This new movie by Ben Affleck is coming out: Argo. Besides Ben Affleck looking hella sexy in it, it’s about the Iranian Revolution and some US embassy workers trapped in the country. Ben Affleck’s character is some type of spy(?) and creates an elaborate ruse about a Canadian film team coming to Iran to film a movie. They get the people out and the day is saved (sorry if I spoiled the not-even-out-yet movie, but that was kinda obvious…).
I feel like that movie would come out about now. The US is at pains to create an Iran that is a threat to the stability of the world right now. I doubt that the movie will explain any real facet of the Iranian Revolution other than it being a bloodthirsty, religious overthrow of reason and democracy.
A similar thing happened with The Kite Runner coming out in 2003, painting the Taliban as child-prostitution encouraging, religious dictators. I honestly don’t know the history of Afghanistan and the Taliban, but I do know that the book and the movie both played into US notions of the region. They deliberately, or accidentally, created an image of the region that was in step with the US government’s narrative. The same thing will happen with Argo. I’d bet on it.
