[Perrin]

http://www.latimes.c...-entnews-movies

'300' mixed messages
The film's team says no big statements were intended. Sure. We believe that.

CARINA CHOCANO
March 20, 2007

- '300': It's just a movie -- or is it?
THE latest entry in the annals of Money Changes Everything is Zack Snyder's "300," which about a month ago was being discussed in terms of its allegorical message, but is now being closely inspected for its magical money-making properties.

Even before it became a box-office sensation, the director was sloughing off questions of whether the movie was a metaphor for the current war, or any war we might happen to have in the works. Any political message was "inadvertent." That people were picking up on some political message — well, you could have knocked the director, producers and studio marketing department over with a feather. As for some people's fixation on certain words, "When someone in a movie says, 'We're going to fight for freedom,' that's now a dirty word," Snyder told Entertainment Weekly. "Europeans totally feel that way. If you mention democracy or freedom, you're an imperialist or a fascist. That's crazy to me."

Someday, maybe, the "entertainment defense" will no longer hold water. But for now, we're slogging through the era of the completely implausible denial. Like many films that seem to riff on everything without stooping to make a point (which would be just so hopelessly earnest and dorky), "300" proudly claims to be about nothing. Or rather, like another type of purchased pleasure, it claims to be about anything you want it to be. As long as a movie is dumb and violent enough, it can quote whatever cultural allusion is handy, then deny that it did with impunity.

Granted, as hard to buy as these denials are, their claim to meaninglessness does seem entirely possible. Sure, Frank Miller, on whose graphic novel the movie was based, has a political point of view. On NPR's "Talk of the Nation" last month he expressed his dismay about the "state of the home front" and his disappointment at the fact that "nobody seems to be talking about who we're up against — and the 6th century barbarism that they" — by which he meant not just terrorists, but entire civilizations — "actually represent." (He also, incidentally, quoted philosopher Will Durant's line — "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within" — which opened "Apocalypto," another movie that was either a comment on our current political situation — or not.)

Snyder has repeatedly expressed his desire to remain true to Miller's vision and leave it at that. A commercial director before making "Dawn of the Dead," his job is to sell — and what's better for business than the appearance of reality with the tedious connections to reality removed? "300" straddles more lines than SUVs packing a mall parking structure. Nearly everything in the movie rings a bell, but it's hard to know what to make of it. Is it unabashedly camp or athletically self-serious? Homoerotic or gay-baiting? Slyly allegorical or chaotically referential? A rousing defense of a military campaign that despite being doomed to failure represents the defense of Western civilization against barbarous (and gay) Middle Eastern hordes? Or just harmless (or as it's now called, "mindless," because decerebration is a virtue) entertainment?

Ultimately, the big question is not whether the Spartan king, Leonidas (Gerard Butler), a warrior with steel-cut abs girded by a leather codpiece whose NFL-ready soldiers rally behind him with a synchronized bellow and a heavenward pump of the fist, is supposed to be George Bush. Or even whether, as some foreign journalists at a press junket in February suggested, the president has more in common with the tyrannical Persian emperor, Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), done up to resemble RuPaul after a scuffle with Gwen Stefani's stylist. The question isn't even if Xerxes is intended to be perceived as a big, gay menace. (Although, maybe that one thing is clear: Snyder has allowed that the overtones of sexual menace were not accidental, because "What's more scary to a 20-year-old boy than a giant god-king who wants to have his way with you?")

The interesting question is how "entertainment" has come to be accepted as a valid, irreducible argument against interpretation; how, in a broader sense, the act of putting things in context has come to be seen as inherently suspect. Whether it's the attorney general claiming lack of clarity on the firings of U.S. attorneys, or a Lionsgate executive admitting mistakes were made regarding the torture billboards for "Captivity" pasted all over town, it seems that no connection is too clear, no cause and effect too obvious for shocked denial and feigned surprise not to be a viable option.

That's not to suggest that anything involving "300" exists on the same plane of importance — it's just a good example of a trend that would be funny if it weren't so insulting.

The fact that a debate has taken place at all has become fodder for satire. Last week on "The Colbert Report," Stephen Colbert offered this hilariously reductive analysis of the whole thing: "First, this is a great movie because it made $70 million. No better critic than the free market. Second, I'm pretty sure it's an allegory for the war in Iraq." He then went on to characterize King Leonidas as George Bush in a leather Speedo, Xerxes as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the ravenous wolf as the liberal press, the Persian hordes as the Democratic-controlled Congress, the fanged giant as Nancy Pelosi, the blubbery beast with saws for hands as Tim Russert, and the messenger kicked into a pit as Scooter Libby.

But as silly as it is to scour a movie like this one for allegory, insisting that it be viewed in a political and cultural vacuum is not exactly aboveboard, either. Denying that anything means anything beyond its strictest parameters is not only dishonest, it's discouraging, as the first lady might say.

While the best movies of recent years have diligently traced causal connections and reminded us that the basic laws of physics — actions have effects — apply to everything under the sun, the mantra of the entertainment industry could be summed up as "Syriana's" tag line in reverse: Nothing is ever connected unless we say it is.

Postmodernism is all about allusion without the burden of attribution. Or, as Jonathan Lethem wrote last month in Harper's, "What is postmodernism, but modernism without the anxiety?" Ironic detachment has its uses, but the attainment of a deeper understanding about the world we live in and our role in it is not one of them. So what do we call postmodernism without the burden of self-awareness?

*

[Trouble]

Me- thinks Carina over analyzes too much! Actually this movie is getting it from both sides---it's damned if it does & damned if it doesn't! But you know what---who the hell really cares....it's just a movie, and to suggest that Americans are motivated by a movie is in itself an insult----so it's just her 2 cents worth of nothing really important to say anyway!

Debrasue

[greyeyegoddess]

I'm getting used to all these "deep thinkers". It's providing more interest for the movie. Yeah, Frank Miller is very opened about his political ideas. But again, this was written back in the day before all these thoughts that this particular critic has written.

So if anything...blame Frank...LOL!

~alice

[Xan]

Debrasue, on Mar 19 2007, 07:27 PM, said:

Me- thinks Carina over analyzes too much! Actually this movie is getting it from both sides---it's damned if it does & damned if it doesn't! But you know what---who the hell really cares....it's just a movie, and to suggest that Americans are motivated by a movie is in itself an insult----so it's just her 2 cents worth of nothing really important to say anyway!

Debrasue

ITA. Two cents worth being the operative phrase here. That's about all its worth IMO.

[double scotch]

As observed above, all this commotion over 300 will only serve to enhance it's popularity and fill the seats of theaters. I pray it will not turn left-wing Hollywood against Gerry.

This film also reminds us of Santillana's old adage: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Helen

[CanuckGal]

Xan, on Mar 20 2007, 05:36 AM, said:

Debrasue, on Mar 19 2007, 07:27 PM, said:

Me- thinks Carina over analyzes too much! Actually this movie is getting it from both sides---it's damned if it does & damned if it doesn't! But you know what---who the hell really cares....it's just a movie, and to suggest that Americans are motivated by a movie is in itself an insult----so it's just her 2 cents worth of nothing really important to say anyway!

Debrasue

ITA. Two cents worth being the operative phrase here. That's about all its worth IMO.

I agree with you both.... wow, talk about long-winded.... and you said it perfectly Debrasue "who the hell really cares... it's just a movie". It's great to know that people can't just be entertained or enjoy entertaining.... i mean there's GOTTA be an underlying political statement right?? Who in the hell wants to just do or watch a movie for pure enjoyment?

God forbid people have fun anymore.... the nerve....

[Susan~Sporran]

OMG talk about being self-serious!!! Let me see - the movie is almost frame for frame (with a few exceptions) a recreation of Frank's graphic novel, written several years pre-9/11 and pre-Iraq War. It is based on a REAL battle that DID occur nearly 2,500 years ago, and much of the dialogue (campy as it may seem) is based on the accounts of the Greek historian who recorded the story for posterity. So, was he a psychic, writing a story that could allegorically be linked to today's wars when 2,500 years post hence a director and a producer who loved the graphic novel, inspired by a 1962 movie based on a 480BC battle, decided to turn it into a 2007 flick? Not that the filmmakers, screenwriters and even the actors DON'T have a political point of view but I just have a really hard time believing that they decided to make THIS movie as a means of expressing it to the world. Zack has been quite clear that The Watchmen WILL be political (hard not to be when its entire premise as written is political), so why can't people just accept that 300 is a MOVIE based on a GRAPHIC NOVEL based on a BATTLE that happened nearly 25 centuries ago???

But hey, if the controversy gets more butts in the seats then I say HAVE AT IT!

[Xan]

Bill O'Reilly confronted an Iranian critic of 300 on his show this evening and it was great how he defended 300. Regardless of what you think of O'Reilly, he did a great job laying the facts out and making many of the same points we have been making such as - IT IS A MOVIE FOR ENTERTAINMENT! However, my real guilty pleasure is how he got the critic to basically admit that "Persia", i.e. Xerxes was awfully far from home IN GREECE! Could it possibly have been an invasion and the Spartans were defending their country? This whole discussion was in response to the critic's contention that the movie-makers had grossly distorted the truth about the battle and that Xerxes was in reality a benign enlightened ruler. He seem to take as a personal insult that audiences were cheering the Spartans.

[double scotch]

My first reaction to the Iranian complaints was to wonder how they could associate the Persians of 480 B.C. with their current nation. Then someone reminded me that Iranians today don't call themselves "Iranians", rather "Persians." It's all in the name.

I've observed elsewhere on another thread that Ahmadinejad would love to be as tall and handsome as Rodrigo Santoro, in or out of his Xerxes costume. So, why should he complain?

Helen

This post has been edited by double scotch: 21 March 2007 - 07:17 AM

[ladyfran]

It's political rhetoric but it's publicity and that's what sells movies and as someone mentioned earlier the people that are going to see 300 are going because they want to be entertained and to see what all the fuss is about at the same time. I really don't think that the majority of the hoards of crowds that are lining up to see the movie give one Damn bit about politics!! JMO!

Fran

[MareksLadyD]

I think that the interpretations that are being made say way more about the people interpreting/reviewing than the movie makers themselves.