Why do we find it so hard in the West to understand Eastern cultures? Please don’t mistake this for a more general rant, as for some reason I woke up this morning once again angry with the movie “300.” I can almost hear a couple of you laughing, but back in 2007 when this movie debuted, I’d seen the previews and knew, just KNEW, that it would be bad. My friends at the time were dying to see it and so dragged me reluctantly along . . . and it was every bit as bad as I’d expected. No, it was far, far, FAR worse!
What’s wrong, you ask? That was a great flick! 300 heroes with crazy-ripped abs holding off a wickedly pierced king and a million dudes in Halloween masks! Awesome!! Perhaps, if one knew nothing whatsoever of the peoples represented in the movie, the cultures presented therein, or the context surrounding the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 B.C. But I’m not that guy, I’ve spent a lot of time studying the Achaemenid Persians as well as the civilizations of Classical Greece, and I came away with a very different opinion of that movie. It was “Lord of the Rings” sort of set in ancient Greece. No less fictional. No less made up. Drop in an elf or a couple dwarves, and you wouldn’t even notice! It was fiction portrayed as history, and that always bothers me.
Don’t get me wrong, there is such a thing as historical fiction, a genre that seeks out seams in our understanding of the historical record and attempts to fill the gap with a plausible story. This genre has witnessed phenomenal examples in works like James Clavell’s “Shogun.” This novel became a popular mini-series in the 80s which inspired me to buy the book, which I then read again and again until it fell off the binder and I had to pick up a new copy! Other works of really well-done historical fiction include “Killer Angels” by Jeff Shaara, “Aztec” by Gary Jennings, and closer to the point perhaps, “Gates of Fire” by Steven Pressfield. More recently, and on TV, we’ve see the HBO mini-series “Rome” which was extremely well done, inserting a pair of fictional characters into the end stages of the Roman Republic, providing a pleb’s eye view, as it were, of the struggles between Rome’s elite families to define and control their evolving state. The authors of these works understood the iron law of historical fiction, which is that you fill historical gaps you don’t overwrite historical fact.
What these works get right is a meticulous desire to portray life as it was, or at least as close as we can come to understanding it through modern lenses. This requires research on the part of the author, A LOT of research, making this fictional genre, perhaps, one of the most difficult and time-consuming to write. In fact, when I recently met a well-read science fiction author at a random social event and expressed my desire to someday write historical fiction, he cringed. He literally cringed and said only, “That’s a lot of work.” But it should be, right? It’s the “historical” part of historical fiction that indicates the work is something more than just the product of the author’s imagination. The genre exists, in part, to help in the understanding of past cultures and world events in a way that simply following historical texts cannot. It’s essentially an author combining the results of research with a vivid imagination, painting a picture that modern readers can conceive and appreciate, allowing them to view the historical facts in a different, perhaps more intimate, light. This is what good historical fiction does for us. It shines a light on the past in a way that is perhaps more interesting, but certainly more personal, than the otherwise dry recitation of historical facts by even the most renowned historian.
But movies like “300” which seek to portray real historical events, do great damage to our conceptualization of history in general. Ask anyone walking out of the theater that day what a Persian looks like. Ask anyone how effective those rhinoceros-driven chariots must have been 2,500 years ago. Ask anyone who learned all they will ever know about the Battle of Thermopylae, one of the pivotal moments of world history, by watching that movie what any of it means to us today. What do you suppose their answers will indicate? What bizarre image of the ancient Persians—and by extension, the Persian people who still inhabit Iran today—are being taught there?
As a society we’ve made a tragic wrong turn, I think, over the past seventy years. We’ve come to see entertainment as much more than the luxury it once was. The proliferation of big-screen movies and worldwide television broadcasting has turned human society on its head, taking what was the lowest social class in nearly any ancient society, actors and entertainers, and turning them into the financial and social elite of today.
Your average American knows far more about the Kardashians or Honey Boo Boo than they do about any single one of their national leaders. People will listen to Leonardo DiCaprio expound on any subject before they’ll heed any educator or researcher who has spent years learning that field. Over time we’ve come to value fiction and entertainment more than we do fact and real life. Don’t believe me? Follow the money. How much do your A-lister Hollywood types, professional athletes, or headline singers make these days? Now how about teachers, policemen, firemen, trash collectors? Which of those two groups of people really affects your life more? I’m not asking who do you pay more attention to, rather who acts daily in a way that really impacts your life and that of your family? Which of those groups could you live without? Something to think about, perhaps.
I guess my concern with all of this is that we seem to be gradually losing the ability to tell fact from fiction. More importantly, we seem to be as a society more comfortable with accepting the fiction even when we know it isn’t fact. This is, ultimately, what bothers me so much about movies like “300.” It’s fiction masquerading as fact. It’s a depiction of an historical event absent any history, and it alters how people see what is portrayed, ultimately affecting their outlook on real-world issues.
But, I've heard folks argue, they never claim this is an historical depiction. Don't they? By setting the movie in Ancient Greece and calling it "300" the implication is pretty clear. Is there any other logical association to be made between the Greeks and the number 300? No, the producers wanted that connection to history to bring folks in. If not, they could have just as easily called it "Lord of the Six-Pack" or, if marketing as a workout video, "Greco-Persian Booty Burn," but that's not the way they went.
The Persians were and are a fascinating people. I highly recommend you look into them. It might provide a better, or at least different, perspective of the West’s relationship with Iran over the past fifty years. I would say the same of the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Mongols, Turks, Indians, and innumerable other cultures out there which are either ignored completely or grossly under-represented in Western depictions of history. It’s a gaping hole in our collective education, and it hinders us in every cross-cultural interaction in which we take part, be that intellectual, political, financial, or military.
The internet makes learning about these cultures easier than ever before, so there’s really no excuse not to check them out. You’re online already if you’re reading this! Just head to Google and type in the name of any of the world’s hundreds of cultures and off you go. Maybe make it a goal to learn as much as you can about a new culture each month, I assure you that you won’t feel cheated of the time and might just gain a better sense of your own place in the world.
Oh, and don’t worry, neither the Kardashians nor Honey Boo Boo will miss you . . . they’ll happily accept the fiction that you’re still tuned-in.
M. G. Haynes