300 made history this weekend by raking in over $70 million and taking home the anti-climactic title off biggest March opening ever. Considering those numbers, one could assume that it’s a pretty good fucking movie.
The kids over at AfterElton, however, say that the adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel ranks as not only the number one movie, but as one of the most unapologetically homophobic movies in recent memory. We say that it ain’t no thing…
AfterElton takes aims at 300 from a few different angles. Not only has all the historically accurate homosexuality been removed from the allegedly historically accurate movie, but “queer” pederasty provide superfluous, convenient punchline. AfterElton’s Brian Juergens writes:
Within the first 15 minutes, our hero Leonidas (a hyper-aggressive Gerald Butler, perhaps overcompensating after appearing in the ungodly Phantom of the Opera movie) makes a crack about the Athenians being “boy-lovers”, for absolutely no reason other than to get a laugh out of the meatheads in the audience who find that kind of low-hanging insult to be clever.
What’s more, director Zack Snyder admits to using Rodrigo Santoro‘s man-loving character, Xerxes, to perpetuate gay panic. Entertainment Weekly‘s Steve Daly writes:
The scenes of a bejeweled, long-fingernailed Xerxes offering King Leonidas peace in exchange for ”submission” have a decidedly sexual undertone. Director Zack Snyder says that’s not accidental, that it’s intended to make young straight males in the audience uncomfortable: ”What’s more scary to a 20-year-old boy than a giant god-king who wants to have his way with you?”
Hmm, we can actually think of worse people than submitting to a giant god-king. And, we imagine, so do other people. In fact, Santoro admits to playing up the character’s ambiguous sensuality. “He’s very manly, but at the same time has a feminine side… Being a god, he’s allowed to have every quality.” And in some cases, that could be the ultimate fantasy.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Snyder and AfterElton have something in common: they both feel that the sexually ambiguous Xerxes poses a threat. Which he does. He’s the villain. He’s supposed to alarm the viewer. Yes, Snyder admits that he sees Xerxes as a homosexual menace, but he doesn’t necessarily think everyone will. He tells Daly:
“Some people have said to me, ‘Your movie is homoerotic,’ and some have said, ‘Your movie’s homophobic.’ In my mind, the movie is neither. But I don’t have a problem with people interpreting it the way they’d like to.”
If people read Xerxes as being the villain because he does dudes, they were probably homophobic already. If the fact that he like cock makes his evilness more believable – again, homophobic. If someone walks away from this movie shaking their head and says, “Damn that faggot Xerxes,” they more likely than not already hated homos. Homophobia lies not in character relation, but in upbringing. It’s far more complicated than Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster. But so then are the culture wars.
A Pew Research poll cited in yesterday’s New York Times magazine shows that over half of Americans aged 18-25 approve of gay marriage: far more than their older counterparts. On the other hand, however, they’re far less approving of abortion. These hot button topics aren’t as closely aligned as popular political opinion may say. Gay people, then, seem to have gained more American acceptance.
Queers are more visible than ever before and while negative stereotypes still abound, it seems to us that the positive representations far outweigh the negative. Thus, more people approve of gays, more people have gays in their lives, more people understand the difference between fantasy and reality. The idea that one movie will demolish centuries of progress strikes as a bit ridiculous.
If movies such as 300 had such an enormous effect on society, as AfterElton seems to think, we’d be far more concerned with its gory violence, than with one character’s gay loving. This detail should (and will) be seen more as a character trait, not an attack on gay communities as a whole. Most people aren’t looking for a reason to hate the gays. You only see what you look for…
Al
Why take this seriously? These guys are all in loincloths, steroided up and w/ shaved chests. Yeah … What’s the point in getting all worked up?
The lead was the Phantom of the Opera a couple years back! HELLO!
Woof
Um…who cares? I saw the movie and couldn’t tell you if it was any good because I was too busy watching those abs and Gerard Butlers thighs!
RSL
Where’s the line to submit to Rodrigo Santoro?? Color me in that one!
adamblast
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That’s a silly strawman, and doesn’t belong in any article you want taken seriously. Once again you do nothing but snipe at people who dare to say that the status quo needs work when it comes to gay portrayals in media. You really should work for the other team, since you do more heavy lifting for them than for us.
Paul Raposo
I appreciate the ideas in this post. But how many films showing positive GLBT characters have made 70 million in one weekend? How many of those positve films are targeted at 20-somethings specifically? That’s my problem; using homophobia to sell tickets, like anti-gay rappers use it to sell records. I guess this shoots the myth that H’wood is a bastion of liberalism all to hell. Homophobia still sells and there are many people willing to use it, in place of quality.
adamblast
“The idea that one movie will demolish centuries of progress strikes as a bit ridiculous.” — the quotation referred to in the above post. Silly straw man, indeed.
The Billster
And quite a horrible lead it was, I might add.
The Billster
In Phantom, that is.
I haven’t seen 300 yet, but I now believe I have to.
🙂
GR
Some of you need to take a breather from your indignation. 300 is a film of total absolutes — the characters are archetypes, played in strict black and whites (sometimes literally). Because of that, its really easy to read agendas into these kinds of film.
In fact, the alledged homophobia actually takes a back see to the film’s xenophobic pro-Bush slant — or anti-Bush insurgency-glorification slant, depending on what youre looking for.
The only agenda I see in this kind of cardboard, visually stunning film is this — if you’re offended by something, its because you’re looking to be offended by it.
Evorgleb
300 is getting more good press than it deserves. I just did a review of 300 over at Highbrid Nation if you care to read it. In the end it was just another movie that did not live up to the hype to me. Can we say “poor man’s Gladiator”? Most people will likely disagree with me though, lol
GranDiva
Not Xerex, XERXES.
Dammit.
Learn some opera, if not European history, girls.
nystudman
What’s really weird about all this is that no one culture in history was more ‘mo than the Spartans. Read Herodotus’ first-person account of the Persian wars or any ancient chronicler. The Spartans were strictly “women for breeding, boys for fun.”
Zack
I don’t understand how you can say that people will only see what they are looking for in this film when the director clearly indicated he was trying to make the character more menacing by making him homoerotic. If the character’s desire for men was splayed out amid cleaner moral circumstances in the film–if a clear villain wasn’t trying to force himself on someone who wasn’t interested–maybe you could make that point. But the intent for the scene has already been laid out for you by the director! He is as fine with people interpreting it as anti-gay as gay? Please. There’s a (historically inaccurate) homophobic joke in the first fifteen minutes. How the vast majority will interpret it is pretty clear.
While young people today may be more willing to vote for gay marriage, violence against gays and lesbians has also spiked. One of the major reasons those who attack gay men give for their violence is “gay panic”. Saying that the media hasn’t had a profound role in what reactions (violent or otherwise) straight men find appropriate for when confronted by homoeroticism is as invalid as it is irresponsible. This movie clearly meant to make something young people hate even more scary. While gay-positive representation may be up in movies, representations of sexually predatory gay villains hasn’t exactly gone down: Constantine, Art School Confidential, and The Wedding Crashers come to mind.
Usually I enjoy this blog, but you guys really botched this one.
Iowan
Nothing scares breeders more than warrior mo’s. And nothing scares than more than warrior mo’s against warrior mo’s so they have to rewrite history to cover it up. Remember that movie Troy with Brad Pitt. Many warlords in the Middle East are currently mo’s. U.S. Americans just can’t handle warrior mo’s. That’s why the USA has Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
Dawster
There was one comment about “philosophizers and boy-lovers†which like me making a derogatory comment about NAMBLA (which I do and will), and that wasn’t homophobic, it was anti-pedophiliac.
The point is that they were had people who over-think, over-reason, and failed to raise strong men for battle… whereas Spartans were trained from boyhood at nothing else but fighting to become strong warriors (as was shown in the first 10 minutes of the movie – and later when the Spartans are left alone).
If the homophobia idea comes from the director’s comments ONLY… well, he has a point. Xerxes was a mad monster. Any young 20 year old would be scared shitless based off the idea of having a self-indulgent EIGHT FOOT TALL man/god beast-like being with a dick the size of your forearm fucking without recourse and without limits (his thumb was bigger than the size of Leonidas’ ear for Christ’s sake).
Oddly, the same type of tactic is used to ‘scare’ young guys from going to prison – I wonder if that’s considered “homophobic?
Back to the ACTUAL MOVIE… Xerxes wasn’t presented as gay/bi/transgendered… OTHER people were having sex around him as he just on his throne. So, I’m not sure how much an askew/exaggerated version of a historical figure ambiguously presented is considered a reflection on the GLBT community…
This movie isn’t historically accurate, it never claimed to be… it’s based off of Frank Miller’s comic book. You know… had the director been “historically accurate†and added actual homosexuality to Xerxes, everyone would be bitching how the “gay guy is the bad guy…â€
So you can’t win either way…
jemmytee
300 is not just homophobic, it’s racist. All the good guys look like they came from Surf City, USA, not anywhere near Greece. All the bad guys are black or brown and are from Asia, Africa and Persia. The good guys have blue eyes. The bad guys have brown eyes. The Spartan idea of killing off infants who are not born perfect is put forth as a GOOD idea, and they use the one deformed person in the entire movie to point out what happens if you don’t kill off those who are not perfect. I find it incredible that anyone is defending this filth. Are a few CG’d abs and pecs all it takes to sway us faggots from caring about being demonized by homophobic racist assholes like George Miller and Zack Snyder?
mc
OK, I haven’t seen the movie & don’t plan to – more because it looks stupid than anything else … but didn’t the Spartans lose to Xerxes at Thermopylae? I thought it was the boy-loving Athenians who finally defeated the Persians.
I did see the previews, and though I agree that the Persians were presented as total steroid-queen stereotypes … I thought the Spartans were total steroid-bear stereotypes. I’m really dreading the costumes next Halloween.
phil
My biggest problem with AfterElton? It’s Gerard Butler. Not Gerald.
Wilford Buckley
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