Upon viewing 300 for a second time....

[theatokos]

I still love it. It's fantastic. It's CAMP. Conservative camp. alizarin71 says it can't be camp if it's unintended, but I think I have to differ on opinion. In fact, it fits in the same category as Flash Gordon (the 1980 movie). I LOVED this film. It''s been a favorite of mine since I was 7. What's not to love about cartoon characters, Merciless Ming and his sexy temptress Asian hottie daughter, naive "feminist" journalist, blonde superhero football player..... oh it's so great. And a Queen soundtrack to boot! Absolute awesome fun.

Like, 300. Rock-ish soundtrack, cartoon characters and visuals, also based on a cartoon/graphic novel, ridiculous over the top in masculine hoo-ha. It's just sheer absurd fun. And Gerard Butler as Leonides reminds me so much of Brian Blessed playing Prince Vultan in Flash. Bright white teeth and beard and all.

Seeing this movie makes me want to man-up and kick some ass. Energy which I can apply to even my studies. Discipline and focus are positive qualities. It also makes me want to mate. Alas, Adam doesn't come back from New Mexico until tomorrow. And I suppose I am *already* pregnant.


********
In other news, I have consumed nearly a whole quart of orange juice today. Oh glorious delicious nectar of the sun gods. AND - I had a prenatal appointment today and I heard the Pea's heartbeat. !!!! It was WAY cooler than I expected it to be. It's alive and responsive! It was squirming away from the doppler sounds.... a good sign.

Comments

[erinya.livejournal.com]

Yay for the squirmy Pea!

I take it back...I don't have juice cravings like that.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Yeah..... an entire quart. In the space of hours. It was better than food. I think it did the trick though. No need for it this morning.

[hrafntinna.livejournal.com]

Still haven't seen 300. Still don't intend that to keep me from talking about it.

I wonder if there isn't a good comparative in Wagner. Great stuff, bombastic, silly on many levels, beautifully constructed. Some of the implicit messages, however, are not so great.

I love Flash too, and it is great camp. But when they made the movie, they had the good sense to take the lion's share of the Yellow Fear anti-Asian crap out of the old strip.

Okay, I'll stop.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Re: Flash. Yes, but it didn't stop the whole Asian stereotype from being present, or the white American saves the day. The only black people in that film are slave looking silent guys. Whoa.

The modern political hoo-ha in 300 is way more on the surface (freedom isn't free, etc), but it's such total bombast, especially in relation to the twisting of ancient history and a 9 ft tall drag queen of a Xerxes.

I'd love for you to see it.... I think you'll either be horrified by it, for the same reasons everyone else I know, or you'll love it cuz it's eye candy and ree-dick-u-luss.

campy mcamp

[howilearned.livejournal.com]

Camp is a great thing. And I'm gonna have to disagree with your friend: I think camp occurs when it is unintended. Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series is one of the few examples of consciously constructed camp. There has to a be seriousness there, otherwise its self-consciousy and cheesy; not that these are bad things, but not camp.

I must confess, I dislike 300, perhaps for the barely implicit messages that hrautfina mentions. Part of its being a man in already overly masculine culture. Also, graphic violence as entertainment turns me off. Don't think its good for humanfolk, especially the 12-year olds sitting next to me in the theater. Stylistically - pretty frickin' cool; and I am rethinking my assessment of the acting and script in light of your pointing out of the camp factor.

Yay for the pea's heartbeat. That does sound pretty cool. Any my god that's a lot of orange juice. The economy may be taking a sharp downturn but as long as you're preggers Tropicana and Minute-Made will do just fine.

Re: campy mcamp

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

I though the quart had done the trick, but I had to run out last night and get more. Whoa. I bought a gallon this time. It's unreal. My cravings haven't been all that strong, but HOLD UP! The need for OJ is real.


Also, I am the only person, save for one very conservative friend of mine, who liked 300. All my more progressive liberal friends can't stand it. Of course I caught the baloney rhetoric. I thought it was just so absurd that it tipped into hilarious. And no, it's not a movie for 12 yr olds. The violence was just done so "artistically" that I must confess I found it way cool.

Re: campy mcamp

[hrafntinna.livejournal.com]

I met someone once whose whole field of study was camp. That is, she studied camp. I wonder what happened to her.

Whether or not 300 is camp, I really just thought the timing was idiotic, rather as if Flash Gordon had hit the theaters just as we were neck-deep in diplomatic maneuvering with North Korea. That was my chief beef, as it were.

Beef or no beef

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

I totally think the whole propaganda thing is real and ridiculous. 100%. But I still marvel at the glory. Sure, other people may have been sucked in by the rhetoric and at this point, I don't care. The movie was made and I am grateful for my critical thinking skills so that I can revel in the absurdity of it all.

Re: Beef or no beef

[(Anonymous)]

I do agree with you about how gorgeous the movie is. If the messages hadn't been so discordant with my own values, I would have gotten swept up in it, and I did a little anyway. ...Unintended camp is called, according to an art-criticism article I read 15 years go, kitsch. But intention is all about context, and I think you blessedly got to see 300 in the context of an inner laugh track. On its own, that movie took itself much more seriously than Flash Gordon (yay) ever did. And I think a lot of my reaction agin' it is for exactly the reason Hrafntinna said: the timing blows.

Re: Beef or no beef

[alizarin71.livejournal.com]

(that was me.)