For your consideration....

[nitasee]

Reports: Iran planning lawsuit against Hollywood over Oscar-winning movie ‘Argo’

By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, March 12, 1:15 PM

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran is planning to sue Hollywood over the Oscar-winning “Argo” because of the movie’s allegedly “unrealistic portrayal” of the country, Iranian media reported Tuesday.

Several news outlets,

Comments

[metanoiame]

Haven't seen it yet, but I have also heard that it apparently skims briefly over the historical background for the hostage crisis and then portrays the CIA as heroes for the rest of the movie. I'm not surprised the Iranian government, which came to power in the revolution, would be pissed. I wonder what most Iranian citizens actually think? I might have to check it out now...

[underlankers]

Boo hoo for them. Those people were replacing a thuggish regime with an overmighty secret police based on torture with a fanatical regime with an overmighty secret police based on torture. The new boss was replacing the old boss but otherwise squat changed.

[jenny_jenkins]

A lot of Iranians would argue that what they ended up with (a quasi-theocracy) isn't exactly what they set out to accomplish. Consider: before they were (mainly) liquidated in the aftermath, many Iranians thought the old Tudeh party would take over. Not all were clear on what they were voting for when they voted for Theocracy - an entirely untested and unique political system to that point.

Since the revolution, the struggle for Iranians to get the things they actually wanted in '79 has never died down. There has always been a movement for reform in Iran.

There are millions of Persian refugees all over the world who have no wish to be associated with the regime, or painted as supporters of the regime. And there are lots of Persians in Iran who don't appreciate being made out to be part of a raving, monolithic mob.

[underlankers]

They would be right to argue with that. However the odds of the Tudeh taking over and outmaneuvering the Waqf owners was never very good to begin with. You're right that this is a bad film in terms of an honest appraisal of the nuance of the Iranian Revolution. Hollywood will never make a good film like that about any group the USA deems as its latest Big Nasty. Whether or not that's good is irrelevant, it won't make money. Hollywood wants to make money and doesn't care if it has to appeal to racism and bigotry to do it.

[belleweather]

You want to talk about violations of international cultural norms? How about the violation of centuries-old norms and protocols of diplomacy involved in taking diplomats as hostages. It's kind of a splinter/board problem, I'm thinking...

[bellichka]

[mimblexwimble]

Sick and tired of people making excuses for this shit movie. Let's ignore how damaging historically inaccurate representations of PoC are - and how absolutely fucking normalized - and shrug it all off by saying movies aren't going to be accurate anyway.

[underlankers]

You would have preferred the real version where it was actually right under their noses clean as a whistle and where the Islamic Republic was a religiously fanatical tyranny on the verge of the longest conventional war of the 20th Century? I don't think most people would *want* to see the Khomeini era as it actually was at the time. The moreso when we consider what Khomeini was doing to secular Persian culture at the time. Yes, I know the Shah was a bad man (his father even took the name IRAN as a pro-Nazi symbol), but that doesn't excuse shooting and firing generals with Saddam Hussein right over the border.

[natyanayaki]

WORD! Especially considering the current anti-Iranian sentiment.

I'm actually surprised by the reactions in the community, though. I assumed more people in here would be critical of the film.

[applegnat]

Well said.

[vyrdaeom]

Except for the realistic situation, the entire movie is pretty much false. The US did basically SFA and if it wasn't for Canada, none of the people would have made it out.

So really, Iran needs to just calm down. It's just another "The US is the Greatest!" flick and nothing based on truth.

[seishin]

Eeeyyyyuuuuuuuup.