posted
I don't think you can say the queen got raped. She was presented with a choice, and she decided consenting to sex was a better choice for her than not having his support in the counsel. It was a pragmatic decision, certainly, but I can't see how you can call it rape. Sex can be not enjoyable for the woman (or the man, for that matter) without it being rape.
As far as I'm concerned, she was the only female character in the movie. The oracle and the slave dancers were basically set dressing. If you're calling them women in the movie, than you have to call the random women walking around Sparta in the town scenes women in the movie, too, and none of them got raped. So either way you go, it's not an accurate statement.
As far as the role of women in the movie, a movie set in that time about a war is not going to have a lot of women in it. So what? There are movies where men are incidental characters, at best, although not as many because there isn't a part of human culture than makes for interesting movies that excludes men quite as effectively as war excluded women for most of history.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Please keep in mind that I am not invested in the viewpoint that people should be upset about the movie. I'm not really upset about the movie, but I definitely see what others are saying. The movie makes it pretty clear that the Spartans are barbarians and not worthy of emulation, but it also casts everyone who's not white and male as either 'orcs' or victims, if they were female. It does let the Spartans be some kind of heroes.
The problem, Puppy, is that all the Persians were some shade of brown. Yeah, they were orcs. I get it. But why not put any white orcs in there? Seriously. What's it take away from the movie? It's certainly historically accurate. Persians have lots of very 'white' people, and it's not like they couldn't make slaves of some white people on the way to Greece.
As for whether the queen was really raped, I withdraw the statement that she got raped, but I stand by my earlier statement that it makes no sense in the movie. It would've been much more in line with the theme of the movie for the queen to be the match of her king and not given in and then just killed Theron when he was revealed as a traitor. They already had hyped her previously as a Wtrong Spartan Woman With Spirit.
As it is, she submits and loses. Her killing of Theron at the end is just kind of whiny and pathetic and petulant, rather than victorious and strong. She's a loser and the oracle is the plaything for the oracles and all the other women are just incidental.
Women aren't just incidental in the movie, they are potrayed as victims. Brown people aren't just incidental in the movie, they are all potrayed as subhuman.
I enjoyed the movie, and I'm not saying that I think movies have to all be instructional or whatever, but I think that the movie could have succeeded just as well, and have been a little more inclusive by helping other people to revel in 'their own' being heroes so to speak. Why not?
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Theron wouldn't have been revealed as a traitor if she hadn't killed him, it was the Persian coins spilling out when she killed him that revealed him. I'm not saying they couldn't have found a different way to reveal him as a traitor, but if it wasn't for him also betraying their deal there's no way she would have been the one to kill him. Not like she has to be, but just saying that your rewrite wouldn't have worked.
I didn't see her killing of him as whiny and pathetic, he betrayed her, and attacked her honor, her recourse was to kill him. *shrug* I don't think it was necessary to the movie, certainly, the movie was about what was going on down at the cliffs, the rest was incidental. And I agree that it would have been more in character for her to turn him down and take her chances with the council. But I don't see another fast way to tie up those loose ends without the accusation & killing.
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He comes on to her. She rebuffs. He threatens to crush her in the council. If I remember correctly, she already had her audience, she was just letting him screw her so she had his voice. As he's walking away a Persian coin falls from his robes. Or In council, it's revealed that the other council dude whose name I can't forget has been following him and he makes his big rail against her, then she and the other coucil dude reveal him as a traitor. Or It turns out that she has her own money, being the queen and all, and has gotten the truth out of the oracles by paying them more. Or She learns from the oracle girl the truth of the whole matter, that the oracles are in the pay of the Persians, etc.
Take your pick. If you don't like the ones I've picked, I'm sure if you think hard enough you can come up with some thing that works. As you say, it's incidental. From what I understand, it wasn't even in the comic.
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Storm, the orc-looking Persians were white. Or at the very least, they were of indeterminate race. Their skin was pale and ashen, and their faces were deformed enough not to bear the features of any real-world heritage.
I wonder if there is a way to portray an ancient conflict between a European power and a non-European power, take the Europeans' perspective, and not be called racist, no matter what you do.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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She wouldn't be the one to kill him in any of those. I think they did it the way they did to make her more important of a character than she would have been otherwise. This way she's noble for sacrificing her honor to get what she thinks is necessary to save her country and her husband, and then she's strong for killing him when he betrays her.
If she wasn't going to say yes, actually, I'd take the whole scene out. There's no point to it without the denouement, which couldn't happen if she said no. But if you pull it out, there's even less of a role for her in the film, and the producers face even more critisism for making a film without meaningful female characters. This way she kills at least one of the bad guys, which I think they thought they needed.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Puppy: Storm, the orc-looking Persians were white. Or at the very least, they were of indeterminate race. Their skin was pale and ashen, and their faces were deformed enough not to bear the features of any real-world heritage.
I wonder if there is a way to portray an ancient conflict between a European power and a non-European power, take the Europeans' perspective, and not be called racist, no matter what you do.
You can still take the European perspective and still throw some white guys in the mix with the Persians. Stop playing the victim.
The way I understood what you were saying was that the Persians were orcs, as in just evil cannon fodder.
If you're only referring to those dudes who, when their masks were ripped off looked like orcs, I didn't see that they looked 'white'. You kind of do acknowledge this. If you're going to go that far, you might as well say Xerxes was 'white'. I mean, he's pretty pale. He's not really 'brown', right? More of a golden color.
For the sake of argument let's say that the orc guys were of indeterminate race, that still leaves all the for sure bad guys as not-white. I think my question of why they couldn't include some for-real white dudes in the movie still stands. Make a few of the nameless drones white. Big deal. It's factual, it's historical. It doesn't take away from the movie.
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Eljay,
I forgot to add that the conclusion to all of those was the big stab. Sorry, I kind of thought it was implied. I think it would be perfectly acceptable for her to kill him when he's revealed as a traitor, rather than as revenge for getting screwed.
I think, too, it works better in that aspect is because one of the nicer bits of the movie was the love between Leonidas and his queen. Why sully the queen's virtue by throwing the edit: screwing bit in? By not screwing Theron, she keeps her honor, doesn't kneel, is on par with Leonidas, and gets her revenge. A good ending, I'd say.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Oh, I figured you were implying the big stab. My arguement is that in that society, the only way the woman standing in a huge crowd of men is the one to make the stab is if the man in question offended her personal honor and no one else thinks he's a bad guy. If he was revealed as a traitor first, through the coin drop or the other guy following him or bribing the old gross dudes on on the mountian, it would be an execution (by a man) or a duel (with a man.) She wouldn't get to be the one to kill him in any other scenario, I don't think.
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What about if the honor of Spartan society is besmirched and she is acting in her queen capacity?
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I still don't think it would fly. From the conversation with the first emissary from Xerxes, Spartan men rank first, and then Spartan women, because they give birth to Spartan men. Any man there would be seen as being more suited and having more right to the role. I don't think Queen has a capacity, beyond what the king indulges her. . . you saw how shocking it was for her to speak in the council at all.
Even if it did go down that way, though, it wouldn't be her being strong. . . she would be filling a symbolic role given to her by the men. Unless she does it by herself, unexpectedly, she's just being a puppet.
What she should have done was pretended to acquiesce when he propositioned her, and then killed him then, in her chambers. She'd get away with it, 'cause what honorable thing would he be doing in the King's chambers at night? And, of course, they'd find the Persian gold, too, which would clinch that he was scum.
Why the heck was he carrying it around with him, anyway? Seems dumb.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Eh, I think the movie could easily make her not have to have sex with Theron out of some benighted desired to get help. To me, Leonidas sleeping with Xerxes out of some desire to make the Persian army go away makes as much sense as Gorgo sleeping with Theron. Neither one is heroic.
It wouldn't be out of place for her to just lay the smack down on Theron then and there in the council chambers in queenly rage and get away with it any more than it does for her to kill him because of her besmirched honor being given away for nothing.
I guess the whole thing with her sleeping with him works for you. I don't buy at all that there isn't a place for her to be as heroic as the king in the movie--and I just don't buy her letting Theron have his way with her as being heroic. Sorry. edit: After getting the bit I missed, I see that it's really more that you want the a workable Theron death. Pardon for misreading.
I mean, which is more heroic, you are in a desperate spot and through guile, cunning, or strength you achieve your ends, or you let your adversary screw you up the butt, get deceived by him, and still not get what you want except for the fact that, as you say, he's so stupid he carries the Persian coins around with him? I mean, she didn't even really win over him, Eljay, except by getting lucky. How lame is that?
Come on, Eljay. There's got to be a better way.
quote: What she should have done was pretended to acquiesce when he propositioned her, and then killed him then, in her chambers. She'd get away with it, 'cause what honorable thing would he be doing in the King's chambers at night? And, of course, they'd find the Persian gold, too, which would clinch that he was scum.
edit: I seem to have glazed over this. Sorry. I agree that that might work. I like it better than the current way Theron's death is handled, anyway. I do think it would be better that she just outright kill his ass on the way to the bed chamber, rather than even let him insider her ceremonial holy of holies.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Historically, it wouldn't have mattered if the gold was Persian or not, a Spartan having that kind of wealth, or really any wealth at all would have caused incredible scorn. Wealth was abhorred in Sparta during that time, in fact, Sparta was the first in Greece (I think they were the second after Lydia) to use money in the sense that we think of it today, and their money was iron rods, intentionally meant to be so cumbersome that no one would be able to easily acquire wealth. Which, if you're looking for historical accuracy, makes the scene with Leonidas bribing the Ephors look that much more ridiculous, to say nothing of the "oracle."
As I think it's been said elsewhere on here, I was under the impression that this movie is supposed to be a mythic tale as told by David Wenham's character. Surely, as the Persian empire included the middle east, into Pakistan, north into the -stans and into Egypt, there would probably have been a great many "brown" people in their army, though not 100%. But if this is an exaggerated tale as told by the one Spartan to survive the battle, you have to take everything with a healthy dose of salt.
As far as the plot with the Queen and Theron, the Ephors and their "oracle" and basically everything not involving the killing, does anyone even care about that part? That, and the "freedom" speeches all seemed like goofy stuff tacked on afterwards to try and turn it into a decent movie, but I honestly didn't care about any of it. I just wanted to see me some fightin. I guess it served it's purpose as a pallatte cleanser inbetween slaughters, but I found the non-fight stuff rather weak.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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It's not that it works for me, or that I want a workable Theron death. I really couldn't care less. What I'm arguing is that the writers/directors did it the way they did it to try to give the movie a strong female character, and that without her killing Theron they wouldn't have it, and there are very, very few plausible scenarios to get to that killing. So, you were saying that her having sex with him made her a weaker character, and I think they put it in in order to make her a stronger one.
I'm not even saying I think they succeeded. . . I'm kinda taking an apologist for the filmmakers role. I can't come up with another way to make it work, except the killing in the bedchambers thing, but I also don't think they needed to do it at all. Like I said a couple of posts ago, a movie about war in that era, I think it's perfectly reasonable for there not to be any strong female characters. Because honestly, women probably didn't play much of a role in anything interesting that happened related to the war.
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I liked the movie. And I liked that neither the oracle or Gorgo had large breasts. Just because usually when you see a naked breast in a movie, it's going to be big, ya know? So a little diversity in size is refreshing. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: No one, I think, is arguing for historical accuracy. Certainly not me.
Sorry, that first paragraph was just for some fun background info. I wasn't criticizing the movie based on it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Okay, so -- where's the comparison? How is this at all similar to a QT movie?
quote:2. I have read the graphic novel. It just seemed to me that they took away some of the deepness of the story. For example, when I read the novel I was legitimately upset when Leonidas knelt before Xerxes. It was such a huge moment on paper, but in the movie it didn't seem like a big deal.
Huh. Okay. So that's the example (in a movie where 90% of the dialogue and images are lifted directly from the comic) of unfaithfulness. Not that it was actually unfaithful, but there was this one moment where -- even though it played out exactly the same way and contained exactly the same dialogue and looked exactly the same -- it didn't seem faithful. Well, that makes sense.
1. I didn't offer a comparison. To me all Quentin Tarantino movies have great actions scenes and decent, if not poor acting.
2. Whats the problem here? Because I didn't feel the same attachment to characters and didn't feel the emotion of the story as much when I watched the movie, I don't make sense? Faithful to the story must mean two different things to you and I. Some books (or graphic novels in this case) are just meant to be read. Sort of how some things will have to be changed in the Ender's Game movie in order to make it a winner. If they used the book itself as their screenplay it wouldn't work too well.
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I liked the movie. And I liked that neither the oracle or Gorgo had large breasts. Just because usually when you see a naked breast in a movie, it's going to be big, ya know? So a little diversity in size is refreshing.
*whispers* I liked the fact that they had an older chick that looked good doing naked scenes. Gives me hope.
And, uh, it also gave me hope that they had a buff older dude. But in a different, completely non-gay way. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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See, you are not focusing on the bit about looking good doing naked scenes. That's the the important part. Not the age. See. Or Mr. Saxon's apparently not so good age detector. Yep.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Leonidas showed a sureness in all his actions. Gorgo's surprise at Theron's betrayal, after her speech, leaves her looking desperate. Her unnecessary and perhaps obligatory submission is a misstep as Theron makes his points stronger to the council. In contrast, when Leonidas kneels, the narration begins and it all is a calculated effort, a last hurrah. Gorgo becomes panicked. There is no coins jingling to clue her and there should've been something to prove her composure. I just watched Out of the Past and believed Kathie Moffat's love for Jeff Markham. Her spin controls all the men about her. Is Jeff somewhat more her 'true' love than chump? As a femme fatale, she looses her composure at the end. Panicked, she snarls, “You rat!” I see Gorgo similarly. Instead of the attempted slap and the guards restraining her, show her command of the situation, her perception to the weight of gold on Theron's waist and then precede with the short sword stab. Her retribution is solid without the falter under Theron's accusations. Someone here or at IMDb felt the slow-mo lost impact with its overuse. And now I think the final spear toss needed the frame rate quickened. Then the jump/cut of the spear's point, through the dais backboard, and the reveal of Xerxes horrified face has the surprise that the slow-mo built toward. Xerxes kept the grotesques in his circle and now this scar makes him imperfect. The music, the guitar riffs, improved this movie and the fighting on screen.
Would this have been a good opportunity to spotlight actors from Greece?
Posts: 61 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Good grief, bluenessuno. You've been registered here since 2003 and only 23 posts. That's got to be some kind of record or something (he said, baiting the other lurkers).
I am about 300ed out for today, but I just wanted to tell you that I found your post interesting.
And just to be clear, I want to make sure it's clear, I really enjoyed the movie, too.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Here's the BBC article about this. Iran thinks "American Cultural Officials" researched how to attack Iranian culture. Which to us, of course, is ridiculous, but since that's the way things work there, I'm sure they believe it's the way they work here, too.
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In the process of looking for a TIME magazine article written from the Iranian perspective about 300, I came across this, which is also from the Iranian perspective.
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I'm amazed that, according to this guy at least, Hollywood has now decided to depict Pres Bush as the great war hero!
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I do not endorse that guy's viewpoint. I just provide it for contrast.
For instance, he wants to make the Spartans the equivalent of modern Americans, but then goes on for several paragraphs about how the Persians aren't representative of real classical Persians.
Maybe, you know, the movie Persians are a kind of symbol for the modern Persians.
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I don't think anyone in the movie is a symbol of anything. All politics are being placed on it.
That's fine - that's part of what art is for. However, as far as I can tell, the filmmakers just wanted to make a bloody, fighting, awesome comic book movie.
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quote:One paper said Iranians' ancestors were shown as "dumb savages"
<shrug> That's Hollywood, I guess. They're not the first, they won't be the last, and they're probably in good company. I don't think symbolism [as in, hawkery] is the goal.
Storm: Is this the TIME article you were looking for? This one is more about the reaction from the Iranian population than from the government.
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Yeah. I wasn't trying to say it was from the perspective of the government, but, yeah. Thanks. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I don't think anyone in the movie is a symbol of anything. All politics are being placed on it.
That's fine - that's part of what art is for. However, as far as I can tell, the filmmakers just wanted to make a bloody, fighting, awesome comic book movie.
It doesn't have to be, that's true, but considering that the author of the graphic novel that the movie is heavily based upon doesn't see it that way, I'd say there is room for the other interpretation, too.
I can't find the full transcript of the interview, but here are some relevant bits posted on another site:
quote: our country is up against an existential foe that knows exactly what it wants, and we’re behaving like a collapsing empire. All collapsing empires collapse from within. … Ok, let’s talk about who we’re up against, because for some reason nobody ever talks about them or the sixth century barbarism they represent. … Where I would fault President Bush the most is that in the wake of 9/11 he didn’t mobilise our military … against our common foe. … [I explain my thoughts on this] mainly in historical terms… The country that fought Okinawa and Iwo Jima is now spilling precious blood but so little in comparison, it’s almost ridiculous, ant the stakes are almost as high as they were then. Mostly, a lot of people say, why did we attack Iraq, then?
Well, we’re taking on an idea. In the same way that nobody questioned it when we took on Japan after Pearl Harbour.
Q: But [Japan] did declare war on us, right?
MILLER: Yeah, well so did Iraq.
Note, I am right in line with Islamicism, Islamofascism, whatever you want to call it being a threat. It's not clear to me that the best way to deal with it is the military, but then again, it's not clear to me that it's not. So, I'm not against being militant against the 'barbarian hordes'.
On the other hand, this doesn't excuse propaganda and lying, or at least listening to what all sides have to say regarding what is true or false in how a film depicts a group.
Sometimes a cigar really isn't just a cigar in a film.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by James Tiberius Kirk: Ack, that's not what I meant to imply that you said, though reading my post I can see where it came from. Sorry.
--j_k
No problem. I'm sure it's my fault I didn't read what you said more perceptively.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I'm alittle late on this, but I finally got to see "300" today. This is after months and months of my brother eagerly anticipating and talking about this film.
I was seriously disappointed.
I could complain about the goat or the sword-arms guy. I could point out that my favorite part of the movie was simply the half-naked men.
But more than anything, I just want to smack whoever A) made the decision to have a narrator and B) wrote his dialogue.
So many times the narrator was describing in words what I could see on the screen with my own two eyes. I see the Greek men leaving the battlefield with Sparta's messenger following reluctantly. But I'm so having to listen to some guy SAY "a hundred men left and only one looked back." I kept wanting to scream, "I KNOW." I know because you're showing me. I can SEE. He kept describing the action or telling me what the characters felt, which was a shame since the cast was excellent and I could read their emotions in their eyes. I kept wanting to put the movie on mute.
My roommate and I decided it suffers from "George Lucas Syndrome." The oversized elephants and mutant humans were so unbelievable that it completely took me out of the movie experience. I wasn't looking at the ephrons or the hunchback and seeing scarred, diseased, deformed men. I was seeing alot of latex makeup and it ruined it for me. The CGI rhino and elephants were a nightmare. Add in some unnecessary, ridiculous attempts at dramatic dialogue and you have stylish George Lucas film. I felt like there needed to be someone on the set or in the editting room playing Devil's Advocate and pulling in the reins on the "creative department."
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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The narrator is integral to the movie. It's the reason why, within the movie, so many on the Persian side look monstrous, that, for instance, Xerxes is ten feet tall and speaks with a kind of cosmic voice.
These things are not just the director being goofy.
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If the narrator is so integral, he should say something other than a description of the onscreen action. But by repeating the obvious, he became redundant rather than adding anything to the storytelling.
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Cool movie, very much in keeping with the over the top comic book style of Sin City. I thought it was worth the price of admission. Plus it put me in the mood to kill Persians, which could prove useful in the near future...
I actually did not care or particularly concern myself with the Persians, I wondered if, like Braveheart for the Scot's this movie would be received with pride by the modern day Greek's. It is nice that they have something (besides that gay porn flick Alexander), Hollywood has done the Chinese, Scots, Romans, Irish, British and Jews. I am glad the Greeks get a turn.
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The narrator was completely necessary. The entire structure of the film is based upon there being the narrator, as the movie is nothing more than the narrator's mythical retelling of events. That's how the sto--
nevermind. I guess you know this, just didn't like it anyway.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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I understood what it was trying to do, and I appreciated the narrator-myth thing going on, I was just bored. The fights weren't that cool, I didn't give a rat's about any of the characters so I didn't really care what their eventual fate was and... yeah. Very meh.
Sometimes I wonder if, like Shakespeare was meant to be witnessed and not read, graphic novels were meant to be read and not witnessed.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I didn't mind the narrator for some of the scenes. The scene Shanna mentions where David Wenham is the only one leaving while the others remain, that I think would have been much cooler in silence. Other than that, he went back and forth from cool to superflous.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Saw this movie last night. I wasn't going to see it because I really didn't like Sin City, so I figured I'd give Frank Miller a pass. Other than the Frank Miller thing, I went into it with a pretty open mind, saw no previews, and didn't know anything about the hype or politicizing that has happened. It was incredible. I'll definitely buy it, and very possibly see it in the theater again.
Plus, anything that makes the Iranians start ranting about American cultural officials has entertainment value beyond the theater.
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Sorry, I kind of thought it was implied. I think it would be perfectly acceptable for her to kill him when he's revealed as a traitor, rather than as revenge for getting screwed.![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
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