300: Sin City's Prettier Sibling

Republicans ought to love 300. The story, at heart, is about a king who bends the law to go to war against the brown-skinned hordes of the East in the name of freedom. All the while, our good king is being opposed by corrupt political officials back home who refuse to support the troops by agreeing to a surge. This isn't much of an oversimplification of the plot--Frank Miller doesn't do nuance.

The last film adaptation of Frank Miller's work was Sin City--a movie that only someone with the morality of a serial killer could unrepentantly love. Unlike Sin City, 300 is not bereft of socially redeeming value. This movie has a great deal more to recommend it, including a coherent and relevant storyline. And it does a few things exceedingly well.

It's a heart-thumping action flick. It's well-cast, and the scenes that call for acting are well-acted. Moreover, 300 doesn't take too many wild liberties with history. A person could learn something about Spartan culture and world history watching this film. And that's a good thing.

300 is also a visual stunner. There is an artistic shade to every frame of the movie. The battle choreography brings poses to life not seen before in modern times anywhere but on Greek statuary and pottery fragments. The fierceness of the Spartan warrior, the perfection of his body, the grace of his movement is all properly explored and celebrated in this film.

Unfortunately, the movie crosses the line from celebration into "master race" propaganda without pause or reflection.

It is historically true that the Spartans thought well of themselves and their bloodline. Infanticide was regularly practiced against those who were misshapen or otherwise unworthy. And in spite of their prattle about equality, the Spartans enslaved whole peoples. It is one thing to explore and sympathize with the Spartans, but another entirely to adopt their world view.

When making film choices, 300 inevitably gravitates towards the latter. It enthusiastically embraces the worst possible xenophobic, racist, and homophobic stereotypes it can find. Where the Spartans are perfect physical specimens, their enemies must be deformed and perverted, not just in soul, but in body. And when the movie isn't defaming other races, cultures, and sexualities, it's picking on religion and the handicapped.

The offensiveness cannot be blamed on the subject matter of the film. Better writers manage to explore dark subjects and dark people without crossing this line all the time. One common example is HBO's Sopranos, which all but glorifies mob violence without ever using its authorial voice to condone the behavior. 300 is utterly devoid of that light writer's touch.

Nor can the problem be blamed on the nature of the movie as a comic adaptation. Issues of moral ambiguity are handled deftly in the Spiderman and X-Men movies.

No. On the heels of the example set by Sin City, one can only blame this stunning propaganda on the artists. Miller's work is not thoughtlessly immature; it's intentionally so.

Normally, it's easy to overlook offensive subtext in movies because it's clearly unintentional. After all, there's no point getting worked up about subliminal messages that no one meant to send. The problem with 300 is that it is hyper conscious of it's own transgressive nature.

300 never passes up an opportunity to dehumanize the enemy or dumb down a political calculation. You can tell someone is evil because they look different. If someone doesn't agree with you, it's because they are corrupt. The movie is so eager to rub its most vile cynicism in your nose, that you can't help wondering if the authors like to go around carving swastikas into people's foreheads when they're not making films.

But if you can hold your nose and embrace the mentality of your inner thirteen-year-old boy, 300 ought to be a rocking good time.