Editorials > If You Love 300, You Might be an Idiot

I was in a film production class where we discussed ethics and violence and the things one usually discusses in a film production class when the professor is too lazy to come up with anything of his own to say. This is basically a distillation and continuation of an argument I had with roughly half the class (all male) concerning the film 300. I realize, of course, that 300 has been out for quite a while and that this discussion has been made before, but what is the Internet for if not angrily saying things through text that you didn’t have the time or ability to say vocally?

Basically, we talked about how films like Hostel and Saw, while entertaining, really amounted to torture porn (though not to suggest that this is unequivocally a bad thing). Several students then went on to say that violence depicted for violence’s sake in films like Hostel was harmful, whereas “good,” moral violence like that found in films like 300 are at worst harmless, and at best very positive.

Leaving aside discussions concerning the moral benefits of simulated violence, I just want to focus on a few facts concerning 300: firstly, that the film is hypocritical and morally black-and-white, and secondly, that it also sucks.

People defend the violence of 300 by saying that the Spartans, while brutal, were good and moral men who fought against the fascist, megalomaniacal power of Xerxes and the Persian army. That in fighting rough and leaving no prisoners or wounded, they were fighting and dying for freedom. The word “freedom” is repeated quite often in the film – Leonidas refers to Sparta’s existence as the birth of an age of freedom, the Queen tells Leonidas to ask himself “what would a free man do,” and so on. The only problem, of course, is that the Sparta we’re shown really doesn’t seem all that free in the first place.

We are, after all, talking about a civilization in which the first thing we’re told about them – the very first thing we’re told about them – is that they kill sick or weak babies. So, you’re free, but not if you’re a baby (or a parent, evidently: the mutated son of a Spartan later on in the film points out the fact that his parents had to hide him in order to save his life), and especially not if you’re a physically ill baby.

Additionally, the Oracle in the mountains – a young, beautiful girl – is said to have been forced into the hands of the leprosy-infected religious leaders, where she is drugged and raped on, assumedly, a daily basis. While Leonidas is obviously disgusted at the religious fanatics, he makes no effort whatsoever to stop their sex slavery. So, no freedom in Sparta if you’re sick, a baby, or beautiful.

Or what about the fact that Leonidas kills the ambassador from an opposing nation, thereby breaking the only inviolate rule of warfare and international discussion? True, the Persian was acting like a total dick and, as a foreigner, does not fall under the Spartan umbrella of “freedom,” but we’re still talking about killing an unarmed man who was delivering a message from someone else.

So, if the Sparta in 300 doesn’t extend freedoms to children, parents, pretty girls or messengers, what makes it so free? Is it the fact that they vote by democracy? If so, then why is Leonidas’s decision to ignore the wishes of the democratically-elected council held in such high regard? If Leonidas values freedom so much, then why is his wholesale indifference to the wishes of the democracy portrayed as such a virtue? That’s not freedom – that’s a dictatorship.

Defenders of the film will inevitably point to the fact that the film is more or less grounded in reality , the stylistic exaggerations of the one-eyed storyteller (the size of the elephants, the evil excesses of the Persians, etcetera) notwithstanding. That, since the Spartans really did kill their children, for the film to point it out should in no way reflect poorly on its moral message. While this argument is almost completely irrelevant due to the fact that the film’s moral message must be judged on the merits of the film alone, it brings up an interesting point regarding what the film doesn’t include. Most notably, it fails to mention the rampant homosexuality in the Spartan ranks, including Leonidas’s own same-sex relationship(s). The film does, of course, make quick reference to homosexuality by referring to Athenians as boy-lovers, but this insult – especially when made without acknowledging the actual homosexuality which was so prevalent in Sparta – illogically equates the liberal, philosophical Athenians with lecherous pedophiles. In calling Athenians gay but neglecting to mention the similar habits of the Spartans, the film essentially establishes itself as simplistic, BS, male fantasy. Why aren’t Spartans gay in 300? Because if they were, then college-aged males wouldn’t find the film so badass. 300 wants to entertain with action and deify the Spartans solely through their ability to kill, thereby suggesting that this fascist, gung-ho brand of violence is something to be morally admired.

So, to summarize, they aren’t really fighting for freedom, and therefore the violence they commit is just simplistic, black-and-white “good vs evil” type stuff. I won’t go off on the irritating racism tangent concerning the depiction of the Persians because I don’t necessarily buy into it, but it stands to be said that the baddies are all faceless, ugly, one-dimensional thugs where the Spartans are portrayed as brave and heroic and very well-oiled. The “we good, they bad” attitude, apart from being painfully hypocritical given our views of Spartan society, is a really, really irritating moral simplification that is too often used to justify the ethical simplicity of films like 300 or (to provide an aesthetically dissimilar, but thematically identical example) The Boondock Saints.

Unlike The Boondock Saints, however, 300 is not a particularly good work of narrative fiction. Oh, it’s pretty, to be sure (CGI blood helps distance the viewer from the grotesque natural of real violence, thus glorifying it), but not much else. The characters are all simplistic save for Leonidas’s wife (whose scenes, incidentally, are the only ones in the movie that aren’t in the graphic novel); the fighting starts too soon before you get to know any of the characters or become afraid of the army they fight; the action is unimpressive and bogged down by absurd amounts of slow-motion; and, of course, there’s no real climax and you don’t feel anything when the Spartans get killed at the end. Not sympathy. Not sadness. The moment is nothing short of shrug-inducing.

But, of course, your mileage may vary. I don’t wish to make the blanket statement that all people who love 300 are simpletons (Nathan Fillion seemed to really enjoy the flick, and I try not to make a habit of insulting people I idolize), but the pieces are there: a shoddy narrative, a hypocritical morality, and a black-and-white approach to violence. As pretty and action-packed as the film may be, it’s an overly simplistic, borderline harmful piece of work.

In my opinion, anyway.