Curious, how did your gf like 300? Assuming you went with her that is.

she didn't go. i went to the movie theater on my lunch hour and stayed late to make up the extra time gone ;-)

For a movie that's sorta based on a comic that was sorta based on history, "300" sure is generating a lot of historical discussion around the web. Heh.

Historian: But Master Thespian, I thought you died at Thermopylae!
Master Thespian: I was ... acting.
Historian: Brilliant!
Master Thespian: Thank you!

VDS liked it too.

Now here's the thing. I read a book by VDS that was written (I think) before 9/11 (in other words, before he went crazy and was by most accounts, really cool). I forget the bood, my bad. But in the book, he hated the Spartans as much as this Canadian prof did and for the exact same reasons.

They killed helots, they were unintellectual, they were a police state that disdained the very notion of individual freedom.

That's the old VDS. The new VDS thinks they are the vanguard of Western intellectualism. Oh well. I think we know what's going on here. It's all a huge Rorschach test. You see in a movie what you want to see.

Not entirely sure that Hanson has become a huge fan of the spartans.

http:// corner.nationalreview.com...GExOGNjYzBjMzU=

"Fourth, but what was not conventionalized was the martial spirit of Sparta that comes through the film. Many of the most famous lines in the film come directly either from Herodotus or Plutarch's Moralia, and they capture well, in the historical sense, the collective Spartan martial ethic, honor, glory, and ancestor reverence (I say that as an admirer of democratic Thebes and its destruction of Sparta's system of Messenian helotage in 369 BC).

Why—beside the blood-spattering violence and often one-dimensional characterizations—will some critics not like this, despite the above caveats?

Ultimately the film takes a moral stance, Herodotean in nature: there is a difference, an unapologetic difference between free citizens who fight for eleutheria and imperial subjects who give obeisance. We are not left with the usual postmodern quandary 'who are the good guys' in a battle in which the lust for violence plagues both sides. In the end, the defending Spartans are better, not perfect, just better than the invading Persians, and that proves good enough in the end. "

But in his book the Spartans were evil baddies. VDS explicitly compared them to slaveholding Southerners in their treatment of Helots, etc.

That said, I agree w/VDS (not on Iraq, but in this instance) that the lessons we draw are more important than what actually happened.

Also, I think this has some relevance to the deliverance of Jlem issue I brought up on the previous post on 300.

To the Jews, it's always god that saves ya. This is taught in Hebrew school, to this day. Modern secular Americans, with utterly scientific rational outlooks are taught that god saved the Jews in 701 b.c. (Maybe things have changed since I wa a kid, but I don't think so. If David is reading this maybe he can supply a correction. What's being taught now? But in any case this is what was taught when I was a kid.)

Then they close their exercise books and study algebra. Go figure. John, can you figure this out? Maybe being hyperrational also includes the ability to shove the bullshit in one corner & go proceed with the realities of life unruffled.

"free citizens who fight for eleutheria and imperial subjects who give obeisance": somehow I suspect that he's not thinking of the free citizen insurgents in Iraq versus the soldiers who are subjects of the Washington empire.

"But in his book the Spartans were evil baddies. VDS explicitly compared them to slaveholding Southerners in their treatment of Helots, etc."

To use an overused WWII analogy (this is a Hanson-related thread after all...), I certainly admire the bravery of the Soviet soldiers who held at Stalingrad, and I am glad that they did. That doesn't make me a huge Stalin fan, however. Not really any contradiction here.

FYI: the Hanson book was this and my memory that he compared the Spartans to Southerners was not wrong. He explicitly compared Epimonindas to Sherman. VDS before Iraq was a good classisist. As the Canadian prof and others have pointed out, Sparta was a helot society. The Spartans could spent so much time at warmaking because the helots did all the work.

I looked at both the pro- and con- blog-posts, and while each was generally accurate in facts, my personal impression of the overall movie is very much on the negative side. Seems like historical junk to me.

First, 75% of the movie is fighting and the other 25% is political intrigue back at Sparta. The Sparta scenes are absolute junk---the Ephors, the Oracle, the corruption---all about as historically realistic as a Monty Python movie. The Spartans did throw the Persian envoys down a well, but that's about the limit of the accuracy.

As for the endless battle scenes...well, seeing all the Spartans going to battle in red capes and skimpy swimming trunks really would have worked better in a Python movie.

Among the Hellenes, the Spartans provided the finest hoplites---heavy infantry, which were called that because of the very heavy armor they wore into battle. In fact, in most city-states, the definition of a hoplite-class citizen was one who could afford the complete armor necessary for battle. Maybe next, we'll see a movie in which the medieval European knights all go into battle riding naked on their horses. In fact, the dress, weaponry and combat tactics of the Spartans seemed a bit closer to that of Shaka's Zulus in Africa; perhaps the switch to Greece came late in the scripting.

The Persian side also seemed more like a circus freak-show than a historical army---8-foot-tall emperors, bald giants, hunch-backed dwarfs, masked ghouls, elephants, rinos---I don't remember any of this from Herodotus.

we'll see a movie in which the medieval European knights all go into battle riding naked on their horses

a knight's tale had some of that flavor, though they weren't naked.

"I don't remember any of this from Herodotus."

Again, the movie is sorta based on a comic book that is sorta based on actual history. Which means that you sorta have to look elsewhere for historically correct filmmaking with regards to ancient greece.

Seems like historical junk to me. . . all about as historically realistic as a Monty Python movie. . . The Persian side also seemed more like a circus freak-show than a historical army

Did you watch a single preview before you paid to see this movie?

You know the ones that all clearly showed freaks and monsters fighting to a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack??

while an academic specializing in Hellenistic history did not


This really feels like watching a wonderful, classic Bugs Bunny cartoon with someone who keeps indignantly pointing out that "rabbits can't talk!!!", and is, like, embarrassingly proud that they figured this out all by themselves.

Really, prof, so ancient Persia didn't, in fact, have 20 foot tall battle ogres?? No shit??? I'm glad we benighted masses have learn-ed elders like you around to set the record straight on careless Hollywood mistakes like this.

1. I wonder what the Greeks are making of this. Probably laughing hysterically.

2. About those freaks, some years ago there was a Marine Corps recruiting ad in the movie theatres. Friend leaned towards me and said, "I didn't know we were fighting aliens." Yep. They were space aliens. I think Americans really are idiots.

The more I think of it the more I think that the Canadian prof was right. Sparta was a helot state. If this was left out of the movie that's inexcusable, even for a cartoon.

Well, so long as we all agree that "300" is basically a Bugs Bunny cartoon version of Thermopylae, there's not much in dispute.

I also vaguely recall a Bugs Bunny history of the Crusades, in which the knights all wore cooking-pots on their heads and galloped on broomsticks...

"Well, so long as we all agree that "300" is basically a Bugs Bunny cartoon version of Thermopylae, there's not much in dispute."

Nah, it's actually based on the "300" comic book by Miller. But you already knew that, no?

"1. I wonder what the Greeks are making of this. Probably laughing hysterically."

Perhaps - that would explain why it's smashing their box office records ;)

"The Sparta war epic "300" about the legendary Battle of Thermopylae has opened to huge demand in Greece, attracting over 325,000 moviegoers at the weekend despite savage reviews, the film distributors said Monday.

"The movie has broken every record," said Akis Voilas, a spokesperson for Warner Bros and Village Roadshow in Greece.

"We can easily estimate one million viewers in three to four weeks," he told AFP.

Greece's population is 11 million.

The previous Thursday-to-Sunday opening record was held by "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" with 220,000 tickets, Voilas said. "

http://www.breitbart.com/article...7C0%7C1%7C0% 7C0

Stephen Hunter, IMO the most sensible film critic today, wasn't impressed. (Oh yeah, he thought it was tres ghey. Hunter isn't the kind of guy who makes shit like this up, so I believe him.)

I doubt that now anyone will make a movie out of Pressfield's novel, because, as they say in show biz, "it's been done."

As Raz pointed out a tad earlier, it's gay if you want it to be gay. If not, it's not terribly gay. Eye of the beholder, etc. Women's mags aren't packed with swimsuit models, etc. because most women are closet lesbians.

Not having seen the movie, but ... American popular culture *has* become very homoerotic, and openly so, in the last few decades. Idiot mid-American het boys these days are every bit as self-conscious about their abs and pecs as, not so long ago, only gay guyz were.

So the general homoe-pop-culture thang ain't *entirely* in the viewer's eye. Making American men more self-conscious, more body-conscious, more image-aware (ie., more gay), and more likely to purchase "grooming products" has has been an openly-pursued goal of much of the designer/clothing/media set since the 1980s.

I'll try to dig up some links to illustrate and confirm the point.

1982, a watershed year in American popular culture:

"In 1982 Klein altered the way men viewed and bought underwear with the introduction of Calvin Klein underwear. This may be his biggest contribution to gay culture. To announce the launch of his men's white briefs, he erected an enormous billboard in New York's Times Square, featuring an overtly sexual image of a perfectly formed muscular man wearing nothing but white underwear.

The homoerotic imagery was overt. Questioned about the homoerotic appeal of their advertising by Karen Stabiner for The New York Times Magazine in May 1982, a spokesperson for Calvin Klein stated, somewhat disingenuously, "We did not try to appeal to gays. We try to appeal, period. If there's an awareness in that community of health and grooming, then they'll respond to the ads."

More:

Klein's genius was that of a cultural Geiger counter; his own bisexuality enabled him to see that the phallic body, as much as any female figure, is an enduring sex object within Western culture. In America in 1974, however, that ideal was still largely closeted. Only gay culture unashamedly sexualized the lean, fit body that virtually everyone, gay and straight, now aspires to. Sex, as Calvin Klein knew, sells. He also knew that gay sex wouldn't sell to straight men. But the rock-hard, athletic gay male bodies that Klein admired at the Flamingo did not advertise their sexual preference through the feminine codes --limp wrists, raised pinkie finger, swishy walk-- which the straight world then identified with homosexuality. Rather, they embodies a highly /p. 181: masculine aesthetic that --although definitely exciting for gay men-- would scream "heterosexual" to (clueless) straights. Klein knew just the kind of clothing to show that body off in too....

Klein transformed jeans from utilitarian garments to erotic second skins. Next, Klein went for underwear. He wasn't the first, but he was the most daring. In 1981, Jockey International had broken ground by photographing Baltimore Oriole pitcher Jim Palmer in a pair of briefs (airbrushed) in one of its ads --selling $100 million worth of underwear by year's end. Inspired by Jockey's success, in 1983 Calvin Klein put a forty-by-fifty foot Bruce Weber photograph of Olympic pole vaulter Tom Hintinauss in Times Square.

Idiot mid-American het boys these days are every bit as self-conscious about their abs and pecs as, not so long ago, only gay guyz were.

? i'm still confused as to why working out to impress chix is "homoerotic." i.e., the main reason you want to be slim & trim is still so that the ladies dig you, right? health, not looking like a slob, etc. all matter too, but secondarily. it isn't that american culture has become more homoerotic, it's that women are demanding more attractive males now that they are independent and don't have to settle with someone because that's how it goes. but mebee i just don't get what "homoerotic" is supposed to mean. i mean, i have a friend into big fat old bears. so if i see a movie that is displaying this, that means it is homoerotic for him, right?

I'm wondering too if the issue about homoeroticism is language-based. Perhaps some are thinking of the Greek meaning (homo + eros) rather than the English dictionary definition.

Dienekes did that same thing with: "The Spartans did encourange chaste pederasty of a non-sexual nature".

Also, "brothers in arms" is not incestuous.

Right, now that women can feed themselves and buy their own fancy shit, a six pack is worth more relative to a fat paycheck than it used to be.

The problem with nudity in America is that it is always sexualized. That's why you can't take pictures of your kids in the bath anymore. That's 'childorotic' I guess. I really did not see anything 'homoerotic' in 300. Alexander, OTOH. . .

Also comics and video games have a lot of muscles not because adolescent boys are gay, but because men are primarily psychologically rewarded by status and they like to fantasize about being dominant super males.

Look to the monkeys, Michael.

they like to fantasize about being dominant super males.


;-) and they get all the chix!

Razib: "i'm still confused as to why working out to impress chix is "homoerotic." i.e., the main reason you want to be slim & trim is still so that the ladies dig you, right? health, not looking like a slob, etc. all matter too, but secondarily. it isn't that american culture has become more homoerotic, it's that women are demanding more attractive males now that they are independent and don't have to settle with someone because that's how it goes. but mebee i just don't get what "homoerotic" is supposed to mean."

Guys somehow managed to impress chix before the 1980s. Scrawny Jim Morrison got more pussy than you and I ever will. Men also somehow managed to pursue health and fitness too without getting all particular about themselves. The '60s and '70s were very big on health food, jogging, etc, without being hugely into sexily-sculpted, yummily-photographed male abs.

Nah, however you or I experience these things, it's a simple cultural-history fact that in the 1980s, gay designers targeted heterosexual men in the U.S. This was explicitly discussed and acknowledged, btw -- this isn't me imposing tastes or readings on culture. Designers talked to the press about it. Investors had to be convinced. The press talked about it. Civilizins noticed it.

Prior to the '80s, straight guys generally didn't worry much about abs or pecs. Gay designers wanted straight guys -- who they felt weren't spending enough on upscale colognes, shirts, and undies -- to start being anxious about our physical appeal in much the same way that chix have always been: "Am I pretty enough?" They wanted straight guys to worry about this, and they wanted straight guys to start spending a lot more time looking at themselves in the mirror than they were previously prone to, so they could sell them a lot of products and videos and clothing. Designers were staking their claim to the het-male body.

Prior to "Pumping Iron" (1976) only weirdos and gayguyz worked out with weights. For one thing, it was considered unseemly to spend that much time in front of mirrors. Prior to "American Gigolo" (1980), most guys weren't all that particular about fabrics and cuts and drapes, let alone about moody lighting. Prior to Calvin's briefs (1982), few American guys wore designer panties.

Repeat: prior to the 1980s, looking at yourself in the mirror a lot was considered fruity, if not actually Italian. During the '80s, many people wondered if the designer-fashion-media crowd would manage to put their whole campaign over. Were straight guys such patsies that they'd fall for it?

Well, they were. Or the times were right, or something.

What's funny is what a marketing triumph this has been. None of this -- zero -- was driven by female demand; all of it was driven by the style industry -- perfumes, protein-power people, magazines, etc. They put it over on the entire culture. They cultivated and promoted male narcissism and body-anxiety, then they sold to it. Now they've got a couple of minigenerations of young het men who simply assume that six-packs are necessary, and who fret over their bodily appeal much as women do.

What's funny is how young people, gals and guys both, have internalized all this. They seem to take it for granted that it's all desirable, and even inevitably part of being young and hot.

Gay gay gay!

In vicarious self-glorification there is no "other" to be the object of homoerotic desire.

Incidentally, haven't seen "300" so I have nothing to contribute there.

Jason writes: "Right, now that women can feed themselves and buy their own fancy shit, a six pack is worth more relative to a fat paycheck than it used to be."

Yeah, I think there's something to that. Guys have to appeal to gals in different ways than they used to. If guys aren't going to be out there killing mastodons for the family in the traditional way, well, then they gotta come up with something to sell.

Its weak point is, though, that prior to the '80s women never demanded six-packs. Never ever. The demand simply didn't exist. Slim, firm, and healthy - sure, why not? And jocks could always do well for themselves, god knows. But the whole looking-in-a-mirror, sculpted-six-pack fetishism existed only in the gay world.

So did women start demanding (or expecting, or something) six-packs because they were more comfy in the work world than they'd been? I'm not sure I see exactly how that follows, unless the argument is that the demand for six-packs was always suppressed or latent and was released by higher wages. I mean, why didn't they start demanding better singing voices instead? A nice singing voice is a nice thing too.

Or did gals start expecting and finally demanding six-packs because the design industry *created* the expectation? That strikes me as a more direct explanation, especially given how open the campaign to make men more narcissistic than they'd been was.

Guys somehow managed to impress chix before the 1980s.

Yes, and women earned far less before 1980, and esp. 1970. This has profound implications for sexual selection, and who women now choose to sleep with. On average, signals of performance and quality have become more important than signals of faithfulness and resource sharing.


Scrawny Jim Morrison got more pussy than you and I ever will.

Creativity and athleticism are two sides of the same coin. Both are signals of "good genes" for males. Both have little to do with 'taking care of' a woman. Both kinds of males are more likely to get sex now.

Creativity and athleticism are two sides of the same coin. Both are signals of "good genes" for males. Both have little to do with 'taking care of' a woman. Both kinds of males are more likely to get sex now.

Is there any data on this? And why isn't, say, a high IQ a signal of "good genes" that turns the ladies on?

unless the argument is that the demand for six-packs was always suppressed or latent and was released by higher wages.

Well a six-pack isn't an either-or thing, there is a natural continuum of male muscle mass and body fat percentage. Quite a few men have nice natural "six packs", esp in adolescence. So I'm sure women 'in the day' had a range of preferences, with an average preference somewhat below today's (with women today still having a range of preferences). The media being involved somehow doesn't change much, though I usually think the media caters to changing preferences more than it creates them.

It does seem that mass media has created an unwinnable arms race and status hierarchy in peoples' minds that is unique in history. This has probably contributed to the remarkable rise in depression since WWII, as well as people who either push too hard or simply give up in status domains, such as work (workaholics vs Hikikomori) and appearance (anorexia vs obesity). So men and women may have both had their expected appearence 'means' jolted up some.

Is there any data on this?

Seems like half the articles in Evolution and Human Behavior. (finger ratio and fluctuating asymmetry are frequently used measures in this paradigm)

See here for musicians, here for athletes, and here for IQ.

What I mean is.. has anyone looked at data on the mating success of "good genes" guys vs "good provider" guys over time, to see if they went up over the 70s-80s? Or compared rich vs. poor women to see if they prefer good genes?

Creativity was mentioned as the signal that rock stars give off, but is that really what gets them the groupies? I guess my image of a "good-genes" signal is something that would make women want a one-night stand or an affair, but I can't really picture high IQ causing those.

"The problem with nudity in America is that it is always sexualized."

Yep, and that's why the "homoeroticism" that some have seen may simply be prudery speaking out. I like Stephen Hunter but I'm not saying he's god.

Michael,

We can all agree that gayness has become much more explicit in recent decades and the ads you refer to are examples of that. More recently, there was a gigantic billboard on 5th avenue covering the construction scaffolding on the new Abercrombie & Fitch store that was blatantly gay. It didn't even bother to appeal to women as well as gay men -- it was totally ghey. Didn't raise a peep.

But the stuff in 300?...I dunno, I haven't seen it.

I intend to read the Steven Pressfield book, Gates of Fire, which, I gather, leaves out the pederasty issue entirely. We take from the past what we can use, I guess.

I mean, why didn't they start demanding better singing voices instead? A nice singing voice is a nice thing too.

cuz itz kind of gay dude. (no offense to gays)

my issue with saying 300 is 'homoerotic' is that most of the dudes going to watch this movie don't think it's homoerotic at all. if i was gay it sure as hell would be homoerotic (hell, if there was wrestling and shit mebee, but there wasn't), but i didn't see any dudes sashaying out of the movie theater, so i doubt there were many sausage lovers around.

Nuts.

Women have never been attracted by fat guts. Find me a woman of any age anywhere who has said she finds a fat gut cute or attractive. They may still find excessive muscle mass and definition a bit gross (well, they may say so, although observed behaviour is often different), but a slim waist has always been favoured, everything else being equal.

But being non-essentialist, we are talking about bell-curves and stuff, not 'every woman likes.....' (fill in the space).

Likewise relative affluence is going to be a plus factor, even to a girl who is already rich and independent. Check out the number of rich people who marry other rich people. How many rich chicks do you see going out with really poor guys?

The groupie thing is different. I used to get hit on by groupies who probably wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't been up on the stage performing. That's not down to body morphology, it's a different phenomenon.

It is very common that one group (gays, straights, whatever) will see something intentionally or subconciously erotic in what other groups will simply see as tough, admirably athletic or whatever. This is part obsessive, part wishful thinking, it seems to me. Like straight guys who delude themselves that women are dressing or behaving in a deliberately sexy way to attract them when they are not. Gay guys are notorious for seeing something deliberately homoerotic in something that was not designed to be, but being fair about it, straight guys are just as guilty of this directed at women. I have friends who see intentionally erotic things in literature that strike me as pure wishful thinking/imagination and not the intention of the author at all. Maybe I'm just too innocent.

Having hung out and worked out with some hardcore body building friends, I mean serious body builders who have won competitions, I can appreciate good male musculature without finding it erotic. There's nothing particularly weird about this. If I was recruiting my army to fight the Persians, these guys would be in it.

People who don't do physical training usually don't understand what the attraction is. Those who do have no trouble understanding why they want to keep doing it. A lot of gay guys do it for their own reasons, but a hell of a lot of straight guys (and girls) do it for very different reasons, very few of which are weird. (I exclude going to extremes like men who pump themselves full of anabolic steroids or women who inject themselves with male hormones to increase their muscle development.)

People who don't do weight training always tend to want to characterise people who do it as weird, gay, self-obsessed, etc. People who do it think everyone should do it. I think everyone should do it. I try to tell my mother to do it. When my daughter stops growing I will encourage her to do it.

Anyway, back to the movie, the critics who treated it as a movie of the comic seem to think it is OK. The ones who didn't seem to think it is not OK. Not being a comic fan boy, and being a stickler for historical accuracy in things like costume, armour, tactics etc (no idea why, I'm just like that), I think I'll probably give it a miss. I love a good ancient war movie, but they have to get the armour and weapons right.

What I mean is.. has anyone looked at data on the mating success of "good genes" guys vs "good provider" guys over time, to see if they went up over the 70s-80s? Or compared rich vs. poor women to see if they prefer good genes?

There are no "good" nor "bad" genes. Regarding rich vs poor, it is a constant of Western history that the proletarians (prole=children) outbreed richer folk. I dont know what women want but reproduce with poorer males. Jailed criminals outbreed average population.

Y'all are making a lot of fun points where the homoeroticism thang in popular culture goes. But you're dodging my main point, which is that, beginning circa 1980, a deliberate and conscious campaign to homoeroticize American popular culture was made by the style industry. This campaign wasn't conducted in response to any kind of market demand -- it was straightforwardly an attempt to create a bigger market for the style industry's products. And it was no secret -- it was openly announced, discussed, and pursued by the style industries. They wanted straight guys to become as self-conscious and physically narcissistic as gay guys and women. And it's been a real enterpreneurial triumph -- they've succeeded bigtime.

BTW, my point about Jim Morrison wasn't that rock stars get chix, it's that his body had no build. That was typical of the pre-'80s. Guys could be stronger, less strong, more athletic, less athletic, younger, older, whatever. Guys could even jog for their health and weight and do some situps to fight the spread. But very few guys worked out with weights, or pursued a glorious physique for its own sake. That was viewed as ... well, dubious at best, by which was meant "hey, that's kinda queer, isn't it?"

It all depends who is writing history. 300 greeks losers became heros because greeks wrote the story. One day, nazi will write neohistory about hitler as martyr.

*stops dodging*

OK, point taken - I think we should thank all the gay guys in the fashion industry for stopping us from being a bunch of skinny armed slobs with beer bellies and our jeans hangin' off our asses (although I notice that has now become fashionable, for goodness sake) and persuading us to do something that is beneficial for our health.

"Y'all are making a lot of fun points where the homoeroticism thang in popular culture goes. But you're dodging my main point, which is that, beginning circa 1980, a deliberate and conscious campaign to homoeroticize American popular culture was made by the style industry. This campaign wasn't conducted in response to any kind of market demand.

It was straightforwardly an attempt to create a bigger market for the style industry's products. And it was no secret -- it was openly announced, discussed, and pursued by the style industries. They wanted straight guys to become as self-conscious and physically narcissistic as gay guys and women. And it's been a real enterpreneurial triumph -- they've succeeded bigtime."

True - but why did it succeed? (partially - straight men are still far from "as self-conscious and physically narcissistic as gay guys and women")

Best guess is because there was a demand among men for new ways of competing in the race to impress chicks, and the stuff gay men had been doing fit the bill, and was hence marketable. (Gay men are attracted by masculine traits, women are attracted by masculine traits, hence there was compatibility in approaches. If it works for catching gay guys, it can work for catching straight women as well.)

The problem is, when homoeroticism is deployed to attract chicks, it ceases being "homo" in any operational sense. Historical? Perhaps. But how interesting is that?

Errata:
"If it works for catching gay guys, it can work for catching straight women as well."* needs an asterisk.

*No, bathouses won't work, etc. Compatibility is not 100%, but large enough to "port over" the cream of the crop. (The 6-pack, etc.)

Regarding rich vs poor, it is a constant of Western history that the proletarians (prole=children) outbreed richer folk.

No, it is not. Aristocratic women used to be baby machines. Gregory Clark's "Farewell to Alms" documents the higher reproductive fitness of the rich vs the poor throughout most of western history.

A few comments....

"80, a deliberate and conscious campaign to homoeroticize American popular culture was made by the style industry."

This is correct! No one can deny this....what Razib is denying (forgive me if I speak for you, Razib) is that this is a factor in the movie 300. The buff bod has gone mainstream & has become de-gheyed and the straight guyz who see the movie are just seeing buff straight guyz doin' some killin'. Do I have you right, Razib?

"singing is gay"--very culture-bound statement and not true of African-Am. men at all.

John,

Women have never liked fat men? Au contraire...back in the day of Moll Flanders, when fat meant rich, they liked fat. If fat meant rich today, they'd love fat. Six-packs are a symbol of earnings potential, to put it in shorthand.

Back to Michael,

The "gay" body consciousness of which you speak doesn't apply in the Mediterranean, where showing off for the ladies was and is a part of life. I remember, many years ago, in Israel, a naive American teenager, looking at an Argentinian guy strutting down the aisle of a large kibbutz dining hall. I remarked to a friend who was multilingual and worldly, that he looked like a real fag. She said, "Oh, no, Diana, he's parading down the avenida for the ladies." The nude male body as uniquely homoerotic is strictly an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon.

And yeah, ghey guys can see ghey in anything, including a young dad pushing a stroller down the street, or a man parading down the avenida for the ladies.

correction: "is that this is NOT a factor in the movie 300."

John -- I think we ought to thank gay style guys for a lot of things. It's funny, though, that as the narcissism of straight guys has been amped-up in the last few decades, obesity and other really flagrant ways of being out of shape have increased, isn't it? I'm suspecting there's a connection -- when people get more neurotic, behaviors and results will tend to fly out of control. But I'm speculating now.

Dobeln -- The "why did it succeed?" question is a good one. Based on nothing more than having been there, though, I'm guessing it didn't have anything to do with pent-up or latent demand, on the part either of straight guys or straight women. It seemed to me (and many others, btw) at the time quite amazing that it succeeded. Somehow these neuroses, anxieties, and desires got planted in straight guys and then took root and flourished -- that this demand was really created out of next-to-nothing at all, by sheer marketing genius. I suspect it also had something to do with luxury, prosperity, etc -- people had the luxury to sink into themselves in ways they hadn't had before. Everyone was now a little like a trust-fund kid, taking up all the space in his own mirror.

Diana -- The way that male body-consciousness seems gay in Anglo cultures is interesting, isn't it? I wonder which is more "normal" -- the Anglo view of it, or the Mediterranean. Being interested in art and culture tends to seem gay or at least suspect in Anglo cultures too, while there's nothing gay about it in the Russian or black or French or Italian worlds.

a while back I asked how the Greeks are responding to "300" -- answer is here. (although I have read that bootleg copies are already in Iran)

Michael - I was thinking about exactly the same thing.

diana - Maybe they married the fat guys, but they had affairs with the athletic guys.

dobeln said:

Gay men are attracted by masculine traits, women are attracted by masculine traits, hence there was compatibility in approaches.

Hmmm...as I feel it now, they have overdone it with all that narcissist gay-like marketing. At least for an old-fashioned woman as I am, I now suspect heterosexuality of all those well-groomed well-dressed guys. Plus - someone who cares so much about himself, wouldn't probably have much time and energy to care about someone else.

If I were a nubile girl again (hah! wishful thinking), I would seek for a potential mate only among "plain and simple" types.

I believe the movie achieved its intended impact. See the lively discussion on YouTube (note the comment count):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w...h? v=wDiUG52ZyHQ