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a lot of people would suggest that there are elements of fascism in the American system. The need for constant war, the erosion of rights in favour of state power, the cultural collectivism. It's a popular theory. I don't neccesarily subscribe to it, but a lot of people seem to have come and said that 300 is a fairly rousing statement in favour of fascism in America. This Miller seems be regarded as a bit dodge anyway. But you know. Interesting that you enjoyed it without this stuff 'leaping out' at you. Not even in slow motion. Tilde as well. Which is why I asked the question. I'm maybe more interested in watching it now that two people here have come back with generally positive things to say. Makes it seem like maybe it's not so obvious that it seems crass....more like sly undertones... and it's fun to watch a film like that. You know, one that you can analyze and pick things out of.
[ 08.10.2007, 09:55: Message edited by: Jimmy Big Nuts ]
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quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: So, the movie bears no relation to the book?
I've not read the book but I'd imagine so, especially considering the precident of Sin City which is taken almost frame for frame from the original. But then, this in itself just opens up further questions, since the book came out in something like, what, 1998? When the world was a pretty different place, politically.
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A movie or a book about a small gang of steely-eyed, stout-hearted guys taking on a vast sea of shifty-looking foreigners in the name of 'freedom' could've been produced at any time in the last zillion years (not film, obv.). Hating foreigners didn't start with 9/11, neither did thinking your own particular bunch of good guys was standing alone against the foe. They're just cheap narrative devices. It's pretty obvious to me that the Spartans are meant to represent good, Hawkish, Republican Americans and the Persians are meant to represent... Persians. Are there any French in the movie?
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You seem to be forgetting/ignoring the fact that this actually happened. It’s not some work of fiction, and from a historical perspective it’s pretty much an accurate account. The way in which they’ve pissed about with the truth is in making out that the Persians are savages. But again, if this is supposed to make Americans feel/look good, it’s not doing a particularly good job. The Spartans are brutish, violent, homophobic, while the Persians are shown as being a fairly progressively minded alliance of countries.
It just doesn’t seem to stand up to scrutiny, as I say. I can understand you saying these things about a film like Pearl Harbour, or Saving Private Ryan, or whatever. But the notion of 300 being ‘blatantly’ pro American just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
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quote:Originally posted by Tilde: You can read anything into anything though can't you? If you really want to make the connection you can produce the evidence.
No, that's incorrect. You couldn't really produce a convincing argument claiming that a movie like Speed, for example, was a pro-facism advert for a militarised state where the gay, female and foreign were despicable, weak and dangerous.
I also don't think that a slightly deeper reading of a pop-cultural story is somehow akin to crazed paranoia about state control. Presumably you've approached stories as being more than a literal statement of some facts that happened, and then stopped happening? As a child did you hear the story about the tortoise and the hare and acknowledge that what it was actually about was complacency, and could be mapped onto an almost infinite number of scenarios. So really, you already know that stories aren't ever really just stories and that they're the narratives that are there to produce a view of the world as it is now even if - on a literal level - they appear to be something else entirely.
I mean, that's basic level stuff, right, and I feel ridiculous having to point it out, but when someone starts sayign "Oh if you think a film is about more than simply the precise literal events that happen on screen then you are a crazed paranoid crackpot", I think it's important to get the groundwork there, to make it clear that it's not paranoid to suggest other meanings arise from any story, however told, it's simply inevitable.
quote: But again, if this is supposed to make Americans feel/look good, it’s not doing a particularly good job. The Spartans are brutish, violent, homophobic, while the Persians are shown as being a fairly progressively minded alliance of countries.
you seem to be saying "it's unlikely to make americans feel good" and then going ahead to say exactly why it will. I'm guessing it's not about america versus the middle east, it's (as bm said) about republican America vs it's perceived moral and political detractors, like Europeans, democrats, progressives. Man, I have to see this film now.
[ 08.10.2007, 10:19: Message edited by: Jimmy Big Nuts ]
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quote: But again, if this is supposed to make Americans feel/look good, it’s not doing a particularly good job. The Spartans are brutish, violent, homophobic, while the Persians are shown as being a fairly progressively minded alliance of countries.
you seem to be saying "it's unlikely to make americans feel good" and then going ahead to say exactly why it will. I'm guessing it's not about america versus the middle east, it's about republican America vs it's perceived moral and political detractors, like Europeans, democrats, progressives. Man, I have to see this film now.
Yes but even by that token the ideologies are all screwy and backwards. I could agree with you and Thorn if the portrayal of the Spartans were consistent with Republican values, but it's not.
Maybe Thorn is forgetting this, because he seems to be saying that the Spartans think women are dangerous or something, but actually the Spartans women are shown as having an equal status in Sparta, and it's the Persian messenger who is shocked and outraged at being spoken to by a woman.
Similarly, it seems to be a suggestion that the way in which the Spartans train their boys/weed out the weak, is a plot device, or carries some kind of social sub text. Again, as I keep pointing out, this is factually accurate and not something which has just been made up.
Y'know, it's like on the one hand you're saying that it's not good enough to just watch the film without trying to analyse what it's saying about contemporary society, but on the other hand it's fine to ignore the fact that as a commentary on contemporary society it's completely inaccurate and inconsistent. Which is why I'm saying it doesn't really make sense.
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quote:Originally posted by Ringo: No, I get it, I just don't agree with you.
I'm just taking the piss. But, Thermopylae is seen as a significant historical turning-point. The moment when Evil foreign zealots (no matter how nice their cuisine or scintillating their mathematics) were repelled and noble Western reason and philosophy could breathe freely again. I can't see how recognising a notional parallel between those Spartans and the guys rattling their sabres against the Axis of Evil is so problematic.
quote:Originally posted by Ringo: [QUOTE]Originally posted by Jimmy Big Nuts: Maybe Thorn is forgetting this, because he seems to be saying that the Spartans think women are dangerous or something, but actually the Spartans women are shown as having an equal status in Sparta, and it's the Persian messenger who is shocked and outraged at being spoken to by a woman.
You're conflating my challenge to Tilde with my reading of a film I havent seen, which is a mistake on your part. My comment on asking for a reading on Speed isn't precisely my reading of 300, it's just a few things that often come out of right-wing action movies in general, designed to demonstrate that you can't just "read whatever you want into anything".
quote:Similarly, it seems to be a suggestion that the way in which the Spartans train their boys/weed out the weak, is a plot device, or carries some kind of social sub text. Again, as I keep pointing out, this is factually accurate and not something which has just been made up.
I think it's entirely reasonable to draw meaning from a film's portrayal of events that are, in essence, factually accurate. It's a dangerous term to use in this context because a highly stylised blockbuster movie doesn't have the same responsibility to its facts as something like The World at War. Moreover, it's completely possible to take the same event and through the way it's shot, scored, scripted and acted, through what you choose to show and to leave out, you can give it a different meaning. The examples of this are almost too numerous to mention - you could look at all the different takes on the Second World War, the differences between a movie like U571 and Das Boot, or you could look at the differences between Young Guns and Pat Garret and Billy the Kid.
Objective truth is pretty much non-existent in narrative film, so the idea of a being "factually accurate" and consequently beyond analysis is quite troublesome.
-------------------- Now that you've called me by name? Posts: 2007
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posted
I like the way the americans wear loin cloths and get all sweaty together in an obviously homoerotic way and throw babies away so they can create a master race.
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posted
It seems that... if a film-maker or author wants to suggest some sort of satirical or topical parallel between the actions of some ancient civilization and the actions of a current regime, nation or agency... there's going to be a significant wedge of the audience who will deny that 'subtle' parallel unless he goes the whole hog and puts Robin Hood in a Hummer or gives Napoleon an M-16.
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I think I'm going to add you as an xbox friend purely so I can beat thorn over the back of the head with my rifle butt in halo and then tea bag him whilst laughing uncontrollably.
Even as I type that I can see thorn imagining that whole scene as some sort of gay rape fantasy metaphor
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
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quote:Originally posted by Ringo: The Spartans are brutish, violent, homophobic, while the Persians are shown as being a fairly progressively minded alliance of countries.
I don't know how in the hell you can have interpreted it this way. The Spartans are depicted as being honourable warriors, devoted to the continued independence of their country against the prevailing consensus of their own corrupt political and religious elite, courageously fighting to the death in the face of an overwhelming horde of brown-skinned physical and sexual deviants from the middle-east, held in the thrall of a manipulative and cynical king falsely claiming to be a god.
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quote:Originally posted by Tilde: I think I'm going to add you as an xbox friend purely so I can beat thorn over the back of the head with my rifle butt in halo and then tea bag him whilst laughing uncontrollably.
Even as I type that I can see thorn imagining that whole scene as some sort of gay rape fantasy metaphor
Well... it's not really a metaphor, is it? It's just a gay rape fantasy.
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Honestly, this idea that stories are about more than simply the events that happen in them is something that you're introduced to at the age of three fucking years old the first time a character fucks up and things go bad for him as a result. How can you act like this is an idea put about by crazies? It's like trying to deny the multiplication table, for Christ's sake.
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Big bearded man with a bulging sack, breaks into your house and gives presents to your kids. HO HO HO indeed. Santa... hold on, Santa is an anagram of SATAN...
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quote:Originally posted by Tilde: What about Fools and Horses?
Del (LED) represents a vulgar, status-obsessed technology-driven future, while Rodney (Yonder) is the honest, decent, simple past of our youth, most of the stories revolve around the tensions emanating from the demands of a horrifying future and the gentle pull of nostalgia.
Del, is corporate America, Rodney is cricket on the village green.
[ 08.10.2007, 11:24: Message edited by: Black Mask ]
quote:Originally posted by Nathan Bleak: Honestly, this idea that stories are about more than simply the events that happen in them is something that you're introduced to at the age of three fucking years old the first time a character fucks up and things go bad for him as a result. How can you act like this is an idea put about by crazies? It's like trying to deny the multiplication table, for Christ's sake.
Ok Nathan.
I think though, some things can be taken at face value and some things can't. In the case of 300, I personally didn't see any hidden political propaganda in it. Although I do accept there may be something in these theories, and if I were to watch it again with the points that have been raised in the back of my mind as they no doubt would be, I may well come out of the film with a different perspective.
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I can imagine you saying that very calmly to nathan, as he sits bound in a chair, covered in petrol, tape over his mouth, and you're waving a zippo in his face.
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posted
Now, I'm imagining Nathan standing in a craggy mountain pass, all buff and white, with his sword and shield, while millions of CGId Ringos and Tildes, seething, furious, ullulating, darkie homos, come barrelling towards him. And he fucks them all up, two times.
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