300, Zack Snyder, 2006, a Comparison With the Real Historical Accounts

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300 is a movie that was released in 2007 and it was inspired by the 1998 comic series. It illustrates the story of the Battle of Thermopylae which occurred during the Persian War. The film was directed by Zack Snyder who also participated as a co-writer. The film uses an imagery technique, a replica of the original comic book. The film is inaccurate in many aspects in regards to recorded historical accounts.

The first inaccuracy in the film is that king Leonidas was accompanied by 300 Spartans acting as his bodyguards. The Spartans depicted here are, in fact, Spartiates who were full Sparta citizens. The king could not have asked 300 soldiers to protect him while he went for a stroll, as depicted by the movie (Snyder, 2006). The ephors would have refuted this act with all their might. Additionally, some Persians survived during the war contrary to what is displayed in the film. For instance, Herodotus was sent as a messenger while Aristodemos got an eye (Rawlinson, 2016). Therefore, it shows inaccuracy that all soldiers died in the war.

In the film, a wounded soldier Dilios is sent back to narrate to the council the events in the battle to send more warriors. The character Dilios is a fictional character added to the story. The only person who went back to Sparta during the war was Aristodemos, who got an eye infection and Dilios getting his eye hurt is an allusion to Aristodemos’ problem. Dilios tries to get the council to assemble an army to assist in battle, but that would not happen as the council was against it in reality (Snyder, 2006). Hence, it is inaccurate to show that Dilios was sent back to the council.

The Spartans were never alone in the battle; the reality is far from that. In addition to the 298 warriors present in battle, there were seven hundred Thespians under the command of Demophilos (Rawlinson, 2016). Leonidas even tried to order them away, but they insisted on fighting with their companions. Also, there were four hundred Thebans who Leonidas forced to fight, but when the tide of the battle changed, they surrendered to being slaves to the Persians. There were also several hundred helots, and in total, there were nearly two thousand three hundred Greeks at the battle (Rawlinson, 2016). Therefore, the Spartans were assisted in the war by Thespians.

There are many cultural inaccuracies depicted in the film. First, the Spartans did not get into battle nearly naked as they are portrayed in the film. They had armor, and helmets and carried non-uniform battle attire to war. In the film, they are flashing muscles in all directions, which is a weakness in war. Secondly, the Spartan men never kept their hair short, it was usually long and very kempt, especially when going to war. Sculptures depicting warriors have them adorning helmets with long braided hair flowing from behind (Rawlinson, 2016). Therefore, it is a cultural imprecision that is shown in the movie.

The final inaccuracies depicted in the film are the political ones. The Persians had a political system led by two equally powerful kings from the two foremost royal families, the Agiad royal family, and the Eurypontid royal family. In the movie, we only see one king uniting the Spartans, and that is king Leonidas. The ephors’ powers in the movies have been diminished to inbreed priests who are of the olden ways that the king disrespects. The Persians in the movie are seen as conquest-loving villains, but in reality, they were fighting for political stabilization and were the most peaceful conquests’ who only wanted acceptance of their king as the true king and paid him tribute (Rawlinson, 2016). Therefore, it is untrue to show that there was only a single king, yet they were two.

The director puts effort into antagonizing the Persian Empire in the film by changing their narrative in many aspects. First of all, Snyder made it seem as if the Persians were on a land-grabbing, power-hungry rampaging conquest. The Persians sent their emissaries to inform the Spartans that they should accept King Xerxes as the one true king and put their allegiance to the Persian Empire. The Persian emissaries are killed in real history as in the movie. Still, in history, the king regrets this and sends his emissaries to the Persian Empire, knowing that the Persian king understands man (Snyder, 2006). Therefore, what is depicted in the movie is the exact opposite of the recordings of history.

The Persian Empire was reacting to the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor Rebelling against the Persian rule. The Ionian Greeks sent help requests to the mainland Greek states of Athens and Eretria, who sent ships full of warriors to fight against the Persians. The fight lasted for a long time and even destroyed a Persian city. Therefore, King Darius 1 of the Persian Empire retaliated until he met his demise so his son King Xerxes finished off what his father started. The Persians perceived the Greeks as real threats to the Stability of the westernmost part of their empire.

The movie depicts King Xerxes as a tall, strong man clad in gold, a nose ring, visible makeup, and barely clad in anything at all, walking around in a prideful powerful manner. The director wanted to portray him in the worst possible way as a gay individual (Rawlinson, 2016). However, the king was the opposite of this depiction from actual records, a man with lush beards and hair with a huge frame.

Bits of modern norms have been scattered all over the movie. The first and most notable event is racism in whitewashing the heroes and darkening the villains. Normal Greeks have brown eyes and dark hair and are darker in complexion than their Caucasian neighbors. While in the movies, nearly all Greek individuals are white Caucasians with blonde hair and blue eyes, contrary to the norm. Also, the villains have been portrayed as characters of a darker complexion that is Hispanic for King Xerxes and all black for the emissary sent to Sparta in contrast to normal Persian who are even lighter in complexion in comparison to the Greeks. This is racism in full display in a theatrical film where white individuals are normally portrayed as heroes and all darker races as villains.

The mythical characterization of the battle is a modern touch of fiction being put into art. The movie depicts the Persians as invisible warriors who can go against any enemy and come out as victors. The Persians are also given mythical strengths to increase their entertainment scores among the audiences. The application of the fictitious abilities to the characters while historically inaccurate (Rawlinson, 2016). The histories will draw younger audiences and make them learn about history albeit with some wrong facts.

I prefer the movie over the original story as it euthanizes the inhumanity of the past into a glamorized tale of warriors fighting to protect their homes. The benefits of viewing a film where the characters are overpowered have certain satisfaction in the brain’s entertainment faculties. More people embraced the movie than a book or a historical movie, accounting for all real historical events’ accuracy. With the inhuman bit being slowly removed to cultivate a more human society, I would prefer the movie.

References

Rawlinson, G. (2016). History of Herodotus. M. Komroff (Ed.). Hansebooks GmbH.

Snyder, Z. (Director). (2006). 300 [Film]. Legendary Pictures. Web.

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300, Zack Snyder, 2006, a Comparison With the Real Historical Accounts

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