David Kalivas
History World Civilization Before 1500
Essay 1
14 October 2015
Hollywood vs History
The movie 300 is about the events of the Battle of Thermopylae. Of course, it is a dramatized version of the actual events of history. Hollywood takes historical events and dresses them up with glam and over exaggerations to catch the viewers interest. This can be bad in some situations because it can leave the viewer with the impression that certain things happened when they actually might not have. The movie 300, while enjoyable to watch, is a very dramatized version of what actually happened during the Battle of Thermopylae.
If one has seen the movie 300, there are many conclusions they might draw about what happened in …show more content…
At the end of the movie, the character Dilios is sent back to Sparta by King Leonidas. The King pulls him aside after he gets an eye injury and tells him to go back and tell the story of what happened and why the 300 Spartans stayed behind to die. This is not actually what happened. -The character Dilios is based on Aristodemus, who like the character in the movie got an eye injury, but unlike the movie, was not sent home to tell the story. Instead, he is sent back because of the eye injury he got. He was disgraced when he got back because he did not die in combat like a good Spartan should. (Herodotus 7.231)
Another character that is not completely accurate is Ephialtes. While he does betray the Greeks and lead the Persians to the path behind the Greeks, the way he looks in the movie is not accurate. He is incredibly deformed and has a hunch back, and he does not have full range of motion with his arms or entire body for that matter. In the movie, Leonidas tells him that he can 't fight because he does not have the full range of motion needed to protect others next to him in battle, so he becomes bitter and betrays the Greeks in hopes of getting rewarded by the Persians. He is promised women and wealth by Xerxes. While the hopes for reward and betrayal are accurate, he was not actually a deformed humpback, but only a local …show more content…
While there were a lot of facts that were altered for the movie, there were also some historically accurate parts. If one were to watch the movie without knowledge of the actual history, they would have a very different and partly incorrect perception of what happened during the battle. It would be a good idea to do some research about a historical event before going to watch a movie about it. It would also be a good idea to not use that movie as a basis for teaching one about what it is based on. While it was an enjoyable movie, it is an unreliable source for historically accurate