300, Hunger Games, & "gay bashing"

Entertainment industries across the globe invested centuries in the marginalization of woman, minorities, and homosexuals. A well-intended movement spent the last decade or so in an effort to correct that.

We now criticize those movies, television shows, comics, and video games that depict minorities, women, and homosexuals in a negative light. We take the time to discuss stories through the filters of feminist and queer theories.

This proves praiseworthy, but, as often the case, we managed to lack moderation in all things. Sometimes, we jump at shadows.

I site a particular group of reproaches heaved against The Hunger Games as my first example. Countless critics adopted a call against the book/movie series on charges of “gay bashing.”

The concept seems simple. The “bad guys” wear cosmetics and flamboyant outfits. The “good guys” don’t. Author Suzanne Collins—the theory attests—wrote her novels to plant seeds of hatred against the homosexual community.

Most of the critics who levy these accusations mean well, but they sound similar to idiots. The Hunger Games contains messages, but anti-homosexuality doesn’t stand amongst them.

The citizens of the Capital in Games do not wear makeup and overly colorful wardrobes to represent the homosexual community. They wear these loud items to symbolize excess.

The citizens of the Capital each exist as the embodiment of excess. They represent the richest people in the world, who enjoy unnecessary luxuries while everyone else must send their children to war, where they fight and die over the resources needed for survival.

The movie serves as a statement about government, tyranny, and war--not sexual preferences. You won’t find an anti-homosexual monster in this closet.

The movie 300 faces similar, far-fetched accusations. I don’t personally know the creators of 300 any more than I know Collins. I can’t pretend to know what lurks in their minds, but I find little reason to believe that 300 showcases an anti-homosexual message.

Critics of 300 allege that its creators tell an anti-homosexual message through the opposed behaviors of the good and bad guys. Our main villain, Xerxes, dresses in jewelry and walks with a bit of the captain in him—Captain Jack Sparrow, with his flamboyant mannerisms.

Forget that the good guys are oiled up, muscled dudes in black, leather man-panties, who thrust phallic weapons inside each other. “Heterosexual eye candy,” as Steven Colbert once said.

The movie never establishes or honestly gives a damn about Xerxes’s sexuality. Even if Xerxes liked other men, I can’t see what difference this makes. Why can’t a story feature a homosexual villain?

The sequel to 300 featured a woman for a villain, yet I never heard anyone claim that the movie served as a statement against the morality of women.

Set aside Xerxes’s mannerisms, and you realize that all his decoration serves not as a statement of his sexuality, but rather that of his self-image. Xerxes fancied himself above everyone else, a rightful king, a god to whom all other people kneel.

The heterosexuality of 300’s hero, King Leonidas, doesn’t make him the good guy. His humility does. He fights, despite his station as a king, on the frontlines with the common soldiers (as common as Spartans get), while Xerxes leads from the rear, too high and mighty to dirty his hands.

I approve that we examine these movies for hidden messages, intentional and otherwise, but we shouldn't label everything in the fridge spoiled and toss it down the garbage chute the second something doesn’t smell right.

Everyone calm down. Take a deep breath. Don’t jump at every shadow.