our penises will blot out the sun

I MET a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-- PB Shelley


"A homosexual with power... that's scary." - Harvey Milk

[this post contains spoilers for both Watchmen and 300. please be advised.]


So I've been reflecting on it for a few days and I think I found the common thread between Zack Snyder's versions of Watchmen and 300. (I quite liked both films and found them engaging and well executed)

Gay panic pervades both films. Fear of gay power most of all.



Look at the villains. In the comic, Ozymandias is a square-jawed, Aryan ideal. A kingly man in his upper thirties or forties. In the movie, Snyder made him a chinless, effeminate David Spade-alike that you wanted to punch in the face, wearing a shiny purple sport coat and a butterfly/flower lapel brooch. Jesus.



Oh, and there's Veidt's skyscraper, with a big glowing purple triangle looming over the city of New York. And in the opening credits, the first time we see Veidt, he is walking into Studio 54 accompanied by glam rockers and the Village People (seriously). When Rorshach and Nite Owl are investigating Veidt's computer, there's a folder in his hidden file directory named "BOYS". One might surmise that Veidts' tastes run to the classical greco-roman in many things. Veidt is enormously rich, could buy and sell General Motors and Chrysler in this world. A modern corporate Alexander the Great, as he calls himself. And his fighting ability is unparalleled, he kicks Rorshach's and Nite Owl's butts in hand to hand combat and they're no slouches.



And then there's King Xerxes in 300. Why, it's another ambiguously gay powerful classical king. Cultured, bejeweled, muscular, throws lavish parties, and commands an army of flamey followers. Preaches tolerance and acceptance to the disenfranchised, such as the crippled wannabe who was rejected from the Spartan army. Xerxes takes the reject under his wing and tempts him into betraying his own countrymen, with promises of riches and sex.

And what do both of these villains want? World peace. Unity. Tolerance. Coincidentally under their rule. Veidt is a 'pacifist' and 'vegetarian' ('like Hitler', sneers Rorshach). The other corporate heads clearly consider him a liberal do-gooder, with his 'free energy'. ("another word for communist", sneers one business-suited CEO).

And both these classically-inspired, over-cultured gay kings end up winning in the end. The Spartans are crushed by overwhelming force, and the gay pride parade of Xerxes' army rolls over them - but in the long run, as the movie's closing points out, the ideals of the noble, manly Spartans win (incidentally the historical Spartans had nothing to do with 'democracy' or 'freedom' of any kind). Veidt wins in his nefarious plot to nuke several cities, killing millions, to blame it on Dr Manhattan and unite the world in peace, but Rorshach's journal at the New Frontiersman makes it clear that this 'hippy dippy love fest' isn't going to last too long.

The audience is left overwhelmed by the action spectacle, angry at the sneering, richer-than-you faggoty gay overlord, and sympathizing with the rag tag opposition.

Added note:

It's important to note that the abs and muscles so fetishized in 300, and Dr Manhattan's own body and his big naked wang, are part of this undertone. Dr Manhattan is a manly man, we SEE it flat out, as is Rorshach, the Comedian, and even flabby Nite Owl (once he comes around and rediscovers his sexuality by fucking Silk Spectre in the owl ship). I did not read the Spartans as gay in the slightest when I saw 300. They were idealized MEN.

Snyder's problem is certainly not with the male physique. He has a problem with effeminacy. Watchmen and 300, the filmed versions, put manly, nearly-perfect ideal MEN up against immensely powerful, wealthy, effeminate, less-than-manly villains. And then the manly men lose, but the thread is left open for us, the presumably manly men viewers, to take up the fight.