Good vs. Evil, again

Satrapi's film is not much different from Bush's and Sarkozy's official line on Iran


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Good vs. Evil, again
by hoder
18-Jun-2008
 

Marjane Satrapi's film, Persepolis must have made George Bush and his new ally, Nicolas Sarokzy, quite happy. After all, despite Satrapi's rhetoric against the two leaders, her film's core argument is one that Bush and Sarkozy have long been busy constructing: the evil state versus the wonderful people.

 

Aesthetically, Persepolis is a refreshing and beautiful black-and-white animation, but it is also built on a black-and-white viewpoint of Iran.

Satrapi's world is divided into two very separate groups: you are either with Marjane, in which case you'd are a nice, warm human being with properly drawn features; or you are against Marjane, and therefore either a black spectre with no human face features or an angry robot who represents the Iranian state. There is no one in between in Marjane's world; no shade of grey between this dichotomy of evil state versus wonderful people.

This is not much different from Bush's and Sarkozy's official line on Iran.

"We admire your rich history, your vibrant culture, and your many contributions to civilization," Bush said in 2006. "The greatest obstacle to this future is that your rulers have chosen to deny you liberty and to use your nation's resources to fund terrorism, and fuel extremism, and pursue nuclear weapons."

Sarkozy said in 2007 that Iran represents "the most important problem on the international scene." He added, however, that it was important to distinguish between the Iranian regime and the people of Iran. He stressed that it was crucial to "assure the people of our respect".

This binary logic, on which Persepolis is also built on, might look like an improvement on the all-evil logic that was previously used in Hollywood to depict nations resistant to the United States. (In the early 1990s, Sally Field and Alfred Molina starred in Not Without My Daughter which made sure all aspects of Iranian life and culture were vilified.) But in fact the new logic is far more dangerous.

The narrative is simple: an evil state has taken its good people hostage and is planning to destroy the planet with its dangerous weapons. The good states now must both liberate these innocent people from their evil rulers and remove the threat of such weapons by toppling those rulers. But you can't liberate a people if they are as evil as their state, so you always need to have good people. Hence the never-ending wave of memoirs by Iranian women whom we are supposed to liberate, starting with the controversial memoir by Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran.

In fact, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in 2003 that the Iraqi people were in large measure hostages to the vicious regime of Saddam Hussein, and continued that "with a minimal loss of life on the part of the Iraqi people, because it's not a war against the Iraqi people, it's a war against the Iraqi regime," the regime would be gone. He added that it is "important that the people of Iraq be liberated".

Satrapi makes no effort to break this stereotypical image of Iran. Even though she knows - and shows in the film - how the middle and lower-class Iranian rulers came to power after a massive revolt against a deeply corrupt and tyrannical monarchy; and despite the existential threats against the new state ever since, its political system is fairly representative, fragmented and diverse. (Where in Europe or North America can the son of a blacksmith suddenly ascend to presidency out of nowhere and unhesitatingly start holding the rich and the powerful accountable?)

There are two other aspects of its narrative, which makes Persepolis even more of an instrument of the continuous worldwide psychological operation against Iran.

Satrapi's film shows her family as a typical Iranian family and symbolises herself as one of the several million Iranian women who are continuity being oppressed by the evil government.

The more accurate narrative is that Satrapi's family, with their leftist secular leanings, their wealth and western way of life, can only represent a tiny fraction of the entire Iranian population. That's perhaps why she reduces an eight-year bloody defence by Iran against the Euro-American backed Iraqi invasion in the 1980s, right after the Iranian revolution, to a pointless mass suicide mission of young Iranian boys who were fooled by their rulers' use of plastic keys to heaven. (Ironically, the part in the book about the western-backed use of chemical weapons by Iraq against Iranian soldiers was dropped from the film.)

The film also never points out that Marjane is not only exaggerating in showing Iran as a police state where for every woman who runs in the street or touches a male hand in a car, there are at least a team of bearded, angry policemen who suddenly appear on the scene and warn them. Even the Taliban never managed to be that fast and efficient.

But worse is that while it is true that the Iranian society and obviously its rulers were less tolerant of dissent and were more religiously and socially conservative 20 years ago when most of Marjane's story mainly happens, the film fails to remind the viewer that the today's Iran is remarkably different from those days.

Anyone who has visited Iran in the past years (Rageh Omaar, for instance) can testify how a young and curious population has opened up the society and made the also younger rulers more relaxed in terms of life and culture - and this flexibility and pragmatism is mainly why it has managed to survive for almost 30 years now. But Persepolis sells us the story of an Iran that doesn't exist any more.


This article first appeared in The Guardian.


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Wrong Target

by MarKa (not verified) on

I think it's a stretch to suggest that Satrapi advocates for external intervention in Iran. She wrote the first "Persepolis" book in 2000, before George W. Bush was even in office. As far as the film goes, she was quite adamant during her press tour that she's against bombing Iran, and intended to show her countrymen as human beings in the hopes that people would think twice about starting a war. Whether she succeeded in conveying this in the movie or not, is up to the viewer of course.

But even if Marjane Satrapi wants Iran to be bombed, or if she doesn't, it doesn't matter. She's not the one in control of the neocon agenda - that's Bush, Cheney and his cronies. She's not the one beating the war drums, our dear political leaders are. THEY are the people who need to be stopped and opposed at every opportunity, not some woman with a pen.

Picking on Satrapi is cheap, she's an easy target. It's is much easier to whine about a cartoon than it is to take political action.


Darius Kadivar

Everything is Tickety-Boo

by Darius Kadivar on

Everything is Tickety-Boo - Danny Kaye

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzVCahrtaWI


Aviva

typo error

by Aviva on

I meant July 07

Sorry


Aviva

Bravo Marjane !

by Aviva on

Marjane Satrapi with Persepolis books and movie, Nahal Tadjadod in her book Passeport a l'Iranienne, have both moved a little the thick curtain of the actual regim and shown the world the true human face of wonderful people in Iran .


Persepolis was presented twice in Jerusalem international film festival in July 08, received standing ovation from the audience !


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terrible arguement

by Anonymous_Flowers (not verified) on

Hoder, you're ripping on a cartoon now? Come on, this film was about her life and what he endured. Maybe the truth was stretched a bit, but when I talk to my cousins who are still Iran...the same narrative that was revealed in the film occurs in their life...fear, oppression, fear, oppression...you don't have to be a "neo-con" to want democracy for a country that already has the most sophistocated and progressive civl society in all of the mid east.


Farhad Kashani

Marjan Satrapi has done a

by Farhad Kashani on

Marjan Satrapi has done a great favor to the cause of democracy in Iran by exposing the brutality of the regime to the world. This regime has fooled some people around the world to belive that its a victim of Israel and U.S. Peices of work like Persepolis, will have a significant impact on gaining world support for the cause of democracy in Iran.


samsam1111

Hey the funny Hussein dude again!!

by samsam1111 on

See Amou Hussein  !! this is what happens when you spend your teen years in best "moatalefeh" private school in north tehran "madreseh Nikan" among  bacheh mullahs and then later come out as Dad,s little rich boy tourist Globe trotting with no work and lots of time on hand ..A Paranoid, Semi Schizophrenic who sees every body as tools  of a great American scheme of conspiracy against Mullah land. I assure you that Bush hasn,t even seen the movie because any movie longer than a 20 minute Cartoon lenght bores him...I agree with you that  Satrapy,s Persepolis is her own view of Iran but She has a right to her own view without being tagged as a CIA agent..just like I don,t tag you as an IRI agent even with all the icing on the cake. Some of your articles "palizdar" or even "Ahmadinejad" make a bit of sense at times but this one is way outa whack...

You have mentioned before that you love Jambon, cold Melon and Gin & Tonic..I have an advice for you ; go crazy on Jambon and Melon but Cool off on "Gin & Tonic" thing .It,s affecting your writing.

 

Quote by Amou Hossein:

یکی از مهم‌ترین تغییرات فکری من در این یکی، دو سال اخیر آن است که دیگر فکر نمی‌کنم تمام مردم ایران مثل کسانی هستند که من با آنها رفت و آمد می‌کردم یا می‌کنم. زندگی کردن در شمال تهران و بعد هم افتادن وسط یک سری خارج‌نشین با مغزهای استعمارشده واقعا آدم را به توهم می‌اندازد.

البته نوجوان که بودم خیلی وجدانم بیدارتر بود. یادش بخیر که چقدر با رنوی قراض ه‌یهادی مفتح که آن موقع معلم و رفیق ما بود و الان مقام‌های بالا و بی‌سروصدای تحقیقی دارد این طرف و آن طرف می‌رفتیم و او من را چطور از آن جزیره‌ی ثروت و قدرت، یعنی مدرسه‌ی نیکان، بیرون می‌برد و زندگی در جاهای دیگر شهر و آدم‌های مختلف را نشانم می‌داد.

 

What a discovery...See!!  What did I tell you?

 

Cheers! Hossein Jan


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Hoder? fighting a war???

by sjf (not verified) on

Hoder? fighting a war??? which war??? He is too young to have fought the war.


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This is what she believed

by Pedestrian (not verified) on

Here's my review.

I agree with almost everything you say. Except that I thought it was a genuine narrative.


Niloufar Parsi

Salam Hossein aqa!

by Niloufar Parsi on

If i remember right you fought in the war, and your perspective is appreciable. But your experience is not relevant to others such as Marjan. One day we may have to face the terrible fact that many of those men and children's' lives were lost unnecessarily in combat, as the war was extended by khomeini for six years for no good reason at all other than his personal hatred for Saddam. 

The movie is more about Marjan's personal experiences than it is about Iran's political development. She is telling her story as she experienced it, and it is totally authentic. It doesn't deal with the current situation because the story ends with her second departure from Iran - although it did show Iranians partying and drinking. And of course they get busted, as indeed this happens regularly. 

My impression is that the movie generates as much genuine support for the people of Iran as it vilifies the mullahs. It is far from neocon propaganda even if it does make Bush and Sarkozy 'happy'. Personally, i found it really depressing! 

Peace!


Saman

Good for her...

by Saman on

The animation was nothing more than an artist expression of Marjan’s life. That’s all. The fact that she’s a female Iranian, painting an ugly picture about her own life experiences during the revolution is not her fault. It is the hot commercial market, which is interested in likes of Aghdashloo, Azar Naficy, Shirin Ebadi and Satrapi. Marjan is riding the waves of being an Iranian woman as she should. By default she’s a tool no matter what she really stands for. However she still has every right to use the opportunity and make a few bucks from her life journey. Her next project may surpirse all os us.

Most of us would do the exact same ... even you!!!


ahvazi

I saw persepolis...

by ahvazi on

there were wonderful characters in the movie who were Iranians, in fact all the good people were iranians. The bad people were those who infringe on the lives of others. You should be proud of Satrapi. It seems you have issues with Iranians. Like Mr. Bush and Monseur Sarkozy you like to vilify all those who don't agree with you.

 

Agha yekami tek it easy!!!


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Read my lips my friend, it's ONLY a movie!

by Shadooneh (not verified) on

Last time I checked the several million Iranian women, and men, who are "continuity being oppressed by the evil government" really existed - one must be a political coma not to realize this fact. So anyone can "symbolize" herself/himself as one of those Iranians, you take your pick. In this respect Satrapi is not off the mark, but the fact that her work is a commercial success is due to following the lines that "sell" in the West. Artists are not like reporters who are allegedly subject to some journalistic standards in order to be "fair and balanced".
Satrapi is tell her story not yours. I just thought about that beautiful saying in Farsi, ghar to behtar mezani, bestaan bezan. Which roughly says, if you can play, a musical instrument, better, then grab one and start playing. Damn good advice, methink.