YouTube of the Week: It's rainin' 300 Edition
Found via The Beat… it’s both hilarious and strangely hypnotic. Want to change your vote now? Too bad, you can’t. But you can talk about the violence (and sex).
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as if it was homo-erotic enough.. lawl
Why did they keep showing Xerxes???
Otherwise, yum.
Gawd!
I’m so glad I voted the way I did. The more and more I think about this movie, the more and more ridiculous I perceive it to be.
Gawd!
You’re just a whiney bitch, Scotto.
The movie is meant to be metaphorical in almost every sense. The Spartans pushing an elephant off a cliff is meant to be no more or less realistic then them going to fight in nothing but speedos, they represent the epitome of human physique and potential. Get out of your restricted frame of mind and think symbolically!
Your just thinking symbolically because you don’t want this movie to be so ridiculous.
I think it is a stretch. I’m an English major and symbolism is one of my things. Symbols are generally objects, not scenes. Now, if you want to refer to it as figurative I think you would have a better argument. But even then, being figurative usually means stretching the realms of language (or in this case visuals). While this is a stretch, it is too similar to what may have actually happened to be figurative. Figurative language or figurative art forms generally try to be a stretching of the imagination. Foreshadowing, metaphor, irony, etc… these are good ways to be figurative. But portraying a battle as a ridiculous battle is not figurative. It is imaginative. However in this case, I do not believe the film did a good job of continuing the suspension of disbelief that any movie is required to do.
Oh, sorry for my literary interpretation. Film as text is a hot topic in the English Education community right now, and I am all about it.
Also… I don’t mean to be offensive, so I apologize if I was. Just meaning to explain how I am looking at it.
All in good debate, no worries. That said – Don’t tell me how I’m thinking, for one, much less suggest you know exactly why I’m thinking that way. I’ll follow your suit and go to the dictionary for aid:
Symbolic -
1. serving as a symbol of something (often fol. by of).
2. of, pertaining to, or expressed by a symbol.
3. characterized by or involving the use of symbols
Figurative -
1. of the nature of or involving a figure of speech, esp. a metaphor; metaphorical; not literal
4. representing by means of a figure or likeness
The first thing I said was that the movie/visuals were metaphoric in nature, which appeases your use of the term figurative. I then told you to think symbolically. You claim that symbolism is one of your things, but I think you’re hung up on some things about this movie and missing a lot that you could be taking from it.
First, I highly suggest this reading, that Tycho linked to last week: http://www.film.com/story/300changesthecgigame/13813411?listid=11597472&genre=movie
It discusses the movie being very figurative, and using visual metaphors, that is a very new thing in movie-making. I won’t bother repeating anything that the article says, I’ll just respond to something you said:
“it is too similar to what may have actually happened to be figurative.”
300 men in the movie vs. over a thousand in real life. Elephants in the movie vs. no elephants in real life. Giant freak-ass monsters and orc-like immortals vs. Persian soldiers? I really think you need to see the movie again, and ask yourself how similar to the events that most likely took place it can really be. If you do not feel this movie is figurative, then I am very glad you’re not a Greek History major.
Hence the premeditated apology. One thing I really hate about this setup is the inability to edit my own comments. I sometimes get caught up in the moment and stick my foot in my mouth (yes, I even have the ability to do this in typing, making me that much more hot headed…. though in my defense the whining comment really put me on tilt).
I think we are going to have to agree to disagree here. The movie is seriously lacking, and it seems to be lacking in a way I can not properly articulate.