"300" - Blatant Propaganda Movie
Iran Condemns Blockbuster Movie 300
as American Psychological Warfare
The characters come right out and say
that Sparta is protecting Enlightenment
principles of reason, freedom,
and liberty from the "Asiatic hordes"
They actually use those words--"Asiatic hordes"
And, what did the "Asiatic hordes" look like?
Muslim jihadis, of course
Do these guys look like Muslim jihadis to you?
"300 is the kind of propaganda that
reinforces western indoctrination
- we are the good guys and that our ideals
are better than the ideals of our enemies"
300 will likely be a masturbatory experience for the Ann Coulter crowd.Cruel, militaristic Sparta is the ideal; weak, artsy Athens is mocked, particularly in a scene where Athenian soldiers are revealed to be potters, sculptors, poets.
Brave men who leave what they love to defend their country? Bah! Weaklings, according to this flick. As a tribute to a particular world view, 300 could play on a double bill with Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will.
And no doubt it will be screened at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. President Bush will certainly relish a film in which King Leonidas tries, and fails, to get authorization from Sparta's governing council for an attack against the forces of Persia, a.k.a. modern-day Iran.
Leonidas goes ahead anyway. History calls him a hero. So much for congressional funding.
There's even evidence that the film consciously grasps at this clash-of-civilizations message.
"Today we will rid the world of mysticism and tyranny," shouts a Greek soldier, leading a charge against the Persians moments after we have seen an image of dead Spartans in Christ-like poses.
Most of the bloodthirsty teens in the audience won't care about that stuff, of course. But Dick Cheney will cream himself. I guess Dick can use a little diversion. He's had a rough year. Steve Burgess @ Alternet
Hollywood's Anti-Iranian Propaganda
An Iranian official on Sunday lashed out at the Hollywood movie 300 for insulting the Persian civilization, local Fars News Agency reported.
Javad Shamqadri, an art advisor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused the new movie of being "part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological war aimed at Iranian culture", said the report.
Shamqadri was quoted as saying "following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hollywood and cultural authorities in the U.S. initiated studies to figure out how to attack Iranian culture," adding "certainly, the recent movie is a product of such studies."
He also claimed that the movie's effort would be fruitless, because "values in Iranian culture and the Islamic Revolution are too strongly seated to be damaged by such plans", said the Iranin official.
Shamqadri, who is also a filmmaker, said that production of more domestic and artistic films which portray Iranian achievements is a proper response to movies like 300.
The blockbuster Hollywood film, which took an estimated $70 million in its debut over the weekend, is about the famous Battle of Thermopylae.
300 Spartan warriors led by their king Leonidas fought and died in an epic battle to delay a massive Persian army's invasion, so that the Greeks could reorganize a counterattack.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the only one who has bad things to say about 300.
Ephraim Lytle, assistant professor of hellenistic history at the University of Toronto in his article in the Toronto Star writes that "300's Persians are ahistorical monsters and freaks."
He cites 300s "most noteworthy abuse of history" as the Persians being "turned into monsters, but the non-Spartan Greeks are simply all too human."
In today's Jawa Report post, the blogger seems to agree with Ahmadinejad in one respect by stating that the film 300 is indeed American propaganda.
But this is where their opinions diverge as he writes, "300 is the kind of propaganda that "reinforces western indoctrination - we are the good guys and that our ideals are better than the ideals of our enemies."
There was no hidden agenda in 300. It was not a "metaphor" about Western Civilization standing up against the Asiatic hordes.
There is no Rorschach effect here as I thought going into the movie--Leftists and Islamist apologists seeing the Persians as a metaphor for U.S. imperialism, while those on the Right and Liberals of all stripes seeing Sparta as representing the U.S. fight against Islamofascism.
Not hidden, but explicitly stated.
The characters come right out and say that Sparta is protecting Enlightenment principles of reason, freedom, and liberty from the "Asiatic hordes".
They actually use those words--"Asiatic hordes". And, what did the "Asiatic hordes" look like? Muslim jihadis. About the dialogue in the film 300, The Jawa Report observes-
It's absolutely thick with the notion that the Spartans are fighting for freedom and liberty defined exactly in the Western Enlightenment sense of those terms.
The dialogue consists of only three themes: liberty, sacrifice, and gay jokes. And the monologues are strictly about the first two. Kimberly West @ PMC
The soil of Iran is soaked with the blood shed by its people who have
defended their homes and culture for thousands of years.
That’s the problem with the western made movies: they are too full of
politics and propaganda. Did you think that the Communist era was over? You
were wrong! It just moved. And, yes, they look like Muslims to me in the
above picture.