I had to smile when I read some of my fellow Motion Picture Academy members were making a weekend visit to Iran for “cultural and creative exchange meetings.” I mean who would want to spend longer in Tehran anyway? Easy in/easy out – that way you don’t really have to know much about what really goes on there (the role of women, gays, the genuine torture of students as opposed to, say, Gitmo, etc.) or have any background in Khomeinist Shiite ideology that underlies this behavior. After all, that would be inconvenient. You might have to say something about it. Better not to know. On a good cultural exchange you don’t ask questions. I didn’t when I was on similar exchanges to the Soviet Union back in the eighties. Or you ask just enough to prove to yourself that you’re no pushover (when you are). Most of the time (in fact almost all of the time) you are surrounded by intelligence agents, who are usually your interpreters as well. That’s the way it works. Best to stay for a weekend.
UPDATE: The “Hollywood Team” is being asked to apologize (for what?). Meanwhile, I wonder if they have seen The Stoning of Soraya M? (Probably not. Again, too inconvenient.)
At least the mullahs probably don’t have honey traps.
Will Sean Penn be screening ‘Milk’ in Tehran, I wonder?
How about a “non-government mission” to our new democratic ally Iraq for some cultural and creative exchange? If ancient Persian culture can broaden Anette Bening’s worldview, surely Mesopotamia has just as much to offer, yes? Oh well, maybe next month.
And Zhombre, Penn will be at the Tehran premiere of ‘Milk’ just as soon as he gets back from showing the film in Cuba, where, along with supercool writers and historians he will petition the Castros for the release of all the poets, librarians, and homosexuals rotting in prison there. Patience — walking on (blood-filled) water wasn’t built in a day.
Do the authorities allow soft pedals in carry-on, I wonder?
“Part of my leftism was a sales pitch”
I expect they’ll return with glowing reports about how wonderful Iran is and how happy the people are.
No doubt, Iranian universal, free health care will be mentioned often along with how the Bush years impoverished the country.
Funny that, Roger. I was just about to bring up those “Intellectuals Junkets” to communist countries myself.
Who was the author who said one of those worship-tourists drew a distinction between lobotomies and “socialist lobotomies”, as if one were an abuse by doctors and the other were okay? And no, the “abuse” notion was not directed at the compound phrase with the reference to government in it.
ElMondo, the author was PJM’s own Ronald Radosh. Precisely whom the quote in question can be attributed to is unclear, at least from what I was able to find in a quick google search. Here was Reason’s review of Radosh’s book in which the story was recounted:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28235.html
Will Annette Benning wear a veil when she’s there? She had better if she doesn’t want her head chopped off for being immodest.
Arthur Koestler also visited the Soviet Union, back in the 1930s, and later reflected that he had been so ideologically-entranced that the starving people made little impression on him–his mind was instead focused on the new model villages and hydroelectric dams. These experiences led him to the development of some thoughts on the nature of closed intellectual systems.
“Socialist Lobotomy” is accurate, as the “clients” in the “residence” of their “family” who “loves and cares” for them make them feel safe and loved; they do not see that they are spending the weekend in a prison camp where the inmates are being horribly abused by thugs or that they, the faithful, lobotomized themselves.
Will Annette Bening forego wearing makeup? Or will she risk having some Basiji grab her on the street and wipe it off her face with a cloth cloaking a razor blade, as has happened to many Iranian women and girls since the revolution?
The scruffy little twerp has an “art advisor”, eh? That is precious.
Were I advising the “Hollywood Team” I would tell them to stay home and give the finger to these thugs in the form of a presser on the state of human rights inside of Iran, and its despicable treatment of women and gays. But the weak-minded “sons of guns” in question haven’t had the stones to make more than one honest film about Islamic terrorism (United 93), and they’ve had over 7 years in which to do so!
One more thing, if this all-star team of cultural giants actually does “apologize” to this sh#*head, then it is time for a different kind of tea party outside the gates of every major studio in Hollywood. Let them be warned — not one more red cent from one red state, I say. Effing moral cowards.
Mr Simon,
Just wanted to mention two things, one is that if I recall correctly, cultural exchanges between Russia and the US were very rare during the Cold War because of the danger of entrapment. However the possibility of hostage taking by the Russians was never an issue back then. However now with the Muslims and Iranians, both entrapment and hostage taking are existential worries. As an aside, the Israeli author Michael Oren wrote an accurate description of the history of Muslim kidnapping of westerners in his 2004 book Faith and Fantasy in the Middle East.
Secondly; Historically men converted to Islam because Sharia protected them from sexual laws, (e.g. men can have multiple wife’s whether young and old, and practice pederasty). In the movie The Stoning of Soroya, one of the film’s themes is the power that men have over women is total in that they are free to accuse women of sexual crimes, whereas in the West, it is the opposite, it is women who hold the power to freely accuse men of sexual crimes. Between Islamic societies and western civilization the gender roles are reversed. Mine is a simplistic observation of a more complicated issue I’m sure, but Islam and sexual freedom for men is an issue that needs more discovery in order to elaborate on what the West is up against when it talks about Muslim extremists.
Best wishes JamesJ
Why would Penn botehr screening ‘Milk’ in Iran?
After all, Imadinnerjacket told us that there were no homosexuals in Iran.
(Likely they were all beheaded)