"300": Race, Gender, and How It Disappoints
They're releasing "300" on Imax! WOWZA! I'm sooo gonna watch it again!
Though I loved the visuals tremendously, as an Asian, I do feel the pull to somehow glean some sense into the images themselves.
Did anybody see the polarizing they did in that movie? The debauchery = East and its opposite = West? The decadence of Asia as opposed to the Spartan living of the Greeks? Or the fact that the GHEY Xerxes and his gay minions (anybody saw the two girls kissing?), and all the ugly people with their blatant sensuality are Eastern...whilst restraint, honor, duty and all Spartan-related traits are relegated to the whites?
Very interesting, this. All these dichotomies and Manichean oppositions were played and over-played in the movie. Oh, Vron Ware! Oh, Deepika Bahri! Oh, Edward Said! Oh, comparative literature training...please kill me!
Aside from race, gender is still in its usual haunts. If you notice, Xerxes' audience room is teeming with women, all scantily-clad. Ugliness and excess are part of his harem. And like the Cylons (yeah, totally had to mention BSG), the gay is reserved for them as it is alien, dark, and ASIAN.
On anti-gay sentiments: Leonidas talks down on the Athenians and accuses them of being boy-lovers and therefore, weak...this is somewhat subverted by the very campy Spartan scenes where of course, everyone's nekkid and touching each other and flirting (that scene where two Spartan soldiers are heaping bodies unto a wall). It would be interesting, actually, to see how the body works in this film.
Speaking of women, the Oracle herself is hot beyond whoa! relegated to mysticism and subject to the corruption of the lepers. Mysticism, very 'female' as it were, is something that Leonidas' captain disclaims as part of a new age of honor (y'know, the last Spartan of the 300, who leads the Greek army in the end. Listen to what he says.)
Of course, I'm being very essentialist about this, but only for the purposes of wankery!
The Queen of Sparta herself has to 'offer her body' in order to acquire a temporary 'power' and appear before the Council; it is a power that she in fact never gains, as whats-his-face chooses to expose her whoring anyway. Go Queen of Sparta for stuffing a sword in his gut! She resorts to this relatively "male deed" (in the movie, as the men are the ones wielding the swords), in order to be heard. In short, I love Lena's character and the fact that only women give birth to real men, as she would say. But I felt that her character fell short somewhere along the lines of feminist theory.
Happy Women's Month y'all! And a belated International Women's Day!
So...in short, these movies haven't moved much, except perhaps in visual-style and I would really love to see more movies that subvert the usual themes/concepts/ideas. But insofar as a good movie goes, this does the job.
Is it liberating? Well, that's for you to decide but with regards to the rather all-over-the-place analysis I've made, perhaps not.
Though I loved the visuals tremendously, as an Asian, I do feel the pull to somehow glean some sense into the images themselves.
Did anybody see the polarizing they did in that movie? The debauchery = East and its opposite = West? The decadence of Asia as opposed to the Spartan living of the Greeks? Or the fact that the GHEY Xerxes and his gay minions (anybody saw the two girls kissing?), and all the ugly people with their blatant sensuality are Eastern...whilst restraint, honor, duty and all Spartan-related traits are relegated to the whites?
Very interesting, this. All these dichotomies and Manichean oppositions were played and over-played in the movie. Oh, Vron Ware! Oh, Deepika Bahri! Oh, Edward Said! Oh, comparative literature training...please kill me!
Aside from race, gender is still in its usual haunts. If you notice, Xerxes' audience room is teeming with women, all scantily-clad. Ugliness and excess are part of his harem. And like the Cylons (yeah, totally had to mention BSG), the gay is reserved for them as it is alien, dark, and ASIAN.
On anti-gay sentiments: Leonidas talks down on the Athenians and accuses them of being boy-lovers and therefore, weak...this is somewhat subverted by the very campy Spartan scenes where of course, everyone's nekkid and touching each other and flirting (that scene where two Spartan soldiers are heaping bodies unto a wall). It would be interesting, actually, to see how the body works in this film.
Speaking of women, the Oracle herself is hot beyond whoa! relegated to mysticism and subject to the corruption of the lepers. Mysticism, very 'female' as it were, is something that Leonidas' captain disclaims as part of a new age of honor (y'know, the last Spartan of the 300, who leads the Greek army in the end. Listen to what he says.)
Of course, I'm being very essentialist about this, but only for the purposes of wankery!
The Queen of Sparta herself has to 'offer her body' in order to acquire a temporary 'power' and appear before the Council; it is a power that she in fact never gains, as whats-his-face chooses to expose her whoring anyway. Go Queen of Sparta for stuffing a sword in his gut! She resorts to this relatively "male deed" (in the movie, as the men are the ones wielding the swords), in order to be heard. In short, I love Lena's character and the fact that only women give birth to real men, as she would say. But I felt that her character fell short somewhere along the lines of feminist theory.
Happy Women's Month y'all! And a belated International Women's Day!
So...in short, these movies haven't moved much, except perhaps in visual-style and I would really love to see more movies that subvert the usual themes/concepts/ideas. But insofar as a good movie goes, this does the job.
Is it liberating? Well, that's for you to decide but with regards to the rather all-over-the-place analysis I've made, perhaps not.