Comments on: Free Slave-Holding Phallocrats Defending Freedom From Squirmy Middle Easternesque Drag Queens, or A Meditation on Historical Accuracy

By: Endie

Endie — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:24:45 +0000

Yeah: by way of explanation, the third paragraph of my reply there was originally the fourth: I edited for wordiness without re-reading, and the jump suddenly became jarring (as well as leaving unclosed parentheses, due to more bad editing). What would have happened, as you say, is completely different from discussing the article. I just can’t resist that sort of game.

I should just have left the second paragraph and ditched the rest.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:46:33 +0000

That’s a different argument, I think, than the one Hanson is making about this film, or that this film is playing around with.

Though on the other hand, I think it’s a complicated counterfactual question about what the Greeks would have been or said as a distant imperial possession.

By: Endie

Endie — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:55:40 +0000

I read your piece before reading the article, and the word egregious did spring to mind: for once, your treatment seemed really rather unfair, and I felt that I had been a touch misled in some of your representations of the author’s arguments.

As a non-American looking in on the debate on 300, I can’t help but feel I keep seeing a proxy war between those who think it would be wrong to enjoy it, and those who think it would be wrong not to.

As regards the author’s final piece, I am damn sure that I am glad the Spartans, Phocians, Thebans, Thespians and others held the Persians for long enough for the first autumn storms to take place; I am damn glad for Salamis; and I am particularly glad about Plataea and Mycale (not to mention Marathon. Perhaps the world would have been better without Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Euripides, Sophocles, Herodotus, Thucydides, Aeschylus, Hppocrates and more. But it’s a gamble I’m glad we don’t have to take.

By: PreachyPreach

PreachyPreach — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 23:08:20 +0000

The viscerality of my response to 300 surprised me. All I’m saying, rather than ranting on about how it is one of the finer expressions of the fascist aesthetic[1], is that a film where the heroes make a wall of corpses may have lost its moral bearings somewhere along the way.

[1] Which I did to the poor critic friend who got me into an early preview.

By: Sarapen

Sarapen — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 01:57:54 +0000

There’s something amusing about the claim that such a grim bunch of proto-fascists as the Spartans were actually fighting to preserve freedom and equality. The historical Spartans would have liked nothing better than to eradicate democratic government entirely as well as anything that smacked of frivolity, especially all that Athenian art classical Greece is remembered for (which makes it ironic that Hanson is defending a movie about Spartans by making reference to the plays of their despised Athenian rivals).

And by the way, there were more Greeks fighting in Xerxes’ army than there were fighting against him.

Tim, I understand your annoyance with the article. It’s such a badly argued POS that I can’t help pointing out every flaw I can find in it. It’s like something from Real Ultimate Power, except Hanson was trying to be serious:

Hi, this article is all about Spartans, REAL SPARTANS. This article is awesome. My name is Hanson and I can’t stop thinking about Spartans. These guys are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

Facts:

1. Spartans are mammals.
2. Spartans fight all the time.
3. The purpose of the Spartan is to flip out and kill people.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 02:24:34 +0000

I just find the desperate straining of the piece annoying as hell.

By: withywindle

withywindle — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 01:58:52 +0000

One small thing Hanson got wrong in his review–“The film has actually been banned in Iran as hurtful American propaganda, as the theocracy suddenly is reclaiming its “infidel” ancient past.” My understanding is that 1) the Persians always retained some connection to the pre-Islamic past, not least by means of the preservation Persian folklore (Rustum, etc.); and 2) the last Shah successfully inculcated a reintegration of modern Persian identity with Ancient Persia, which reintegration was not obliterated by the Islamic Republic. So the reclamation of the infidel past is not sudden.

It isn’t a very well written op-ed–the transitions could certainly be filled out. (I wonder if a slightly longer original was edited down?) But if the main complaint is style, I confess I find Tim’s emotional animus against the piece somewhat startling. Is it just that he mentioned comic books and video games, which triggered an IGNORANT FOOL!–WHAT DOES HE KNOW OF THAT? button?

Meanwhile, speaking of the Greeks and comic books, I rather liked the two (only two?) Epicurus the Sage graphic novels. Which betrays my own vulgar taste, I suppose.

By: emschwar

emschwar — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 00:45:56 +0000

I do try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Also, I know plenty of people (the SCA is full of 'em) who will happily give dissertation upon dissertation about the historical inaccuracies of A Knight's Tale, with special emphasis on the anachronisms of Queen's music in the Middle Ages. These people are tiring beyond belief. These are the people I figured Hanson was talking to.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 00:11:12 +0000

You’re very generous. I really don’t read the review that way at all. I think it’s trying to claim that 300 is faithful to the essence of Thermopylae and the Greeks, not just that it’s a fiction like other fictions (including those of Herodotus, et al).

By: emschwar

emschwar — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 23:20:37 +0000

Ops, forgot to close the italics. Sorry.