300

When I heard that a movie about Thermopylae was coming out, I was psyched. When I heard that it was a radical fictionalization, less so. After I read the NYT review of the movie, I didn't even care much whether I saw it or not. (Best line in the review (not an exact quote): The Persians had superior numbers, but the Spartans obviously had superior health clubs and electrolysis.)) Then I heard that the movie pissed off the Iranians, so JQ and I rushed right out to see it.

Well, I'm a person who sometimes gets choked up about Thermopylae while, say, walking down the street or brushing my teeth--so my reactions are probably unreliable here. And that was true even before I went there. I've stood on not a few battlfields--Yorktown, Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg, others--but standing at Thermopylae was the most overwhelming experience of them all. Who knows how these things work? Like most of us, it's not like I generally categorize the Spartans as admirable. I guess it's complicated.

As for the movie: well, I don't know anything about movies. I've seen worse ones... 300 has something going for it, even if it's goofy in a bunch of ways. For one thing, it may be the most metrosexual movie of all time. Jeez, it almost makes The Covenant look downright blue collar... I mean these guys have some abs! Largely air-brushed on, but still. And their armor is kept to a minimum. Sticklers for historical accuracy might point out that the Greeks kicked ass at Thermopylae largely because of their heavier armor...but these hoplites wear only leather speedos and red capes. Those pesky breastplates would just occlude shots of their pecs. And, while we're carping about historical accuracy: in the movie, Leonidas doesn't die until the end, Xerxes neither beheads or crucifies the body, everybody but the Spartans (which, in the movie, means just the Arcadians) runs away before the last stand. Perhaps most disappointingly from a narrative perspective, when Xerxes asks Leonidas to surrender his arms, Leonidas doesn't say "come and get them." (Heh heh. Our boys were way cooler than the Persians...no doubt about that. They had bad-assitude to spare.)

So why is Iran all bent out of shape, one wonders? Do they deny that Xerxes was an aggressive tyrant? Or do they think aggressive tyranny is o.k.? Do they deny that the Greeks beat their asses like a two dollar donkey? Or what?

Well, my theory is that they're mad because 300 makes it look like even our over-pumped-up gay guys can beat up anything Persia can throw at 'em--war rhinos, ninjas, elephants the size of ultrasauruses, giant guys with bone saws for forearms...anything! But according to 300, Xerxes looked a lot like RuPaul, so the thesis really seems to be something more like: Greeks of ambiguous sexuality can beat up the lackies of probably-transexual tyrants from Persia. And, really, who can argue with that?

Anyway, for all its silliness, I walked out of 300 all choked up, thinking about all the people who had died over the millenia to forge a world that allows me to live my puny and frivolous life, buying two dollar coffee, getting paid to blather on about philosophy, yelling at basketball games on T.V. as if something consequential were actually at stake. 300 isn't Citizen Kane, but maybe a movie that gets more people to reflect on what the Spartans, Arcadians, Thespians, Corinthians and Thebans did at Thermopylae is a good thing .