Mazda, by invoking the Nazis, you’ve rendered all further conversation in this thread moot.
That being said, and to beat a dead horse, I am creeped out by the author’s flight of high dudgeon. Arian says, “But is there any difference between the makers of this movie and Ahmadinejad? They are both blind to the truth. Brainwashing is wrong whether done by communists, Islamo-Fascists, or Warner Brothers. The intentions may be different, but the results are the same. Obscuring history and slandering a great civilization is an undeniable sin, and an intolerable offense by any standard.”
The author seems not to be able to tell the subtle and nuanced difference between a slavering thug eager to nuke Israel off the map, unleash terror on the Great Satan, and crush internal dissent into a bloody puddle, and… a bunch of creatives who made a sword-and-sandal pic about a far-distant event, which is designed to delight 13-year-old boys. That’s Ahmadinejad versus the “300″ team, if you’re struggling to keep track.
Further: Brainwashing is such a loaded word. But not as loaded as “fascists” and “communists”! Wow, who knew that the “300″ folks were in cahoots with a massive conspiracy among government and media to destroy the populace’s ability to discern present-day Iranians from thong-wearing, homoerotic sword jockeys? Why, I do believe my mind is washed, hung out to dry, and smelling springtime fresh. No more resistance. I will obey my Bushbot robotic monstrosity! Tell me what else to think, High Lord Warner.
But HERE is the part that actually disturbs me. Listen to this language. It is “an undeniable sin” to slander a great civilization. And it’s “an intolerable offense by any standard.” Well! If this offense, this sin, is so intolerable, what are you going to do about it? Write a few mildly annoyed paragraphs? Or is this a call to… something? Arms? More angry words? Censorship? Blacklisting the “300″ production team? If it is truly intolerable to you, are you going to therefore feel a need to stalk the lead actors to make them pay for being part of such a monstrosity? (Oh, wait, better not: they’re pretty buff and might take you down.) And if it’s “intolerable,” would you really find it upsetting if someone else had the same thought and used this movie as a pretext for violence toward non-Persians? That’s what “intolerable” means, doesn’t it?
And, by the way, were you there? How do you know that your mental picture of Xerxes is more accurate than the filmmmakers’? Would you prefer he was pictured more like a beturbaned mullah, or perhaps as a smiling and schoolteacherish genocidal maniac? Now, that would make for some great TV.
Telling us how fascistic, intolerable, sinful, and slanderous it is for filmmakers to portray ancient Persians in an unflattering way is just the sort of rhetoric that I don’t like. Offense isn’t something you give, it’s something you take, and I am utterly tired of hearing about today’s unutterably horrid offense being perpetrated by a godless (or Christianist) West against the poor, helpless, victim Other.
So if you don’t like the movie’s portrayal of Xerxes, make your own damn movie. But don’t tell them to sit down and shut up. Because then I might get offended.
