300 vs. The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll

This weekend I watched two things: 300 and The Search for the Next Doll (as in Pussycat Doll). Behold! The cosmic deathmatch!

Let's break it down...

Showdown #1: Most Revealing Costumes

The Pussycat Dolls dress like a central casting call for a fourteen year-old boy's hormone induced dream. I guarantee you that I saw at least one of the girls auditioning wearing a Kleenex as a skirt--and not one of the full-sized ones you get out of the box, I'm talking the little ones that come in the plastic package that your mom had in her purse. You know something is up when the largest amount of fabric in a costume is used to make the hat...and it's a beret. Despite the revealing outfits I couldn't get into it, however, as I kept expecting them to stop dancing and try to sell me some cookies. I'm old.

By contrast, the Spartans in 300 also dress like a central casting call for a fourteen year-old boy's hormonally induced dream...only the boy is gay...reeeeeaaally gay. I find it hard to believe that the best trained soldiers the ancient world has to offer would choose as battle attire a change purse and a set of curtains stolen from the set of The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas. Top it all off with a fabulous bronze tiara and a giant wok for your arm and you're ready for a hot night in Thermopylae.

Also, there are lots of flat-out naked chicks.

Advantage: 300

Seriously, I think I saw one Spartan who was covering his genitals with another set of genitals.

Showdown #2: Least Ludicrous Dialogue

300 has some classic moments, mostly because every moment of it simply drips with overblown importance. The first draft of the script actually contained the following exchange:

Queen Gorgo
What would you like for breakfast, my king?

Leonidas
I would like some french toast and a grapefruit...FOR SPARTA!!!!

But The Search For the Next Doll actually has a nubile young girl wearing little more than a smile explaining how she wants to be a Pussycat Doll because the Pussycat Dolls are all about empowering women.

Whiskey tango foxtrot?! Let's stop for a second and break this down:

Pussy...

Cat...

Dolls.

The name of the group contains just three words. All of them are, by definition, dehumanizing to women. Saying that the Pussycat Dolls are all about empowering women is like saying that Martin Lawrence is all about well thought out career choices. If it were possible for a vagina to sing and dance without the woman attached, The Pussycat Dolls would be spending a lot less money on uncomfortable shoes. This girl needs to Oprah up and get a clue.

Advantage: 300

Showdown #3: Most Nauseating Due To Unexpected Spewing Of Bodily Fluids

300 sometimes appears as though someone has accidentally left on a sprinkler fed by a marinara hose. If "Blood" were a character, it would take top billing even above "Ropy Abs" and "Frank Miller's Obvious Issues With Women." Viscera is sprayed gratuitously in a sort of Hellenic Gallagher concert, only more people are laughing.

But The Search For the Next Doll pulls out a shocking upset when the cast is plagued by a flu virus that produces more vomit than an America's Next Top Model reunion banquet. One of the girls even takes a trash bag with her everywhere she goes to catch the spewings. The producers are savvy enough to make sure it's a clear trash bag.

Advantage: The Search For the Next Doll

Nothing says "sex symbol" quite like carrying a big sack of vomit.

Showdown # 4: Most Inspiring

The Battle of Thermopylae was certainly the most significant military moment for the Greeks since the pivotal Battle of Marathon, and the movie 300 dramatizes this heroic sacrifice and resolve in such a way that actually makes movie goers spontaneously generate extra testicles. By buying Greek forces time, Leonidas and his band of 300 Spartans may very well have saved Western culture. Now, 2,487 years later, The Pussycat Dolls are destroying that very culture in a way the thousand nations of the Persian Empire could only dream of.

Advantage: 300

After seeing 300, I rallied several audience members into a phalanx and killed over 40,000 people who refused to throw out their own trash.

Showdown #5: Best Thrusting

This one depends on your weapon of choice: spear or pelvis.

Advantage: Draw

It's an apples and oranges argument.

Showdown #6: Most Arousing

The Pussycat Dolls rely on the blurred, nostalgic sexuality of a wholly inaccurate adolescent recollection. The effect is as if the entire concert was meant to take place in a windowless van. It is rumored that The Pussycat Dolls would be willing to perform either for money or candy, but Ticketmaster has been a real stickler about the "we-don't-accept-candy-as-legal-tender" thing.

Meanwhile, 300 throbs with all the repressed sexuality that the fevered mind of Frank Miller can muster. Remember, Frank Miller didn't just write the graphic novel--he drew it, too. We're literally looking at images that came from inside the mind of Frank Miller, and it is a dark, dark place.

Never mind the women of 300. Their beauty is stark, but they're merely the side dish on a massive, heaping plate of beefcake. In the tradition of Troy, this movie is amazingly Homer-erotic. When you see the men of 300 glistening, it's not sweat. It's not even oil. It's actually testosterone. They are actually marinated in testosterone like big, corded, teriyaki steaks of virility. I won't know for sure for a couple of weeks, but I'm pretty sure that watching these guys made me pregnant.

Advantage: 300

Papa don't preach...I'm keeping my baby.