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Now I'm used to people here having really limited knowledge of the Middle East and Muslim law and custom. Certainly, I think my knowledge is inadequate, but I'm also constantly reminded of how significant it is in comparison to most Americans. Patty, of course, having spent so much time there is additionally ahead of me.
Anyway, ignorance was on full display last night. People argued with the director telling him that he could not be telling us the truth about what Iranians think of men taking second wives, when he spoke of how it is looked down upon in the middle and upper classes and was an issue in the recent elections. In fact, every question about gender made me deeply uncomfortable, because it was also so fixated on the fact that these women wear hijab, the film must only be a comment on women's actualization.
But the film is not a comment on that. If anything on the gender front, it has a great deal to say about the overt power of women -- yes, overt, even with hijab! -- and the infantilization of the men in the story. But no one was interested in how the male gender was portrayed, because the men seemed freer to the audience preoccupied with hijab, even as women were more powerful, wealthier and successful throughout the film.
People analyzed characters using the word "martyr" which it was so clear they would not have done for the same story in a Western context (Big Love anyone?) and people even told the director his intent, insisting he wanted to have the characters touch at points, but was clearly not allowed. This was met with a sharp rebuke by the director, for trying to Westernize his film. "You, you westerners, you want to show show show everything. We are orientals. We value privacy."
Another woman went on and on about the men's clothing, insisting that it was supposed to be cool and modern, while the woman's clothing was not (hijab is not "not modern" and there is a point in the film of a covering that someone is gifted with from Paris!) and did this mean men in Iran were progressive and women were not. It went on and on, with the questioner also insisting the film was shot in the 1970s (the film stock did admittedly make it look older than Western films of the same time) and trying to talk about how the men were sexualized and dudes because of their aviator sunglasses. Again, I was appalled. Read your program and know something about clothing please.
People mispronounced the title of the film, repeatedly (it's a name you hear in the West a lot and you just watched the bloody movie) and were just generally appalling. I was deeply embarrassed for this really reknown director who had traveled 24 hours to be there.
My next door neighbors and the only friend I had outside of school growing up, were Iranian diplomats. I learned to play chess from the family's father and was always invited over for these endless meals and I was fascinated by the degree to which the setting of the film felt familiar for just those small reasons.
Overall, I really loved seeing this and the Richard III on two successive nights. It made this idea that we (Americans) are the center of the world, particularly ludicrous.
