Iran is suing Hollywood for allegedly portraying the country in a negative light in the film Argo.
According to therawstory.com, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre has been hired as the lawyer on the case, who says Hollywood directors and producers have "promoted Iranophobia." The film Argo won best picture this year and was directed by Ben Affleck.
In the article, it is noted that the controversial Coutant-Peyre is married to terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, who she is also representing, for killing two French police officers and an informant in 1975. (The article provides this information to provide background on the lawyer, but it makes the article sound bias in my opinion).
In case you haven't seen the film, it tells the story about six diplomats who were held hostage in 1979 in Tehran. All of them were rescued in a CIA mission in which the diplomats were able to escape the embassy compound before its "full seizure by young revolutionaries."
Between Argo and Zero Dark Thirty coming out this year in theaters, I have found both of these films to attract a lot of socio-political controversy. I did see Zero Dark Thirty, which was about the siege of Osama Bin Laden, and I thought the film was done pretty well. There were some undertones of American imperialism in the film (i.e. torture scenes), but I thought the film was good overall.
For class we read the Orbe and Everett reading about Interracial and Interethnic Conflict and Communication. Based on this reading, I would argue that the case between Affleck and the rest of Hollywood (which we also learned was 80% comprised of white men) is directly related to race, ethnicity and conflict (p.575). In this regard, we see that the different cultural styles of individuals, like Affleck and Coutant-Peyre, are more problematic than the conflict itself (Ting-Toomey, 1988). This can also be true due to the fact that the actual conflict happened so long ago.
I really enjoy how film and music can move people into political action, and this is exactly what has happened in Iran, but from an international perspective. Zero Dark Thirty was more controversial in the U.S. Thus, I am very interested in how this case will pan out. It's quite thought provoking that Affleck is being sued by Iran. Think about that for a second...from a culture perspective...from a communications perspective...and so on. Pretty good stuff.
Did you see either of the films and, if so, what did you think?
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