You Mean It Didn't Happen That Way?

UPDATED:  Scroll down for new.

Ephraim Lytle, assistant professor of Hellenistic history at the University of Toronto, wrote a piece in the Toronto Star taking a hit off that umbrage pipe over Hollywood playing a little fast and loose with historical fact in the movie "300".  I haven't seen the movie, but I intend to, so let me get that fact out front.

The good professor has this to say:

History is altered all the time. What matters is how and why. Thus I see no reason to quibble over the absence in 300 of breastplates or modest thigh-length tunics. I can see the graphic necessity of sculpted stomachs and three hundred Spartan-sized packages bulging in spandex thongs. On the other hand, the ways in which 300 selectively idealizes Spartan society are problematic, even disturbing.

He then goes on to list several historical facts that Hollywood takes liberal license with and explains his answers.  I have no problem with professor Lytle dissecting the movie.  If I was an expert in Hellenistic history, I might be inclined to do similar - albeit with one exception.  I might set the historical record straight, but I wouldn't berate the producers for not being accurate.

I can think of several movies, off the top of my head (and I rarely watch movies) that are decent to watch, but their historical "value" is somewhat overstated.  Amistad, Amadeus, Patton, The Longest Day, or just about any movie even placed in a historical context.

Hollywood isn't interested in teaching us history, they are interested in separating us from the cash in our wallets.  They will take what ever license they want to make the movie appealing to as wide an audience as possible.  The history professors guild is not a huge market.

The fact that a lot of people are watching "300" and then looking at the history behind it is a good thing.  Just know going into such a movie, that it doesn't purport to be factual, just entertaining.

VW

10:45 AM:
It seems Ahm-a-nut-job and his Iranian buddies don't like the movie either.

Iran, which turned a deaf ear last year to protests over its attempt to rewrite history through a Holocaust conference, now is crying foul over what it calls a "fabrication of culture and insult" to Iranians in the Hollywood hit movie "300."

"Cultural intrusion is among the tactics always used by the aliens," a government spokesman charged in a statement made to the state FARS News Agency. "Such a fabrication of culture and insult to people is not acceptable by any nation or government and we consider this attitude as hostile."

This is why you can't deal with these unyielding asshats.  They are so stuck in 750 AD, they can't understand that this movie is reality.  It takes a culture that has advanced a little past the dark ages to understand that it is just entertainment and no one thinks the ancient Persians are anything like the draconian dinosaurs that run the place these days.

VW

Comments

[Just another republican]

Ehh they shouldn't be blaming Hollywood, It should be Frank Miller they should be after. I have read the comic (or graphic novel as some prefer) and it is a nice piece of fiction, with even less clothes.

I guess some people can't wrap their heads around the fact that a movie was made off a piece of fiction that was made around a fairly old point of time and added some very creative license too.

In Frank's work, all the Spartans are nude. There are divine oracles and inhuman monsters to round out what we all know as the historical happenings of the encounter, of course this isn't a problem until someone makes a movie about it.

Of course Hollywood isn't being true to history, they were being true to Frank Miller's exceptional art and storywork, and having only seen the previews, that hollywood has done an outstanding job and I can't wait until it comes to my area.

[MOGS]

So...the movie and the graphic novel (which I have and have also read) aren't historically accurate portrayals?

Why professor, surely there is only one academically astute thing to say about this!

Durrr!!!!