300: An Analysis Of The Movie: Zack Snyder's 300

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Zack Snyder’s 300 is a movie filled with offensive comments and brimming with controversy, yet it is the most refreshing sword and sandal film I’ve recently watched. It is not because of the blood, gore, or muscular men running around in black underwear and red capes. No, it is because this movie gave us Gorgo, Queen of the Spartans. Gorgo is not a standard weak woman who is isolated, glamourous, and on display (Mulvey, 753). She is “a loyal wife and Spartan patriot who fights the good fight on the home front” (Scott).
The movie begins with a Persian messenger requesting the submission of the Spartans to the Persian King Xerxes. During the diplomatic talk between the messenger and King Leonidas Gorgo intervenes by saying “Do not be coy or stupid, Persian, You can neither afford Sparta” (9:35). Outraged, the messenger replies, “What makes this woman think she can speak among men?” (9:39). Misogyny was not uncommon in antiquity. In Hesiod’s Theogony he writes that women are “a great infestation among mortal men” (Hesiod, 596). He also believed that Zeus “made women as a curse for mortal men,” calling women “evil conspirators” (Hesiod, …show more content…

Gorgo stood in front of a room filled with men without fear or uncertainty to plea for the council to send their army to aid Leonidas in the fight against King Xerxes. “Send the army for the preservation of liberty. Send it for justice. Send it for law and order. Send it for reason. But most importantly, send our army for hope -- hope that a king and his men have not been wasted to the pages of history” (1:30:36). Gorgo did the unthinkable when she, a woman, infiltrated a place where only men were allowed to speak and decide the law. Yet, by going against what was acceptable and voluntarily putting herself in a vulnerable position she showed how strong she is as a woman and the lengths she would go to help her husband and protect her

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