Warring over ‘300’

Date

March 17, 2007

Category

Heritage | History | Iran | Issues

In a scathing attack on the producers of the movie 300, Maneck Bhujwala comments

Barry Koltnow’s article, the “Mighty Spartans” [Entertainment, March 9]quotes comic-book artist Frank Miller saying, “There’s no reason to trust Hollywood…” with reference to the new movie “300.” I agree with Miller and find the movie grossly misleading and offensive to millions of Persians.

Is it our current political antagonism towards Iran that encouraged the movie director to misrepresent Persians as monsters and bad guys or was it total ignorance of history? The standing ruins of Persepolis, the palace of Persian king Darius the Great clearly shows elegant looking carvings of King Xerxes I and Persian soldiers, that are nothing like the punk-rock looking character in the movie.

And, the director is quoted in the news as saying that he and his studio staff discussed calling the “bad guys” Zoroastrians instead of Persians in light of the political sensitivities. This is even worse, and most offensive to all Zoroastrians who follow the oldest monotheistic religion founded by Iranian prophet Zarathushtra 4500 years ago. It shows cowardice and ignorance about the Zoroastrian religion and complete disregard for its followers.

In today’s age of diversity awareness and interfaith harmony, 300’s director has shown irresponsible behavior for which he should apologize to Persians and Zoroastrians.

Maneck Bhujwala

Original article thread here