From "24" To "300"?

The sadist-bigot trend continues in the popular culture, according to Slate:

Here are just a few of the categories that are not-so-vaguely conflated with the "bad" (i.e., Persian) side in the movie: black people. Brown people. Disfigured people. Gay men (not gay in the buff, homoerotic Spartan fashion, but in the effeminate Persian style). Lesbians. Disfigured lesbians. Ten-foot-tall giants with filed teeth and lobster claws. Elephants and rhinos (filthy creatures both). The Persian commander, the god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is a towering, bald club fag with facial piercings, kohl-rimmed eyes, and a disturbing predilection for making people kneel before him.

Meanwhile, the Spartans, clad in naught but leather man-briefs, fight under the stern command of Leonidas (Gerard Butler), whose warrior ethic was forged during a childhood spent fighting wolves in the snow. Leonidas likes to rally the troops with bellowed speeches about "freedom," "honor," and "glory," promising that they will be remembered for having created "a world free from mysticism and tyranny." (The men's usual response, a fist-pumping "A-whoo! A-whoo!" sounds strangely fratty.) But Leonidas is not above playing the tyrant himself. When a messenger from Xerxes arrives bearing news Leonidas doesn't like, he hurls the man, against all protocol, down a convenient bottomless well in the center of town. "This is blasphemy! This is madness!" says the messenger, pleading for his life. "This is Sparta," Leonidas replies.

Or "stuff happens," as someone else remarked. A reader counters:

I think there’s a huge flaw in trying to look for pro-Iraq War messages in 300: It’s a direct adaptation of a comic that was produced in the late 1990’s, long before 9/11, Iraq, Abu Ghraib, the torture chic of 24, etc.  It’s about what it’s about: A small force working to repel an imminent invasion by a large empire, and an up-close look at the unpleasant reality that ideas like life, freedom and independence are ultimately upheld through violent struggle.  You can twist that around to make this or that point about our current conflicts from either direction, if you try but to say that the whole work was made specifically to indulge in these issues really misses the mark.

I haven't seen the movie. If I do, I'll blog my own view.