How is kindness a bad thing? I thought that was universally agreed to be a good message to have in a piece of media. I guess the excuse is they don’t want media to have messages at all but like, how would you even have a movie where the hero has no values that they stand for?
The infanticide was historically accurate - although probably at a scale less than the movie implies. But it is in sources.
But yeah - the way that the film portrays the treatment of disabled people is especially gross. Pay attention to who is in the court of Xerxes - the acceptance of disabled bodies is presented as akin to the sort of “decadence” of these evil Persians. (If a necromancer brought Edward Said back to life to watch 300, it would probably kill him again.)
The movie is basically a Triumph of the Will for Spartans and torture for anyone who’s actually researched Greek history (Leonidus calling the Athenians “boy lovers” is teeth gritting, part of a Spartan education was getting fucked by older men…)
There’s a difference between historically accurate and implying that the historically accurate morals were correct. I liked the movie as popcorn entertainment, but some of the subtext didn’t sit right with me. So much so, I never felt the need to rewatch it or watch the squeal. Finding out that Snyder has been wanting to make a Atlas Shrugged movie doesn’t surprise me.