A Comparative Analysis of the Movie 300 and Herodotuss The Persian Essay

A Comparative Analysis of the Movie 300 and Herodotuss The Persian Wars - Essay Example However, the movie committed major deviations from Herodotus’s historical accounts of the Persian Wars. This paper attempts to discuss the differences between the film 300 and Herodotus’s account of the last stand at Thermopylae in terms of military tactics, naval engagements, and religion. In the movie, the King of Sparta, Leonidas, and his best soldiers confront Xerxes’s enormous army at the northern Greece’s narrow pass and courageously restrain the Persians. And the age-old motivating importance of sacrifice has been preserved. Hence, for people who think that the merit of a film is established firmly by its episodes, and that the value of its rhythm, visuals, acting, screenplay, and historical accuracy are merely icing in the cake, the 300 will be worth a watch. However, for people who think that rhythm, visuals, acting, screenplay, and historical accuracy represent the true success of film, that a setting is merely the objective, and that the objecti ve should never be confused with the action, the 300 is a quite worthless film. Military Tactics In the film 300 Leonidas is depicted as planning to carry his 300 elite soldiers to Thermopylae to crush the Persian army and stand up for freedom. Leaving behind the unsophisticated principle of justice, rationality, and freedom—the Spartans, similar to other Greeks, had a history of trying to subjugate if not really colonize other populations when it served their goals—it is nonsensical to propose that an exceptional Spartan commander like Leonidas would think that his elite army of 300 could spoil the ambitious goal of tens of thousands of Persian soldiers. The enthusiasm of Leonidas is not convincing or believable. The real last stand of the 300 as a hold-back strategy is historical and plausible. Some of the depictions of the military strategy are historically inaccurate. For instance, the filmmakers chose to reduce the Spartan body armors to their symbolic and basic a spects: weapons, shields, cloak, and headdress. The outcome is superhuman images, hoplites stripped of body armors. Any Greek fighter would refuse to go to war without some kind of upper body shield. There are other historical inaccuracies. Ephialtes, the Greek who double-crossed the Greek army, is shown as a badly misshapen Spartan recluse whose betrayal stems from the refusal of Leonidas to permit him to take part in the battle. Gorgo, the wife of Leonidas, who was trivially mentioned in the historical accounts, is granted with a very important role. The domestic political schemes in Sparta are entirely fictional. The route at Thermopylae is depicted as an extremely constricted crevice between upright rock faces. The Greek forces are depicted advancing south of Sparta but Thermopylae is located at the northern part of Sparta. Illusory creatures appear every now and then, like the giant elephants and rhinoceros, at the battle. These are imaginary additions. The documentary The Last Stand of the 300 accurately describes the military strategies at Thermopylae. Most of the descriptions are in line with Herodotus’s accounts. The Greek army positioned themselves in a phalanx, a fortification of encrusted spearpoints and

Popular Music, Youth and Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Popular Music, Youth and Education - Essay Example Green’s Music on Deaf Ears: Musical Meaning, Ideology and Education explains the status that popular music plays on a social standpoint. Green explains that the set-up of music in classrooms came about because of the roles and eventual division social classes in society. Because the only way to measure skills and set classifications for music was based on the performances of the students, the students who received the most education had enough money for private lessons (Green 51). Therefore, on a social level, it was the higher-class students whose parents set the standard for what music was going to be like in the school system. The study showed that students who had parents that were higher up on the social ladder were more interested in music than students who had parents lower on the social ladder (Green, pp 47-48). The higher class of students also had a higher appreciation for the classical training and thought they had a better understanding of the need, awareness and w isdom that this music brought to an educational setting (Green, 51). The willingness to learn and the likelihood that the students in the higher classes listened to this type of music out of the classroom were higher than students who did not receive this opportunity (Green, 52). The liking of classical music in the upper division and the fact that students who were fond of popular music over classical music not being represented in this study shows the role that music played in society and the relevance in education (Green, 45, 48).