Racist, nationalistic crap

Rating: 2/10 (24 March 2007)

Don't miss the latest attraction! For ten dollars apiece (or nine, or seven, or whatever else the nearest overpriced theater charges you) you can watch the enlightened West triumph over the savage and demonic East. You can rise from your seats and scream out your adulation while the divinely endowed white conquerors hold fast against the encroaching Asian tide, saving the world from a legacy of barbarism, preserving the common good, and upholding reason in the face of corruptive eastern mysticism. You can take part in a rare and wondrous opportunity, complete with popcorn and soda, while your hard-earned dollars serve the master propagandists of Hollywood whose ongoing efforts keep the creepy ethnic and racial Other back where it belongs  in the dark, frightening universe that lurks on the far side of Greece.
That's right. I'm talking about "300," the popularity of which is yet another testimony to the woeful lack of objectivity on the part of the modern moviegoer. The film not only oversimplifies, exploits, and capitalizes on a pivotal event in world history, an act of supreme disrespect both to the Greeks and the Persians who took part in it, but also manipulates history to glorify the Greeks at the expense of their enemy, simultaneously glorifying the contemporary West at the expense of Everything Else.
Historically speaking, the Spartans were successful largely because their knowledge of the terrain exceeded that of the Persians, and because they were able to work geography to their advantage and never give up ground. In the movie, they keep on winning because . . . well, they're Spartans! They can charge into a crowd that outnumbers them an ostensible million to one, sustain a nominal amount of casualties, and reward themselves with a towering colossus of enemy corpses that promptly becomes a bonfire. Because there's not even the slightest explanation offered for how they manage this feat, we're forced to assume they win only because they're divinely ordained to do so. Fate (and/or God) wants the Spartans to be the best of the best, so it endows them with invincibility and lays the Persians to waste.
This a disgusting approach to the subject, both thematically, and in terms of the narration. Narration-wise, it eliminates suspense and destroys our ability to get invested in the characters. After all, why should we fret over a hero when we know he's always going to win? The playwrights of King Leonidas' era would have laughed this farce right off the stage (assuming it made it to the stage in the first place.)
Thematically speaking, the tactic is even more offensive. It postulates that the West will triumph over the East  indeed, that it is destined to do so  and will triumph no matter the odds. An opportune time for this message, don't you think? Especially considering the so- called leader of the West is now in the midst of a showdown with . . . huh, that's funny: Iran. Formerly known as Persia. If I were a thinking organism, I might actually consider a connection.
And by the way, did anyone notice that the Persians are not just Persian but also African, Arabic, and East Asian? That nearly every racial group that isn't white, regardless of its historical affiliation with Persia, or lack thereof, is placed on the enemy side and made to fall like cattle?
And since we're on the subject of not-so-subtle subtext, did anyone notice the fact that Xerxes' private collection of monstrosities included a lesbian couple or two? Gee! I hope I wasn't dreaming that. Since Snyder already ran the gauntlet of racist ethnocentrism, I'd really hate it if he failed to make a stab at homosexuality, another evil the noble Spartans should readily eliminate from the Earth.
This is a horrible movie, horrible in every way. Even if you strip away the shockingly racist, prejudiced, and nationalistic undertones, the film remains, at best, abysmal to the point of nausea. The tone doesn't fluctuate once in any of those infinitely protracted 117 minutes, leaving us to flounder in an endless bloodbath that all starts feeling the same mid-way through the first act. The music is over the top and inconsistent, sometimes symphonic, sometimes rock-based, but always cheesy and frequently counter-productive. The voice- over narration is uncalled for and distracting. The CGI wolf at the beginning looks terrible. So do the elephants and rhinoceros, which are dispensed with far too quickly to be anything other than an anti-climactic and extraneous plot detail. The colors are ugly. The kinetics are ugly. Xerxes is ridiculous enough to be laughable.
My only hope is that our children will forgive us for this cinematic disaster, because it's clear that our ancestors won't.