Titanic and Islamic Republic: How Hollywood will help a Candidate
Posted by KamangirJul 18
It is no mystery that the Islamic Republic Islamizes movies before they are shown in the national television. That includes censoring “bad cloths” as well as turning prostitutes into bears. In another instance, the state-run Visual Media Institute, which is responsible for movies legally distributed in Iran, both Iranian and foreign, renamed “French Kiss” to “French Friendship”. This is not however how far they go with movies.
When Titanic came out, it reached the Iranian viewers even before many North Americans had the chance to watch the masterpiece of James Cameron. In those days, Khatami’s reformist government had just established and there was a new blood in the veins of the country. That however did not stop his Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister to announce that Titanic will not be shown in Iran. That was too much for the conservative Ayatollahs, at least then.
After Ahmadinejad took over the power, weird things started to happen, one of which is the preparation of Titanic for the national television. The state-run news agency Mehr asks why this movie is to be aired, after ten years, while “unlike what the administration claims, there are a few Iranians who have not actually seen it”.
While Mehr speculates that, after the censor, the movie will not be more than 90 minutes long (out of the original 194 minutes), the piece goes on by asking what the relationship between Jack and Rose can be. “They can not be brother and sister, neither can they be any other family members”, Mehr adds. This rather weired sentence refers to the fact that “lover” is not a legitimate role in movies shown in the national television. Thus, Jack and Rose have to be a couple or siblings. Their passion makes both options impossible. Mehr lists other impossible concepts of the movie as “the scene on the deck, the drawing scene, dances and parties”. “The card-playing scene might however survive”, Mehr adds.
If you have the obvious question in your mind, “why are they doing this?”, well, that’s when politics come to the scene. According to Qods, an ultra-right website, the leader-assigned head of the national television, Zarqami, is seeking popularity out of this. He has announced recently, in a statement to his deputies, that movies banned from the national television can be reconsidered for show. Qods bashes Zarqami for criticizing the newspapers in his days in the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, if they even published pictures from Titanic. Reportedly, Zarqami is thinking about the next elections and, well, who will not vote for “the guy who legalized Titanic”?
Finally, Mehr asks what the censor-guys will do to Rose’s outfit. That is what I have a solution for. Click on the image to see the whole image.
[...] Kamagir on how Iranian mullahs are preparing to censor the movie: the movie will not be more than 90 minutes long (out of the original 194 minutes), the piece goes [...]
turning prostitutes into bears.
ROFL!
Kamangir: Had you not seen that? ;)
I’m still picturing the bears walking along the strip in Vegas!
I would be very interested in seeing one of the sanitized films somehow. Camn one buy copies of movies in Iran or is it just what is on TV? I have never really heard of a Blockbuster franchise sitting in Tehran.
On another note, I recently watched a BBC documentary on Prostitution in Iran. It followed the life of a couple of drug addicted Iranian prostitutes. Both lived in dismal condition in apartments with no doors, running water or electricity. Both had small children and supported them by being prostitutes, uhm, I mean “Bears”. I don’t really know how much truth there is to the documentary but it was obviously filmed in Iran and the film maker even had a bit of trouble with the police checking here for filming in public – she had to show them her permit for it.
So I guess my point is that censorship does not really work or there would be bears walking aling the streets of Tehran instead of veiled prostitutes?
Kamangir: Yes, you can buy the censored movies, but they will be in Persian. About the BBC documentary, I would say it can be true. There definitely are prostitutes in Iran, as there are in every corner of the world. However, in a country were there is no protection for sex-workers, they are more prone to violence. For the record, there are no bears in the streets of Tehran. That is only in movies. ;)
I’m curious…
What do they do about movies that have Islamic terrorists in them? I have seen the videos of the Iranian scholar who says all of them are anti-Iranian propaganda so my guess is they would just ban them completely.
Kamangir: They’ll just ban it. I should once translate pieces of the Islamic Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Delightfully funny as well as an enlightening look at how censorship works in Iran!