“Hollywood declares war on Iran”
Iranians outraged by `300' movie - By NASSER KARIMI, AP
TEHRAN, Iran - The hit American movie "300" has angered Iranians who say the Greeks-vs-Persians action flick insults their ancient culture and provokes animosity against Iran.
"Hollywood declares war on Iranians," blared a headline in Tuesday's edition of the independent Ayende-No newspaper.
The movie, which raked in $70 million in its opening weekend, is based on a comic-book fantasy version of the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., in which a force of 300 Spartans held off a massive Persian army at a mountain pass in Greece for three days.
Even some American reviewers noted the political overtones of the West-against-Iran story line — and the way Persians are depicted as decadent, sexually flamboyant and evil in contrast to the noble Greeks.
In Iran, the movie hasn't opened and probably never will, given the government's restrictions on Western films, though one paper said bootleg DVDs were already available.
Still, it touched a sensitive nerve. Javad Shamghadri, cultural adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the United States tries to "humiliate" Iran in order to reverse historical reality and "compensate for its wrongdoings in order to provoke American soldiers and warmongers" against Iran.
The movie comes at a time of increased tensions between the United States and Iran over the Persian nation's nuclear program and the Iraq war.
But aside from politics, the film was seen as an attack on Persian history, a source of pride for Iranians across the political spectrum, including critics of the current Islamic regime.
State-run television has run several commentaries the past two days calling the film insulting and has brought on Iranian film directors to point out its historical inaccuracies.
"The film depicts Iranians as demons, without culture, feeling or humanity, who think of nothing except attacking other nations and killing people," Ayende-No said in its article Tuesday.
"It is a new effort to slander the Iranian people and civilization before world public opinion at a time of increasing American threats against Iran," it said.
Iran's biggest circulation newspaper, Hamshahri, said "300" is "serving the policy of the U.S. leadership" and predicted it will "prompt a wave of protest in the world. ... Iranians living in the U.S. and Europe will not be indifferent about this obvious insult."
After seeing "300" this past weekend, I concur with Mr. Karimi's comments and over all opinions.
The Persians in "300" were grossly depicted and historically inaccurate in every respect. Xerxes I(the Great) resembled an evil jin one might see in a PG rated Sinbad epic. Bald, pierced, and scantilly clothed with smooth luminescent clay-like skin adorned in beads and other ornaments Xerxes strikes a grotesque cord. It was overwhelmingly obvious that Hollywood was playing their propaganda card to the hilt with American viewers.
Being aware of this fact, I focused on the history of the 300 Spartans. Hollywood also failed, to some degree, in this respect, as well. It was comical to watch the 300 charge into battle without their usual bronze chest armour that the Spartans were well known for. In place of the armour the viewer is inundated with the actors' sleek six-pack abs bristling with macho bravado as they weild their swords against the evil Persians. I read in several reviews that this film will be remembered only for its six-packs instead of factual history.
In contrast, though, the real history of Persia's attempted conquest of Greece in 480 b.c. (Persia lost in 479 b.c. at the Battle of Plataea) is no more horrific than that of Greece's against Troy, or more notably, Rome's conquest of ALL the known world in antiquity, or even today with America's imperial aims. Viewers of "300" should make these comparisons and realize that Persia was no more or less 'evil' than any other country or ruler bent on totalitarian domination through invasion and war.
It is interesting how this movie was made and released in the months leading up to the attack on Iran by the US, which I expect to happen anytime now. Many of the American goyim are unfortunately stupid enough to be influenced by the negative images of Persians in the film.
It is in fact a propaganda movie of a sort, to help to prepare the Americans for their war on Iran, and so that Americans will feel less shame and remorse at the future civilian deaths caused by bombing Iranian facilities.
Who owns and controls the company that produced this film? The rather predictable Khazars, of course!
No coincidence at all.
I saw the movie this weekend and it's pre-attack propaganda value was umnmistakeable. The 300 spartans are humanized as a small brave group constantly urging all Sparta (U.S. and Britain) to "join the defense of democracy against the monster hoard".
The Persians are totally demonized in every way from their nephilim leader Xerxes and his perverse entourage, misformed giants, a masked oriental ninja force called "immortals", ... Ad Nauseum, Ad Infinitum.
Xerxes wants only to be worshipped, while olhmertides and the 300 only want to preserve greek democracy. Classic propaganda. The film deserves the Leni Riefenstahl propaganda award for the ash-can-nazi film festival.
Well, the master of cinema-propelled propaganda was of course Sergei Eisenstein (of the Battelship Potemkin etc.). In his 1938 film 'Alexander Nevski' Eisenstein depicted the Teutonic Knights in 1242 as Nazi German typos, cruel and savage in respect of the Russians. At the same time, curiously, the Mongols are depicted as almost benevolent foes who represented a lesser threat than the Germans did. In fact Nevski allied with the Mongols (he was a personal friend of Batu Khan's son, Sartaq, said to be a Nestorian Christian) in order to crush the Germans, only to deliver his country and kinsmen in the fangs of the long Tatar Yoke (of which the Bolshevik Soviet Union was a revival). The allusions in this film to the coming clash between Nazi Germany and Bolshevik USSR are more than obvious. So much for Stalin and his cronies not expecting Hitler's invasion (as claimed by house historian R. Conquest).
The most accurate political message in Eisenstein's 'Alexander Nevski' is about the Church of Rome, which then in 1242 as in 1939 was ideologically behind the germanic assault on Orthodox Christian (or Bolshevik Un-Christian) Russia. There I agree that Rome was indirectly responsible for delivering Russia to the fangs of the steppe wolves.
So, no point in watching this new Hollywood piece of propaganda crap (manufactured by the Turanic Khazars) against the Persians (also Indo-Europeans like us, btw).
Iranian government immaturely had (and still some times does) sponsored despicable act of desecrating American flag here and there, not knowing that flags don't belong to the governments but to the people. Obviously, they should not expect much sympathy from American people. An unintended consequence?
Movies like Not Without My Daughter, Alexander, 300 have also ended up in an unintended consequence : uniting Iranians of all walks of life to realize that it's not the Islamic character of their government at the target but actually their historical/cultural identity.
The burning question is would Iranians realize it's not necessarily the "west" behind all this, but the same forces that destroyed Iranian/Aryan character of central Asia some 1800 years ago? Except that the first time they came from the east, and now they come from the west. But they are the same mongoloid Turks (I like the term Turanic Khazars better!).
... which reminds me:
Does anyone know of a good source to see 'Reel Bad Arabs' on the internet?
It's a new documentary detailing the decades-long Hollywood defamation of Arabs/Muslims. Should be interesting in propaganda studies, yet Hollywood/Ziomedia ain't mentioning it anywhere that I can see (no surprise there, of coarse).
Very well stated, Kats!
"The burning question is would Iranians realize it's not necessarily the "west" behind all this, but the same forces that destroyed Iranian/Aryan character of central Asia some 1800 years ago? Except that the first time they came from the east, and now they come from the west. But they are the same mongoloid Turks (I like the term Turanic Khazars better!)".
Turan is in fact the place of historic origin, according to the persian cronicles, of their own foes from Central Asia. Turan is nowadays a region in modern Turkmenistan, adjacent the Caspian eastern shores.
Well, hopefully the Iranians are reading our exchanges in this forum and their intellectuals/think tanks have already realised that it's their ancient turanic foes now coming back, not the progeny of ancient Greeks and Romans. The Khazars of history united with Byzantium to made their debut in western history by crushing the last ambitions of Cyrus' Persian Empire.