The movie wasn’t over and two people out of the group of five, were whispering about conspiracies of the republican propaganda machine. After the movie we continued to debate the issue: Was the movie, 300, a piece of right wing extremist propaganda?
I did not think so then and I defend that position now. Just like V for Vendetta, the story was written well before September 11, 2001. In this case, creator Frank Miller had his comic book published by Dark Horse in May 1998, which garnered him three Eisner Awards.
I do acknowledge that there are very interesting political parallels that can be drawn about the current war in Iraq and the imperialistic President Bush, but to say that this is right wing propaganda is to dismiss the value in the story. It is to miss the point.
Left wing or right, anti-war or pro-war, there are ideologies that are important to understand. The phrase from the movie “Freedom is not free,” may very well have been right out of the Karl Rove playbook. That does not make it conservative propaganda and it does not make it an invalid statement. Karl Rove may indeed be one of the most corrupt men on the planet, but people have died in order to preserve freedom. That may sound like a Martine recruitment mantra geared to take advantage of the uneducated, and it may be. It is also true.
300 was not about President Bush’s war in Iraq, nor was it a movie about joining the Marines. It was about soldiers who were born and bred to fight and defend their country. Boiled down, every man worth his salt loves his family and will do what he can to defend them against the evils of the world. This movie was about universal feeling of protection that every father and husband has. Protection is a genetic instinct, which explains why it grossed $70 million in the first weekend. Men can relate to the feelings that the Spartans held dear.
There are more lessons to be learned here than warmongering or corrupt senates. To see 300 as a mere mouthpiece of political propaganda inspired by the war machine is to miss the point entirely.
I did not think so then and I defend that position now. Just like V for Vendetta, the story was written well before September 11, 2001. In this case, creator Frank Miller had his comic book published by Dark Horse in May 1998, which garnered him three Eisner Awards.
I do acknowledge that there are very interesting political parallels that can be drawn about the current war in Iraq and the imperialistic President Bush, but to say that this is right wing propaganda is to dismiss the value in the story. It is to miss the point.
Left wing or right, anti-war or pro-war, there are ideologies that are important to understand. The phrase from the movie “Freedom is not free,” may very well have been right out of the Karl Rove playbook. That does not make it conservative propaganda and it does not make it an invalid statement. Karl Rove may indeed be one of the most corrupt men on the planet, but people have died in order to preserve freedom. That may sound like a Martine recruitment mantra geared to take advantage of the uneducated, and it may be. It is also true.
300 was not about President Bush’s war in Iraq, nor was it a movie about joining the Marines. It was about soldiers who were born and bred to fight and defend their country. Boiled down, every man worth his salt loves his family and will do what he can to defend them against the evils of the world. This movie was about universal feeling of protection that every father and husband has. Protection is a genetic instinct, which explains why it grossed $70 million in the first weekend. Men can relate to the feelings that the Spartans held dear.
There are more lessons to be learned here than warmongering or corrupt senates. To see 300 as a mere mouthpiece of political propaganda inspired by the war machine is to miss the point entirely.
1 comment:
Thank you for sticking up for the story. Some people could see the Americans playing the roll of the Persians in Iraq. You can read into it all you want.
Here is what Richard Roeper had to say about the controversy: http://www.suntimes.com/news/roeper/294019,CST-NWS-roep13.article
"So a movie based on Frank Miller's comic novel, which was written in the late 1990s and inspired by a 1962 film and, of course, a battle from 480 B.C., is actually a pro-Bush piece of propaganda? Really?"
"So is Bush represented by Leonidas, the bloodthirsty king defending his country, or Xerxes, the warlord trying to conquer the world? If he's Leonidas, I think there's a bit of a difference between a warrior-king who's on the front line as he tries to save his country from a mass invasion and a non-warrior-president overseeing a controversial war in a foreign land. And if he's Xerxes -- well, then '300' would hardly be a pro-Bush film."
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