more on hollywood's hasbara. agro Argo
There is no getting away from hollywood's hasbara. Not even when the director is a " noted progressive Ben Affleck."
Indeed, Argo reduces a century of Western antagonism of Iran - from exploiting its oil to overthrowing its democratic regime and supporting a tyrannical leader - to a few minutes at the most. It does note that the US-backed Shah’s regime routinely tortured dissidents, but it uses cartoons to illustrate this, dampening the effect substantially. More troublingly, by juxtaposing mentions of the Shah’s attempts to “Westernize” Iran (minus freedom, rights, and democracy, of course) with shots of irate protesters outside the American embassy in Tehran, Argo gives the impression that the protesters were there because the Shah wanted to force them to wear blue jeans- not because of torture, dictatorship, repression, or widespread inequality and poverty. This is massively misleading, feeding into a cultural explanation for the revolution that ignores the obvious political dimensions.
Moreover, nearly every Iranian featured in the film is angry, screaming, or in a mob. It reduces a diverse revolutionary coalition - which included liberal, secular, and Marxist elements alongside Islamists - into a monolithic group of fanatics who become enraged anytime they come across anything or anyone Western - even Canadians! In reality, by the time the embassy was seized, power jockeying among revolutionary factions was in full effect, with Khomeini’s Islamists violently sidelining their rivals. Argoinstead leads the casual viewer to think that the seemingly fanatic crowd outside the embassy was representative of Iran overall, which it most certainly was not. The only Iranians in the movie who do not seem to be from Khomeini’s faction are incompetent bureaucrats.
It may seem unfair to expect Argo, which supposedly concerns itself with a narrower search-and-rescue story, to address more complex political realities. But the sense of urgency underpinning this storyline relies in no small part on the film’s near-monolithic (and unsubtle) portrayal of Iranians as angry religious fanatics. By the end, you have no recollection of the limited introductory context explaining the Iranian anger against America. You are simply cheering for the Americans over the evil Iranians.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NL13Ak01.html
Indeed, Argo reduces a century of Western antagonism of Iran - from exploiting its oil to overthrowing its democratic regime and supporting a tyrannical leader - to a few minutes at the most. It does note that the US-backed Shah’s regime routinely tortured dissidents, but it uses cartoons to illustrate this, dampening the effect substantially. More troublingly, by juxtaposing mentions of the Shah’s attempts to “Westernize” Iran (minus freedom, rights, and democracy, of course) with shots of irate protesters outside the American embassy in Tehran, Argo gives the impression that the protesters were there because the Shah wanted to force them to wear blue jeans- not because of torture, dictatorship, repression, or widespread inequality and poverty. This is massively misleading, feeding into a cultural explanation for the revolution that ignores the obvious political dimensions.
Moreover, nearly every Iranian featured in the film is angry, screaming, or in a mob. It reduces a diverse revolutionary coalition - which included liberal, secular, and Marxist elements alongside Islamists - into a monolithic group of fanatics who become enraged anytime they come across anything or anyone Western - even Canadians! In reality, by the time the embassy was seized, power jockeying among revolutionary factions was in full effect, with Khomeini’s Islamists violently sidelining their rivals. Argoinstead leads the casual viewer to think that the seemingly fanatic crowd outside the embassy was representative of Iran overall, which it most certainly was not. The only Iranians in the movie who do not seem to be from Khomeini’s faction are incompetent bureaucrats.
It may seem unfair to expect Argo, which supposedly concerns itself with a narrower search-and-rescue story, to address more complex political realities. But the sense of urgency underpinning this storyline relies in no small part on the film’s near-monolithic (and unsubtle) portrayal of Iranians as angry religious fanatics. By the end, you have no recollection of the limited introductory context explaining the Iranian anger against America. You are simply cheering for the Americans over the evil Iranians.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NL13Ak01.html
posted by Satish Sharma at
14:43
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