Flickgrrl

Well, "300" made bucks and box office history .

Is Sparta mightier than Spartacus? Could Gerard Butler best Kirk Douglas?

Out in blogoslavia, the reactions to "300" confirm the aphorism that at the movies, we are who we see, i.e., we project our belief system into our screen heroes. Take a look at what Jim Wolcott of Vanity Fair has to say (see his blog entry "Thud and Blunder"). And check out Victor Davis Hanson of National Review.

Wolcott provides a link to Arion, Boston University's journal of the Humanities and Classics, that published a terrific piece, "Cold War Roman," by Margaret Malamud. (You have to subscribe to the journal.) Malamud talks about how "Roman metaphors were deployed in mainstream 1950s Hollywood films as allegories of global geopolitics" and how "Spartacus inverted the more common signification in popular culture of Rome as an external oppressor who stood for modern totalitarianism."

I solicit readers' interpretations of what Sparta represents in "300." Or for those who just want to succumb to Ides of March madness, give me your Final Four Roman/Classical films.

Mine are "Spartacus," Demetrius and the Gladiators," "Julius Caesar" and "Cleopatra." I also like "Gladiator" and the Eric Bana/Peter O'Toole parts of "Troy."