@LK

While fascist is a word bob uses somewhat more often ti describe things he doesn't like, in this case it is more than merited.

Aside from being one of the inspirations for the third reich, spartan culture was one of the more perverse and fucking horrible civilizations in european history. That the persians did not wipe the nation off the face of the planet is a great historical tragedy.

To keep it simple: The spartans dind't belive in freedom. They kept slaves in such conditions that the deep south looked positively progressive by compairson. Killing helots (spartan slaves) for sport was considered an important part of spartan life. Every year there was a great even where the leaders would ritualistically declare war on the helots. That whole final solution thing looks alot less abstract now doesn't it?

Contrary to 300, persian women were actually fairly well off conmpared to their contemporaries in other cultures. And the persian army? Not a slave army. An army of mercenaries. An army of mercs who don't really care about the outcome as long as they get paid is less effective then trained soldiers, defending somehting they belive in.

That had always been the persian weakness in the ancient world. Over reliance on mercenaries.

Essentially the Sparta depicted in the movie is almost entirely opposed to the brutal, bigoted, institutionally pedophillic, socially backwards shitpile that was the real sparta.

So 300 depicts a team of monstrous, deformed brown people attacking the good and virtuous white people. And given how in reality the whites in qwuestion were hands down the greater monsters, it comes off as siding with the spartans simply because they are white.

And moreover, 300 does NOT tell the story as the spartans would because the spartans would not have condemned the persians for slavery, or having no women's rights, no the athenians for being boy lovers. 300 takes all of the spartan's sins, places them on the evil brown people and then says the spartans wouldn't approve.

"Anyway, what do you expect? Bob has a soft spot for anything that appeals to his fetishes, like monsters, Nintendo, super powered teenage girls, etc. We all have our kitsch."

And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact it's downright laudable for people to have something they like for sheer joy, regardless of its quality. That will be my attitude when I watch 3 musketeers. Big dumb action movies with sweet fight scenes? By one of the 2 directors who I've ever seen actually make 3d not look like ass? Count me in.

The difference is I will not pretend it is a good movies. It will suck. It will suck hard. It will be an abortion not only of cinema, but of literature. But, much like the street fighter movie from the 90s, it will suck in the most awesome and entertaining way imaginable.

No one is (or should be) criticizing him for liking a movie tailor made to pander to him. What people have every right to call him on is the utter bullshit of him pretending it is some work of cinematic genius that we are all to dumb to get because he can't admit to himself that it is ok for a film to be bad and still be fun.