Some of you, out of curiosity, sat down and suffered through Mel’s “Jesus Chainsaw Massacre,” and came back to report on it. I thank you for doing that so I didn’t have to. I’ll return the favor and tell you about the movie that is sweeping America. It’s taken in $70m on opening weekend (WSJ Print ed.) and also reveals that the Right in this country is even more twisted than I had thought.

“300” is so much more than the uberviolent videogame it appears to be at first blush. Simply, it is a bloated, triumphalist tribute to the authoritarian, closeted homosexual imperialist. This movie has it all: racism, sexism, contempt for intellectuals, bloodshed enough to make Atilla blush, and an unapologetic, blatant, sadist homoeroticism that is tied to the heart of military cultures throughout time. I’ll give it this: if you’re a Drag Queen looking for your next White Party costume, this movie will inspire you like few others in history.

From start to finish, this movie presents the Authoritarian/Bush Republican construction of “manhood” that has kept certain intellectuals and scholars of sexuality in stitches or tears for the last six years. The heros are strong, hard, hard, strong men (the narration stresses that repeatedly) who take quick, bold, physical action, with little patience for deep thought or measured discussion. They speak in plain, simple terms, reminding everyone that they (and they alone) act to save “freedom” and “liberty.” They never stop to consider the contradiction such assertions bring, given that they live in a monarchy in which the ruler contemptuously ignores the advice of his pseudo-democratic advisory council. The ruler also gratuitously provokes the war in the most bloody and insulting way possible, and then rushes off to fight it before his people can prepare themselves adequately for the consequences. Rash and irresponsible action is presented as noble, bold leadership in the face of an impotent and contemptable governing majority.

The 300 fight against an enemy so terrible, it is understood as a disease upon the world, unleashed by inhuman monsters from hell. The 300 fight for the “free lands” while showing no fear of the “Asian hordes” which pollute the aesthetically pure, sparse landscapes of “Greek” shores like countless flies on a corpse. Most importantly, it is the fight that counts- victory is something that will come at some later date, after the brave heroes of this period in history have inspired a new generation with their legendary sacrifice and bravery. Indeed- if they had not all died in the end, the “free peoples of Greece” wouldn’t have developed the thirst for freedom that would last for a thousand years after this event.

But what truly amazes me is that there can only be two explanations of what the film’s makers thought they were doing. Either this is the highest in high camp, openly mocking the current authoritarian cultural narrative in terms so strong a child could understand it; or the film makers are the blind and sycophantic morAns of legend, people so culturally ignorant they don’t understand that to educated folks this is nothing more than ridiculous, childish fantasy and blatantly fascist propaganda. Most critics over the age of forty have had that reaction: revulsion, despair at the death of art, concern that the fabric of history has been torn irreparably and replaced with a narrative of comic book simplification. However, I think there is another important point that I’ve not seen in most reviews.

This is a gay, gay, gay film. Everyone in it is constructed with such strong gay subtext, I can hardly use the prefix “sub.” Although, subs and Doms everywhere will also appreciate the not-really coded moments splattered throughout the film. There are pedophilic elements in it, a contempt for women found in some misogynist gay male environments, and lesbian orgy and bondage scenes. Indeed, this film skirts the NC-17/X label by the thinnest of margins. I’m sure the “uncut” edition will make gay porn collections everywhere.

Let me be more specific. The actors who play the heroes are without exception Chippendale-grade bodybuilders, with jutting chins, pale skin, round blue eyes and silken, flowing hair. They are oiled to perfection and almost never shown in more than a red, red cape and tightly strapped leather loinclothes. Their muscles ripple and flex in the many slow-motion closeups in the battle sequences, their movements hypersexualized to the point of comedy. I was moved to start counting, and I don’t think a director could have put in more shots of long, hard weapons auspiciously placed in front of crotches. Spear after spear rises majestically from pounding, bulky thighs- always finishing in a “money shot” deeply thrusting into the flesh of ravening, almost sexually anticipating brown enemies.

The women are curiously boylike. The one heterosexual love scene is monochromatically androgynous, the “woman’s” small breasts reduced to little more than a soft young boy’s in the play of the blue light. The man in this scene is the model of the ancient Greek adult, the bearded citizen who is only gentle in the love of his beardless boy. The sequence ends with the clear implication of anal intercourse, a theme repeated in the rape scene of the female character later in the movie. Boys are not left out of the sexualization process of the movie’s characters, and are constantly shown grappling with adult men in little more than loinclothes, with much mutual chest patting and softly affectionate rubbing. The Symposium ideal has comes to modern comic book film.

The sexualization of the Other as understood in racist narrative is the core of this movie. The threat to “freedom” and “liberty” is in fact the threat of homosexual desire for the decadent, wildly effeminate, completely alien and nonwhite un-human that is “Xerxes” and his followers, most of whom are clearly not white. I am not shitting you when I say that for the first few seconds, I thought they had hired RuPaul for this role. It has been a long, long time since I’ve seen a Drag Queen this fabulous, from the sparkling metallic eyeshadow to the painfully arching eyebrows painted on with the precision of Chinese calligraphy. Xerxes’ many piercings and chains contrast with his muscular nakedness, and only reinforce the the Drag Queen understanding of his character- and then there are those long, painted nails. The movie’s sound editor modifies the voice of this eight foot marvel of tranny beauty into a completely artificial and deep, lilting contralto. It is constantly and devilishly evocative of lust and perversion.

The key scene for this character comes early, when s/he majestically strolls down from a gilded pyramid of a palanquin, then walking across the backs of sniveling, kneeling slaves to face the Spartan hero-King shortly after first scenes battle. Spartan Leonidas, showing his disdain and fearlessness, stands with his back to Xerxes. The naked, chain covered Xerxes whispers in Leonidas’ ears of the God-King’s naughty servants, and the “lashings” that come before they “kneel to him” while lacquered, impossibly long fingers stroke masculine Spartan shoulders that practically tremble in shuttered, forbidden desire. For the rest of the film, over and over again, Xerxes and his representatives demand that Leonidas “kneel to him,” and the Dom/sub implications could not be clearer.

I’m going to stop here, because if I don’t, this will become Corrente’s finest hour in pr0n- I’m not even half done describing all the homoerotic moments packed into the two hour paen to authoritarian sexuality. But while I am sexually sophisticated enough to unpack this movie for what it is, it is telling that the surface impression is basically of a cross between a Marine recruiting commercial and a Manga themed video game. Clearly, all too clearly, this movie is designed to appeal to uneducated, psychosexually stressed, brainwashed young white men from the heartland and other isolated regions. It segues neatly into doctored FOX news reports and graphic images about our many “victories” in the war on terror and the many threats posed by the “Islamofascist hoardes.” Poor, angry young men who have been told for the last six years that they must make war on all folks brown and gay and different will respond to this movie, and within them the seed of authoritarian closeted homosexuality will take root. One need not be “homosexual” to play the authoritarian sex/power/oppresion game. Matt Sanchez, anyone?

While truly a fascinating experience on the whole, I can’t recommend you add to the coffers of those who created this, or who will be using it to continue their imperialist adventures. But do not underestimate its power or its message. The Authoritarians have given us the clearest glimpse into their fantasy, the fantasy with which they have crafted almost every one of their policies. It’s disturbing, and the plainest indication that they must not only be removed from power, but never allowed to hold it again. Not because of the “perverted sex,” but because it speaks of an empitness, a lust for oppression and domination, that has no place in democratic, compassionate government or humane, affirmative society.