Posted by
on Thursday, March 15, 2007 6:04:30 PM
I just finished reading this piece from Megan Basham at our home on TownHall. All I have to say is WOW! Megan did a fine job. Hammer. Nail. Head.
After bringing in more than $70 million in its opening weekend, comic book adaptation 300 made history as the highest grossing film debut for the month of March and the third highest opening for an R-rated movie (after The Passion of the Christ and The Matrix Reloaded). Without a single recognizable star among its cast and a fraction of the production budget, it also far outperformed the opening tallies of predecessors like Troy and Gladiator.
This movie is drawing more than crowds, its drawing hordes. ...... When the Persian King Xerxes demands submission from the entire Western world, with few exceptions, most regions turn knock-kneed and cave. Leonidas, King of Sparta (Gerard Butler) refuses to exchange the future of his people as a free state for a tenuous and temporary peace. Instead, he begins to prepare for battle.
Sparta's Ephors, the cloistered academics of their time, claim that the gods don’t want war and won’t support Leonidas' stand. Rather inconveniently, neither will Sparta's governing council. By law, the king cannot override the will of these two groups, and so he finds a loophole by taking 300 of his personal entourage to Thermopylae, also known as the "Hot Gates," a strategic corridor where they and a few thousand neighboring soldiers hope to hold off hundreds of thousands of invading Persians.
In the meantime, back in the city, an oily politician (Dominic West of The Wire) undermines the King's mission at every turn, arguing for diplomatic resolutions and claiming that Leonidas has started an "illegal" war that will draw destruction down on all. Leonidas wife, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), counters that it is Persia who began the war and urges the Spartan congress to commit more troops. Amazingly, for today’s cinema, the oily politician and the waffling congress are not the heroes of our story. Soldiers—single-minded and un-conflicted—are.
Sound familiar, folks? She's right, of course. No one had to mold this movie to fit the times we live in. These times already occurred. A blood-thirsty, conquering king demands capitulation. He offers to them a choice between capitulation and giving a tribute to him, or death and slavery. Sort of like our enemy, who either wants us converted or slaves, or death. And what do we do? We fight back. So did the Spartans, and that was despite efforts within the ranks of the politicos of the time to stop the effort; disbelieving that the enemy was either coming or really that dangerous.
How life does imitate art. Or is it more like history repeating itself? See, I read the post by Victor Davis Hanson at the Corner, and I knew what we would be in for when we saw it this past weekend. Yes, it was loosely based on the actual battle, but he points out some of the historic inconsistencies. OK. Gotcha. Some parts of it are to be taken with a grain of salt. (No arguments here, he's the ancient historian.) But that's not the point. The point is that the movie teaches us as a society, and Megan nails it spot-on perfect:
The problem isn't that it 300 offers too few theories of Spartan greatness, it is that, behind all the stylized blood spatter, it offers so many. Not the least of which is that that a people that honors its artists and scholars above its warriors eventually becomes a weak, effeminate people. The grim efficiency of the Spartan career soldiers stands in stark contrast to the brave but incompetent Athenians who hack away at the enemy like, well, like a bunch of actors and craftsmen.
Going hand in hand with this is the demonstration that high military standards must be kindly but firmly maintained, regardless of the hurt feelings such standards might engender. When a well-meaning but physically unfit applicant is turned away from battle, it is clear that Leonidas does not mean to be cruel but to preserve strength of his troop.
Then there are the ideals of Sparta itself, disciplined, controlled, and committed to excellence on every front. Clearly these ideals were taken too far (though does modern America really have room to feel superior to the Spartan custom of discarding imperfect infants?), but their demand for achievement produced achievement. And their unwillingness to become slaves to an ideology from the East helped preserve the tenets of Western Civilization for generations.
Is it any wonder these themes resonated with so few of the preeminent critics of our most popular art? These days it’s not so much about telling young men to come back with their shields or on them, it’s about getting them to pick up a shield in the first place.
The repetitive complaint running through all these reviews about the physical prowess and bold aggressiveness of the Spartan soldiers suggests that anemic intellectual types tend to feel a bit defensive (and perhaps inadequate?) in the face of such traditionally masculine sentiments as honor and country.
Their very discomfort reveals the most significant key to the greatness of the men who died at Thermopylae. Those with the will to win carry the day.
Again I say--Hammer; Nail; Head. Maybe that's why so many people are flocking to see this movie. A chance to see what it meant to adhere to those sentiments in the face of overwhelming odds; such odds you have vowed to slow or stop to protect that which we love and hold so dear. Not just our homes. Not our possessions (except some on the Left may not want to give up their cappucino makers). But for our families, our loved ones, and our identity as a society. If we throw it all away right now--if we take the offer of the courier in the beginning of 300 to simply kneel and give in--we will forsake all that has been fought for. I personally believe this is a glimpse of history repeating itself, and frankly I'm on the side of the king.
This is where we fight. This is where they die.
Publius II