In the name of decency, go home to your parents, you losers. Go back to your mommas¡¯ basements and play with your Lords Of Warcraft.I already did that. It's your turn, chum. Put up or shut up, Miller.
Or better yet, enlist for the real thing. Maybe our military could whip some of you into shape.
Though I¡¯m not best-known for graphic novels*, I¡¯ve done a few. I¡¯ve been sketching out a script about one of the greatest heroes of western civilization ¨C Themistocles ¨C the man who actually defeated Xerxes. the Persian emperor, during his brutal invasion of Greece, after the Spartans failed so miserably at Thermopylae. In part, this would be an answer to Frank Miller¡¯s ¡°300¡å¡ a book and film that I find both visually stunning and morally disturbing.OMG, I would buy the hell out of this. I never read or saw 300, but from all accounts it sounded like it had exactly this problem. Sparta was pretty evil and were only good insofar as they were controlled by Athens.
For one thing, ¡°300¡å gave all credit to the Spartans, extolling them as role models and peerless examples of manhood. Adorably macho defenders of freedom.
Uh, right. Freedom. Sorry, but the word bears a heavy burden of irony when shouted by Spartans, who maintained one of the worst slave-states ever, treating the vast majority of their people as cattle, routinely quenching their swords in the bodies of poor, brutalized helots¡ who are never mentioned, even glimpsed, in the romanticized book or movie.
The question isn't how one can read 300, it's how Miller's current comments, and his contemporaneous comments, suggest he wanted it read. In other words, this thread is about Miller, not his "art."Threads don't really work like this. There is no body of arbiters that declare certain aspects of a thing off-limits in a thread while other things are A-OK. Further, "look at this asshole!" threads have always been discouraged on MeFi, so having a vaguely interesting discussion about possible interpretations of something an asshole did is preferable in that way.
There's a meme going around conservative blogs/communities that "rape shelters" have been built at many Occupy gatherings because women are getting raped all the time.Jesus, I should have known.
Also, I'm surprised no one's made more of the "rapists" bit of Miller's screed. Where the hell did that come from?Unfortunately there have been a handful of rapes at OWS protests. One or two, that I'm aware of.
According to Herodotus, an Athenian runner named Pheidippides was sent to run from Athens to Sparta to ask for assistance before the battle. He ran a distance of over 140 miles, arriving in Sparta the day after he left.[110] Then, following the battle, the Athenian army marched the 25 or so miles back to Athens at a very high pace (considering the quantity of armour, and the fatigue after the battle), in order to head off the Persian force sailing around Cape Sounion. They arrived back in the late afternoon, in time to see the Persian ships turn away from Athens, thus completing the Athenian victory.(Oldie but goodie.)
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Way to crap on the grave of one of the greatest men in comics.
posted by Samizdata at 9:54 AM on November 14, 2011 [12 favorites]