300: fact or fiction?

By Melissa Mongi
Senior Staff Writer
March 28, 2007

To entertain or to educate: that is the dilemma. Over the years, historical fiction put to film has gained attention and success in box offices around the world. Yet, should truth or entertainment be the ultimate goal in Hollywood? When has a business based on entertaining the masses ever truly needed to concern itself with being honest? Furthermore, if a film is based on history, can the historical value alone create an entertaining film?

The movie 300, based on Frank Miller’s comic, is a retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, where King Leonidas and his Spartan warriors fought King Xerxes and his massive Persian army. While that is the basic recounting of the historical event, the film merges history and fantasy to make an epic film. The question remains: is the point of the film to entertain or educate?

Some might argue that while preserving entertainment value Hollywood, and its loyal viewers, lose total truth of which they should strive. Or is it in the entertainment that the viewer makes the choice to continue his or her knowledge on the historical event? I chose the latter.

After seeing 300, I decided I would move to Greece and find the very spot where the Spartans fought. Rethinking this rash decision, I decided to further my personal knowledge of what from the film was historical truth and what was Hollywood hype.

Thermopylae was a pass that the Spartans defended in a battle against the Persians, led by Xerxes, in 480 B.C., according to the book History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great. The battle of Thermopylae is important in depicting the military power the Spartans proved by holding off the Persians as long as they could. Likewise, 300 is a movie about the defense of Thermopylae from the Persians and the glory that came from holding them off.

According to Ephraim Lytle, assistant professor of Hellenistic History at the University of Toronto, 300 selectively idealizes Spartan society. Now, I’m sure Lytle is probably correct in the emphasis 300 placed on the Spartan soldiers’ abilities. Nevertheless, any history course I have ever taken has, likewise, emphasized the Spartan military as the most formidable in the Greek world. I would like to think my history teachers, history books and research has not lied to me.

With this, 300 succeeded in its attempt to historically document Sparta’s military competence. Perhaps Spartans could not throw a spear quite as accurately as the movie emphasized, but it was pretty exciting watching well-trained soldiers do what their training taught them.

Director Zach Snyder argues that 90 percent of the film is based on historical accuracy, although most of the film was created with CGI. Snyder also attests to the fact that the narrator of the film, a soldier named Dilios, is “a guy who knows how not to wreck a good story with truth.” Therein lies the ambiguous nature of 300 that forces me to do more personal learning. Is it history? Is it a good story? Does it matter either way?

Historian Paul Cartledge, author of Thermopylae: The Battle that Changed the World offered, after seeing the movie, that the historical record is taken from Book 7 of Herodotus’ Histories. Cartledge notes that the movie leaves out how the Spartans fought alongside a faction of Athenians who fought at sea, while the movie keeps in a seemingly weak Athenian army. Likewise, he recognizes the film’s addition of fantasy fiction with monster-like adversaries. However, Cartledge argues that the movie understands the Spartan soldier, as well as the role women played in reinforcing the male “martial code of heroic honor.”

The movie veers from the historical to the fantastic in every action-packed scene. Loaded with historical quotes and non-historical characters and sub-plots, the movie stands on its own in entertainment value. If you want 100 percent honesty, I would find a good documentary on the subject. Otherwise, 300 is a good movie that comes through with awesome fight-scenes and a clear message: don’t mess with Sparta.

mongim1@lasalle.edu