Jake Zavracky is disappointed in the state of Hollywood's American propaganda, and for good reason:
I'm not sure why it never occurred to me that Ben Affleck's now Oscar winning "Argo" was a just another well made piece of propaganda. A dead giveaway should have been that any post World War II movie that portrays the American government as the good guys is going to be horseshit. However, after reading Nima Shirazi's excellent piece here on the blog "Wide Asleep In America", I don't know why I'm amazed that almost 100% of Argo is a fantasy. You should read the whole piece but here are some highlights:
Quoting Tim O'Hehir from Salon: "The Americans never resisted the idea of playing a film crew, which is the source of much agitation in the movie. (In fact, the “house guests” chose that cover story themselves, from a group of three options the CIA had prepared.) They were not almost lynched by a mob of crazy Iranians in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, because they never went there. There was no last-minute cancellation, and then un-cancellation, of the group’s tickets by the Carter administration. (The wife of Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor had personally gone to the airport and purchased tickets ahead of time, for three different outbound flights.) The group underwent no interrogation at the airport about their imaginary movie, nor were they detained at the gate while a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard telephoned their phony office back in Burbank. There was no last-second chase on the runway of Mehrabad Airport, with wild-eyed, bearded militants with Kalashnikovs trying to shoot out the tires of a Swissair jet."
Mark Lijek, one of the actual diplomats: "The [fake movie] cover story was never tested and in some ways proved irrelevant to the escape. If asked, we were going to say we were leaving Iran to return when it was safer, but no one ever asked!...The truth is the immigration officers barely looked at us and we were processed out in the regular way. We got on the flight to Zurich and then we were taken to the US ambassador's residence in Berne. It was that straightforward."
Even Jimmy friggin Carter joins in: "90% of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian [while] the movie gives almost full credit to the American CIA...Ben Affleck's character in the film was only in Tehran a day and a half and the real hero in my opinion was Ken Taylor, who was the Canadian ambassador who orchestrated the entire process."
Even the film's opening, which appears critical of the U.S.'s meddling in Iran, is inaccurate, possibly willfully so: "[information about the history of Iran] is not difficult information to come by, and yet the screenwriter and director of "Argo" didn't bother looking it up. And guess what? Ben Affleck actually majored in Middle East Studies in college. Unsurprisingly, he didn't graduate."
Depicting Middle Eastern men as angry "bearded barbarians" is very popular in Hollywood right now, and Argo never gets into what the Iranian's motivation might have been, probably because it's much easier to use the more populist equation that goes Americans = good, Middle Eastern Men = bad: "White Americans are hunted, harried and, ultimately courageous and free. Iranians are maniacal, menacing and, in the end, infantile and foolish", Shirazi writes. Again, read his whole piece, which is much more extensive and insightful.
It's ironic that Hollywood, who rightly left "Zero Dark Thirty" basically unrewarded at the Oscars on Sunday, due at least in part to its false connection of the capture of Bin Laden to the torture program, and to its generally propagandistic narrative, instead decided to reward a film that is just as propagandistic. As so often has been the case in recent America history, the truth loses again.
--JAKE ZAVRACKY
--JAKE ZAVRACKY
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34 comments:
This is quite possibly the least surprising thing I've ever read in my life.
The real question is why is Ben Affleck trying to look like Osama Bin Laden?
not buying into the zero dark thirty torture thing. we absolutely 1000% tortured people in the pursuit of bin laden. maybe not that particular guy, but many others, some of which led to things which led to things, which led to his courier etc. of course, you can't really put that in a movie b/c that'd be insanely boring/complex but i think it's kind of a weak criticism of the film.
Just a couple of quick and minor corrections, Jake:
1. Iranians, by and large, aren't Arabs. Only about 2% of the Iranian population is Arab, while 61% is ethnically Persian, 16% are Azeri and 10% are Kurdish. The other 11% consist of other ethnic minorities.
2. Nima Shirazi is a dude.
Wyrdswyrth, I was wondering about your first point and my very paltry quick research into whether that was accurate turned nothing up, I'll fix that... to the second point, I'll fix that as well....
peussy, your entire statement seems to be based on hearsay. The facts don't back you up.
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