So-called universal film "Persepolis" sows anti-Iran sentiments
Persepolis
Directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi
Written by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi
2.4.7 Films
95 minutes
2007
French with subtitles
2008 February
MIWS has no objection to any Iranian government effort to suppress this film's showing globally, but recommends "Persepolis" to readers who would like to gain some insight into petty-bourgeois attitudes to communism and Islam, and how that has been acutely reinforced in film and literature. "Persepolis" is an awful, vile reactionary film. There are no surprises in the film for people who are familiar with the graphic novels. One difference is that the film is less gory and therefore more family-friendly, but this review will not primarily be a movie-book comparison.
Aside from the CIA ideology, films like "Persepolis" that are distressing or provoking to the audience cause MIWS to question the whole idea of trying to make progress in art house film in a frontal way. While movies at commercial theaters may be just decadent or banal, the petty-bourgeois message in some art films is more concentrated. "Persepolis" is a movie that lends itself to distinct political purposes and is an example of why First World communists should keep track of films in both the art houses and majority-oriented commercial theaters. Intellectuals' excitement over "The Matrix" notwithstanding, many intellectuals prefer the so-called art films. MIWS will save an extended general discussion of intellectually oriented films and theory films for a future article.
Compared with the average reviewer, the current reviewer is not particularly knowledgeable about Iranian film or films about or set in Iran, but has seen Iran films that, if viewed widely in the First World, would be progressive simply in displacing anti-Islam chauvinism, namely some of Abbas Kiarostami's films. The problem is that Iranian films need to go through a process of translation and film festival screening even before reaching the art/indie houses, let alone commercial theaters. One of the most popular Iranian films in English-speaking countries at the moment is Majid Majidi's decade-old "Children of Heaven," which has been released on DVD. In the art/foreign/independent film theaters recently was Jafar Panahi's "Offside" (2006). MIWS mentions these movies to point out that there are alternatives to "Persepolis," lest nihilists think MIWS tears up any movie seen in the First World. "Persepolis" is not something communists somehow have to put up with or not have any movies playing dealing with Iran; it may not occur to provincial philistine white nationalists, but Iranian movies are renowned globally and come out every year. There are fake communists who would sooner screen "Persepolis" in the First World than "Children of Heaven," in spite of Majidi's movie's potentially broader appeal. There are certain reasons for that and why "communism" for some people, both the fakes and Third World observers unfortunately, means siding with imperialism. "Persepolis" contributes to this by pitting supporters of Iranian self-determination against communists. This is a matter of the movie's content; although, MIWS can imagine French leftists' being involved in the making of "Persepolis." MIWS is not familiar with underground cartoonist Paronnaud's politics. Marji's parents were activists, but MIWS will refrain from going into Satrapi's political interests today so as not to distract from the movie's content.
MIWS heard that there was a struggle over "Offside" in Iran in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad supported the screening of "Offside." MIWS does not purport to intervene in this struggle, but "Offside" is arguably nationalist, and while it raises the question of Iranian wimmin's situation with regard to Islam, which presents a problem with First World audiences, "Offside" is a fragrant flower in comparison with the filth that is "Persepolis." There exists a situation where a movie that may be progressive or reactionary in Iran may be reactionary or progressive in the First World because of differences in existing public opinion and the class situation. No doubt there are considerations that have to be balanced. The world cannot be treated as if it were one nation without profound differences. Marjane Satrapi has claimed that the story in "Persepolis" is universal. MIWS is suspicious of claims of universality of films portraying oppressed nations in general.
It would seem that "Children of Heaven" works in both the First World and Iran because its story on the surface appears universal. "Children of Heaven" does not purport to be a communist movie or a theory movie, but is successful as a vehicle for influencing public opinion, indicating that Godard should not be the main model for First World communist filmmaking or film distribution/screening decisions. MIWS applauds anyone who manages to make a movie that takes advantage of bourgeois sentimentality and is successful. That does not mean the theory of humyn nature is correct.
In "Persepolis," universality is a cover for conscious individualism and dividing the oppressed over lifestyle questions. Semi-autobiographical "Persepolis," about a young descendant of a Qajar dynasty Iranian shah who grew up in Iran in the 1970s and '80s but left for Vienna in the early '80s as a teenager, is comedic, but serious, and has a narrative style. "Persepolis" tells a standard, requisite factual story, one that will not arouse controversy among minimally informed people, about the role of the great powers, the CIA and u.$. foreign policy in Iran. From there, "Persepolis" descends into crude individualism and a petty-bourgeois sob story about an upper-class urban persyn stuck in between a restrictive Islamic society and the alienation of Western society. That Marji literally vacillates between the two is possible because of her ability to fly between Iran and Europe. It is a situation that would not exist if it were not for Marji's class position. Marji seems to ideologically vacillate, too, between Western culture and traditions and family attachments in Iran, but Marji never really leaves the West behind.
The national bourgeoisie vacillates as a class, and lackeys crop up where there is privilege. MIWS has no reason to call Satrapi a liar for the way she portrays herself, or even attribute evil intentions to Satrapi personally. MIWS would only ask that the self-reflection not be done in front of First World audiences who are unprepared for an introspective movie about individualism in Iran. Westerners will just identify with the individualism in "Persepolis" in a general way and with the movie's critical aspects regarding the veil and lifestyle prohibitions in Iran. The end result is support for militarism.
"Persepolis" is critical of some individualism. It pokes fun at lifestyle anarchists, "nihilist" punkers, hippies, pet-owners, and a man whose primary concern in life at one moment seems to be figuring out his sexuality. But "Persepolis" never leaves individualism. Marji says, "I had survived a war, but a banal love story had almost killed me." While soul-searching, that line actually sums up Marji's attitude toward war well. War is just something happening to her, when it is not distant. War affects Marji, but seemingly without forcing her to take a side and take risks. Instead, for Marji, lifestyle and marriage present the greatest dilemmas.
Reminding Marji that her communist uncle Anoosh fought for the innocent, Marji's grandmother scolds Marji after she saves herself from punishment for vice at the expense of a bystander. Marji's grandmother tells her that she has choice after Marji says she had no choice. But Marji's grandmother's words do not turn out to have a political meaning.
"Persepolis" is vaguely sympathetic with communists in Iran, but the movie's message is pacifist or petty-bourgeois: innocent bystanders suffer from war. That's a good slogan for a relief charity. In a movie lacking larger context about imperialist militarism, it supports militarism arbitrarily justified as "peacekeeping." "Persepolis" illustrates how Liberalism turns into alliance with imperialism. The movie starts out by equalizing the united $tates with the Islamic government, a comparison that is already petty-bourgeois. Then, the movie in a narrow-empiricist way compares post-Shah repression with repression under the Shah. In a context ignoring imprisonment and executions in the united $tates, and repression by the united $tates globally, and the fact that imperialist country living standards are based on parasitism, "Persepolis" blatantly takes the lackey position that life was better under the u.$.-backed Shah. (The idea that life was better under the Shah is often accompanied by ideas about the West's being a model for development.) Even the colonial history of Iran, with the Shah, European colonialism, and so forth, is relegated to the background, as a result of the movie's autobiographical and individualistic perspective, which is also the point of view of a persyn doomed to being mired within the contemporary cultural interstices between Iran and the West. "Persepolis" portrays u.$. involvement negatively, but there is nothing that would prevent First Worlders from supporting attacks against Iran under the pretext of cleaning up the messes left by the united $tates and Britain, and helping the Iranian people, something that any Iran movie other than the most racist could claim to do. (While discussing "Persepolis" as a universal or "humanist" movie, Satrapi has claimed that "Persepolis" promotes understanding of Iranians, but the outlook is Liberal and neo-colonial. Of course, the mantras of so-called realists in the last few years in the context of Afghanistan and Iraq are variations of the theme that the colonizers need to understand the colonized in order to colonize them. "Persepolis" is the kind of cultural artifact that facilitates relations and linkages between First Worlders and Third World compradors and lackeys.) Madeleine Albright apologized for the 1953 coup several years ago. Reagan apologized for Iran-Contra. It is clear that simply criticizing the CIA and u.$. foreign policy does not preclude supporting the CIA today or even attacking Iran. So, the question is, why has a movie, which raises the CIA role only to pull people back to the CIA, been shown in the past year. One hypothesis is that the CIA seeks to recruit assets from among critics of the CIA, who actually are even the majority of amerikans, according to polls. Many amerikans think about the CIA in terms of competence or incompetence, but CIA-criticism in general doesn't have the edge that it used to.
The Iran-Iraq war was oppressed infighting and Western neo-colonialism. In that context, there needs to be unity of the oppressed against imperialism. But "Persepolis" does not show Marji doing anything to expose imperialism while abroad. Described as a coming-of-age story, "Persepolis" is perceived as a universal story about apolitical adolescence. Marji is into punk metal, parties, and boys, because she's a teenage girl. Repressed adolescent lifestyle is central to the movie's critique of Iranian society. The portrayal of a threatened young Marji conjures up images of authorities torturing youth just for being teeny boppers. Meanwhile, reactionary Iranian expatriates disseminate stories about "youth" in their late twenties executed in Iran. If some "youth" or gay men are executed in Iran, it must be for lifestyle or a moral infraction, not because of political or intelligence activity, supposedly. Though it doesn't portray Iranian gay people, "Persepolis" subtly reinforces a stereotype about homosexual people in general as being more driven by lifestyle pursuits than other people, because many viewers, even in France, do not have the context for understanding the movie's content about gays. "Persepolis" takes jabs at certain expressions of individualism, Liberalism and decadence here and there, but overall "Persepolis" uses a theme of repressed lifestyle to generate support among Liberals and social-democratic white nationalists for neo-colonial and other imperialist policies.
When one comes across someone who mainly talks about lifestyle in an Islamic country, clothing, cosmetics, hairstyle, etc., or hijab, culture and religion, but not fundamental matters of class and nation, one should know that one is talking to someone influenced by CIA, Pentagon or State Department propaganda, the contours of which have been documented by various sources. There are well-defined patterns where issues pertaining to gender, lifestyle, and religion, are used to create support for specific u.$. foreign policy positions and objectives; this is not a secret, only something that various people go along with while trying to deny or obscure their complicity in the matter. In "Persepolis," there are countless references to communism, but no references to Iranian workers concretely, for example, and "Persepolis" refers to wealth in the First World only vaguely, while Marji is in Austria. There are references to repressed communists, but in a way that is not specific, except for vignettes of Marji's uncle's experiences, representing Anoosh as a pitiful fool for believing that the Iranian masses will work their way through the Islamic stage. The content of repressed communists' politics and their circumstances are not dealt with in detail, except for the mentioning of Anoosh's Soviet education, which will be meaningless to most except as a stereotype; demonized Islamic forces' policies are represented as immutable. Through an idealized portrayal, "Persepolis" sets up a simplistic opposition between the "proletariat" and the bourgeoisie in Islamic countries that precludes unity against imperialism. ("Persepolis" does not deal with rural classes and strata.)
"Persepolis" in effect uses history to inflame emotions against a broad united front in Muslim oppressed nations against imperialism. The story of Marji's communist uncle is anachronistic today. Iran faces an invasion. Claims about Islamic forces' attacking communists need to be based on concrete, current and independent investigation, and not spread globally or haphazardly in ways that divide the oppressed. First World phony so-called communists purport to know specific conditions in Iran, through the mainstream media and an evidently dysfunctional international society, and purport to be able to make geopolitical strategy decisions based on that knowledge, but attack Islamic forces and oppose united fronts in a total way.
In imperialist countries, with exploiter majorities, there is not a question of uniting a majority against imperialism, not generally, directly, or for the long term. Public opinion struggles may influence large numbers of First Worlders, but the process is one of dividing First Worlders, basically pitting them against each other. This is what helps the oppressed's struggle against imperialism. In the First World, "Persepolis" functions to undermine anti-imperialism through lifestyle-related questions, pseudo-feminism, and gender political correctness, where the oppressor white male's and oppressor white female's visions of gender equality and liberation are encapsulated in television shows such as "Joe Millionaire" and "The Bachelorette." "Persepolis" works by activating the prejudices and subjectivism of amerikans with respect to lifestyle. Lifestyle does not lie outside systems of oppression; at the same time, lifestyle is not political in a way that justifies lifestyle-centered strategies for change, sub-reformism. Yet, "Persepolis" draws from ambient ideas about lifestyle to blunt the First World anti-imperialist struggle while spreading anti-Islam chauvinism in preparation for an invasion.
When Satrapi is quoted talking about her own movie and books, it's often as if she were covering herself from Iranian or Muslim criticism. She raises some details or attributes that would also apply to other works, but do not basically characterize "Persepolis," or not in the way Satrapi suggests, or do not disprove that the film serves reactionary goals. In terms of the film's portrayal of Iranians, MIWS will concede a couple of Satrapi's points. True, Iranians don't ride camels in "Persepolis" (Newsarama.com interview with Satrapi about the books), but that is setting the bar low. Satrapi has said preconceptions about Iran contributed to her making "Persepolis," which MIWS does not dispute, but those preconceptions would be challenged by most Iranian movies. "Persepolis" portrays opponents of the Iranian government, but the existence of opposition forces in Iran isn't a stunning revelation. The CIA worked with some of them in Afghanistan and Iraq, to much publicity. Some comments about "Persepolis" as an enlightening movie boil down to saying "Persepolis" shows that not all Iranians are "extremists" worthy of being pulverized by nukes or bombs -- again, that is to set a low standard. Iran faces invasion and amerikan imperialist and comprador rule; imperialism has use for "moderates," collaborators, lackeys, and laborers, in Iran. "Persepolis" portrays Iranian men as (shock) respecting their own children and wives, but in the context of the whole movie, the effect is support for an alliance between politically correct u.$. and British soldiers and Iranian collaborators against a demonic, brutal amorphous Islamic menace, pervading Iranian society and encapsulating any resistance to imperialism.
Regarding the movie's portrayal of communists in general and Iranian communists specifically, it's a matter of how much an audience can stomach without becoming offended. The movie is probably too sentimental about the communists and their plight to work with John Birch kinds of people; although, anti-communists would certainly have use for the film. However, most amerikans today distance themselves from Senator Joe McCarthy, if they know anything about him. It is possible to discuss quasi-socialist ideas openly and even be sympathetic with communists who are in some circumstances, especially if they are geographically or temporally distant. Some of the language ("proletariat") and images (Karl Marx) will be unfamiliar for some or seem odd or unusual in an animated film or in a young character; Marji as a young girl is interested in and knowledgeable about communism. This is less of an issue in France, where the ideas are more familiar. But MIWS cannot imagine average amerikans' being too offended. Petty-bourgeois intellectuals will not be bothered by the watered-down communism theme in "Persepolis." In some imperialist countries, the screening of "Persepolis," dealing particularly with u.$. and British activities, may reflect inter-imperialist rivalry with the united $tates and Britain. In the united $tates, what the screening of "Persepolis" reflects is that the CIA and State Department doesn't recruit from just die-hard anti-communists and traditional or conformist elites, professionals, groomed people, etc.; it recruits from liberals, middle-class intellectuals, Third World "moderates," people who are knowledgeable about the Middle East, and people who know some lingo and would be able to pass as communists language-wise.
"Persepolis" has been described as a critique of Iranian society, "authoritarian," "totalitarian," "extremist," "patriarchal," "brutal," etc., even "fascist" -- rather than a critique of imperialism or imperialist policies. People need to see that and not argue with that too much. If that is how First Worlders react to "Persepolis," that is how it is. So-called leftists also praise this movie using bourgeois artistic and political criteria. MIWS would say that this reflects on "Persepolis," too. Art house goers aren't going to be inspired by "Persepolis" to become scientific communists or even effective non-communist anti-militarists, just useful tools of the state thinking that they are some kind of leftist, feminist, anti-fascist, or humyn rights activist, or otherwise participants in the colonization of Iran after familiarizing themselves with "moderate" Iranians, such as what Marji's family is portrayed as.
MIWS has addressed different likely impacts of "Persepolis." There are those who will take "Persepolis" as a critique of both Western society and Islamic society. That is also petty-bourgeois, in its own way. But for many, "Persepolis" will lean toward Western culture, and "Persepolis" becomes a way of cultivating lackeys and spies using sex, drugs (alcohol, in "Persepolis"), and rock 'n' roll. Marji's interest in punk and heavy metal is amusing, but does not come off as a negative thing; Marji's interest in Bruce Lee serves as comedy. "Persepolis" and the comic books are frequently compared with Art Speigelman's "Maus," which is supposed to have artistic and political similarities. Since Iran, an oppressed nation, is wrongly equated with an imperialist country, MIWS would suggest another comparison, between "Persepolis" and "Swing Kids" (1993), which is about youth and swing in Nazi Germany. "Persepolis" is reminiscent of "Swing Kids" in that both are lifestyle-oriented Liberal critiques of power that feature youth and British or u.$. culture, and portray a group of people involved in a certain lifestyle as either lying outside or caught up in other people's conflict, powerless to do anything other than escape into non-conforming lifestyle. (Although "Swing Kids" is critical of apathy and collaboration, the most conscientious, outspoken character in "Swing Kids" ultimately does not go beyond shouting at other decadent people around him and refusing to join the Hitler Youth himself. In "Persepolis," not being apathetic apparently would mean collaborating with the CIA against the Iranian government.) This topic deserves its own article, but there are various ways by which imperialism uses culture and youth identity to recruit youth for reactionary movements, around Darfur and Uganda, for example. An approach that is just Liberal in a more or less average way in one context ("Swing Kids") becomes reactionary in another context. The portrayal of Marji's disillusionment with Iranian society as just a form of adolescent youth rebelliousness, repressed by oh-so-creepy bearded men and chadored wimmin, is sinister. Marji's disillusionment leads her to the West figuratively and, to some extent, physically. The seemingly outwardly balanced critique of the West and Islam serves to drive Third World people with means into the arms of the imperialists.
In "Persepolis," the West isn't so much decadent as it is indifferent and sometimes prejudiced and fearful; otherwise, life appears better in the West. That life would be economically and socially better for Third World individuals in the First World, except for separation from one's roots, is a slippery idea compatible with everything from collaborating with imperialism for individualist reasons, to seeing neo-colonial development as beneficial or imperialist militarism as a progressive force. Maybe, if an imperialist country already has the sexual liberalism, clothing liberalism, Cosmopolitan and Glamour, weed, booze, and night clubs, some foreign policies and welfare policies can be changed, without the economy's changing fundamentally -- the same idea drives people who don't like some things about the u.$. system to looking to Sweden or the Netherlands as a model. Narrow outlooks lead to social-democracy, a welfare state or pacifism, but not changing the world economic order.
In closing, the current writer needs to make self-criticism, because I was aware of the Persepolis comic books for years and their reactionary potential, but didn't take them seriously enough. The books have become best sellers. Satrapi's graphic novels are sometimes read as alternatives to traditional books by secondary school and college students. As if the books weren't dumb enough, the movie was made and has grossed more than US$15 million globally, mostly in Western European countries (more than a million theater tickets in the movie's native France alone), the united $tates (about two hundred thousand tickets), and, notably, Turkey.
[Towards the end of writing this review, MIWS discovered that a certain counterrevolutionary international news service had reprinted an entirely uncritical review extolling "Persepolis" a few months before. Suffice it to say that MIWS did not have to go back and add anything, as the counterrevolutionary reprint was almost a caricature of the incorrect ideas MIWS talks about in the above review, and compares the First World majority, which is class and gender enemies of Iranians, to the oppressed Iranian majority; the reprinted review is an unsurprising, but sickening, confirmation of the reactionary utility of "Persepolis." MIWS would only add here a reminder that the current practice of infiltrators of the communist movement involves raising ideas to undermine them in basic ways. Counterrevolutionaries talk about injustices done by the united $tates, and even imperialist parasitism, imprecisely or incompletely and in a way that allows them to deny the majority of parasitism, but spread anti-united front propaganda internationally with language indistinguishable from that of Trotskyists, the effect being to divide the oppressed, wherever there are Islamic forces, and wreck united fronts globally. These counterrevolutionaries spread and actually introduce (where there were fewer stories before) PsyOp-type propaganda about Iran, Islam, and repression, and oppose and attack those who try to oppose the war climate to which they themselves, the counterrevolutionaries, have contributed.
Counterrevolutionary groups masquerading as Maoists are so reactionary that they make some open, less die-hard Trotskyists look good in comparison. It has been pointed out that the counterrevolutionary neither-imperialism-nor-Islam line has directly led to openly supporting the continued presence of imperialist troops in Middle East countries, because removing them would harm workers' movements in those countries, supposedly. Fake "Maoists" are part of the right wing of Trotskyism. Fake "Maoism" is just a shade of Trotskyism -- and a shade of neo-colonialism, where the crypto-Trotskyism leads to social-democracy in countries that continue to be parasitic, and social-democracy, at most, in the continuingly oppressed and exploited countries. The essence of high-sounding, radical-sounding, oh-so-anti-religious and -"principled" crypto-Trotskyist rhetoric, with the basic ideas' seeping down to philistines, is capitulation and imperialist collaboration, and social-fascism as a realized program, apart from carrying out the immediate objectives of the u.$. government. Scientific analysis of "Maoist" crypto-Trotskyism as a phenomenon reveals that crypto-Trotskyism usurps and misuses the prestige of Maoism to infest revolutionary movements and spread counterrevolution globally in varied forms.]