Racist 300?

[mindstalk]

I still haven't seen it, but I got this article from my mother.
Gary Leupp on 300

The message is indeed clear. Sparta = Greece = the Western World = freedom. Persia = slavery and oppression. This was perhaps the gist of Herodotus' message; he did write that while the Greeks knew that men were free, the "Asiatics" knew only that one (the ruler) was free. But that was a skewed
notion in his time and can only dangerously circulate in our own, while Iran is in the neocons' crosshairs. Again, I think the Iranians might be over-concerned, since much of the film-viewing crowd won't even associate the ancient Persians with the modern Iranians, but the "clash of civilizations" theme is definitely there.

I would propose that those exposed to it imagine a different Xerxes than the nose-pierced caricature in the film. Imagine a Xerxes who addresses the American audience, including the Christian fundamentalist audience, as follows:

"I am Xerxes, Emperor of Persia, son of Darius, grandson of Cyrus. My grandfather Cyrus liberated the Jews from their Babylonian exile and let them return to Judea and rebuild their temple. My father Darius urged our people to revere the 'God of Daniel.' I myself married Esther, a Jew."

"I come from a long line of believers in the One God preached by Zarathustra, our Persian prophet whose teachings have influenced the Jews during their exile among us. I refer specifically to their concepts of
Satan, Heaven and the future Messiah which weren't part of their pre-exile belief system and are clearly borrowings from our Persian religion.

In short: 300's depiction of the battle of Thermopylae is not merely inaccurate, as any film adaptation of a graphic novel has the perfect right to be. It's what the Iranians say it is: racist and insulting. It pits the
glorious Greeks with whom the audience must sympathize against a "mystical" and "tyrannical" culture posing an imminent existential threat. It is, de facto, an anti-Persian/anti-Iranian propaganda film, and should be rated appropriately: not just R (for racist) but X---for extremely stupid and
vicious and dangerously ill-timed.

Comments

300 racist?

[(Anonymous)]

No the movie is not racist! The furor had nothing to do with the movie, It was the Iranian government using psychological warfare against their own people. They were stirring them up, getting them ready to fight and diverting attention away from their nuclear testing. Remember that the Iranian people are not allowed to see movies or most of the internet, so all they know is what their government tells them. Read all about it here. http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20070331-113237-7958r.htm

Don't be foolish, when people tell you ridiculous things question the reason behind it. Watch the other hand, the one with the knife.