Problems in Sparta
As I near completion of Frank Miller’s graphic novel, 300, I have begun to look for some scholarly advice on the political issues that surface in these pages. I wanted educated support about the representation of gender, sexuality, race, and physical ability instead of relying on my own non-communication studies opinion. Surprisingly, I had trouble locating many peer-reviewed articles that handled my inquiries specifically. There were a few about Zack Snyder’s film version — which I think is an important comic-related material that has been received more widely than the comic — however, I am more concerned with the comic for my purposes.
Yet, this article by Kyle Gervais includes some interesting and insightful material about Miller’s 300, while also comparing and contrasting the movie and another comic, Three (which responds to the others).
Gervais’ article is long and covers many topics from the auteurism behind the original source material, content analysis between all three materials, and historical context (as he is a professor of Classics). My primary take from the article, “This is my Sparta! 300 (1998), 300 (2007), and Three (2014),” is that Gervais analyzed content to make conclusions about audience reception.
His theory is that the narrative strategies of Miller and Snyder’s are effective and entertaining, but both misrepresent ancient Sparta in their own way. Additionally, Three remedies some of the representation issues and provides a more rounded story. While Three sounds super good and I have ordered it to read, I intend to focus on the two 300 stories which Gervais discusses.
The evidence for his theory comes largely from the comparison of each story’s content, from words to panels to narrative structure.
Gervais points out that political issues which can be drawn from Miller and Snyder’s content were in part tempered from the real-life Spartan story. The ancient society was “marred by many unpalatable practices, including slavery, child abuse and military indoctrination, and eugenics. Miller softened or passed over these practices in an effort to maintain audience engagement with his heroes.” Gervais dives into this claim by citing a statistical analysis of panels where the Spartans or Leonidas appear and continues with a dense narrative deconstruction.
Moving to the movie, Gervais offers a few examples of how Snyder revised Miller’s panels to allow the film’s audience more connection with the material. This content includes more inclusion of Gorgo, Leonidas’ wife and the father/son plot of two of the 300 soldiers, plus changes to the character Ephialtes.
Gervais is careful to not support either material as stronger or more inclusive; he points out disturbing political issues with each regarding depiction of rape, eugenics, and war. His content evidence is strong as he compares placement of characters within scenes versus panels, which characters say certain lines plus variations on the text, and character choices like the nationality of Ephialtes. The method of content analysis supports the theory that audiences perceive some very problematic political issues while the stories attempt to promote the heteronormative heroes.
