Re: 300
Right.
the Spartans stood up for what they believed in, sacrificing themselves for their way of life, and in turn allowing for the spread of a culture that was related to, but very different from their own. Without the Spartans' militaristic and sparse lifestyle, the Athenian and Greek way of life would never have thrived.
I'm getting serious mixed signals on this from what the academics are saying; some suggest what you say, others suggest that the Spartans were opressive degenerates themselves.
One thing for certain; the Persians were not these cultureless barbaric deamons from the East...
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I really, really enjoyed this movie. But part of it was because I didn't mind this glorificaion of and nostalgic look at an event and at a people who existed so long ago.
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It follows the classic war movie themes...I liked it for that, but having seen so many (too many)...it gets to sound cliche after a while.
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I also found it interesting that the nuclear family structure was only maintained by the good Spartans. Everyone else had "messed up" sexuality issues.
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Yup, but it's to reinforce the notion of the Spartans as people "we" could relate to...i.e. "good guys"...this is classic...just look at any movie about the Middle East. The good guys are the ones who are westernized; the bad ones are the one's who actually look like Arabs. The only exception to this rule I can think of are the very old Sabu movies...
It's also done here by invoking freedom and liberty; that kind of turned me off since it was so darn heavy handed and over the top. I mean...even aside from all this projecting of modern values on these historic characters...they were practicing Eugenics. That's sick...I wanted the Persians to kick their arse just on that point alone. :D