Opinion: Iran gives “300” a thumbs down
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Zack Snyder’s Spartan gore-fest ‘300’ made over $70 million on its opening weekend, a record for a March release, and has found fans far and wide. Editorial board member Sonni Efron already raised her concerns about the film’s fetishistic, beautified violence and now Iran is playing the ‘cultural aggression’ card. Sticking up for Iran’s Persian forebears, the Islamic Republic News Agency--Iran’s official mouthpiece--argues that the film fabricates history. But IRNA clearly has no problem with the grotesque violence, since it makes sure to include this tidbit:
The movie has fabricated the history with depicting a war between Iran and Greece, whereas, no Greek king dared to stand up to the Persian Empire or the Emperor Xerxes. Though Sparta’s King Leonidas cherished such a dream, but, he lost his head and Iranian fighters threw his head before Emperor Xerxes’s feet and told him that he had attempted a suicide attack to Persian Army.
The IRNA promised that Iran’s culture makers would respond in kind, so I assume we can expect a bloodthirsty refashioning of the Thermopylae battle--a multinational version of Clint Eastwood’s ‘Letters from Iwo Jima‘/’Flags of our Fathers’ duology but with more guts and fewer facts. Pass the popcorn!