ipl-logo

Cultural Portrayal Of The Persian Culture

667 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on persian culture

It seems that Hollywood likes to portray the Persian culture as being bad and out for everyone, while they portray the Greeks as just protecting themselves from the invaders and winning always with fewer people and by being the more advanced civilized society through the eyes of cinema. I believe it comes down to how we view each of the cultures through perspective, and just plain historical accuracy of the events, much like what was talked about in our lecture. It is through cultural perspective that we get a larger understanding of this portrayal.
Cultural perspective plays a huge role in how Hollywood portrays the good and the bad. It’s through cultural perspective on how we view the perception, attitude and our general feelings towards that cultural. Currently the Persians would always be portrayed as the bad guy because of this. Plain and simple Hollywood stereotypes a cultural preserved in their beliefs and cultural conflict. Hollywood looks at the Persian culture more frequently now because of the conflict in the Middle East and all the news attention they get …show more content…

When Hollywood portrays a culture such as Iranians, Syrians, Islamic State as evil, and monstrous, the image subconsciously settles in people's minds. Long ago we had other enemies that we looked at much in the same way Mongols, Germans, Japanese, and even the Russians during the Cold War that no one talks about, and its aftermath. Right now, Iran, Syria and the Islamic State are the enemies that are portrayed in Hollywood today so they will by no means seem good in the eyes to those who are watching. Although all are not considered Persian we have a tendency in America of combining groups into one culture for some odd reason. Iran and Israel have been fighting for years for control. Each has been trying to impose their will on all people to gain an advantage in the territories and of course to protect their

Show More
Related
459 Words | 2 Pages

The most important factors that allowed the Persian empire to become great are their economy and their military. Document Three talks about how Persia built elaborate imperial centers, using art and architecture to demonstrate power. The building of imperial centers helped strengthen the empire by being central hubs. They allowed Persia to control the far reaches of their Empire. Military, Trading routes, and Communications were all aided by the imperial centers.

Read More
1081 Words | 5 Pages

Successful empires have similar factors for success, but the Persians had a unique way of growing their empire: treating their targets as guests. The other successful empires always had a downfall because their ruler was either too brutal, tiring, or too costly. Persia kept going as they treated the people they invaded with gentleness. The factors that allowed Persia to build the largest empire of all time are gentleness, respect, good infrastructure, and a good government rule because when Persians invade other cities, they do it by helping them and supporting them, growing Persia more peacefully, building more and more infrastructure that will help Persian’s wealth on food and money grow even higher.

Read More
465 Words | 2 Pages

Edward Said talks about orientalism in the Middle East part of the world. He points out the roles played by the middle-eastern people in Hollywood movies. When people watch movies where the people are treated as the desert people, fortune tellers or the people with magical abilities with lamps when rubbed will appear a genie who will fulfill one’s wishes, changing the way people view the culture in its entirety. As Hollywood evolved and events of the real world unfolded, the Islamic part of the world is portrayed as the bad guys and the people who spread terror amongst the US

Read More
1266 Words | 6 Pages

(Dumas 31). Once the Iranian hostage crisis got to peoples ears, their interest was no longer there. The only way people felt about the Iranians was that they were all terrorists. This in turn spread a massive stereotype all over Iranian people. On the other hand, Francois was treated in the opposite way.

Read More
901 Words | 4 Pages

The Persian Empire was a large and powerful empire that required the most skilled leaders. Beginning in 539 B.C.E. Cyrus was the first emperor of Persia, and was followed by many more powerful commanders. Specifically one warrior was able to rise above and lead this empire to greatness. He was a son of Cryus and created the Behistun Inscription. This ruler would be Darius, the great king of all four corners.

Read More
925 Words | 4 Pages

Have you ever wondered about your culture and who you really are? In my book, Darrius wants to find out more about himself and who he really is as a person. Darius goes on an adventure to Iran to see his dad and see what he thinks about his Persian culture. Darius' story sheds light on the intricate journey of self-discovery in the face of cultural expectations of himself and his family. Through his struggles, we're prompted to reflect on our own identities and societal influences.

Read More
840 Words | 4 Pages

Most countries have at least a slight respect for their leader, but that isn't always the case. It is very rare for middle eastern countries to disrespect a ruler, let alone speak out on their opinion. In the book Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, the Satrapi family were adversaries of the Shah. They joined a plethora of other Iranian citizens in speaking out against the Shah. All of the Iranian adversaries banded together to bring down the rule of Reza Shah.

Read More
832 Words | 4 Pages

It is possible to say that a stereotype is nothing more than a weapon. It exists merely in thought, but is able to hurt a person as well as a nation. Yet, it is what many people believe to be true, even despite the overwhelming lack of evidence. One of the more accepted stereotypes are those of the people of Iran, in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, the author tries to redefine Iranian stereotypes by illustrating that when individuals and their hopes are taken into account, stereotypes are not as simple as they seem. Throughout the book, Satrapi portrays, dispels, confirms, and challenges stereotypes all to show that people are much deeper than stereotypes and to get to that truth, sometimes rejecting stereotypes is necessary.

Read More
1232 Words | 5 Pages

Satrapi talks about the struggle of being Iranian with all of the bombing that occur and how Satrapi shows some stereotype in her book with displaying Iran people and Islamic religion. She portrays Islamic and Iranian people somewhat horribly with pictures of them doing horrible actions to their citizens (14/4-7) and what types of gruesome torture they do to them in jail (51/1-5). Another stereotype that I saw in the book was how Satrapi tried to breakdown the idea of agency. Usually in Third World countries they are portrayed as lacking in agency where they are often in need of help rather than active agents in helping themselves. However I felt that Persepolis had tried to breakdown this stereotype by showing that there were actually many heroes in Iran who had tried to fight for change.

Read More
985 Words | 4 Pages

This idea allows people to think about Arabs as evil and untrustworthy people because of the representation in the media. Another example is generalization toward the men and the image of countries in the Middle East. The men in this movie are shown to always carry swords and wear turbans. Men are depicted as violent people.

Read More
1045 Words | 5 Pages

In the past seven months of school, we, as a class, read three different novels that focused on the many aspects of culture around the world. My novel, Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi, may seem like, at first glance, a revolutionary narrative about Iran and how similar it is from everywhere else. Satrapi’s goal in her novel was to defend Iran and try to make readers understand that Iran really, is not too different. It is important to note that it is extremely debatable to say that most people in western societies, especially the U.S, share a perspective, unfortunately a common one, that the country of Iran has a reputation for Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. The information we take in from the news and media feed into our misconceptions and biases about Iran as a country.

Read More
1040 Words | 5 Pages

But the reason why it would be unliked would be because in this day and age, children are taught that men and women are equal and most women get disgruntled when a man gets something a woman doesn’t simply because he’s a man. All in all, the reasons that the book, Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi gives bad representation towards the Islamic culture of Iran are because of the way the book portrays, social classes, by making it seem like certain people have more value than others, religion, by making it Islam look like an extreme and ludicrous religion, and gender roles, by depicting men as the workers and women to be married off and treated like

Read More
1300 Words | 6 Pages

He states “Arabs are the most maligned group in the history of Hollywood. They’re portrayed basically as

Read More
787 Words | 4 Pages

At the beginning of the film, there is a preface, a short video with narration that offers some context to the audience. This opening actually questions American foreign policy as it is explained that this whole crisis was provoked by Americans themselves. This is a very clever strategy used by filmmakers in order to give the impression to the audience that the representations in the film are complex. As already mentioned, Evelyn Alsultany calls it simplified complex representation (Arabs 21). Arabs, in this case Iranians, are still depicted as uncivilised and dangerous people in the rest of the film, and their portrayal is actually one-dimensional.

Read More
1088 Words | 5 Pages

Everything can be viewed from two perspectives; A fist fight, a murder, bullying, just to name a few situations. This is still the case with Iran and it’s people. Iran and its neighboring countries are often portrayed negatively as terrorist, or failed nations. This is not always the truth, however, and one can learn that through Marjane’s coming of age story, Persepolis. The personal nature of the story is told through Marjane’s loss of innocence, her opinions on religion, and her observation of the prominent gender roles.

Read More

More about Cultural Portrayal Of The Persian Culture

Related Topics

Open Document