'300': When Hollywood forgets what a real Warrior is all about

My roomate Ricardo (a great guy! I must introduce you to him at some occasion :) and I were trying to see where the film ‘300’ was playing in Boston (anyone know where the IMAX is, btw?). And as I searched, I bumped into many reviews, some lauding, most criticising the cheap violence and soft porn (why would an army have lesbian shows, can some explain that to me?). Some articles, however, discussed the accuracy of the facts and the depictions. One very interesting piece was Ahmad Sadri’s “'300' takes stereotyping to new level: Zack Snyder's cinematic depiction of Persian-Spartan clash is not encumbered by historical awareness”.

The film, apparently, shows Spartans as full of honour and manhood and all the good stuff - whereas, apparently, real Spartans (then, of course) were known for turning their arms against their fellow Greeks whenever that suited them. Likewise, the Persians (hmm, should we say the Iranians?) were not particularly black, effeminate, etc.

But the nicest part of the article, which I will simply copy here, is about how Spartans and Persians actually depicted each other, then:

--------------

“But the most significant difference between the real Greeks and their avatars in Snyder's "300" is that the real Greeks were not racists. The word "barbarian" had cultural (not racial) connotations.

The philosopher and soldier of fortune Xenophon admired the Persian king Cyrus and wrote a book on the superiority of the Persian to Greek education. Herodotus, the main chronicler of the dual Persian expeditions under both Darius (492 BC) and Xerxes (480 BC), never attempted to dehumanize - let alone demonize - them. His account of Xerxes' invasion reads like a Greek tragedy where the gods tempt a tragic hero into a self destructive course.

It is instructive to compare this movie's orientalist vision of a savage Persian king to Herodotus' description: "Among all this multitude of men there was not one who, for beauty and stature, deserved more than Xerxes himself to wield so vast a power."

Only a decade after the events portrayed in the movie, the pre-eminent Greek playwright Aeschylus dedicated a tragedy to the Persians. The play was not a triumphalist ode to the heroes of Marathon, Salamis, Thermopylae or Platea. Staged at the Persian court in Susa, it was about Persian grief. The play's protagonists were Xerxes, the queen mother Atosa and the ghost of her husband, the first invader of Greece, Darius. It described the Greeks and Persians as: "sisters of one race ... flawless in beauty and grace." And the Greeks openly wept in their amphitheaters, not for their own but for their enemy's tragic end.

A century and a half later, when Alexander of Macedon invaded Iran and burned Persepolis, the Iranians would return the favor. They preferred to eulogize their invader and remember him not as a vandal but as a prophet in search of eternal life and wisdom.

Turning our backs on Hollywood, we could learn an important lesson from the cataclysmic war between the Persian empire and the Greek confederates: It is possible to gallantly fight a pitched battle against the fiercest of enemies without conceiving of them as hordes of degenerate sub-humans.”

----------

Ah. Wish we could learn a thing or two from them... On dignity, on respect, on military and human morals.

You know, Guantanamo/military trials/torture/etc etc. We fail short of Ancient Greece and Persia in terms of military codes.

The day we decide to follow the examples set forth by our common historical heritage. the valiant sacrifices made at Thermopylae will be worth as much for us as they were for Sparta.