300

March 20, 2007

300

John Powers: "When I found out that 300 had been turned into a film and was due to be released this winter I described its timing as "septic." The comic book was a retelling of the story of Thermopylae - a story that has been used to psych up populations for war in democratic nations since year one of the French revolution. The original story, of warrior idealists protecting Greece against a huge Persian army, was a familiar one from childhood. Making a film from the story I grew up with now, with the US and Iranian administrations playing chicken with nukes and threats of attacks, would seem like tragically bad timing. When you add to that the comic's racist imagery: the god-king Xerxes and his spokesmen are all dark skinned blacks, his army, masked and identical henchmen, described repeatedly as "slaves.", it fulfills my prediction of "septic" timing. But I underestimated exactly how septic a film version of 300 could be."