Paul and I just finished watching the movie 300 again. I disliked it as much as ever, if not more. I stand by my original objection that the loudly proclaimed ideals of reason, justice, and freedom were blatantly contradicted by the concretes of Spartan life. To that, I would add that the movie portrays the Spartans as much worse than they were — for example, in their political system of hereditary kingship, in their ideals of blind duty and obedience, in their law against retreat, and most of all in their explicit worship of utterly pointless “glorious” death in battle. That’s bad enough, but what’s so much worse is that the film deeply admires the Spartans for those vicious qualities — and expects us to do the same. Toward the end of the battle, the death-worship is so perfect and complete in both word and deed that I can’t even enjoy it as an action film.

Phooey!