>when frank miller and his artist made the graphic novel in
>1993(?) they were like "oooh, can't wait to make this into a
>movie 15 years from now when we have conflict in Iran...."
>
>the movie was damn near panel for panel out of the book.

Agreed.

Watching this National Geographic show about the Ark of the Covenant right after I saw 300 made it very clear to me that this conflict is hundreds, maybe thousands of years old...waaaaaay before Frank Miller wrote a graphic novel about Thermopylae or the Spartans.

Media has always been an ideal way for supremacists to spread their propaganda. Hitler used it. The U.S. used em all during WWII to vilify the Japanese. They used it in Korea and Vietnam. Always with the U.S.’s point of view and always depicting the U.S. as the heros, the good guys, the saviors. But it goes way beyond Hollywood or even Frank Miller who decided to tell his own version of the "master narrative". Tolkien was able to tell his own and make a fortune even after his death people are still getting rich.