thread: 2007-03-19 : Tonight we dine
On 2007-03-26, Jack V wrote:
The violence was stylistic but still disturbing in its presentation, but maybe I'm just prudish. However, I didn't take the point of this movie to be about war at all.
It was all about sacrifice and honor and noting that what you do in your life is about more than your here and now accomplishments, that your story can live on to have a great positive impact on the world. That choosing how to live, and choosing how to die, are truly important things. As silly as this movie was, that message came through surprisingly well, and is a message I don't see a lot, with so much of the culture I'm exposed to focusing on the fact that a person should do whatever he or she wants without much concern of the larger societal impact of those actions as long as no one else is obviously hurt right here right now.
Maybe I'm just not culturally sensitive enough to understand the broader connections, but it just seems so obvious that this movie, while nominally about historical Spartans and Persians, is really set in a world as fantastic and make-believe as the Star Wars galaxy. I don't know how one can stop from laughing at the outlandish costuming long enough to find offense in this show. It's THAT silly, and to dismiss it as immature junk is fine, if the greater story doesn't resonate. To find offense, though? I don't know. Might as well say that since Chewbacca is the only character from a race that was enslaved, Lucas is equating African-Americans with large hairy beasts who can't speak.
300 is one long 14-year-old-male action fantasy in support of a really great story of honor and duty that is made all the more powerful due to the mental priming of the visceral action sequences.
But, then again, I don't really know what I'm talking about, so it's all good!
