Warner Bros.' "300" is being greeted in Iran with about as much warmth as a U.N. weapons inspector.

While U.S. auds see the film as a comicbook come to life -- replete with hyperstylized action and broadly drawn heroes and villains -- it has a deeper resonance in the Mideast, where it's seen as a distorted view of very real events.

"Hollywood declares war on Iranians," exclaimed a headline in Iranian daily Ayandeh-No.

Javad Shangari, a cultural adviser to Iranian prexy Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, attacked the film as being "part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological warfare aimed at Iranian culture."

While the pic is unlikely to be released theatrically in Iran, pirated DVDs already are circulating on the black market.

"Everyone is starting to react. The DVD is already very available, and people are quite angry," one Tehran-based producer said.

An online petition addressed to Warners has tallied 35,000 signatures. The petition, set up by Canada-based archaeologist Hamed Vahdati Nasab, protests Warners' "irresponsible, unethical and unscientific actions ... while announcing our disgust at such a heresy, we demand an immediate historical review and quick apology from the responsible people."

Director Zack Snyder and the film's producers have emphasized that the film is based on the Frank Miller graphic novel and was never intended to be an accurate historical representation.

But that's done little to assuage concerns by those who see the film's archetypes as Western stereotypes.

Nasab told Daily Variety, "What would people say if they made a film about Martin Luther King (Jr.), showed him as a monster, and tried to defend it as a fiction? You can't do that. It's unethical. This is a national matter for all Iranians."

Iranians are descendants of Persians. The film, which depicts the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae between 300 Spartan soldiers and an invading Persian army, shows them as the villains. Pic arrives at a time of heightened political tension over the West's desire to rein in Iran's nuclear energy program. While the hard-line government in Tehran has insisted its program will be used solely for peaceful purposes, many outside the country suspect the end goal is to obtain nuclear weapons.

Otherwise, the film, with its stylized depictions of violence, seems unlikely to cause any problems in the Mideast. Execs at Shooting Stars, the UAE-based distrib repping "300" across the Arab world, confirmed that the pic would likely clear censors across the region.

"People are seeing it as an entertainment here," Shooting Star's Roy Chacra said.

Thats ridiculous. If they want to make themselves the heroes, they should make their own damn films. Letters from Iwo Jima and its sister film show both sides of the same conflict. However its not possible for every film to do that.

Hollywood is dominated by jews therefore they make the villians out to be arabs. It seems quite natural to me but is not fair to arabs or persians which most westerners don't know the difference anyway. Who goes to a movie to learn historical fact, or any fact? Movies are a lot like comic books. They are mindless entertainment to distract the masses while the advertisers pick their pockets. And so it has been for thousands of years.

Hollywood is not dominated by Jews and Persions are not Arabs.

You need to become better informed.



As I pointed out in my post, there is a difference but most people do not know the difference and could care less anyway. Take a look at the news media and you see the same thing. It's dominated by jewish oriented interests and puts them in the best light and arabs in the worst light. The constant jewish taking of land, brutality towards arabs and others under their domination is given a positive spin. Anyone they decide to shoot is called a "militant" or other prejudicial term after the fact. Then there are the targeted killings, basicly assassinations that go on all the time. They announce that a "militant leader" or some other term was killed and a few bystanders were unfortunately blown away. We are supposed to cheer that they got some bad guys but what happened is that they dropped a bomb on a home or building because of a tip from a paid informant. It's nothing but murder.

Frank Miller is not jewish, btw

Actions of the right wing party in power in Israel should not be used to characterize all jews.

True enough.

I'll agree with that, Rick. However, most jews seem to feel it's their obligation to support whatever Israel does. My point is that hollywood and the news media are feeding us propaganda and it's pro-jewish propaganda.