I've been asked by a lot of people why, as a nickname and any other time an alias might come in handy, I invariably take on the alter-ego, "John Spartan"... people who have known me for a while know it took me a while to finally settle on a nickname that I liked.
My usual response when people ask is, "It's a long story."
Well, here's the long story.
First and foremost, the actual character name John Spartan comes from a movie that came out a few years ago, Demolition Man . "Demolition Man" comes from a song by the same name on Police's Ghost in the Machine. The movie starred Sylvester Stallone as John Spartan, and Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, Denis Leary, and Rob Schneider.
Demolition Man was a (sub-?) standard action flick with strong social and political undertones... well okay, basically it's just a lot of stuff stolen from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. John Spartan bears a striking resemblance to Huxley's John Savage, and Sandra Bullock's character is even called Lenina Huxley, a combination of Aldous Huxley and Lenina Crowne, the female lead in BNW.
While the dialogue during the fight sequences is typical of an action movie-- basically the occasional quip about how much someone is about to hurt (At one point Sgt. John Spartan actually says, "You're going to regret this for the rest of your life... both seconds of it."), the dialogue throughout the rest of the movie is actually quite interesting.
It is laced with sub-references to such various things as the mythological phoenix from the ashes, Rambo, Luke Skywalker, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (hey, at least the people writing the script knew it sounded familiar), Spacely Sprockets, John Savage, "the Schwarzenegger Presidential Library", Mickey Mouse, Mr. Rogers, Jackie Chan, and Jeffrey Dahmer
And if you're not paying attention, you might even miss the sociopolitical undercurrents in the movie... speckled between gratuitous violence scenes is a story of the battle of individual liberties versus order and "good". Denis Leary's character does a great job of illustrating what some political scientists refer to as "the right to be wrong", aiding to the movie's conclusion that the freedom to do things like smoke, eat fattening foods, have sex, or even just to do what you want when you want should and will reign supreme. At one point Simon Phoenix says to the architect of this new ordered society, "You can't just take away people's right to be assholes."
It's worth renting.
However, if it were solely based on the movie, I'd probably have picked Simon Phoenix, Wesley Snipes's character. As is the case in most of these movies, the villain is just plain "cooler".
Oh no, there's much more to being a spartan. If only it were that simple!
Miami Country Day School, the school I went to for 8 years and at where my mom (who happens to be the single best person on the face of the Earth) teaches had Spartans as its mascot. I guess the name is sorta class spirit.
There's also the famous ancient civilization, the spartans. They were an interesting society-- they revolved completely around their military, all young men served and the main source of income for the state was taking over other countries.
Being the extremely proud son of a career naval officer and war veteran, I suppose I've always had a deep love and respect of the military and as such have always been intrigued by the Spartan society.
Then there's the "maybe not" department.... from Webster's Online ,
Main Entry: Spartan
Function: adjective
a) often not capitalized : marked by strict self-discipline or self-denial [a Spartan athlete] b) often not capitalized : marked by simplicity, frugality, or avoidance of luxury and comfort [a Spartan room] c) : LACONIC d) : undaunted by pain or danger
- Spar·tan·ly adverb
So, as Paul Harvey would say, now you know.... the rest.... of the story. Good Day! ;-)
Now You Know....And Knowing is Half the Battle!
Email: blg1538@garnet.acns.fsu.edu
