Now Playing: The Assinippi Guard Dogs vs. The Severn Elevern
Last Sunday, when I walked down to the local bookstore to get the paper, there, sitting on top of the newspapers, was a copy of Frank Miller's 300. Someone, maybe, had started reading it, gotten excited, dropped the book like third-period French, and rushed off to the local Octoplex for a matinee.
Or, maybe, an aghast mother had pried the book out of the hands of her four-year-old and left it there, on the Wall Street Journal. It's hard to say.
Anyway, yesterday I saw an ad for kettle bells on the internet which promised to "Melt Flab Without The Dishonor Of Aerobics!" No wonder I've had this pervasive feeling of shame about my gym routine. I've been dishonoring my body with leg warmers, pink 2-pound barbells, and "Carmen Electra's Cardio Blast". (No, just kidding. I hate aerobics. Give me sunshine and fresh air instead of mirrors and sweat.)
I have to say, though, I have a huge amount of admiration for the men of 300 who made it through Mark Twight's training regime. It took the utmost dedication, commitment, trust, and discipline to allow themselves to be broken down, prodded, pushed, and built up again into superbly fit screen warriors. Amazing that they were able to do this in just a few short months (though it probably felt much, much longer while they were training).
The downside of 300 is that, being an unabashed celebration of testosterone at its finest, it seems to have brought out ugly behavior in a few viewers who have trouble distinguishing between entertainment and real life. One teenage boy on a 300 message board was recently bragging that his friend had gotten kicked out of a theater for yelling "THIS IS SPARTA!" and kicking a "horse-faced lesbian" in the chest, down 8 sets of stairs. Just like the well scene. Lovely. I doubt very much that the story's true, but even so, the fact that this Leonidas wannabe equates gay-bashing and violence against women with courage and manliness is disturbing. Even more disturbing, the rest of the board reacted with laughter and high fives. There's a huge difference between bullying the weak and defending yourself when attacked, a distinction which some moviegoers (and politicians) have failed to grasp.
300 certainly isn't to blame for this. It's a powerful movie, and it stirs up strong and primitive emotions, but it only stirs up what's already there. What people get out of the story is up to them. Racist people love inventing excuses to be racist. Warmongers love inventing reasons to send other people's kids into battle. Adolescent boys love to fantasize about going nuts with a sword against their enemies. It takes a certain amount of self-control not to use the movie as a springboard for bad behavior in real life.
Not that women have been all that levelheaded about the movie, but that's mostly due to the sculpted bodies and leather thongs. We walk out of the movie with the urge to knock boots, not the urge to kill.
On a lighter note, Astinos, the Captain's son, reminds me greatly of Figwit the Elf from Lord of the Rings. Astinos, we hereby dub thee Digwit (Dilios Is Great...Who Is That?)
