Following his recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Zack Snyder’s comments about ancient Spartan practices sparked a backlash, causing some fans to label him as ‘woke.’
Snyder’s history of making controversial remarks isn’t new, but his latest statements, especially regarding Spartan military practices and children, crossed a line for many. In the interview, Snyder discussed what he perceived as the essence of Spartan success, involving underage boys in a ritual that included attempts to steal cheese guarded by Spartan warriors.
This then took a darker turn as Snyder described the boys being given to a Spartan soldier:
“Finally, if you got it, then you were given to a Spartan soldier who raised you. And basically, the idea was that he was your lover, he was your teacher, he was everything to you.”
Fans Labeled Snyder ‘Woke’
This remark led to an uproar on Twitter, with fans expressing their disapproval. While some have tried to defend Snyder’s remarks as a reflection on historical Spartan society, others see it as an inappropriate glorification of child grooming:
“The time Zack Snyder and Joe Rogan worked out the key to having the world’s best military is child grooming.”
The same Twitter user who made this observation also wrote:
“This is some of the wokest sh*t I’ve ever heard in my life.”
As a response, another said:
“Woke? So you don’t even know what that word means. This is history. This really happened. This is not some weird agenda-driven story. Snyder is simply saying how fascinating and downright crazy this was. Do you even realize how many times he used the word ‘crazy’ during all this?”
Upon seeing this, the user revealed the follow-up to this conversation in a video clip, showing Rogan suggesting that the key to a great army might involve homosexual relationships:
“What if that’s the key to being the absolute greatest army: you have to be gay!”
After that, Rogan asked Snyder to ‘imagine if that was applied today,’ to which Snyder responded:
“Yeah, it could be amazing.'”
Snyder Wanted His Son Witness a Topless Woman in ‘Watchmen’
During the podcast, Snyder also revealed an original plan for the DC Comics-based movie ‘Watchmen’ to feature his son, Eli Snyder, witnessing a topless woman in a scene to enhance realism:
“There’s that scene where Rorschach’s mom in the flashbacks, like, ‘I should have had that abortion,’ and she slaps him in the face because he hears, ‘Mom, is he hurting you?’ because she’s having s*x with some John in there. And then she opens the door, and he’s like, ‘Is he hurting you?’ ‘I should have had that abortion.’ Slapped him. And I had wanted the mother to be topless in that scene.”
The studio opposed this idea, and an odd condition was proposed: the topless woman could only be portrayed by the child actor’s real mother. However, this idea was quickly declined by Snyder’s ex-wife, Denise Weber:
“His mother was visiting set that day, and she was like, ‘Oh, you’re putting our son in a movie.’ We weren’t together at the time, his mom and I, but we’re really close friends. But she was an actress. And they went, ‘The only way that the woman could be topless is if it was actually his mom.’ And I was like, ‘I got Denise.’ And she was like, ‘No chance.’”
You can watch the full interview below.
