[The] fascist aesthetic... flows from a preoccupation with situations of control, submissive behaviour, extravagant effort , and the endurance of pain.
Sounds like a bunch of Spartans with a death wish to me (JY)
Fascist art displays a utopian aesthetics - that of physical perfection.
Oh, the poor old hunchback. Even though he is devoted to the Nazi regime he must be rejected because he is handicapped and will spoil the perfect functioning of the Aryan machine. Let's not even go into the opening scenes where imperfect babies are tossed off cliffs. (JY)
Fascism also stands for ideals that are persistent today under other banners; the ideal of life as art, the cult of beauty, the fetishism of courage, the dissolution of alieanation in ecstatic feelings of community; the repudiation of intellect, the family of man. These ideals are vivid and moving to many people.
I have absolutely no hesitation in calling 300 a movie that promotes fascism. This is probably unsurprising; what was surprising for me was that my students all admired the Spartans in 300, and that many of the ideals that the movie expresses are vey close to ideals that we are taught to admire in our own culture.
