AN ARMY OF 300!!! Or something...

So yeah, just the other day i went to see a little flick that just came out. I don't think it's very popular or anything, because it's like an avant garde art flick inspired by the works of Jean Luc Godard. Or that last sentence could be a total lie (which it is). The movie i saw was the blockbuster 300 and let me tell you it was an arm (and leg, and head( severing good time. But this isn't a movie review. If it was i would be using English major words like "brilliant", "good", and "totally fucking balls out nuts".

Rather I'd like to write about the reaction to 300. You see after I watch a movie some weird part of me demands that I go onto IMDB.com to see if my valuation of the movie compares favorably with all the other amateur cinephiles out there. So, after i saw 300 I went home and loaded up the old IMDB. For those of you who know IMDB, and everyone in the universe should, it has a function that allows IMDB members to post their thoughts and opinions about the movie. Usually these boards are filled with flamers, film-bashers, the easily offended and the straight up, certifiable insane (or at least people who play that part on the internet). So anyways, 300 had its big uppers and its flamers but to my surprise it also had some of the "easily offended".

So what were these people taking offense to? Was it the glorification of violence? Was it the slow motion decapitations? Was it the inferred paedophilia? No, it was Iranians getting irate about how Persians were portrayed in the movie!

The Iranians point is that the Persians in the movie were being paraded as bloodthirsty savage, barely human psychopaths whose only goal in life is to maim the enemy and be enveloped in the folds of flesh found in a Persian harem. Now, I'll be truthfull, that is how Persians were portrayed (though i thought they were totally awesome, i can understand how Persian people might be offended by the representation).

But we're not talking about Persian people that were offended here, we're talking about Iranians! What Iran doesn't seem to realize, apparently, is that America is full of dumbasses. While i was watching the movie I wasn't thinking, boy those Iranians are evil, we should go over to their country and rape their women and plunder the oil (and George Bush should drink the blood of every single Iranian man, woman and child while he's at it). No, I was thinking, boy those PERSIANS, sure do kick some major ass, even though they're evil. You see, i have a college degree; I've taken many world history courses (i really like history) and my best friend in junior high was even an Iranian-American named Javad Shekafroush who used to regale me with stories about how he and his uncles would wander the street in roving gangs back in the home country. And, despite this, while watching the movie 300, my mind never said, "hey wait a minute, Persia is ancient history's version of Iran-THOSE GREEKS ARE FIGHTING IRANIANS!!!! OMFG". I was thinking, wow, he just chopped off the head of that guy that looks like that guy from Mortal Kombat. And, after all, it's not like 300 is meant to be a though provoking piece filled with social commentary on why the world is as the world is; rather its simply an excuse to show various limbs being severed in slow motion. Now I know that Iran was once called Persia, but I didn't watch the movie for a geography lesson. I didn't even think about such ancestries until I saw the IMDB complaints. As such I'm pretty sure that the only way the average American is going to equate those evil Persians with modern day Iranians is if those Iranians kindly point out the facts on the IMDB message board.

After all, we didn't go to 300 to think, we went to see boobs and blood, and to hear that dramatic sounding British guy shout out cliches we can use in our everyday life.

So in conclusion, "madness, This is Sparta!!"

Ok that made no sense.