Maybe they're in such limited clothing to showcase how great their fighting ability and war strategies were, they were so great, they could do it in underwear.
That's just a ridiculous thing to say. The correlation between showing their abs gratuitously (And with an obviously Nordicist agenda) and military strategy is a gigantic non-sequitur.
I just don't think a film is instantly homoerotic because there are men waking around shirtless. Being naked, man or woman(which there is some female nude scenes) should be looked at as something wonderful and raw, beautiful part of nature. Not always sexual.
Nature, my ass. Human beings are the only species on this green Earth who wage wars and pursues the agenda to destroy humankind itself with conscious ulterior motives. And this
is a war film. There is only bizarreness to be found. The real Spartans were armoured from top to toe; their depiction here as perfectly chiseled bodybuilders has a different connotation to it altogether and as I wrote before has a clear inspiration in fascist art (As a matter of a fact, the Spartans of the film are shown to practice eugenic infanticide).
Nw yeah, the film is stylized and has an erotic look. Could be intended to be homoerotic, but if then, who cares?
I care. The film has a shoddy production value and the surface of the presentation is all plastic and devoid of any authenticity. These men are not Greeks. These "Spartans" are not the cherished and venerated noble warriors of classical antiquity who earned the respect of the Persians (An opinion that must have been highly vaunted, considering they built the greatest empire of ancient times). They are fake, with fake abs, with fake inauthentic sloganized dialogue and they fight like absolute frauds.
Style only goes so far. You can depict anything without any care and blame it on "stylistic" priorities. I can give you an example who set the benchmark for stylish filming: Sergei Parajanov's "Red Pomegranate". This old Soviet-Armenian film made from a shoelace-budget in the 60's
still beats and rapes the living **** out of this sorry excuse of a 90-minute greenscreen.
Are men really that close minded they can't see other men in little clothing without freaking out?
No. It's the context with which they are transposed in this manner that gets under many peoples' skin. The message is "The Spartans are superior and the Persians are evil" and this point of view is presented under no uncertainty. The perfect Spartans, by association the good guys, are pitted against demonic Easterners.
And in this comparison between the extremes, we are faced with the impressions: It is the same facetious simplicity of a comic book, where the heroes have ridiculously good physique and the enemies are demonized. This is why comic books can
never become high art. It is a medium that promotes archetypal conventions, a formulaic progression and laughable predictability. The heroes are always shown to be superficial paragons (No matter the context) and in this case, the film has swallowed this ideal hook, line and sinker.
Therefore, the homoeroticism; and therefore a clear example of an inferiority complex.
I applaud Zack Snyder considering he took a leap with the film in just that way.
I see him as a no-talent MTV-director with no originality whatsoever; that his films are held in a high regard among teenagers, often clueless Xbox-generation porn-addicts who usually have no idea about cinema in general, is only proof of this.
Were used to seeing females usually being the ones with the little clothing in films. Everyones cool with that.
But I don't think it's cool. We take it for granted that beautiful women must flaunt their skin. This is objectification turned into consumerism. Not a sign of female liberation. Especially genre-wise, women in epic films who have lavish clothing are usually held in much loftier regard.
But the other way around, its "gay".
Sexuality does not belong anywhere in the battle of Thermopylae. The homoeroticism is elicited by its bizarre presence.
People need to go outside and open their minds a bit.
Why do you presume that challenging tasteless aspects has anything to do with a closed mind? I could just simply tell you to go get laid and attain a similar point. It does not make it any less true.
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horrormovieman89
13 years ago
Well clearly this film doesn't hold any historical value. If you were looking for that entering the film, you missed the point. The film is an over stylized, exaggerated war movie. You can have your opinions on it, I can have fine. I personally enjoyed the over dramatized interpretation of it very much. Being Greek myself, no, it didn't hold any historical value, but I simply saw it as an over the top raw, rather beautiful war film. If you didn't, thats fine and dandy, but people get all too worked up over some guys abs.
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Megatherion
13 years ago
Good, then I speak with a fellow who probably has an idea what Thermopylai truly means to us.
Now, if you have visited the site and perhaps glanced at the great statue of Leonidas, chances are you have read an epitaph:
"O ksein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti teide keimetha, tois keinon rhemasi peithomenoi."
It was written by Simonides of Keos. He was not a Spartan. Nor an Athenian. Yet he wrote two simple lines considered the fundamental embodification of the Greek. All things Greek. A foreigner could just read this line, perhaps even translate it... But he will never understand it. And it's not just the texture of the quote, but also its very fabric down to its last fibre.
It embodifies not just noble sacrifice but also a desperate independence. But for what exactly? Out of this cradle of blood, filth and misery our beautiful nation was born. But the future would be pessimistic. Three great civil wars had to take place before being subsumed by the Macedonian crown. And another one. And yet another one. League after league would form. Then the Romans. Then the Turks. Along this time, nobody truly knows how often the land was ravaged by various barbarian and nomad tribes. Or lost count over the various ethnicities of the Byzantine emperors.
By the time Greece had come to her own, the Balkans had been ravaged by war and bloodshed. It had become a landmass of widows. It was to this setting Nikos Kazantzakis introduced the quintessential Greek. A jovial Spartan (In ethos) at peace.
It is to this backdrop we must recount Simonides' poem. It makes it almost prophetic as it attains a new meaning. Unfortunately, many of the younger generations of Greece have become enchanted by the dull (And declining) ways of the Western youth culture. They think of laughably poor films like these to be an homage to Greek culture. The Western ideal of "freedom" is meaningless to the Greek spirit; our sense and conscience of freedom stems from antiquity and resonates with our collective passion as a people.
Keep your opinion as much as you want, but this a McDonald's hamburger. The "Spartans" of this criminal film are frauds and one of the clearest things of note are the modern steroid physiques. The Spartans of our culture are associated with toil, suffering and defiance against all odds (A noble defeat against the greatest empire of antiquity). Through Simonides, this noble defeat evoked the sense of a moral victory. When we sing of defeat, we do so with a victorious stature!
The "Spartans" of this garbage are seen effortlessly butchering a demonic enemy and entertaining superficial thoughts of victory. They are hamburgers. They are Coca-Cola. They are Mickey Mouse. They are Microsoft. They are American huff-puff. They are pure thievery and they are derivative. They are racism. They are lies. They are fabrication. They are gloss. They are shine. But they are not Spartans. That is not Leonidas. They are not Greeks and this is not Thermopylai. It will never be and I will do all things in my power to inconvenience this amoral empire of Hollywood that seeks to steal our heritage and retell us our history.
And that, my friend, is what makes me a Greek.
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horrormovieman89
13 years ago
Oh jesus. Again, you took the film way, way too literally, my friend. The film, as stated numerous times before, is a total stylized over dramatic interpretation of a graphic novel(a COMIC!). If you're expecting a history lesson from it, watch National Geographic instead. Its Hollywood man, not History class. The film is beautifully done in its own right, in my opinion. But I never believed once while watching it, that any of it actually happened the way it did. I think Ill give my intelligence a bit more credit then that.
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Megatherion
13 years ago
And who is to say that Hollywood must be exempted from being chastised? Who is to say that just because Comic books are a juvenile format they cannot be denounced? Who is to say that style is merely style and cannot be judged on the grounds of authenticity?
But no. We get to see abs. And never before has this bizarre visual ever been more disgusting. And it has nothing to do with homophobia; it is the symbolic commercialization of an otherwise rather sacred advent in Greek history.
You may be intelligent. But you overlook the fact that this film cost 70 million dollars to make (And someone green-lighted this trash possibly with a budget ceiling upwards a hundred millions) and made over half a billion dollars in profit. It is easy to sink our heads in the sand and say "Oh but it's just entertainment, don't take it so seriously!" but those numbers are not a joke and some people have gotten filthy rich through this venture. I think that by itself is incredibly serious.
Now add to the fact that the Persians are depicted as sub-human monsters. Are you going to tell me that comic books cannot be politicized? That they cannot be racist? That Hollywood is purely apolitical and cannot by association be racist, gratuitous and facetious? I grew up with comic books myself. I know the roots of that medium. It has even been used in instances as direct propaganda.
Now, if you had the intellectual capacity to not take the film seriously and purely find the green-screen filming process itself to be the redeeming part of it, good for you. I could of course cite films older than myself that I think, purely as visual film (Financially and creatively), are vastly superior but you might not be receptive to them.
One you might like though. Based purely on "style".
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025913/
But I will tell you that not all people are like you. Most people are stupid. This is not because I hold anyone in contempt. It is a common observation. Outside my apartment I am hearing useless riots calling for Papandreou's resignation (Even though he really has no choice but to do so). I mean it's like chanting for a bowl of soup to tip over when you already know it is going to tip over.
They really think all things are going to be better with the sham proposal of entering a coalition government and securing multi-billion Euro loans. Truth of the matter is that people are stupid, ignorant, oblivious and lazy.
And America of course, which has waged two incredibly illegal wars after getting absolutely butthurt by the 9/11-event (Nowadays known as the Iraqi and Afghan 24/7), flanking Iran militarily and resorting to all sorts of sabotage to deny the Iranians of their right to nuclear energy is logically conducting a psychological warfare against them. They are brainwashing their own citizens into thinking that Iran, a developing country in the Third World, is the great threat against the world.
Recently even Battlefield 3 caused controversy, depicting the Americans physically invading Iran, while miraculously (The staggering proportion of the audacity) still referring to themselves as "the good guys". Of course, as intelligent as you are, you stand between two choices. Either dismiss it as "innocent entertainment" and praise the graphics, or you could put two and two together and maybe reach the conclusion of there being an agenda going on here.
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horrormovieman89
13 years ago
I agree with you on a few accounts, especially the people being stupid bit. But dude, you're preaching all this on a movie board, and I understand where its coming from. But a bit over the top now. This movie, to me, was nothing more than a movie. If you think the hundreds of thousands of people that saw it really thought it was an actual depiction of history, chances are, they don't understand much and this wasn't important to them(the movie or actual historical facts) or they know how to take this for what it was: a movie. For a lot, its a waste of 2 hours on a Friday night. For some is was irritating, especially my father, who is very proud of his Greek heritage and didn't like the interpretation.
Now, again, I understand your frustration, but nearly everything is commercialized. Everything. Hollywood isn't the first, nor last to do it. I don't understand if your frustration is due to this specific event in history, or it as a whole in Hollywood/our world, but its nothing new. Which doesn't mean we need to accept it, but I think you're over doing it about this film.
One of my favorite films is a very visual film, it being The Passion of Joan of Arc. Which, in my opinion, is a beautifully done film. Style and context. And that film is 4 times as old as I am. But Im not going to go all up in arms about this film.
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Megatherion
13 years ago
So I am finally discussing with someone who understands film. You seem to have some taste. If you enjoy Dreyer's work, I warmly recommend Sergei Parajanov's "Sayat Nova" for a similar existential and visual experience in colours. Tarkovsky, I think, does not need to be mentioned. Chances are you have already dabbled in his repertoire.
But, I must digress on a few things.
This is not just a movie board. I am not preaching; I am stirring the pot for my own ends. This is one of the places where the fans especially congregate. My regard for them is well known by now: I am attacking them. I use every rhetorical trick that can be used until they have been pummeled into submission. I make no excuses for this, but I do it with justification.
I am writing a rather extensive essay on Hollywood's appropriation of our common history, its pitfalls, results and consequences, while comparatively painting up similar (Though rather successful) ventures in the genre by other arenas within world cinema. The correlation of a base market, target group, subsequent marketing, budget scales, distribution and finally, critical reception is especially interesting.
The problem with your phrasing of how "hundreds of thousands" just merely took this as "just" a film is rather proof with how out of touch Hollywood is with the world. It is a mantra that evokes the falsely soothing term of "fiction" that has been applied hux-flux as an appeal to ignorance (Though more often than not, the sort of ignorance that resembles startled ostriches; not that of the genuine kind). Flip the coin for a moment: You will find very few Iranians to have liked the film at all and I have an inkling that any statistic would rather verify this.
And this, is a problem. See, there is a reason why most American viewers do not take this film beyond it being a motion picture: The Spartans are logograms for Americans. A superficial, ethnic substitute for Americans. Even Frank Miller said so. In such circumstances, Americans can never be portrayed as anything but shining beacons of light. And this has been going on for decades. Except for this little twist: Now these Americans are fighting sub-human monsters.
But who are these sub-human monsters? They go by the name of the Persians. But wait. Don't actual Persians exist? They do. And they are not thrilled about being declared as sub-human by Hollywood. Even less so with this point of view now being commercialized. Now that is new. Not even the Soviets were this badly treated. I think this deserves some exploration.
Now tell me, if I was for just a moment an Iranian making my case, would you also tell me that I "overdid it"? No, chances are you wouldn't. Chances are you would rather empathize with how Hollywood deliberately offends people. You cannot really tell someone not to "overdo it" when this film so casually depicts his people as monsters in every physical sense of that word. And those are the terms of the film: Us versus them. There is no room for any subjective interpretation in the narrative.
But until then, you might as well as stick with the irrational point of view of me just being a "frustrated Greek with a chip on his shoulder".
I agree with one thing you said. We must accept this. But not for the sake of approval, do not get me wrong. But only as a means to find out how messed up the world of Hollywood still is and where to concentrate the barrage of vitriolic attacks. They deserve it, now that the cat's out of the bag. And they deserve more of it. If they can have the liberty of green-lighting a multi-million dollar budget to market disgusting racism in the name of my country's history, and make a buck out of it, I have just as much right to wish, and to express that wish in whatever the choosing of terms and media, for their demise, downfall and disgrace. It is called responsibility and especially one that follows as a consequence. What goes one way, goes the other way.
My sincerest regards to your father.
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