Why do modern Iranians have their panties in a bunch about Thermopylae?

Question

Did people of English ancestry get riled up after 'Braveheart'? After all, Mel Gibson's retelling was hardly historically accurate, and portrayed the English as both mean and incompetent. The English looked even worse when they lost their grip on France to a little girl in 'Joan of Arc', but still no complaint. Was there a public outcry from Egypt after Charlton Heston delivered his people from slavery in 'Ten Commandments'? Or how about the Italian reaction to 'Spartacus', where a Thracian-born slave brings the Roman Empire to its knees?
Apparently these other cultures that have been maligned by ancient history have managed not to take it personally. Are Iranians just really thin-skinned?

Answer 1

I couldn't agree with you more. It has to be a case of ignorance coupled with a regime who stirs up its people with vitriol and rhetoric. Honestly, how many Iranians have even seen the movie? How many theaters over there are showing it, few or none at all? This is why it's so hard to take whatever comes out of there seriously.

Answer 2

The Iranis are upset because it serves the purposes of their government to stir up anger in their population. You have to consider who you are dealing with.

The Irani leadership are typical of the kind of conquering regime that seeks to impose its will on the rest of the world without understanding just how big the world is, or how huge a task they have taken on. Hitler was like that, as was Tojo.

Extensive travel would help a lot of these people understand just what world conquest entails.

Right now we have the Iranian government, fresh off their world symposium for holocaust deniers and other Jew haters, busy building an atomic bomb and attacking British ships in the Persian Gulf. Even the most lunatic bunch of savage fools must realize that they have to keep thier public angry, so they will not care what the government does.

Never mind the damned Spartans, anyway. Marathon and Salamis were the battles that kicked Cyrus and Darius out of Greece. The Spartans were heroic, and were betrayed in the end by a capitalist with more loyalty to his pockets than to his country. In that sense the true story reflects what is being done to our troops in Iraq now.

Answer 3

The difference is education. The rank and file of Iranians get their panties in a bunch because their leaders tell them to. They have not been educated enough to form their own opinions about anything outside their own lifetimes.

Do you think anyone outside the Iranian government has seen 300? Do you think any of their citizens are even aware that 300 happened nearly a thousand years before Muhammed? No, that wasn't given to them. They know it was Greeks against Persians and they are Persians. That's probably all they were told.

Answer 4

The comic book movie of "300" is pretty inaccurate about the battle at Thermopylae. The movie's depiction of the Persians is just red meat for the West.

The real story is exciting enough without having to make a freak out of Xerxes.

But it is only a movie.

Answer 5

Having done nothing useful for over a thousand years, they cling to every insult and tradition from Persia and the times before then and fight among themselves about splits that took place 1500 hundred years ago. And just think, Pentacostal Christians was the same thing for the rest of us.

Answer 6

300, comes at a time when Bush is making war like noises at Iran then a movie that paints them as perverts and sadistic murders? Considering recent history of US policy it hard not to see their case for worry.

Answer 7

because they are still as inept as shown in the movie and the truth hurts.

Answer 8

I don't think they are really bothered. It's such a bad film