300 reinvents the historical Persians as racial and sexual monsters to be exterminated onscreen.

Evidence

The Persians are also racial monsters. In an early scene, an African messenger from the Persian court, reminiscent of a cross between a giant and a Black Saracen or Black Turk, arrives at the Spartan court. Wearing a human garland of skulls, he is accompanied by other Persians wearing turbans and face veils. He has a vile hatred for women that is expressed in his behavior toward Queen Gorgo, played as an emancipated Western woman. King Leonidas refers to the Persians as “philosophers and boy lovers” (an ironic charge given the sexual history of Sparta) before the Black Persian and his companions are killed, pushed into a bottomless pit. 300 is full of Persian characters like the Black Persian, brutal and monstrous figures exterminated throughout the film in a series of bloody and violent encounters. Perhaps the most visible and outrageous monster, however, is the king of the Persians, portrayed as a sexed-up giant pervert. This portrayal of Xerxes sent Iranians over the edge, protesting at the individual and even governmental level at what was viewed as a defaming of one of the Persian Empire’s most famous leaders. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 676

Categorization

• XREF: The Black Persian with skull garland maps onto the reader’s giant/Black Saracen monster lineage from medieval chansons geste.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing how Iranian state protests against the film compared to similar reactions over more recent portrayals like the Danish cartoons.