I'm Offended that You're Offended

The movie '300' opened last week and although it was panned by movie critics it has had mass appeal with the general moviegoing audience. That seems to be the trend in a lot of movies these days. It may be a critical failure but moviegoers are flocking to see movies which transport them to other worlds and at least give them a bit of insight into the past. For those who came in late (to quote the Phantom comics) "300" is a movie based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller which tells a semi-fictionalized account of the Battle of Thermapoyle in which 300 Spartan soldiers defended Greece from an onslaught of millions of troops led by the Persian king Xeres who was attempting to take the Greek lands by force. This battle has been spoken of for ages as a decisive example of how where there's a will there's a way. A handful of dedicated soldiers managed to hold off an army that was of epic proportions. So where is the problem? Well, there are quite a few to be honest.

With any case in history, there is bound to be some controversy over whether or not a particular account of an event is accurate or not. Don't believe me? Just think of the last time someone told you about their exploits playing high school football or the size of the fish they caught on their last fishing trip. You would imagine that the player was an all-state all-star or the best fisherman this side of Captain Ahab... although technically Ahab was hunting a whale which was a mammal and not an actual fish fish like a shark in which case you can maybe compare the teller of this tall tale to Quint from "Jaws". But I digress; the point is that there are many versions of the same story and obviously the people or descendents of these protagonists would be the ones getting most upset by any fallacies in the telling of the tale; hence Iran's ire with the United States over the depiction of the Persians in the films.

Many of the politicians and dignitaries from Iran have spoken out against the movie claiming that its depiction of the Persians makes them appear in a negative light. So add another bit of controversy to an already controversial movie. While the depiction of the Persians in the film can be considered negative in its portrayal (after all, they are the villains to the Spartan protagonists) from the standpoint of the audience and the storyteller (who are intended to side with the Greeks) they certainly were the villains. Any historical or semi-historical film will always have a negative impact on the people being portrayed as villains but it also depends on how we as a people interpret what we see.

Like it or not, movies are a tool that many people use to learn about the world. Had it not been for the movie "300", I doubt that the majority of the people out there would otherwise have known about the Battle of Thermapoyle. There are so many such stories in our recent and distant past that warrrant a tale of their own that we could continue making movies forever, but unless there is some hook that brings people into the theatres, it becomes difficult to justify telling the story. The story of 300 people taking on over a million is the ultimate underdog story. If we didn't secretly root for the underdog, Rocky would have retired after his first match with Apollo and we wouldn't have bothered to see if the Bad News Bears would ever win a game.

What people need to realize though is that it is a movie and so what we see or what we interpret to be seeing, is someone's version of the truth. We'll never see the truth unless we are a part of the action. But what we as a movie-going audience need to do is to take a step back before automatically assuming that what we are seeing is the literal and actual truth. Was Xeres as evil a person as is shown in the movie? I don't know, I never met him. Was Leonidas as brave and determined as he was shown? I don't know, I never met him either. I think Iran's reaction to the film is partly attributable to the current political situation between Iran and the U.S.; but it could also be attributable to the pervading attitude that the movies are truth.

There is something about the Middle East that automatically makes people think of evil and bad men. In some cases it is a fair thing to think but not in all cases. When we see a World War II film, we automatically know that the villains in the film will either be the Germans or Japanese and that we will be rooting against them. Movies such as "Das Boot" and "Letters from Iwo Jima" challenged those beliefs and as a result, people began to see that the other side of our conflict was made up of people just like us as well. The Iranian people taking issue with the film need to relax because like it or not, many people out there probably don't even realize that Iran was once Persia. I don't think the film is a justification for going to war with Iran nor was that ever the intent. The original graphic novel was published several years ago... well before our war on terror and before Iran was entered into the "Axis of Evil". Enjoy it for what it is.... a movie.