300 by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley

Well, it's been a long while since I last posted anything, but I assure you that's because I was too busy doing worthwhile things like rediscovering the joys of Diablo II. But anyway, I'm back, and this time I'm going to take on the task of trying to get to the meaning behind the meaning of the book and movie 300. I'll clarify what I mean eventually, but we have to get some things out of the way first.

First, I liked the book. I enjoy most of Frank Miller's well-known works such as Sin City, Ronin and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Second, I loved the movie. It's ridiculous how much I loved the movie. That being said, from here on out I am neither criticizing the book nor apologizing for it. I'm going to try to analyze it without succumbing to a knee-jerk reaction to see it as an insulting, racist, homophobic allegory or as a meaningless ode to the ultimate masculine ideal. In truth, it may be a bit of both, but we'll get to that.

I'm going to assume familiarity at least with the movie on the part of anyone reading this blog. That will be sufficient to examine the book as well, given that the movie is a stated attempt at a shot-for-shot live-action version of the book. I'll begin with a look at the historicity of the book. This at least is historically accurate: s a small army of Spartan soldiers under King Leonidas I did indeed fight a huge Persian army at Thermopylae (literally "hot gates"). Other than that, the book deals with history pretty fast and loose. I will not even try to point out every instance of incorrectness, but I think a few examples will be instructive (and any scholars reading, please forgive my own inaccuracies). First, and perhaps most important, is the characterization of Spartan society as some kind of democracy, especially one where women are equal. There were three classes of Spartan society (setting aside the issue of women entirely): Spartans proper, Perioikoi (skilled labor but free) and Helots (basically slaves). There was a 7-1 ratio of Helots to Spartiates according to Herodotus. To make a long story short, the only reason Spartans were professional soldiers is because keeping the Helots oppressed was a full-time job that required the dedication of every single adult male Spartan to it. So, democracy? Not so much. Another example is that King Leonidas was only one of two hereditary kings, neither of whom had great authority over the state. That power was wielded by the Gerousia, a council of elders which the kings belonged to. And even then, any proposals from the Gerousia had to be voted on by the citizenry (adult males only, of course). Two more examples, briefly: homosexual activity was at the very least as normal for Spartans as any other Greeks of the time, and Leonidas did not lead his men to battle in defiance of his government, he led them under orders from the Ephors (those guys depicted as twisted freaks and perverts in the movie).

So what difference does it make, you may say. It's a movie based on a comic which is a wildly inventive telling of the story. Indeed, I have no problem with this. If you try to learn history from comics, don't be surprised when your history teacher deducts points because you talk about how The Immortals were mutants and the Spartans fought wearing no armor because the sight of their pecs made enemies afraid. I don't expect comics to tell us the true story, that's what history books are for. But as usual, some of the audience for the film read a deeper meaning into the story than was apparent to the rest of us. The question is, is there any justification to their interpretation of the film/book?

In the case of Zack Snyder, I don't believe he had any motive whatsoever except to make the coolest, most awesome action film he could. And as far as I'm concerned, he did. Whatever moral there was to the story, he had nothing to do with putting it there. Miller, on the other hand, is problematic. It's hard to argue he doesn't have some kind of agenda, especially based on this oft-quoted remark:

Nobody questions why we, after Pearl Harbor, attacked Nazi Germany. It was because we were taking on a form of global fascism, we're doing the same thing now ... It seems to me quite obvious that our country and the entire Western World is up against an existential foe that knows exactly what it wants.... For some reason, nobody seems to be talking about who we're up against, and the sixth-century barbarism that they actually represent. These people saw people's heads off. They enslave women, they genitally mutilate their daughters, they do not behave by any cultural norms that are sensible to us. I’m speaking into a microphone that never could have been a product of their culture, and I'm living in a city where 3000 of my neighbors were killed by thieves of airplanes they never could have built".

It's not readily apparent exactly who Miller is talking about, although based on the other brief part of the transcript you can read here it would not be unjustified to assume that he is condemning categorically any culture which is Islamic. Could he be speaking narrowly about the Taliban? Given that in the rest of the conversation he appears to be talking about the War on Terror in Bushian terms, no, I don't think so. Why it's helpful to that point of view for the enemy to be a vague, formless mass is a topic for another blog, but when it becomes necessary to actually identify any terrorists, the presumption is that they're Islamic Middle-Easterners (which happens to erroneously include such non-Arab people as Iranians and Afghanis).

But just because a person holds ridiculous, offensive, or just plain crazy personal beliefs is no reason to disparage their writing or even assume a hidden message espousing their political, religious, moral or whatever agenda. If that was the case I simply couldn't read Orson Scott Card or John C. Wright, but I happen to really like at least some of their work (and if I don't like anything it's mainly because I think it's not a good story). This is not to say that it doesn't happen. After all there is Ayn Rand and John Ringo (or so I hear, I haven't actually read any of his books). Not that it doesn't creep in now and again, but usually it's just not that blatant. What about Frank Miller then? It's hard to say. Perhaps some elements of his viewpoints do come through. Honestly, the book and movie seem more like an homage to flawless male bodies than anything else. For all the dribble about "free men" and tyranny, there's not much dialog that really tries to persuade the reader of anything. Far more important are the depictions of death on a massive scale and the rending of flesh on a much more personal level. The violence is so excessive and over the top compared to just about anything else you'll see in a comic that the overt message can't be anything but simply "enjoy violence!" Second to that is the glorification of these perfect warriors, these iconic men of iron will and iron thews, the crimson-clad Spartans. It's not simply that the Spartans are glorified, it's that, if anything, they are held up as the model for all manhood. Seriously, this movie is a love song to perfect abs and that most male of sports, war.

Then again, there is much dialog devoted to the supposed clash of civilizations. That is, on the one hand, the Western Greeks with their logic and philosophy and dedication to (semi)democratic governance and on the other hand the Eastern Persians with their magic, superstition, and tyranny. Now seeing this in the context of Miller's view of the modern conflict of civilizations, it is truly hard not to make a connection.

Is there a parallel between Persia in Miller's 300 and modern Islamic terrorists? That can be, and should be, divided into two different questions. If there is a parallel, is it deliberate or not? And if there is not a parallel, then why are the Persians depicted as freaks, degenerates, barbarians, and perverts? Others have drawn their own conclusions about this (read opinions here and here). There are some good points about the issue to be found in the writings of others, but I just feel that stating that Miller's is a world where white = good and dark = bad is just too simplistic. The Greeks are not, as some might like to say, "white" and especially are not Aryan white. They are depicted as lighter than the Persians, which may be accurate in some cases, but given the lax treatment history gets from Miller, I actually wouldn't be surprised to find that he really thinks Persians were Arabic or something.

So is there deliberate racism in this book? I don't know that there's any clear answer to that. It would seem, based on his own comments, that Miller subscribes to some of the modern stereotypes blithely asserted about the Muslim/Arabic/Middle Easter world by ignorant right-wingers. I also suppose it depends on what one defines racism as these days. Beginning several hundred years ago, it was commonly accepted that there were biological differences between groups of people, even though the science of biology was crude and they couldn't really understand why some people were darker or lighter. These races were based on such external features as skin color, hair type, eye shape, etc, but also consisted of internal features such as temperament and intelligence. This was not the basis for discrimination against African-Americans in the US, but provided a handy explanation. Now, of that kind of racism I don't think exists much anymore. However, plenty of people still hold onto stereotypical beliefs about the other "races" and unfortunately don't think to question the validity of those beliefs. I think Miller falls into that category: racist in the fact that he basically stereotypes an entire ethnicity.

But to bring that back to 300: is 300 Miller's racist manifesto against the Arab people? I don't think so. I think 300 reflects his ideas of civilization against barbarism. Cultural sophistication versus depravity. Knowledge and learning versus superstition. And I think that he has an ideal of civilization that doesn't exist, either in those times of the Greeks that he writes about or in modern day Europe or America. Unlike another author who would deliberately choose to oversimplify the protagonist and antagonist just to make a better story, Miller seems to believe that things are or were this way, which makes it easy for him to laud one side and vilify the other. Still, it must be said that as an author he surely understands that the more conflict there is, the better, and so he deliberately exaggerated the goodness and badness of either side. The fact that it happens to bear some resemblance to his conception of real life may not be entirely coincidental, but I'm sure that the demands of the storytelling were sufficient enough reason for him to shape his narrative in the way that he did.

Ok, that's a big sloppy mess of writing on my part, for which I apologize, but at least I finally got it done. All thoughts and comments are welcome.