Persians on Prince of Persia

Since news of the making of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time hit the airwaves last year, we Iranians have been anxiously waiting to see how this movie makes us look. Granted, it’s an adaptation of a video game into a movie, it has no basis in history and makes no claims about being factual whatsoever. But these things matter. For better or worse, what Hollywood projects – be it fact or fiction – makes a lasting impression. And as a community, we’ve had our share of bad publicity. You could say we have an image problem and we’re tired of being portrayed as terrorists, bloodthirsty, ruthless warriors, or religious fundamentalist…or repressed women for that matter. After all, the most well known blockbusters representing Iranians have been Not Without My Daughter and 300 (I shudder to think….)

I mean come on, we come from the land of the largest known empire in ancient history, the land of Rumi, the land of the first human rights proclamation by Cyrus the Great, of Zarathustra and the oldest monotheistic religion in the world. Trust me, there’s plenty to choose from to make enthralling and compelling movies. But I digress.

But then the critiques started. People started complaining that all the main actors were white, saying how Hollywood should have cast a Persian actor to play Dastan, the main hero. I even heard people were calling for a boycott. Are you serious? This has got to be an improvement and we should recognize that. I mean, heck, a Persian character as the hero in a movie, don’t you think that’s a step in the right direction?

And, this is business…movies don’t usually make money unless the cast is well known. Wouldn’t we rather have a lot of people go see this film and be exposed to a Persian hero? It strikes me as odd. Many of us go around arguing how we are “white” – which by the way, we most certainly are not, at least not in this country, but this is a topic for another discussion – to the point where we have to hold a national educational campaign to let folks know how to fill out the U.S. census forms. Now we’re upset that a white actor was cast as Dastan? Sounds to me like we need to make up our minds, can’t have it both ways.

So, I finally went to see the film. Let me just say, I’m no movie critic, but if this film’s mission was to present an adaptation of a video game, it did a great job. Trust me, it was apparent that this movie was fictional. I mean Dastan did like three back flips before getting onto his horse. So, let’s take it and accept it for what it is. And people seemed to like it: the audience even clapped at the end of the movie (which I’m sure didn’t happen at the end of Not Without My Daughter.)

The more fundamental question is how come we call for a boycott when we’re portrayed negatively (as in 300) and we call for a boycott when we’re portrayed as heroes? Why can’t we stop reacting and think about what we can do to help our community progress? Seems perhaps a more calculated reaction of “we like this film because it doesn’t show us murdering, kidnapping, religious fanatics, but we hope in the future we can make x, y, and z improvements,” would have served us better.

See, it’s not about a movie, it’s about us as a community and figuring out what we need to do to be better represented. It’s about whether we can agree on what we want, agree to get along and work, first with each other and then with other communities, to establish ourselves as a distinct and respected minority in the U.S.

And about our (mis)representation in the movies, let’s face it, we’re a pretty well off community with a lot of resources, and at this point we have enough talented Iranians in Hollywood to make a fantastic film about Iran and Iranians. We just have to want to.

It’s up to us really.



p.s. Someone please tell me, why do they always put such heavy eyeliner on Middle-Eastern men in the movies?