300 Gets a Compliment

Socialist Worker Online gave a huge compliment to 300 in a review last week. By bashing the film, Socialist Worker gave every non-Socialist a reason to go see the movie.

Some excerpts:

a rank cesspool of racism, sexism, homophobia and “freedom-loving” pro-war propaganda.

Leave it to the far-far-left to resort to name calling hatred. Incredulously, the filmmakers are compared to Soviet-era propagandists:

300’s style, pro-war message and racism evoke Sergei Eisenstein’s classic propaganda film Alexander Nevsky, a retelling of Russia’s defense against the Holy Roman Empire, which was used as blatant pro-war propaganda in Russia in the lead up to Second World War.

This little nugget challenges the historical accuracy of 300:

The movie 300 inaccurately follows the Battle of Thermopylae, a sort of Alamo for ancient Greece, where an army of about 4,000 Greeks--including 300 Spartans--faced a much larger army of Persians, commanded by King Xerxes. The eventual defeat of this small force is said to have rallied the rest of Greece for a final victory against the Persians.

Apparently, it means little to the Socialist Worker that pre-eminent Classicist Victor Davis Hanson has praised the film, even noting the relative accuracy of the film's historical basis, albeit liberal visual stylization.

Even more outrageous:

The most dangerous aspect of 300 is its blatant call for the West to attack Iran. Iran, after all, used to be called Persia, and the film pulls no punches in exhorting the “free and rational” West to defend itself against the Persian hordes. Queen Gorgo even utters the tired cliché “Freedom is not free!”

I have nothing else to say about that, it speaks for itself.

God forbid a film displays unbridled manliness, rather than panderous politically correct etiquette. I guess it was too much for the Socialist Worker. You would think they would want to sit back, relax and shut their brain off and enjoy an action movie after a long day toiling at the factory, eh, comrade?