That's An Option

300 is an awful movie. You need to understand my opinion of the film before we start. Read my review. Now let’s begin.

Everything in the movie is a device, designed to appeal to a certain something. Some video game nerd got a directing job and is browsing down a self-made checklist of “What Will Make This Movie Fucking Awesome.” The Producers and the Studio don’t have to worry about pulling in the young male audience, considering it’s an ultra-violent war epic with gratuitous nudity and its source material is a comic book. They’ll already be lining up outside the door weeks in advance.

The trick is getting their girlfriends (Sadly, yes they have them, another injustice of life.) to come. Anyone other than the heterosexual, video game playing, reluctant-to-leave-adolescence-and-Ring Pops-behind male is going to need something more than that “Fucking Awesome” checklist to persuade them to pay money to see this film.

I thought the answer to that was muscular men. It’s really frightening actually. They’re everywhere, glistening with sweat, talking about freedom, and…well…being “fucking awesome.” It’s a shallow device, but the amount of bare male body in this movie is excessive to the point that I thought I was watching an infomercial for the Ab-Doer.

But my friend Tyler saw the exposition of man differently. While I thought it was girls and gay guys going to the theater and staring at the shirtless men, he thinks it’s actually the straight men gawking the most. To them, that kind of person, the daring and doomed Spartan, is “an option.”

And you know what? Tyler’s right, not just because I caught him doing push-ups later that night after the movie, but because of the phenomenon it has become in spite of average reviews. People really think that is an option.

It’s nothing new. We’ve always wanted to be the characters we see in movies, to live the lives of people we’re not. That’s what makes all stories so endearing and keeps us coming back to the movie theater week after week: the escapism. But we’ve severely lowered our standards.

I mean, come on people. Gerard Butler? This is the kind of person we envy? This is whom we want to be? The guy’s main contribution to the world is playing the Phantom of the Opera in an equally crappy screen adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Why him? Because he bangs a hot queen on the screen for five minutes and has a digitally-enhanced six-pack? Go buy a magazine, for the love of God. Take your soft-core porn elsewhere and leave my movies alone.

What is so appealing about these Spartans? They don’t even win. I’ve heard the argument that it’s the honor of dying in the name of freedom, but that’s bull. We wouldn't have a shortage of troops in Iraq if people wanted to die in the name of freedom. Maybe the Army should change their uniforms from desert fatigues to capes and panties. Enlistment would soar.

And here's a history lesson for you all: the Spartans were not fans of freedom. Not in the cliched "Muslims hate freedom" sense, but in the we're-an-oligarchical-society-that-constantly-fights-with-the-democratic-Athenians sense. And the Persians weren't terrible people. They had an empire, but the different regions were allowed to govern themselves autonomously. Maybe I shouldn't have watched The History Channel before seeing this movie. That was my error.

I just watched The Philadelphia Story the other night. Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart: those are guys I would want to be, the "option" I would pursue. Sure, they're fully clothed and not chopping people's heads off, but it's attainable. I can be quirky and witty like Cary or likeable and wholesome like Jimmy, and it doesn't require push-ups.

Plus wearing Fruit of the Looms and a bath towel around my neck like a cape was what I did as a kid to be Superman. I'm not about to go back to doing that over this film. Superman could fly, see through walls, and never get hurt. A Spartan can...win a sit-up contest? I'm sorry, it's not an "option."

A Lesson in Learning

"Well, I hope you learned your lesson."

I was three years old and had just left the Emergency Room. By this time, I was becoming a frequent flier to the ER, and had there been some award redemption process I would have been the proud owner of something new and shiny. Perhaps a toy ambulance. That would be fitting.

This time it was Ant Killer. I had wandered off from my mother at a home and garden store, like mischievous little boys so often do. Unfortunately, I was not a plant enthusiast. Instead of daffodils and cacti, a bottle of toxic ant killer caught my eye. I picked it up and proceeded to march around with it like a two-foot tall drum major.

I've tried to remember why this seemed like a good idea at the time, but it's beyond me. We didn't have an ant problem at home, nor was I thirsty or anything. Maybe the bottle was shiny. I have, and have always had, an affinity towards shiny objects. One of my biggest fears is that someone will create a giant shiny human zapper (a la the current bug zappers) and that I'll be unable to resist. Or that some divine creator realizes his mistake and turns me into what I should have been: a moth. Or that my pillow is alive and will smother me one day for all the abuse I've done to it. I'm afraid of a lot of things.

When my mother found me and yelled at me to put it down, I did. Forcefully. That bottle hit the ground with enough force to frighten residents of San Francisco. The insecticide splattered all over my body, reducing me to tears and the workers and my mother to hysterics.

They hosed me off with a garden hose, which I suppose is appropriate given where I was. Most kids probably would love getting hosed down. It's what kids do: run around outside through the sprinklers with no clothes on, waiting for the Ice Cream truck to pass so we can buy something overpriced and probably orange. In another circumstance, I would have had the time of my life. This time, I'm pretty sure I just cried.

I was taken to the ER where they decided to (surprise) hose me off some more. It's hard to imagine what my chart looked like after they finished examining me. Symptoms: chemical burns all over body. Treatment: THE HOSE!!! So either ER doctors are as smart as garden store workers, or garden store workers are untapped medical geniuses. I can't recall whether they used a garden hose, though. Is there such a thing as a sterile medical hose? More importantly, do the hospital employees run through it with no clothes on when we're not looking? Because then maybe I shouldn't have dropped pre-med.

The point is: I learned my lesson. Never again have I carelessly transported a container of hazardous chemicals. I rarely even go into a garden store anymore and when I find a bug indoors, I catch them and release them into the wild like Ranger Rick would want me to. Conditioning worked. For all intents and purposes, I'm cured.

So why have I stopped learning? Why do lessons no longer change my behavior? I no longer use life experiences to better myself and what I choose to do with my life. And I don't know why.

Trying to make a list of things I've messed up recently is most easily encompassed by the two words "my life." It's so wide-ranging that I'd have to present a plethora of examples just for a stranger to understand. And mother told me never to talk to strangers.

My life is by no means terrible. It's actually pretty damn good, and my bitching and moaning could probably tick a lot of less fortunate people off. I'm sorry if I have. It's not my intention.

It's just that no one likes getting the same thing wrong over and over again. When you take a test about U.S. history and get a question about who was the third president of the U.S. wrong, your teacher tells you the right answer: Thomas Jefferson. Now imagine that you keep writing John Adams, even though you know (you know!) it's good old TJ. No matter what you do, you can't get the question right. That's my frustration.

Today is St. Valentine's Day. But it's really just another Groundhog Day. Because just like Bill Murray in the film, I wake up each day facing a series of the same. I will make the same mistakes I made the day before, regardless of whether Andie MacDowell is around (God, I hope not) or I'm in Pennsylvania (see previous paranthetical quotation). It just keeps happening.

In writing for television, characters move in a circular fashion as opposed to film where the character development is linear. Film characters start with a set troubled personality and fix their problems as the plot progresses so at the end they've completed their development arc. Michael Corleone goes from timid estranged son to the new Godfather. On the other hand, TV characters are created as likeable flawed people who throughout an episode try to correct their flaws but end up back where they started so the next episode can attempt the same. Those people on Lost are still on the island, don't forget. I obviously belong on TV.

A lot of people wish they were kids again. They want to return to those days of yore when they had no worries or cares. Life seemed endless and the weight of the world slid off one's shoulders like a cascading waterfall.

I want to be a kid again too. Not for the lack of responsibility, but for the malleability, the ability to learn and change. Children celebrate in June because school lets out for summer. No more Mrs. Diamond and her yard-long finger nails. I yearn for August when instruction resumes, for Mrs. “Demon” to pinch me and correct my faults.

There's a CVS pharmacy just down the street. It's 30 degrees and snowy outside, but they might still have pesticides for sale. I might catch hypothermia, but a good hosing seems to be my first homework assignment.