300: Beautiful Bigotry Writ Large

300 is one of the most visually stunning films ever made. It is easily the greatest visual masterpiece of the year. But as much as I loved the film, I hated it just as much. For all the lush colors and ultra violence, there's a disagreeable story lurking just beneath the surface. The subtext of the film is blatantly offensive and just plain bigoted. I would not recommend this film be viewed by impressionable teenagers, which is who it seems to unfortunately be marketed toward.

300 suffers from several flaws that make it disturbing to watch. Like eating a candied apple that has ground glass inside, you will probably enjoy it, then walk away from the experience feeling like something is terribly wrong.

Racism

I don't understand why Hollywood seems to insist its audience is entirely white, but 300's biggest flaw is caused precisely by this never-ending delusion. Not only are we to believe the Spartans are all Anglos (a matter the history books would disagree with vehemently), we're also expected to believe the Persians were a bunch of mulattoes and Negroids in eyeliner.

The Persians, in fact, are quite diverse, as opposed to the Spartan army. There are black envoys, ambassadors, and messengers from Persia. There are, of course, some Caucasians in the Persian army as well, and even a couple of Asians thrown in for good measure. There are also a number of freakish, monstrous-looking warriors and slaves in the Persian army. There are also any number of criminals associated with the Persian army. I gather, we're to equate diversity with ugliness, slavery, and criminality then?

The message seems quite clear almost from the start of 300: namely, that it's about the final, great white stand against an onslaught of racial hegemony. No, Matt Drudge, this isn't quite an analogy you can easily apply to the Iraq war, but it's an ugly allegory all the same.

Homophobia

Perhaps just as specious as the overt ethnocentrism is this underlying tone of homophobia that's more than blatant throughout the film. I won't draw a conclusion about Greek eroticism (it's been done), but we're led to believe the entire reason the Spartans choose to fight is because the Athenians chose to and they're a bunch of (ahem) "fag" philosophers. The Spartans, not wanting to be shown up, are obliged to enter this suicidal conflict against the Persians as a show of masculinity. In essence, gays are to blame for the Spartans getting involved. Sad scapegoating apparently goes back thousands of years.

This isn't the only outright homophobia in 300 either. At one point, we're treated to viewing Xerxes' concubine, which, of course, has a plethora of tongue-licking, erotic lesbians there as an enticement, and a number of activities that would make a typical S&M gathering look tame in comparison. Not to mention Xerxes himself, who's pierced to the nines and could easily double as a draq queen stand-in for Ru Paul, with all that makeup and those perfectly manicured long nails.

In other words, we're supposed to believe the Spartans are a bunch of masculine, white, heterosexual males fighting against an onslaught of diverse queers, freaks, and sexual deviants, despite the historical evidence that shows the Greeks were probably a bunch of pederasts who were probably more morally twisted than the Persians themselves ever were.

Conservative Politics

There is a strong undertone of "family values" being the drive behind the 300's choice to fight. They do so to protect their families and to ensure the sovereignty of Sparta. Supposedly, none of the Persians have families. Their only motivation is a bloodthirsty desire to bugger the residents of Greece and enslave all the hot Spartan women? Excuse me? Something just doesn't jive.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Perhaps the biggest flaw with 300 was also the most obvious. So obvious, in fact, that most people won't notice it at all. Here we have 300 men in the Battle of Thermopylae squaring off against 1 million+ Persians. According to history, the 300 successfully vanquished around 20,000 Persians. This, of course, begs the question: what happened to all the blood?

The fight choreography is stunningly poetic. Limbs get lobbed off and digital blood goes flying everywhere in slow motion in several scenes. But why is it that none of the Spartans are covered in blood? Not even their hands? Even their weapons look clean after supposed hours-long battles. Not that I wanted to see the blood, but there's something disturbingly wrong about a movie that exhibits all this violence like it's a pleasant music video, but conveniently leaves out all the blood. It's almost as if it's trying to say the act of killing is clean when it's a Persian who's being killed. Blood is a powerful symbol in storytelling. The decision to leave it out is very telling.

Only Hotties live in Sparta

From the start, it's explained that defective babies (namely, runts and those born with deformities) were discarded by the Spartans by being tossed off a cliff into a pile of bones below. This, apparently, has resulted in the world's most skilled warriors. So skilled, in fact, that they all sport perfect 6-packs as they walk toward battle, shirtless in all their conviction. Hollywood seems to have forgotten there was such a thing as a bronze breastplate. There is no room for deviation, either. Hunchbacks and old folk have no place in the Spartan army. In fact, there are no fat people, no ugly people, and no people with deformities in Sparta. Oh, and the women? They were all perfect 10's. Even the peasant working women.

Sexism

If there's anything 300 wants to get right, it's the depiction of how Spartans treated their women. Spartan women were, in fact, the leaders of their society. It was necessary for the women to be able to run things while their husbands were off fighting wars. Sparta was one of the only places in the Classical world where a girl could get an education. What's sad about 300, however, is the lack of many women at all in the story. There is one powerful woman in the film (the Queen) and she's fairly powerless, and ends up being victimized (and later vindicated, fortunately). The entire concept of femininity doesn't seem to exist in Sparta. Women are nothing but baby-making machines, even if they do produce Spartan men. There's something very wrong about showing this to teenage boys, mind you.

Despite all these issues (and I'm sure there are more that I didn't catch), 300 is a solid piece of beautiful celluloid work. It's quite gorgeous to look at, kind of like a Haute Couture model who's hiding an eating disorder and a nasty coke habit. But just as you wouldn't want your kids hanging out with Kate Moss, you should probably keep them from watching this one unless they have a sound enough mind to think for themselves. Sure, it's fun to watch America's Next Top Model, but would you really want to bring one home to mom? Sheesh.

Sifted: 8/10