Does Bush Resemble Leonidas or Xerxes? Blockbuster '300' Ignites Debate Over Current Events

ABC News ^ | 3/14/07 | Marcus Baram

[meg88]

March 14, 2007 — The leader of the most powerful empire in the world invades a small country to avenge his father's failure to do so years ago. His army is relentlessly attacked by a proud group of insurgents who denounce the empire's decadence.

The leader of a brave fighting force vows to defend freedom at all costs against an enemy from the Middle East. To rally his troops, he makes a speech, declaring, "The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant."

Is one of them President Bush?

That's the question on the minds of some political observers who've seen "300," the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Although the movie tells the tale of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., in which Spartan leader Leonidas and his band of 300 soldiers fought to the death against Persian king Xerxes, many see analogies to the war in Iraq and American policy in the Middle East.

Since before the movie's release, ideological warriors on the left and right and even the president of Iran have been dueling over the movie's significance and its success — is it just a reflection of a yearning for heroes by Americans dismayed over the grim news coming out of Iraq?

"It's open to different interpretations," said Kerill O'Neill, a classics professor at Colby College. "The rhetoric of the Spartans about defending freedom is comparable to that said by the administration and the treacherous politicians who seem to be selling out to the enemy could be seen as Democrats who are soft on terror. The distinction I would make is that in the current war, Islamic fundamentalists see themselves as defending against Western decadence whereas here the decadence comes from the East and the Spartans are pure and espouse simple family values."

Some conservative commentators see Bush as Leonidas, defending America's freedom from the threat of Islamofascists and Iranian leaders. And some liberals agree, arguing that the Spartan's stubborn refusal to negotiate and his use of extreme measures parallels Bush's defiance of the international community and use of torture to fight the war on terror.

Others see the president in the mold of Xerxes, an all-powerful leader who is determined to avenge his father and wipe out a small band of warriors. One commentator on the liberal blog Alternet wrote on the Persian king's motives: "Because he thought he was a god and therefore was taking what was rightfully his — everything in the world. Who does that sound like? Think oil."

And the Spartans? They "were more like any handful of 'enemy combatants' whom refuse to give in 'till the death," the commentator wrote. "Suicidal you might say," wrote another commentator.

The movie's portrayal of the Persian forces has helped fuel some of these arguments. Xerxes is portrayed as a towering giant covered in facial piercings and makeup. And the rest of the Persians? They're lesbians, disfigured people, disfigured lesbians, gay men, elephants and rhinos, according to Dana Stevens, whose review in Slate quickly made the rounds of the blogosphere

Stevens condemned the movie, comparing it with Nazi-era propaganda films and calling it "a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war."

Even Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government was offended. "Such a fabrication of culture and insult to people is not acceptable by any nation or government and we consider this attitude as hostile," said Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham during his weekly press briefing in Tehran earlier this week.

So, is that what the filmmakers intended — to make a parable about current events? After all, Frank Miller, whose graphic novel inspired the movie, has been outspoken about his belief that we're in the middle of a clash of civilizations. "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," he said during an interview with National Public Radio in January.

Director Zack Snyder, whose oeuvre includes "Dawn of the Dead," claims that politics was the farthest thing from his mind, although he welcomes the analysis. When a reporter asked him about whether Leonidas was an insurgent or Bush, Snyder replied, "Look, if the movie can make that debate real, make people talk about it, great. That's more than I could ever hope."

Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, a scholar at the Hoover Institute who advised the filmmaker, says that the issue never came up when Snyder came out to visit him on his farm to show him a rough cut last fall. "Not a single occasion did they ever mention their politics and to this day I don't know what their politics were," he told ABCNEWS.com.

Hanson dismisses either analogy as applying to Bush. "Whatever take you have on it, there are too many incongruities to make either one believable — America is the bigger power, like Persia, but it's also a Western power, like Greece."

Classics scholars say that the story is a classic myth open to interpretation, but they agree that it's too difficult to draw clear parallels to current events.

David George, a professor at St. Anselm's College, recognizes that the battle is "a signature event in the West's consciousness of itself," one that was cast by the Greeks, the Romans and the Byzantines as civilization's triumph over the barbarians. "While the names change and the religions change and the cultures change, there is this notion of Asia as the Eastern threat."

But George contends that casting Bush as Leonidas is quite ironic since Persia was arguably the more civilized society. "It was the Persians who returned the Jews from Babylonian captivity. Zoroastrianism [the Persian religion] is a very open and inclusive religion," he said. "In comparison, the Greeks were incredibly parochial. Sparta was a fascist state."

Those ironies were clear to O'Neill, who's worked at an archaeological site in Greece near Thermophylae. But he also understands how easy it is to draw comparisons to modern politics. "The threat coming from the East, the proto-jihadists coming from the Middle East, you could make a case for that," he said.

When he saw the film recently, O'Neill joked with a friend, "Does the bad guy in the background who's trying to profit off the war represent Cheney?"

Then again, most scholars agree that the movie's $74 million box office gross over the weekend had less to do with politics and more to do with audiences' appetite for blood and guts, lots of fighting and more eye candy than a soft porn movie.

When George discussed the film with his students, he said, "Men looked at it and said they saw [naked breasts] and violence, and girls saw pecs and violence. Love and death."

[Proud_texan]

"But Persia was more civilzed than Sparta back then, though."

Indeed. I don't know about the movie as I haven't seen it but the pontoon bride over the Hellespont was pretty major for that time. Quite clever.

Greece was hardly more than a handful of city-states who had a hard time defending the country because the concept of "Greece" as a nation had not yet taken hold. Sparta sends a mere 300 troups to defend the homeland? Actually kind of pathetic.

But the facts don't make for a compelling movie and movies are a bad source of historic fact. Doesn't mean it's not entertaining and I'm looking forward to seeing it, but still it is just a freaking movie and I don't think I'm going to rely on it to support my world view.

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

It was the Persians vs. the Greeks, not just Sparta.

If the Persians had wiped out the Greeks, it would have been a huge step backward in the march toward civilization.

It is to the classical Greeks, and not the Persians, that we owe the beginnings of representative political institutions and the first steps toward a "free republic" type of society.

That so many Americans are completely ignorant of this is a failing of our educational system.

[roses of sharon]

ABC fails to represent this author as the partisan he is, and an Olberman boy.

To imply that insurgents who blow up their own women and children in their marketplaces are somehow "fighting for freedom"?

Good grief, how are these propagandists allowed to thrive with impunity?

[dynoman]

"It's not that you can compare leaders, but ideology. Conservatism vs liberalism."

I don't think "Conservatism vs liberalism" is the crux of the matter. Those words hardly have any meaning anymore and I think we should quit using them. Most of today's "conservatives" are classic liberals, how in the world did we let totalitarianists of different flavors steal that word from us?? How did that happen!?!?

What Iraq needs is liberalism, in the classic sense of the word.

What we are seeing in Iraq is the age old struggle between freedom and totalitarianism. I like how Bush put it, "we can't frame the struggle as Islam vs Christianity or we will lose, it is good vs evil."

Freedom = good, totalitarianism = evil.

Many people just don't get this very basic truth.

I don't know how anyone with more than one functioning brain cell could say islamoblowbots, their programmers, and Saddam's professional evil subhumans are like the Spartans, fighting for freedom.

Freedom??

Here is who is standing up for freedom in Iraq;

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HzLnMk-bO8w

Like you say, and peeps gotta remember, you cannot turn around 1400 years of "rule by submission" and all the evils associated with it in a few short years.

[Savage Beast]

Note tagline.

[meg88]

The difference is that honor killings are STILL going on in that part of the world now.

[finnman69]

John F'n Kerry as Xerxes and John Faggot Edwards as one of his bisexual concubines.

[finnman69]

Xerxes kind of looks & talks like Lantos of California in the House

And like a participant in any old gay pride parade

[dynoman]

More on the words "conservative" and "liberal";

---

“The fact that this book was originally written with only the British public in mind does not appear to have seriously affected its intelligibility for the American reader. But there is one point of phraseology which I ought to explain here to forestall any misunderstanding. I use throughout the term “liberal” in the original, nineteenth-century sense in which it is still current in Britain. In current American usage it often means very nearly the opposite of this. It has been part of the camouflage of leftish movements in this country, helped by the muddleheadedness of many who really believe in liberty, that “liberal” has come to mean the advocacy of almost every kind of government control. I am still puzzled why those in the United States who truly believe in liberty should not only have allowed the left to appropriate this almost indispensable term but should even have assisted by beginning to use it themselves as a term of opprobrium. This seems to be particularly regrettable because of the consequent tendency of many true liberals to describe themselves as conservatives.

It is true, of course, that in the struggle against the believers in the all-powerful state the true liberal must sometimes make common cause with the conservative, and in some circumstances, as in contemporary Britain, he has hardly any other way of actively working for his ideals. But true liberalism is still distinct from conservatism, and there is danger in the two being confused. Conservatism, though a necessary element in any stable society, is not a social program; in its paternalistic, nationalistic, and power-adorning tendencies it is often closer to socialism than true liberalism; and with its traditionalistic, anti-intellectual, and often mystical propensities it will never, except in short periods of disillusionment, appeal to the young and all those others who believe that some changes are desirable if this world is to become a better place. A conservative movement, by its very nature, is bound to be a defender of established privilege and to lean on the power of government for the protection of privilege. The essence of the liberal position, however, is the denial of all privilege, if privilege is understood in its proper and original meaning of the state granting and protecting rights to some which are not available on equal terms to others.”(1)

“I use the term “liberal” in the nineteenth-century sense of limited government and free markets, not in the corrupted sense it has acquired in the United States, in which it means almost the opposite.” (2)

(1) Entire passage from The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek, 1956 preface.
(2) this quote from the 1994 introduction by Milton Friedman.

---

[muawiyah]

They're still going on in Sicily ~

[The Great RJ]

Note that the Spartans, who had long been enemies of the other Greek city states, put aside their differences and animosities to fight a common foe who was bent on destroying all of Greek civilization. Contrast this to today, where even after a murderous attack on US soil by an enemy that has vowed to destroy all of Western Civilization, the liberals and Democrats in Congress cannot put aside their partisan politics for one minute even to save our very democracy. If this crowd had been in Congress in 1941 we would all be preparing to celebrate Hitler's birthday.

[ansel12]

This is the smash hit of the year, I don't think this excited, pumped up male audience is seeing the Spartans as the Muslims and the Persians as themselves.

Trust the media to strive to create an alternate reality, even while this phenomenal event is taking place.

[MeanWestTexan]

"Trust the media to strive to create an alternate reality."

Yep.

The media whores loved the liberal-fantasy version of this same story circa 1836, as was told by ABC/Disney with their horrid "The Alamo" flop --- you know, the movie with the evil Texian picking on the wise and brave Mexicans.

Molon Labe/Come and Take It, stupid liberals.

[ansel12]

As a Texan myself I read the reviews and descriptions of that big budget flop.

Who did they think would flock by the millions to see an anti Texas Alamo movie, the small anti Texas Colorado cult?

[Reeses]

incitement to total war.

Strength never incites war. The origin of all war is envy. This envy motive goes back to the beginning of mankind. For example the story of Cain and Abel, sons of Adam and Eve, Cain murders Abel out of envy, really the world's first war and the start of human evolution as intelligent war makers.

Leftism and envy are closely related. Leftism is motivated by the evil force of envy. Unfortunately no one has ever discovered an easy way to diffuse envy. War is often the only choice vs. being nailed to the cross.

All the leftist mainstream media propaganda continually stirring up the demons of envy from below will eventually precipitate out as war. This is how the human evolution mechanism of war has always developed and always will.

[SolidWood]

You are totally right with your assertion, no doubt about it.

But my point is that Sparta/Greece wasn't the idealistic, uber-masculine civilization it is often portrayed as and the Persian Empire was no primitive, slavish horde of barbarians...
Persia was an highly civilized and cultured nation/empire ruled by mostly benevolent and comparatively civilized despotism. But THIS is the key difference between Persia and Greece. Persia's despotism was the reason for her eventual failure, while the concept of a democracy/republic (though not perfect back then) ultimately has been proven to be the stronger and more advanced one.

Anyway... anyone taking this film as a source for facts is of questionable intelligence to say the least. It is a fantastic story crafted around a real and truly historic event. In my opinion it cheapens the heroism of the Spartans... but art knows no boundaries. But beside being fun entertainment it serves well as an allegory of our current struggle against Middle Eastern despotism and leftist treason.

[infowarrior]

These professors teach the exact opposite of knowledge. Their students actually become more ignorant listening to them.

Persia *was* the more "civilized" society, in some respects, however, like most societies originating in Asia, despotism was the norm. What the professors teach isn't the opposite of knowledge, but *selective* knowledge, and absent critical thinking, which is not only not taught, but discouraged and disparaged, you have the results we now have...

the infowarrior

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

Persia *was* the more "civilized" society, in some respects

No, the 5th century B.C. Persian empire was not a more advanced civilization in any important respect than the Greek city-states unless you believe that imperial unity and military domination in and of itself is a higher form of civilization, which I do not. Does the fortuity of benevolent despots like Cyrus and Darius make the despotism itself inherently better? No.

In terms of political development, commerce, industry, naval skill, literature, architecture, art, philosophy, sports, etc. in no case was the Persian empire clearly more advanced.

Where is the Persian Herodotus and Thucydides? The Persian Plato? The Persian Pythagoras? The Persian Hippocrates? The Persian Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes and Aristophanes? Oh, the records of these Persians have simply not yet been found by the archaeologists, you say? Yeah, right.

That is not to say that the individual 5th century Greek was a superior human being than the individual Persian, he was not. But it was Greek culture and civilization that should be credited for the accomplishments of these great thinkers who arose out of it, thus proving its superiority. Case closed.

Yes, the Persian empire did develop better roads and communication systems than the Greeks, the better to administer their empire, but so what. The Greeks after all were a sea-based society.