Fascism Is What You Make Of It

[pipesdreams]

I know, I know - I can’t believe I have this much to say about my weekend, either. Bear with me, one more and I’m done. Since the Redhead Gallery trip was a bust, the three of us trudged off in search of oversized burritos, then pushed on through the sudden attack of chilly rain to Pages on Queen, where I spent money on books that I will have to

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Thing is, it's only "slander" if it's not true... [Part 1]

[anonymous]

I don’t have the most reliable memory in the world, but I’m pretty sure that I said “Miller is a fascist” or “300 is fascist” - partly jokingly, and partly because I’m a contrarian whose friends by and large have been talking about how cool the movie’s going to be. But it was partly motivated by my feeling that Miller’s work has distasteful and often unacknowledged undertones.

I agree that “fascism” is a word that’s gradually lost any clear meaning it once had in popular usage. That said, historians and political analysts still use it to identify a pretty distinctive bundle of characteristics exemplified by Mussolini’s Italy or Hitler’s Germany and their official culture. Beyond the rampant militarism, social regimentation & strident nationalism you mentioned, these might include (depending on who you’re talking to) the celebration of technology, socio-economic corporatism, rule by fuhrerprinzip, obsession with social purity, strongly patriarchal values, nostalgic primitivism, and cults of death & heroic leadership, along with a few other elements that I can’t recall off the top of my head. Many of those qualities are obviously found elsewhere, so it’s really the combination that does it.

On the one hand, it’s therefore obviously anachronistic to call the Spartans themselves thoroughgoing fascists. On the other, I still think that Miller’s 300 glorifies a lot of the same politically objectionable ideals. Certainly not all of them, but even changes like his substitution of a deformed Spartan for Ephialtes the Malian seem telling, echoing the sort of “stab in the back” mythology that inevitably crops up under fascist regimes - and in paranoid, jingoistic societies at large, of course. It’s the eugenic undertones there that get me, I think.

In more general terms, the trailer for 300 would probably have given Edward Said an aneurysm: it’s cartoonish in its orientalism, with the dehumanized hordes of sinister, grotesque, & feminized easterners facing off against the small band of manly, austere & noble westerners. And that’s coming from someone who doesn’t have a lot of time for Said, in general.

Is 300 therefore fascist in the proper sense, either because it represents a deliberate articulation of Nazi ideas or coincides perfectly with every element in the loose definition I sketched out above? Obviously not. I don’t think Miller actually has a picture of Mussolini over his bed. I do think that his work might have an uncomfortable amount in common with, for example, productions of Faust & Hamlet staged under the auspices of the Third Reich (i.e. “fascist” interpretations of the plays) or the artistic oeuvre of Leni Riefenstahl in terms of the ideals and sensibility it celebrates. (Not everything that Sontag says applies to Miller’s 300, but you can check out her brief summary of fascist aesthetics at http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/33dTexts/SontagFascinFascism75.htm at the beginning of the second section - and the whole essay’s an interesting if somewhat dated read.)

- Alastair