Max begged me to watch 300 last night and I did. Admittedly, the effects and the concept of the heroe's journey ring true throughout the film. Otherwise, the film is the most blatant piece of propaganda I've seen in recent times, maybe ever.
Let's recap, shall we??
Film Premis: Barbaric bad guy threatens patriotic good guy with threats of slavery, loss of liberty and attacks on freedom.
Bad Guys = Brown skinnned Persians.
Good Guys = White skinned Greeks (Europians)
Good guy provokes attack when good guy will not submit to bad guys demands.
Good guy goes on to insight battle with not nearly enough soldiers, inadequate armour (HELLO!) and is slaughtered to death.
Hundreds of thousands of bad guys outnumber good guys, but they are brave good guys and honor their country and thus they will fight to the death, no matter how many they are outnumbered and with undying loyalty to their king whom leads them to battle with no question.
Throughout the battle scenes the brave Spartan soildiers cry out such phrases as "Freedom is not free, it requires great sacrafice. The price is paid in blood!" and "We did what we were trained to do, what we were bred to do, what we were born to do!"
While the King screams: "My children, gather round! No retreat, no surrender; that is Spartan law and by Spartan law we will stand and fight... and die. A new age has begun. An age of freedom!" and "The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and before this battle was over, that even a God-King can bleed."
One Spartan man looses his son during battle and the father goes into a fairly long monologue about how proud he is of his child and how he wished he'd just said I love you one more time and how important his son was to him.
Meanwhile, back at home....the council denies additional resources to help the king fight his battle and the queen is begging for assistance for fear of loosing her own son. She is blackmailed and raped by Theron who then betrays her.
The best part of the entire movie is when the Queen of Sparta guts Theron with a sword and unviels him as the traitor he is to the council and she is left to mourn her loss in peace.
End then...there is NO END. It is implied that the 'good guy' wins. But no one really 'wins.' Everyone is just dead, but Sparta lives on and they all died in the name of honor and sacrifice to their country.
The WORST attempt I've seen at disguising brainwashing in a long long LONG time. And gee, guess who the target audience is for this movie? Ummm, maybe guys between 18 - 34?
8 comments:
I'm sorry... what was the question? (I didn't make it past the pleasingly inadequate armor...)
Honestly, there are many positive things to be said in favor of valor, pride, bravery and defending one's country.
As the daughter, granddaughter and niece of life long military soldiers - I can safely say that I think I got different joy out of the film. *chuckle* ;)
My oldest son wants to serve in the Military - and even though this is a terrifying notion, I support him.
I don't support our current administration, but I do support our troops. A lot of those men and women went to war because of what they believe to be right - not over money or oil.
"Why don't presidents fight the war?" - System of a Down
300 was a great movie. I didn't pick up on any of the messages you did. It was a glorified, fictional (key word) version of something that happened in history, much like Troy, The Odesseuy, and many other tales of ancient history.
I'm not sure what the movie would be brainwashing either. The movies' creator, Frank Miller, is not really known for producing movies that have some conformist values or propaganda. I think it would be a stretch to think that 300 was somehow glorifying fighting, war, and battle. :-)
Addendum - I meant to say that it would be a stretch to say that 300 was glorifying TODAYS version of war and battle.
The movie definitely made a show of THAT battle. :-P
This is not a question of weather I support the men and woman and children fighting and dying in this war.
That is NOT the issue here to me in any way. Of course I support these kids over there fighting for us. Do I support WHY they are there? Hell no. Absolutely not. My own son has expressed interest in enlisting, I would not agree but if that were his desire, I would have no choice but to support him. And pray. A lot.
My grandfather served in the military for a number of years and I am very proud of him.
Perhaps I am reading to much into the movie, but the similarities between much of the dialogue and what you might hear at any one of GWB's press conferences in the past 5 years are difficult for me to ignore.
Also, I'm sorry...but I think the movie was totally dumbed down. It just felt too much like your typical violence, sex and speaking so that us dumb Americans can understand it type of movie. I watch sex and violence regularly, Quentin Tarantino and I have a fairly intimate relationship. To me at least, there is some wit about QT's movie. Some more uniqe plot than random murder with spears. 300 felt like it was made for your average 13 year old boy that wasn't really telling a story, but using the idea of the story to push mass scenes of violence and death in the name of war.
Perhaps I am just not able to wrap my head around the genre of the movie or maybe I should just not watch such violent films that seem to only propagate the idea of war rather than trying to live peacefully.
Honor, valor and pride in ones country is a beautiful concept. But I doubt highly those are the motivations of our current administrators and it's hard for me to belive that right now, with the way things are, that war movies are NOT going to have an impact on the public. Even ones that supposedly have nothing to do with the current era in history.
Sorry babe. Still not seeing it. Honestly, I thinnk that any film that has ANY of the same phrases that our Commander-in-DUMBASS says will trigger negative response. But I don't think that 300 was created with that in mind.
The movie that I thought had more of a propaganda feel was "Transformers" Which ticked me off because of the response from kids.
Have you seen it? I don't want to give away any spoilers....
No, haven't seen Transformers. Prob won't, Max doesn't seem terribley interested...
Why?
Commander-DUMB ASS LOL. What kind of hat does a commander-dumb ass wear? I'm thinking like something like Napolean might wear.
Commander Dumbass has actually managed to wear his on behind on his head, somehow. So, if you envision him talking out of his little brown-eye, he's easier to ignore.
The movie opens up with a scene of a desert military installment being blown to shit by a "big, black, evil enemy" and continues along that line. It even shows the "secret agents" as bumbling idiots (much like Cheney's attitude about them) and even the president is a heroic and brave figure that fights the "evil that threatens the globe".
They even have scenes of a metropolitan area being blown to bits, and people screaming and running for their lives. (Trigger anyone's PTSD, I wonder??)
Ghastly.
If you ignore the underlying military yabba dabba doo, the film is visually entertaining. But, I have always *hearted* the Transormers, yo.
Transformers might start a riot at my house...Max would probably see right through that.
Dammit, I forgot to include lots of "evil" in my initial post. Evil-doers! Eeh ehehhehe.
It's hard to be a kid of 80's and NOT *heart* the Transformers. And GI Joe. Now THAT was an All American Hero! GI JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Post a Comment