Multimodal Assignment: American Values in "300"

A culture's artistic expressions reveal a great deal about that culture, and the film industry is no exception. When millions of people flock to the movie theater to see the latest blockbuster, it is worth considering why so many people were motivated to spend $7 to $15 on this particular movie instead of another. From a Historicist perspective, movies would depend on the social, cultural, and political climate surrounding their production and release. The prevailing zeitgeist creates the need for and influences the content of movies like "Stop Loss," in which an Iraq War veteran rebels against the army policy of extending soldiers' enlistment periods when manpower is needed (for a deeper understanding of Historicism's anthropological origins, go here). A New Historicist perspective, on the other hand, focuses on the movie's reflection of the audience and its context (for examples, see Stephen Greenblatt and his work, especially Practicing New Historicism). Whereas Historicism uses the socio-cultural context to understand the movie, New Historicism uses the movie to understand the socio-cultural context. The more popular the movie, the more it demands an analysis of why it was so popular with its audience.

View the trailer for "300."



This video was posted on YouTube by JohnK92 on December 9, 2006, and can be found with the search, "300."

In 2007, Zack Snyder's film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel “300” earned over a million dollars per Spartan warrior. It was in theaters for months and generated an enormous amount of buzz for its surprising success, stunning visual effects, and "Sin City" style cinematography (which was also based on a Frank Miller comic series). Some movie critics are puzzled by the movie's huge success, but most view it as a powerful, profitable appeal to simplistic chest-thumping, testerone-driven males. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone says, "300 is a movie blood-drunk on its own artful excess" that "dazzles as spectacle." Josh Tyler alternately praises and criticizes the movie's sensuous, erotic style and bombastic battle scenes. A.O. Scott says of the movie, "The big idea, spelled out over and over, ... is that the free, manly men of Sparta fight harder and more valiantly than the enslaved masses under Xerxes’ command." In my New Historicist analysis, however, the stunning success of "300" is anything but surprising or simplistic. Yes, the movie is a violent gore-fest with a healthy helping of sex on the side, but it is also a striking depiction of core American values and beliefs.

Both the novel and the film recount the epic "David vs. Goliath" battle of Thermopylae between the Greeks and Persians. The film begins with the childhood of Leonidas, King of Sparta. According to Spartan custom, he is raised to be a soldier from the time he is a toddler. He endures beatings, is pitted against peers in brutal hand-to-hand combat, and enters manhood after trapping and killing a massive wolf in a narrow pass. The slaying of the wolf is an obvious foreshadowing of the battle of Thermoplyae years later. The movie fast-fowards to Leonidas' adulthood and Xerxes's impending invasion of Greece. A messenger arrives in Sparta ahead of the million-man Persian army and asks for Leonidas' fealty. Leonidas ponders his options and then kills the messenger, even though he knows this will lead to war. By Spartan law, Leonidas must seek the Oracles' approval of his war-plan prior to declaring an all-out war; the legislature will not act without the Oracles' approval. Since both the Oracles and an influential legislator have been bribed by Xerxes, Leonidas cannot convince the Oracles or the legislature of Sparta to commit the army to meeting the Persian advance. Instead, he leads three hundred select warriors in a liesurely walk to "the hot-gates," the narrow mountain pass at Thermoplyae. In this crucial choke-point, Leonidas and the Spartans hold the Persian army at bay until a traitor enables the Persians to encircle the Spartans. They fight until the last man, except for one charismatic soldier who Leonidas sent away prior to the battle's end so that he could share their story and inspire the rest of Greece to oppose Xerxes and his army. (Full Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis).

Movie critic Josh Tyler states, "Snyder’s take on the film is a fantasy, the way the battle would have looked in the minds of the Greeks, as they tell the story of the 300’s sacrifice." It is very important to note that this story is told from a Spartan perspective. From a historical viewpoint, the movie is wildly inaccurate and exaggerated. But many of the film's most fantastic elements become understandable when one realizes that the voiceover present throughout much of the movie belongs to the lone Spartan survivor of the battle, who is now sharing the tale to inspire the rest of Sparta and Greece to honor the 300 Spartans by kicking the living daylights out of the Persian Army. The Oracles are described as (and look like) "in-bred swine." The traitor, who shows Xerxes a second pass, is inhumanly deformed and wretched. The Persian army utilizes ferocious monsters and creatures that exist only in Frank Miller's imagination. Xerxes is seven-feet tall and incredibly hedonistic. All of the movie's fantasy is a realistic portrayal of how the Spartans memorialized the tale. Moreover, the movie's exaggerations enable it to more acutely represent American Values.