Historical war epic 300 has been criticised as an attack on Iranian culture by government figures.

The Hollywood film, which has broken US box office records, is an effects-laden retelling of a battle in which a small Greek army resisted a Persian invasion.

 

Javad Shamqadri, a cultural advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said it was "plundering Iran's historic past and insulting this civilization".

 

He branded the film "psychological warfare" against Tehran and its people.

 

But Iranian culture was strong enough to withstand the assault, Mr Shamqadri said.

 

"American cultural officials thought they could get mental satisfaction by plundering Iran's historic past and insulting this civilization," he said.

 

"Following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hollywood and cultural authorities in the US initiated studies to figure out how to attack Iranian culture.

 

"Certainly, the recent movie is a product of such studies."

 

Daily newspaper Ayandeh-No carried the headline "Hollywood declares war on Iranians".

 

The paper said: "It seeks to tell people that Iran, which is in the Axis of Evil now, has for long been the source of evil and modern Iranians' ancestors are the ugly murderous dumb savages you see in 300."

 

Three MPs in the Iranian parliament have also written to the foreign ministry to protest against the production and screening of this "anti-Iranian Hollywood film".

 

The film has already proved a major box office hit in the US where it earned almost $71m (£36.8m) in its first weekend, making it the best ever March opening in North American cinemas.

 

This is not the first time Iran has protested over its portrayal in films made in the West.

 

There was outrage over the 2004 epic Alexander which showed the Macedonian general easily conquering the Persian Empire.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6446183.stm

 

I certainly wouldn't put this type of complex and elaborate propaganda beyond the Elite - they undoubtedly have the techniques and the political reach to engineer such films to released, with or without the direct knowledge of the filmmakers involved.

 

(i.e United 93 :veryangry2: Pearl Harbor :angry: or TV series' like 24 :veryangry: )

Considering most people's general knowlege of history and geography, I wonder how many people who went to see it actually had a clue that Ancient Persia has beans to do with modern-day Iran.

 

Probably not many.

You might have a point there. A large chunk of people probably think Persia is some sort of mystical, mythical lands like Never Never Land or Atlantis.

 

Seriously.

Well, in alot of ways, it is. It lived, it died, and in the centuries between then and now, empires have risen and fallen, cultures have changed radically, and people groups have moved around. Yes, they left behind a massive footprint, but that's what it is- a footprint not a foot. Claiming it as your heritage is one thing- there's nothing wrong with that. Taking offence on it's behalf? It's kind of silly, if you ask me. From what I understand, not even modern day Greeks are actually quite as related to the ancient ones as they would like to believe.

 

Not to mention that much of what even scholars know about the Persians comes to us from the POV of the ancient Greeks because so much of our society is based on things the ancient greeks left behind. Seeing how much time Greece spent at war with Persia, it's inevitable that most of the good Greek war stories would involve the persians, and that there might be an ingrained bias there.