REVIEW - 300 (2006)

2005 saw the release of Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City. Based so closely on the Frank Miller comics that Rodriguez insisted upon crediting Miller as a co-director. The film’s release was met with howls of outrage at the violence and misogyny that seemed to ooze off the screen. Even I bristled at some of Miller’s apparent views on women. Over a year later and Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Miller’s 300 finds itself met by a similar chorus of disapproval. Some have even gone so far as to compare the film to Leni Riefenstahl’s classic of Nazi propaganda Triumph of the Will as well as Fritz Hippler’s equally loathsome The Eternal Jew. However, far from being grounds for rejecting the film out of hand, this unapologetic vision of fascism makes 300 not only one of the best action films of recent memory, it also makes it one of the most challenging films of the year.

Based loosely upon the factual Battle of Thermopylae (literally “hot gates”) in 480 BCE, 300 tells the story of King Leonidas of Sparta’s famous stand against the massive army of Xerxes I of Persia. The film begins with Leonidas being visited by a group of Persian emissaries who demand that Leonidas kneel to Xerxes and in return Sparta will be spared. Refuse to kneel and the Spartans will be massacred and enslaved. After kicking the emissaries down a well and vowing never to submit, Leonidas turns to the mystics of Sparta in order to gain the legal power to mobilise the army. However, the diseased old men have sold out to the Persians along with a Spartan politician and Leonidas is forced to march out against the Persians taking only a small force as a bodyguard while his wife is left to turn the political tide and send reinforcements. Upon arriving at the Hot Gates, the Spartans use their superior training, motivation and the terrain to block the Persians’ only entry into Greece, forcing the God-Emperor Xerxes to throw more and more of his exotic forces at the small force until eventually the Spartans are betrayed by a hunchbacked local who tells Xerxes of a goat path that would allow the Persian forces to surround the Spartans. Predictably, Leonidas’ forces are quickly overwhelmed but rather than submit, Leonidas chooses to fight to the death, thereby allowing the rest of Greece the time to mobilise and the Spartans at home to find a reason to fight.

Visually, the film is stunning to look at. Heavily CGIed, the film not only borrows some of the techniques used in Sin City, it also uses such familiar tricks as bluescreen, bullet time and filtered lenses to create a film that is not only bathed in blood and severed heads but is every inch the spectacle. Far from being as kinetic as the trailer suggested, the film is actually quite carefully put together with beautifully choreographed fight scenes that not only look rich, they also do a good job conveying how good the Spartans are at fighting. The only downside is that once the film settles in and around the hot gates, its palette never moves far away from the dusty yellows and greys of the terrain, even during visits to Xerxes’ harem (complete with amputees and similarly disfigured concubines). This does get somewhat tiresome but I expect the dull background was chosen precisely to augment the frequent jets of blood as well as the crimson of the Spartans’ capes (Miller and Varley clearly borrowed from Jacques-Louis David’s 1814 Leonidas of Sparta painting).

Indeed, the film’s costume design is one of its most important aspects. Unlike the painting and the original comic, the Spartans are not naked except for a crimson cape, instead Snyder has opted to protect their modesty by giving them not armour but rather tight black leather shorts. Between the shouting, the machismo, the six-packs and shorts sported by the Spartans their bonhomie comes to feel mildly homo-erotic, not least because of their famous historical use of pederasty as a major part of their educational process. Here the Spartan Agoge is mentioned but all references to man-boy love are removed, Leonidas even going so far as to chastise the Athenians as “philosophers and boy-lovers” and the film beefs up the part of Queen Gorgo in order to drive home the fact that Leonidas is not gay. Which is fair enough, as he isn’t.

In The History of Sexuality Vol. I, French Philosopher Michel Foucault argues that sexuality is not a matter of biology but of socialisation. Different modes of discourse sculpt how people see themselves and therefore come to create self-fulfilling prophecies about the nature of sexuality. In particular, Foucault claimed that homosexuality is a concept that is no more than a couple of centuries old. Before talk of homosexuality one had talk of people engaging in “sodomy” which is what is forbidden in the Bible. In fact, one of the reasons why the Christian churches have been so slow to accept gays and lesbians is because Christianity struggles to see homosexuality as an identity rather an activity, so it makes perfect sense to love the sinner but hate the sin as there is no such thing as homosexuality... just the activity known as “sodomy”. Foucault argues that homosexuality was created by doctors and psychiatrists as a means of diagnosing and then treating people that engaged in sodomy by suggesting that the act of sodomy was a symptom of some underlying problem... namely a deviant sexuality. Indeed, this conception of a sexuality as a thing that you’re born with and then either embrace or deny has lingered on long beyond the days of the Freudian psychology that underpins it. As a result of this constructivist view of sexuality, the Ancient World has long been of interest to Queer Theorists as it was a time before our modern conceptions of sexuality had taken root. As a result it was possible for men to be pederasts without being seen as sexual deviants and for men to have sex with men as well as their wives without there being any concept of infidelity or bisexuality. This view is reflected in Miller’s characterisation of Leonidas who, despite being a Spartan is a devoted husband and father.

The reason why I am going on about sexuality at such great length is because this film is all about masculine sexuality.

King Leonidas is a Spartan and as such is a pederast and a man who would have been subject to what we would now consider systematic rape and abuse as a child. Indeed, an early section of the film highlights not only the Spartans’ devotion to eugenics but also the unrelenting brutality of their educational programme. Snyder devotes little time to the Agoge but what he does show summarises the entire Spartan educational system to a unrelentingly brutal beating. However, despite Leonidas’ brutal upbringing and typically Spartan sexual history, he is presented as straight and a family man, striking the widely known truths about his Spartan up-bringing from the record. This effectively places Leonidas into the category of the closeted queer; a family man whose true sexuality is conspicuous by its airbrushed absence. However, Xerxes is an entirely different matter.

When we first see Xerxes, he is riding a golden throne held aloft by hundreds of slaves. Nine foot of pouting and preening sexuality clad in gold-sequinned hotpants, kohl eye make-up, lipstick, piercings and fetish gear, Xerxes is the physical embodiment of transgressive sexuality. He continually talks of people kneeling before him, running together an act of political submission with a sexual one. He towers over his followers like a night-club-dwelling drag queen and he owns a vast harem full of disfigured and mutilated sex slaves. This immediately suggests a sub-text wherein the tightly closeted, controlled and testosterone fuelled Leonidas is under siege by the promises of power and pleasure offered up by an alternative sexuality. Xerxes even tries to penetrate the Spartan lines by hammering away at their “hot gates”. However, sexual imagery is everywhere if you look hard enough. What is interesting about the battle between Xerxes and Leonidas is not the undeniable sexual tension the fuels it but the fact that here violence is not only a sexual act but also a political one.

Aside from the sex and the violence, the most obvious aspect of the film is its politics. The film has drawn criticism not only for appearing to be an apologia for fascism on a par with the early works of Orson Scott Card but also for its tendency to throw around terms such as “liberty” and “justice” despite the fact that Sparta was an absolute monarchy that threw weak babies off cliffs and forced every man to become a supremely disciplined and obedient soldier. While some have compared the film’s ethos to that of the Nazis, others have taken it as a commentary on contemporary geopolitics with the white men standing up against the oncoming Persian (Iranian) hordes. While I think that such claims are easily overdone, I think that is is interesting how the film’s rhetoric is quick to use modern terms but actually does little to mask the deeply reactionary and authoritarian nature of Spartan society. Indeed, in its blending of unspeakable violence with patriotism, the film is deeply reminiscent of classics of 1980’s American action cinema such as Rambo 2, Rocky IV or Iron Eagles. All of these films cloaked themselves in the rhetoric of liberal democracy despite using the methods and the imagery of fascism by featuring supermen willing to dish out unspeakable amounts of violence for their country. For a more contemporary example of these kinds of politics then look no further than Yimou Zhang’s 2002 Hero starring Jet li, a beautiful film that effectively served as an apology for authoritarian non-democratic government. In fact, if Sparta were still around as a global power today, it would have approved of this film.

What is interesting about this is that by stripping the film of any obvious associations with contemporary political debates or powers, we are able to see the fascistic skeleton that underpins all action cinema.

Between the sex, the violence and the politics, 300 effectively constitutes an Ur myth of the action film. Strip away the plot, the setting and the moral justifications and you’ll find that pretty much every single action film ever made is all about fucking and fighting. In essence, the action movie is a discourse of dominance, its values are those of the unapologetic alpha male, the non-new, non-sensitive and utterly unreconstructed man. In their classic book Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari said that “everyone wants to be a fascist”, meaning that regardless of where in the political spectrum one comes from and what the values we champion might be, sooner or later we’ll wish that we could just force people to agree with us (as argued by the documentarian Adam Curtis). This desire flows from the Freudian Oedipus complex so, in a sense, everyone wants to be a fascist because everyone wants to fuck their mother.

By situating the root of fascism in the orbiting Freudian death and sex drives, Deleuze and Guattari are suggesting that the desire for dominance is a natural part of the human condition. This belief also informs 300 as while the film appears to be fascistic, it in fact symbolises the far more primitive drives towards sex and death. This means that 300 is not itself fascistic, it merely taps into the same aspects of human nature that also feed fascism, as Conan puts it “to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women”.

With such a deeply cynical view of human nature and with a desire to do no more than appeal to what is most base in us, 300 was always going to enrage some. However, by drawing attention to the desire for political dominance and unbridled sexual activity in action films, 300 also has a deeply controversial and subversive subtext. 300 is aimed at such a mainstream audience and both its machismo and fascistic tendencies are so pronounced and unsubtle that I suspect that it will be very difficult for anyone to make another mindless action film without people marvelling at how camp and fascistic it all is. That is far more intelligent and challenging than even the most tortuous of plots or the most delicate of dialogue. 300 is a film so unapologetically thuggish that it actually emerges on the other side as a work of considerable wit and political gravitas.

Comments

[A.R.Yngve]

Now, I have read most of Miller's work from THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (1986) and onward, and Miller seems fully aware of the fascism issue...

He brings it up in THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, in which TV pundits expressly call Batman a "fascist" and there is much debate about his psychological issues. This of course makes the story more interesting.

THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS also features a very violent confrontation between Batman and his archenemy The Joker, who looks very camp, uses a (deadly) lipstick and calls Batman "Darling".

(Miller, in an interview, actually said that his version of The Joker is a "homophobic nightmare" for whom "death IS sex"!)

So these issues have been brought up in his earlier work -- only better and with more (apparent?) depth than in "300".

[Jonathan McCalmont]

I think the film does a better job of touching on these issues than the 300 comic. The comic plays it largely straight (heh) but the film just lets rip.

I agree with you that these ideas are pretty much in all of Miller's work.

What is interesting about his relationship with fascism is how he'll happily admit that Batman is a fascist and drape him in the rhetoric of the ubermensch myth (Miller's Batman is a proper Nietszchean superman) BUT he'll also set him up as the opposite of the apple-pie authoritarianism of Superman and, in the later DKR books, he even seems to make Batman a hero of anti-globalisation.

So I think the extent to which Miller is actually deploying this as part of a knowingly subversive agenda is questionable. I think he just writes a certain way and is well aware that people class his work, and in fact his medium, have fascistic tendencies.

To be honest, I found these tendencies almost unbearable in Sin City where the sex and violence seemed to be more about childish transgression than part of any real agenda. 300, on the other hand, seems to have quite a clear and subversive agenda.

I don't know... I just really enjoyed 300's OTTness, far more than I enjoyed the comic or previous adaptations of Miller's work.

[A.R.Yngve]

I haven't seen the "300" film -- and since I didn't really like the graphic novel, I probably never will.

SIN CITY must be a watershed in Miller's career -- not just how it eventually made him a Hollywood success, but its extreme stylization and paring down of the characters. He got a lot of flak for it from some critics.

If there's any agenda I can think of in SIN CITY, it's a deep hatred of the Catholic Church:

1. The antihero Marv murders a corrupt priest in a confessional booth (the priest is played by Frank Miller in the movie!);

2. Marv murders a corrupt Cardinal who has indulged in cannibalism of the city's prostitutes.

In the letter-column of one of his comic-books, Miller dropped the clue that he's a lapsed Catholic. Make of that what you will...
;-)

[Jonathan McCalmont]

There was also the stuff about how lesbians just haven't met the right man and how it's okay to "fall in love" with under-aged girls because they grow up to be whores anyway.

[SCG]

Great review, Jonathan. It's the only one I've seen yet that makes me want to actually watch the film.

And I love the line "everyone wants to be a fascist because everyone wants to fuck their mother."

About the comment right above this one, though: isn't the former point expressed by the ultimate thug, the absolute extreme of testosterone machismo, and thereby instantly undermined? Why would someone like Marv understand lesbianism? She could have any man she wants, he thinks, because he's so preoccupied with the fact that he can't have anyone he wants. And hence his obsession with Goldie.

As regards your second point: not sure what you're referring to, but if it's Willis's character I don't think that's the point. Willis protects this little girl who signifies innocence in an otherwise dark and twisted place. His desire to protect her from the sins and cruelties of the City is his only reason to live. And yet when he meets her as an adult, this is kind of inverted, because her innocence has come to represent a further sort of temptation to the corruption of the city.

Okay, these ideas might be expressed quite badly as I've not had much sleep, but that's a couple of kneejerk idea/responses. Certainly not trying to defend a lot of what is deeply distasteful about Sin City, but I think these sort of readings are just as valid as taking it as face value. Not seen 300 but I wonder if the same so OTT in its crudeness that it comes out as subversive isn't a reasonable analysis of both films.

Gonna shut up now, pretty sure I'm making no sense...

Hi SCG --

Thanks for the praise :-) when I checked my email this morning there was another comment by someone who clearly took my review to be critical and accused me of being a bed wetter and having only been potty-trained at the age of five. As I was half-asleep and in no mood to be trifled with I deleted it, but I regret that now as it was just wondrously incoherent, if a bit harsh seeing as my review is a positive one.

As for Marv - Is Marv not supposed to be a sympathetic character? I thought the point of Marv was that he was a product of a corrupt society that mistreated and brutalised him and rejected him despite the fact that he's clearly honourable. His physical appearance is fully in keeping with the Ubermensch vibe as he is ugly by the standards of our corrupt world, thereby making him virtuous. That's how I read him anyway, so I'm not sure if his not being able to grasp lesbianism is any kind of "good thing".

As for Willis' character, you may actually be right and I was being uncharitable. Still, even if you are correct there's some dodgy sexual politics going on there as the little girl is a textbook example of a madonna/whore complex.

Good points though, thanks for the input.

[PAT]

LOL Madonna/whore complex, thats funny stuff. The story was okay not that weak! But watch this at http://boxsweeper.com . Its a site just like tvlinks but better!

[S.M. Stirling]

"As Conan puts it “to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women”.

-- actually, that's a quote from Temujin (aka Genghis Khan), a well-known Mongol warlord of the medieval period.

[S.M. Stirling]

And I'd be a bit more cautious about quoting Foucault, since his radical antinominianism had, to put it mildly, a bit of an agenda behind it.(*)

When Foucault was advised that his sexual habits were dangerous, he replied that he 'refused to submit to the doctors' discourse of power'. The results were... not happy.

As the saying goes, reality is the virus that will kill you whether you believe in it or not.

(*) and he was also rather distressingly given to simply making things up to support his arguments and passing them off as research.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

SM, thanks for dropping by :-)

I agree with both of your points, though I seem to remember that the original Temujin quote also featured something about wearing your enemy's skin as an undershirt.

I also accept that Foucault is an unreliable source, though you have to credit him with a lack of intellectual dishonesty in his final days... he believed that AIDS was a social construct and acted accordingly.

However, I think that he's quite correct that medicine has, over the years, been subject to "political bias" and the response to a lot of alternate lifestyles is a good example of this type of behaviour.