The movie “300 Spartans” recently hit the big screens in America. The movie tells about the war between Sparta and Persia and in particular about the battle of Termopolis when 300 Spartans were battling against an army of more than a thousand Persians. These days the movie “300 Spartans” has hit the big screens in America.
“Cultural invasion is one of the tactics constantly used by enemies,” says the speaker of the government, mentioning that “this kind of fraud and offense on the part of any nation and government is unacceptable and we consider this as an inimical behavior”. Iranian presses have already printed articles entitled “Hollywood has declared war on Iran”. In fact, Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s cultural issues adviser Javad Shangarin has criticized the film, announcing that “it is a part of the psychological war of the U.S. aimed towards Iranian culture”.
One of the producers working in Tehran told “Daily Variety” that there is a wave of protest in swing. Everyone has access to the film on DVD and people are truly frustrated. According to the Iranian producer, the film will most probably not be shown in the region; however the illegally produced copies have already been on sale in the Middle East for a while now. Iranians have even initiated a protest against the “Warner Brothers” company, calling the film “irresponsible, anti-aesthetical and non-scientific” and have declared that they are disgusted and hate the film. They have demanded a “review of the history and a quick apology by the corresponding bodies”.
The Iranians especially didn’t like the fact that the film producer had portrayed their Persian ancestors as evil, had mocked monarch Kherkhes, when he was the one who was known for writing the first human rights proclamation. As a matter of fact, Kherkhes, who was born in Cyprus, is incorporated by a black, Egyptian actor with dark skin, whereas Kherkhes was white.
However, in reality, neither the anger nor complaints of the Iranians stand the criticism. First of all, the film is not based on historical facts, rather the sketches of well-known artist Frank Miller. It was prepared using the same technology like the “City of Sins”. The director doesn’t hide that either. For example, whereas Ridley Scott had filmed in Italy, Malta, Morocco and Britain for his film “Gladiator”, director of “300” Zach Snyder did not even leave the virtual studio located in Montreal. Besides that, there are one-headed, Cyclopses with arms of fish in the Persian army that would rarely be historical figures. Of course, “300” is full of bloody scenes, but in contrast to “Gladiator”, the brutality as well as the pain of the actors seems unreal. It is more like an animated than a real film. Secondly, filming had begun three years ago when Iran’s nuclear issue was not that urgent and Ahmadinejad was not the president of Iran. Thirdly, here you have a country that had organized a special conference in December to deny the Holocaust and had invited former nationalist leaders of the Ku Klux Klan demanding historical accuracy. And finally, even if Hollywood is actually mocking, then it is mocking everyone. This week John Stuart, who is known for his strict criticism on his talk show, correctly noted that now Hollywood is presenting Italians as the mafia in bad colors, the Irish as hotheads, etc. Who benefited from this scandal? Well, of course, the film producers. The problem is that less people go to the movies in the spring. After winter, people want to spend more time outside than in theatres. But according to president of the “Media in numbers” box-office Paul Ter-Karapetypan, this film has done a fantastic job of “kicking off the marathon of summer blockbusters in the spring”. “300” has broken the rules and has already made 130,000,000 dollars in two weeks.