Definitely one of the weirder articles this year:
Time Magazine: mashup of Iranian Politics and Lord of the Rings.
Channel Two is putting on a Lord of the Rings marathon as part of the government’s efforts to restore peace.
Lots of people, adults and kids, are watching in the room with me. On the screen, Gandalf the Grey returns to the Fellowship as Gandalf the White. He casts a blinding white light, his face is hidden behind a halo. Someone blurts out, “Imam zaman e?!” Is it the Imam? It is a reference, of course, to the white-bearded Ayatullah Khomeini, who is respectfully called Imam Khomeini. But “Imam” is at the same time a title of the Mahdi, a messianic figure that Muslims believe will come to save true believers from powerful evildoers at the time of the apocalypse. Isn’t that our predicament?
And listen: there is the sly reference to Ahmadinejad. Iranian films are dubbed very expertly. So listen to the Farsi word they use for hobbit and dwarf: kootoole, little person. Kootoole, of course, was and is, the term used in many of the chants out on the street against the diminutive President.
In the eye of the beholder in Tehran, the movie is transformed into an Iranian epic. When Gandalf’s white steed strides into the frame, local viewers see Rakhsh, the mythical horse of the Rostam, the great champion of the Shahnameh, the thousand-year old national epic. “Bah, bah…Rakhsh! Rakhsham amad!” someone says, in awe.
At the moment the ancient Treebeard bears Pippin through the forest and the hobbit asks, “And whose side are you on?” those of us watching already know the answer: Mousavi! Treebeard is decked in green, after all.