of the categories that are not-so-vaguely conflated with the "bad" (i.e., Persian) side in the movie: black people. Brown people. Disfigured people. Gay men (not gay in the buff, homoerotic Spartan fashion, but in the effeminate Persian style). Lesbians. Disfigured lesbians. Ten-foot-tall giants with filed teeth and lobster claws. Elephants and rhinos (filthy creatures both). The Persian commander, the god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is a towering, bald club fag with facial piercings, kohl-rimmed eyes, and a disturbing predilection for making people kneel before him."
Yeah! How dare they not add some diversity to the Persians! What were they thinking!? Making them all Persian and African, like they were in fucking HISTORY. There should have been some white people thrown in to the mix, and some Africans added to the Spartans. Who needs historical accuracy when you're trying to be mildly realistic.
"Another of the Spartans' less-than-glorious customs is the practice of eugenics, hurling any less-than-perfect infant off a cliff onto a huge pile of baby skeletons. Unfortunately for the 300 at Thermopylae, this system of racial cleansing isn't foolproof: One deformed hunchback, Ephialtes (Andrew Tiernan), manages to make it to adulthood and begs Leonidas for a chance to serve Sparta in the 300. Sure enough, when he's turned down, the hunchback confirms his moral weakness by accepting Xerxes' offer to join ranks with the Persians."
I'm glad people that have no clue about military history feel the need to comment on how angry factual history makes them. Next thing you know there will be a movie in which for hundreds of years armies are primarily composed of mercenaries out to loot and pillage conquered territory rather than being noble knights.
" "might be greeted with muted enthusiasm in the Middle East." Replace the words "muted enthusiasm" with "a roadside bomb," and you've got yourself a tagline for the Baghdad premiere."
Dude. If you change the script so that the characters saying things not even approaching the meaning of the original line than the movie takes on a whole other context. Check it out man. That's some freaky racist shit.