The Killing of an Arab, or 10,000 of Them: How I Went to See a War and a Fox Editorial Broke Out

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Tonight we went to see 300 and what we found instead was a polemic in support of Bush's policies, both domestic (the Patriot Act) and foreign (war campaigns on any country in the Middle East not named Israel ).

In the movie, the Persian king Xerxes sends an emissary to the Spartan king, Leonidas, instructing him to submit to the rule of Xerxes. Leonidas responds by violating the age-old rule and having the messenger killed.

What ensues is the historically based tale of Leonidas and 300 Spartan warriors momentarily holding off hordes of thousands of Persian soldiers in the narrow mountain pass leading to Sparta before finally succumbing to the exotic, demonic, decadent, freakish and effeminate Persian hordes.

The cheerleading for the Patriot Act and war powers of the president starts early, with the king facing the prospect of war during the holy festival of Carneius; by Spartan law, it is forbidden to wage war in this month. In Frank Miller's take on Shakespearean dialogue, the king wonders "how the very laws I have sworn to protect now keep me from doing protecting them". The point is driven home when the queen is asked what she would tell the council while her husband wages war in violation of the law. "I'd tell them that the very freedom that they live by must come at the cost of blood."

When the queen voices her intentions to the treacherous and conniving council member Theron, he reminds her that the king's war is illegal, and tells her that the council will never approve the troop mobilization, declaring, "I own that council!" His arguments against the war are later shown to be a mere cover for the fact that he'd been paid off by Xerxes. In an example of life imitating art, a high-ranking Pentagon member recently questioned where various high profile law firms are obtaining their funding to defend the accused who sit in Guantanamo Bay. Nancy Pelosi would do well to check for the imprint of Xerxes on her gold coins.

But the movie addresses more than just the Patriot Act or war powers. It also goes out of its way to depict a battle that would allow Samuel Huntington to die a happy man. The Greeks all appear as western Europeans, whereas the Persians are represented by Africans, Arabs, Indians and even Chinese.

Like Braveheart, the movie presents a number of ancient and unschooled soldiers delivering stirring speeches about "our freedom", "our democracy" and even, millenia before the birth of the nation-state, references to "our country". These characterizations are juxtaposed to the despotic slavery of the Persian Empire . The Spartans may have simply forgotten that the Greek empire used extensive slave labor, and that voting was limited to males of the patrician class. And since they were after all austere soldiers, they may well not have known that some historians look to the very Persian Persepolis for the roots of democracy.

But throughout this pro-democracy blood orgy, there can be little doubt that the makers of 300 saved their most scathing words for the broadside against the modern Middle
East. One of the last lines in the movie features an exhortation to save our lands from "the tyranny and mysticism" of the attackers.

But like the bigots who killed Sikhs after 9/11 and the politicians who pandered to them by advocating and passing the Patriot Act before anyone had read it, the movie doesn't do subtlety, or at least, does not do it well.

The movie's initial sequence describes the Spartan process of inspecting newborns for physical imperfections, which if found, resulted in the heaving of the newborn off of a cliff. Since these same Spartans represent white American conservatism, it's anyone's best guess as to who protests for the rights of these killed newborns.

Nor does the irony end there. The movie's goal seems simple enough: dehumanize and denigrate the peoples, civilizations and political systems of the Middle East . Strange, then, that the chosen metaphor was the suicide mission of a few stout believers. Perhaps these Spartans, much like Fox News, bring more credibility to the people they cast as enemies.

A. Arain is a Chicago professional and freelance writer.