Recently Frank Miller's 300, a comic book loosely based on the Battle of Thermopylae, has been adapted for the screen and became an overwhelming success at the box office pulling in over 70 million in it's first weekend. While critics are somewhat divided over the art of this film one critic goes a step further in his analysis. Believing that Hollywood is more of a propaganda machine than profiteer Iran's culture advisor to Ahmadinejad stated that "American cultural officials thought they could get mental satisfaction by plundering Iran's historic past and insulting this civilization."Of course the film has been banned in that nation as being a tool of "American cultural officials." Note that he never states who these 'cultural officials' are nor does he confirm that he, nor anyone who complained to the foreign ministry, have ever laid eyes on the film.
I haven't seen the film yet. As a fan of historical fiction I will see this at some point, but what I truly find amusing about Iran's stance on this film is that the movie's trailer never uses the name 'Iran' as they refer to the region's empire as the Persians. If these cultural officials, whoever they may be, were any good at their jobs they would understand that most Americans have never heard of the Persian empire much less understand that it occupied the borders of the current fundamentalist state.
Iran may secretly be pissed off by the idea of a half naked small army fighting off their ancestors, who were far superior in number. Or maybe, just maybe, Iran's fundamentalism has blinded their government to common sense.
Oh and they still deny the holocaust and won't recognize Israel, but for some reason we should'nt be worried about their nuclear ambitions. Yeah I'll sleep tight.
"The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map." - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Iran condemns Hollywood war epic
2 comments:
Been a while since I read about the battle of Thermopylae, but didn't the Persians win the battle? They ended up loosing the war though.
Haven't seen or read 300. Could it possibly differ other interpretations?
If you don't go see "300", the terrorists have won!
Whatigotsofar, Thermopylae was a mountain pass where 300 Spartans held off thousands of Persians for days. The Spartans did eventually die, but they held the pass long enough for the Greek armies to get on the march and eventually defeat the Persians.
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