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The Pentagon goes to Fantasy Island
‘300’ movie review
By
Paul Wilcox
Published Mar 25, 2007 10:43 PM
Just got back from seeing the highly promoted movie “300,” and my
only thought is how Pentagon generals must love it to death.
Playing in 2,700 theaters and grossing $70 million the first weekend, the movie
is being pushed hard, in the hope that many will see it as a
“chill-out” movie after a hard day’s work. The movie is a
Pentagon fantasy.
“300” is about the battle at Thermopylae in 480 B.C., where 300
outnumbered Spartan soldiers delayed the Persian army for some time before
being wiped out. But this movie has little to do with history and everything to
do with war propaganda.
The movie uses all the racist myths that glorify Greek (Spartan) society as
defenders of “Western Civilization” and denigrate Persia
(current-day Iran) as Eastern and barbaric. In scenes remindful of the racism
of Joseph Goebbels, the old Nazi propaganda minister, there are countless
references to “endless Asian hordes,” “Persian beasts”
and a “new age of freedom.” The Spartans are said to descend from
Hercules himself. The severely racist theme of this movie makes it almost
unbearable to watch, and has prompted the Iranian government to issue a
protest. (See related box.)
I can picture the Pentagon warmakers salivating all over themselves watching
this movie. They must so love an army where all the “good guy”
Spartan soldiers say, “Yes, my Lord,” to everything the generals
order, and whose only ambition is to die in battle. Meanwhile, the bad guys
wear monkey-like masks (yes they do in this movie), and generally appear even
worse looking than the rhinos, elephants and monsters they use in battle.
Following an old and worn-out U.S. war movie formula that flies in the face of
reality, many thousands of the “bad guys” are killed en masse (even
in slow motion), then one Spartan is killed and the “good guys” get
really mad and swear revenge. To the director, one of them is worth more than
many thousands of the “enemy.”
Another offensive stereotype taken out of the garbage can of Hollywood formulas
and dusted off is presenting an “evil” person as disabled. The one
traitor among the Spartans just happens to be a man with a severely disfigured
back and face—who happens to look just like the Persian bad guys.
Pentagon fantasy vs. reality
In 1968 the song “Ballad of the Green Berets,” glorifying Pentagon
death squads in Viet Nam, hit the top of the charts. But 1968 was the year the
anti-war movement really blossomed among the population and resistance to the
war grew—among the soldiers especially.
It was the year when “credibility gap” became the capitalist
media’s byword for the difference between what the government said about
the war and what the population thought was true.
Within a few years after that, “fragging” became a well-known term
for soldiers tossing fragmentation grenades into their officers’ tents
because they were sick of dying in a colonial war.
Does some of this sound familiar?
Bad news for the Pentagon in Iraq? They make up some good news. No weapons of
mass destruction? They pretend there are some. Losing a terrible colonial war
in Iraq that is becoming ever more unpopular? They make a movie that shows the
opposite.
For the Pentagon in 2007, fantasy is so much better than reality.
As the war in Iraq loses popular support, more and more U.S. soldiers are
realizing that while they are busy in training pumping iron, the Pentagon is
busy on Wall Street pumping oil. U.S. oil companies are making record profits.
Soldiers see that they are hated by nearly everyone in Iraq, whatever the
Iraqis’ religion or political orientation. The veterans have learned that
they won’t get decent medical attention or benefits when they return
home, just as with the Vietnam war.
The film “300” will not change the current mood any more than the
“Ballad of the Green Berets” did in 1968.
In the end, reality always trumps fantasy, as the Pentagon will find out to its
dismay.
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