April 19, 2024 • 45 mins
In 1991, America’s sweetheart Sally Field starred in a movie about an American woman’s desperate escape from her abusive Iranian husband. For Susie, and a generation of other Iranian-American kids, this was the only representation they saw of themselves in pop culture – and it was not great. It was essentially a horror film – and the horror was Iran. In this episode, best-selling author (and fellow Iranian-American) Porochista Khakpour joins Susie to talk about what it was like growing up in the shadow of ‘Not Without My Daughter’ and its comically dark view of their homeland.
GUESTS:
- Porochista Khakpour, best-selling author
FOR MORE:
- The Not Without My Daughter Problem: How a Sally Field Movie Became an Iranian-American Headache (New York Magazine)
- Iranians Moving Past Negative Depictions In Pop Culture (by Porochista Khakpour, LA Times)
- Order Porochista’s book Tehrangeles
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Okay, So people to ask me, have you seen it?
I'd be like, yeah, yeah, of course, and then sometimes
they would watch it and then they'd be like, Wow,
this is such a terrible movie. Why doesn't everyone just
ignore it? Except the era made it so that we
couldn't forget it.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm Susie Bannacharam and I'm Jessica Bennett and.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
This is in Retrospect, where each week we revisit a
cultural moment from the past that shaped.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Us and that we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Today, we're talking to best selling author Portista Cockpoor, who
is a friend and fellow Iranian.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We're going to talk about the movie Not Without My Daughter.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
When we were growing up, this was really the only
mainstream representation of Iranians and it had a.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Pretty big impact on us.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Purtista, thank you so much for joining us on in Retrospect.
I'm so happy to get to have this conversation with you.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Well, so you and I have been talking about this
movie Not Without My Daughter. I reached out to you
because I was like, Hey, do you have thoughts about
this movie? Because I definitely do, And you were like, Susie. Yes,
and I've written about it. Then I read the thing
you wrote about it for the Early Times many years ago.
(01:15):
But this is a movie that looms very large in
the Iranian experience because, as you wrote.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
We were pretty invisible in culture.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I'd say we're probably still somewhat invisible in culture, but
growing up, this was the only representation I remember seeing
of Iranian people in pop culture.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Is that your memory too?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, there was very little, because I remember the commercial
the day that it aired on television. Our TV was
always on, you know, we had one of those households,
so the TV was always blaring, So I like vividly
remember the first commercial I saw for.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
It, nineteen eighty four, betting Mamody's husband took her and
her daughter to Iran to meet his family.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I dismember in our household. We were very excited at first,
like okay, wow, this is clearly something taking place in Iran.
This is amazing, And then like halfway through the trailer
we were like, oh yeah, the trailer is dark.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I don't know how to say this to you.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
We're not going back with staying here.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I want us to live in Iran.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
What are you crazy? We're Americans, your daughter's an American. Mainly,
we were excited because of Sally Field, and I feel like,
there's great There's like, I don't know, she must have
been huge and Iran because my parents told me a
lot about her. I mean, she was obviously of a
different era than our era, but Sally Field just seemed
like the perfect America's darling. This was shortly after she'd
been in Steel Magnolias.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
So this was just kind of like the height great movie.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Amazing movie, Like Sally Field has just had hits mainly
other than not without my daughter, so it's like she
was at the height of her power. And so of
course we were going to pay attention first and foremost
to a Sally Field movie being on television. And then
it was like, oh, whoa Iran. And I remember, for
a second we thought she was playing an Iranian woman.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Right because you didn't know the book, right.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
That's so interesting because I don't think we were familiar
with the book either. And I also was a huge
Sally Field fan. I loved Gidget. And we should mention
we both grew up in California, although you grew up
in LA which is more typical of an Iranian family.
My family very consciously decided to live in northern California.
My parents were a little afraid that we would be
(03:28):
subsumed by the kind of I don't even know how
to describe it for people who don't know it, but
there's this Iranian culture in LA that's very focused on
like money and plastic surgery, which no shade book, I've dabbled, and.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
All those things.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
But they were really like afraid we would become these
stereotypical Iranian girls. And so I grew up off in
the wilderness, like northern California is not the wilderness, but
for Iranian people, it kind of felt that way. We
didn't have this huge Iranian community. We had some friends
and whatever. But as a result, when the movie came out,
I certainly was not aware of the book, and so
(04:04):
I don't remember the way you do when I first
became aware of.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
It, or when I.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Saw it for the first time. Even I watched it
this week just to remind myself. And I don't know
that I had ever seen it from start to finish.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I think I just always caught it.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
On rerun, right, But I was aware that it existed
from a pretty young age, and I was aware that
everyone was appalled by it.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And not just see ronins. We should say it was
a flop do well in the box office at all.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
It did not do well.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Okay, we should describe the movie for people who don't
know what we're talking about. This movie is the story
of a woman named Betty Mamody who is married to
a man named said Ma Moody who goes by Moody.
Their last name is Mamody, but his nickname is Moody,
so just fyi. And it is based on a true story.
(05:00):
And we should say that because what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Is not whether or not the story she told was true.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
I don't have any way of knowing that, and I
think there's some evidence that in fact, the story.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
She told was true.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
But it's the movie that really had this cultural impact
on Iranians in a different way.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
The book was really popular, it was a bestseller.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I think we were just too young, because if we
were probably in our twenties or thirties, we would have
probably noticed that it was an international bestseller, but instead,
like kids, we noticed a movie more.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, but it was.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Huge and the book was I think pretty critically acclaimed.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Even Yeah, I mean it came out in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
The movie doesn't come out until nineteen ninety one, so
there's a little bit of a break in between it.
And it's probably worth noting that this period in American
history was really the most anti Iranian period, Like anti
Iranian sentiment.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Was very high for people who don't know the history.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
When the Iranian Revolution happens, it starts in seventy eight
and ends in seventy nine, some Iranian students barricade the
American embassy and take hostages, and this becomes a huge
national story.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
The United States Marine Corps guards use tear gas to
who try to disperse the mob of Islamic students, but
that wasn't enough. They stormed the embassy, fought the Marine
guards for three hours, overpowered.
Speaker 6 (06:14):
Them, and took dozens of American hostages.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
The hostages, men and women, were blindfolded and heard it
into the embassy's basement.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
These hostages are kept for four hundred and forty four
days while they're negotiating with American whether or not they're
going to release these American embassy workers. And it was
such a big story that I actually read that Walter
Cronkite would end every show by saying how many days
they had been in captivity.
Speaker 7 (06:40):
That's the word is Tuesday February nineteenth, nineteen eighty, the
one hundred and eighth day of captivity, the two hundred
and twenty second day of captivity, the two hundred and
eighty fifth day of captivity, the three hundred and seventy
seventh day of captivity for American hostages in Iraqi.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
And I think for a lot of Americans it was
the first time they'd ever really thought about Iran.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I mean, Iran was not like.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
In the popular culture and the way it became after
the Access of Evil comments by George Bush. So it
was their first exposure to Iran. And the idea was
that it was this really primitive country and there was
a lot of protests in America and there was a
lot of anti Iranian racism that people experience. So this
movie arrives on the scene when Iranians have kind of
(07:20):
been turned into the latest boogeyman.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
You know, America has to have someone yeah, yeah, the
Cold War was kind of waiting.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I feel like they needed someone new, and the Iranians
took that mantle.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
The timing was. I think that's a big part of this.
I've noticed younger people don't even know so much of
your experience of the US when you're Iranian has to
do with when you arrived. Yes, there were pockets where
it was a little easier, yeah, like when I came
or things like that, and then there's pockets that it
got worse. It always ebbs and flows. It has a
lot to do with the news cycle, and it has
a lot to do with US foreign policy and who's
(07:53):
our president all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I was a bit oblivious as a child.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
I don't know that I even really realized people didn't
like I did arrive in this country right after the revolution,
so it would have been at this height. But you know,
we lived in this small town in northern California. There
weren't a lot of us, and our parents taught us
that it was cool that we were Iranian. Like they
were kind of like, well, you're better than these Americans
were Iranian. That's something to be proud of.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
And I felt really lucky about that because it took a.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Long time for me to realize what I was was
supposed to be bad in some way, and then to
actually experience discrimination, which obviously eventually I did because I
live in America.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
But I think I've had this experience with a lot
of people who lived in Northern California, and I think
Northern California really could be another state. I mean it
to me always seems way more educated, way more culturally sensitive.
Like I wish my parents had decided to go to
northern California. First, they didn't because my aunt was there.
My grandma was in Long Beach, Yeah, which I mean,
we weren't in the Tarandulus part of La so I
(08:54):
was still like one of very few Iranians in our community.
We were in the San Gabriel Valley, but we were
still close enough to like the real La Iranian experience.
That the reason we heard so much anti iranianness is
because people were very aware of Iranians.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
We should explain, because I feel like you and I
just assume everybody knows what tarangelist is, but that's not
the case.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Will you tell people what that is? And then later
on we're.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Going to talk about your new book, which is called Tarangelis.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Which mistakenly people keep thinking I invented that word, which
is amazing.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I'm like whoa.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
I can't take credit for that. It's a portmanteau for
just like Tehran and Los Angeles, and it refers to
a part of the West side of LA It's very specific.
People would probably fight over exactly what areas, but it
certainly it includes Beverly Hills, parts of bel Air, parts
of Brentwood, even parts of Santa Monica.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Westwood definitely going to say Westwood is what I always remember,
and it's where there are a lot of Iranian shops
and Iranian restaurants exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
There's a little Persia plaque now which wasn't there when
I was a kid. So it's very much this particular area.
And then there's a whole culture that comes with it,
and it's very much which you were describing earlier, like
it is this culture of very flashy, moneied Iranians. You know,
it's all like upper class or upper middle class, and
people are pretending to be very upper class. Yes, I
often think of it very much like this one scene
(10:20):
and Clueless where Alicia Silverstones share a character points out
to her friend she goes and that's the Persian mafia.
And that's the Persian mafia. You can't hang with Emlis
you own a BMW.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
That, actually, by the way, is the second time I
remember Iranians being mentioned in.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
A movie was in Clueless and being like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
But it is of course that kind of thing that
eventually becomes what I think a lot of people associate
with Iranians now in pop culture. Shaws of Sunset, which
was a reality show on Bravo for a while.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
This season on Shaws of Sunset.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
It's like, you know, very flashy, lots of gold, very
ostentatious is the vibe, yes, And I think in Iranian
culture it's complicated because on the one hand, I don't
want to like talk shit about other Iranians. But it
is also true that when you grow up Iranian you
have a point of view about what that vibe is,
like that Persian American princess Yes sing and you and
(11:11):
I were both really very much not of that, And
I think that makes us kind of unusual, right, But
it makes sense that we're.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Friends totally exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
It also makes sense that we love New York, this
place and it's Iranians are so the antithesis of that
energy I feel like, which is still thriving. We should
mention too like there's tiktoks that are all about that.
They don't always use the word taranngulus, but they're very
much referring to like that kind of culture. And now
they're doing like the gen Z version of that.
Speaker 8 (11:38):
They're Lamborghinis, and yeah, like makes so funny that that's
like what's so associated with Iranian culture because in my mind,
Iranian culture is so many other things that have nothing
to do with money, Like not everyone from Iran is rich.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
That's just a wild stereotype that makes no sense to me.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Let's go back to.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
The movie and what was happening. So this book comes out.
Then the movie doesn't come out un till a bit
later in ninety one, but it takes place in eighty four.
It's really soon after the revolution, right, the Iran Iraq
War is raging, and for people who don't know what
that is, that was a conflict between Iraq and Iran
that went on for many years, and the Iraqi side
(12:35):
was very much funded by American intervention because of the
hostage crisis, but also they just felt at that time
that Iraq was a more friendly nation that would not
go on to be the case. But when the movie
comes out, is when that is shifting a bit because
Iraq has just invaded Kuwait and there's about to be
(13:00):
Operation Desert Storm, which was a short lived war when
we were kids, and that is literally happening right as
the movie is coming out. The movie comes out in
January on January eleventh, and less than a week later
the invasion begins.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
These guies over back then have been illuminated.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
We're being right, flashes going on all over the sky.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
So it's in that context that we are introduced to
the Malmoodi family. And I'm going to just walk us
through it, and you can tell me your impressions of
these scenes as well. But the way the movie starts
is that these two have the most idyllic marriage, like
the most adorable couple with the most adorable child.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Well it's my turn.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
You always say this beautiful, like lush, green landscape. And
he's a doctor and she's a stay at home mom.
And there's just one little hint that not everything is paradise,
and it's that one day they show him at the
hospital and other doctors are saying nasty things about Iranians
(14:10):
in front of him. He prayed themselves right back, and
the Stone.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Is soldier gets wounded in the field.
Speaker 8 (14:16):
Just let him die.
Speaker 9 (14:16):
He's gonna go to paradise.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Anyway, right, And he gets very upset. But even in
that he's presented in this very iererdyite way, like he
goes home and listens to classical music to recover from
his discrimination, and she's like it's not okay, Like I
stand with you.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
We moved here to get away from all of that. God,
he's just so awful.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Oh, they forget it.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
And then there is this scene where he's with his
daughter and she tells him that she's been discriminated against.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Also says, I hate Americans because you're from Iran, and
he says to her in this infamous line.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
I've lived in America for twenty years. I'm as American
as apple Pie.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Show you.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So that's the beginning of the movie. We are presented
to this family and this man. He's American like he's Iranian,
but it's almost incidental to who he is. And while
he is American, he is the perfect husband.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
The one thing that struck me this time watching it
again that kind of cracked me up is the dad
is played by Alfred Molina.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yes right, because they couldn't find an Amanian actor in La.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Apparently they do have other Iranian actress in the film,
so it's just sort of weird. It goes to Alfred Molina,
who's I think of Spanish and Italian descent. It struck
me this time. It's so funny because I think of
the name of the daughter, which is Matob. Matob is
one of the easiest names to say. Yeah, like I've
heard many many white Americans be able to say Matob
very easily. Yes, But from the beginning, it struck me
(15:41):
that they're just saying the daughter's name even weird like
Matabb and I's just like they couldn't get that right.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
The other thing I want to say here is that
there's a lot of Farsie spoken in this movie.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
My Farsi's not great, but it's better than this.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
It's the worst Farsiti you've ever heard, and it is
never translated.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
It is just present. It is this gobbledygook going on
in the background, but there's no captions on screen.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
It's just like, oh, they speak this foreign, scary tongue.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I guess they just realized it wouldn't make a difference,
because it's not like they were conveying anything that shows
their humanity through the Persian anyway, so they just don't
do it.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
They clearly had Iranian people working on the film. Someone
has to teach him the Farsi. He does speak, and
if you're going to go through the trouble of teaching
him Farsie and having him say things, I don't know
why you wouldn't translate them.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I mean that part's so weird to me, so weird.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
And they're living this idyllic life. And then he says
to her, I haven't been to Iran in ten years.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I would really like to go home, honey.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
I want to go more than anything. I miss them
so much. You're always talking about how important family is.
All I want to do is go for two weeks
with you and NOTAP and visit my family.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
And she's horrified by the idea that they would go
to Iran.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I guess it's fair.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
I mean, there was a war raging there, so that
does make sense. But it's just like the absolute horror
with which she responds that I find kind of funny.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Okay, go to Iran.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Why not.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I'm not about to take Matak to Iran. It's much
too violent.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
We're not going to go sight saying to the Persian
Gulf or anything crazy. We're going to spend two weeks
on vacation with my family.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Ody.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
There's too much going on over there.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
And he swears to her with his hand on the
Holy Holdan that they will be back in two weeks.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
I swear to you on the sacred Koran you won't
be in any danger.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Which I find also right, because if you're only going
for a two week vacation, why is there so much
a question about whether or not you're going to come back.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
You own your home, you have.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
A job, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
But then we get into this thing that you have
talked about, which is essentially this is a horror movie
about Iranians.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
It really has that structure because Betty math Boody's nightmare
and this is that she's being told that she's gonna
go to Iran for two weeks right right shortly after
she gets there, he turns into an absolute villain.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
You're in my country, now, you're my wife. You do
as I say, you understand me.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
And we realize he's kidnapped her kidnapping, and so she's
not gonna be able to go back to the US
and so she's just like stuck. Now in Iran. He
becomes like a demon, he's a confuser. Suddenly, what.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
You try anything like this again, I'll kill you.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
There's all these scenes of her praying with her daughter,
like to the Lord, you know, because she's very Christian.
She wears a cross Lord prayer, did you look for
your prayer? Please help us leave Iran and get back
to America.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
It really does follow this horror film structure like you're
talking about. It starts with this ominous music. Then there's
the calm before the storm, and now they're in Iran
and it is the storm, even from the moment they land.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Do you remember that scene?
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I was blown away by rewatching the scene when they
get to the airport, which is represented as like a
dirt field, like they're never in a structure, Like I'm.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Like, why is there no airport?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I've been to the airport, right, And then they're just
like this huge group like a hundred people, all cloaked
in black, and they're like surrounding her, and he immediately
starts laughing maniacally like it's I'm like, what's happening in
the scene.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
It's so wild that scene, because of course we know
as Iranians people often come to the airport seas some
family members, but it's not thirty family members or like
a whole village. It's so weird, and they're like screaming
and yelling. They're like mobs of family and she's like,
oh my gosh, this must be how Iranians are.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
At this point, they've been married for seven years, their
daughter is four. Presumably they have met other Iranian people.
I mean, in fact, they reference that some of this
family has come to stay with them before. So it's
this bizarre moment that they're like mauling this poor child
who looks terri off the bat.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
And then there is the scene.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
That truly scarred me so much as a child, and
I need to know how you reacted to the scene.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
But eventually they get in a car.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
And they go to where they are staying I guess
where his sister lives. And when they get out of
the car, someone is slitting a goat's throat and like
blood is gushing. I'm like, I'm genuinely I remember as
a child being like, what is happening?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Do people slick goats' throats in the streets.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Of tarant I remember asking my parents, is this a
thing that happens? And of course Betty and her daughter
are horrified by this animal being slaughtered in front of them.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
They wouldn't saying welcome, it's a great honor.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
They give the meat to the floor.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
Honey, honey, we had to step far right here.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Is that something you've ever heard of happening in any
Iranian family?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Like, it's so crazy.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I think they were trying so hard. There's several early
scenes where it seems like they're trying to really establish
the otherness of Islam in a very concrete way, and
so they're really stretching. Like I kind of feel like
the filmmakers got this project and they were like, oh,
Iran is more westernized than we realized. Shoot, let's amplify
these things that will make it look really other to
(21:16):
like regular Americans. So like, sure, and there's there are
villages in Iran where they will like slaughter an animal
in a sort of sacrificial thing. But this thing exists
all over the world. I mean this the idea of
an animal being sacrificed as a homecoming meal or something. Sure,
in my family, certainly not. I'm sure, nobody thought of any.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Notes when they I've been to Iran a number of times.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Have you been back since the rebels?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
I actually haven't been back. I was only there for
the first few years of my life, but I haven't
been able to go back.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
I was eighteen when I went back the first time,
and then I went back again after grad school, and
then I wasn't able to go back because once I
became a journalist, it became essentially impossible.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
But my mom lived up until recently.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
She had moved back when I was in college and
lived there for twenty years.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
And it's not such a backwards country.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I mean, of course, there are pockets of it that
are backwards, and it is ruled by an Islamic government,
so there are some things that feel very backward.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
When you're there.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
You have to wear a headscarf and you have to
cover up. What's interesting is, I think, even though I
lived in an Iranian family and we live nothing like
these people to some degree, even when I went at eighteen,
I expected the country to be this very dark, primitive,
backwards place because those were the only images I had seen. Also, right,
that's what media had taught me about what my country was,
(22:39):
and I remember just being so shocked because a friend
of my mom's had a daughter about my age, and
she came to pick me up to drive me around,
and I got in her car and she had a
guns and Roses bumper sticker on the inside of her car,
and I just remember being so shocked by that, Like
I was like, Oh, these are.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Just kids like us, Like these are just normal people.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
And then you would go to parties and everyone takes
their scarves off and everybody drinks even.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Though it's not allowed.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
It's actually a pretty sophisticated country, and before the revolution
it was actually considered this very cool place to visit.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
It was very urban. Like it is weird to.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
See it depicted in this way now having been to Iran,
but I think the first time I saw it, I
had never been, so I.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Was like, maybe this is what happens.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
So we get through this scarring scene about the goat,
and then it becomes clear that they're not going back.
He tells her that he's been fired actually from his job,
which now that we know he's an abusive psycho, kind
of makes sense. I'm a little curious about what his
bedside manner might have been like he takes her in
(23:43):
Matob's passports and they are not allowed to leave the apartment.
And there are these really weird details about the family.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Do you remember that they have no furniture?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Like.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Why don't they have any furniture?
Speaker 3 (23:57):
I've never been in an Iranian house with literally no
furniture of anything. He has sometimes to beat picnic style,
but you don't get rid of all the furniture.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
They all sleep in the living room together, as far
as I can tell, Like I don't. It's very weird.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
The word primitive comes up a lot, so so many times.
Speaker 9 (24:11):
It just seems so primitive.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Sometimes she'd stay here.
Speaker 9 (24:16):
This is a backward, primitive country, to.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Be clear, there are things about the way Iranians force
women to live that I also think are backwards, but.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
It's not such a primitive country.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
And we're not going to go through all the back
and forth with this because there's many more scenes that
indicate that Iranians are terrible people and this country is.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Just the cesspool.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
And eventually she realizes that the way she's going to
be able to survive this is that she's going to
have to pretend that she's bought in and that she
wants to stay. And there's this whole section of the
film where she's essentially convincing him that she's decided she.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Is into it.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
He continues to be emotionally and physically abusive. There's like
a particularly ugly scene where he beats her in the
hallway of his dog our school, and also hits the daughter.
And an important detail here is that part of the
reason she cannot leave without her daughter, not without my daughter,
is that in Iranian culture, in a divorce, the man
(25:12):
gets custody. She has no rights to her own daughter
in Iran. So she starts to hatch a plan. She's
constantly trying to reach the Swiss embassy, where there's an
American interests division, and eventually she does make friends with
a couple Iranians. And that's also interesting because there are
these two Iranian men in this movie that are presented
(25:33):
as kind people, but they are both people who love America.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
We love America. We're not real Iranians. We love America.
You are American.
Speaker 9 (25:44):
Yes, I like America very much. My son was with
University of Texas.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, they're supposed to be representing a minority. They're the
antithesis of all the regular Iranians who are primitive. They're
very well educated, they have librarries. They're talking about gardens
and ancient Persia.
Speaker 7 (26:04):
Whenever I think of what's happening to my country, I
try to remember its gardens.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
In fact, the word paradise is a Persian word.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
They're very affluent and very well dressed. And it doesn't
seem like they're Muslim or else. They don't have a
good close relationship.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
They're certainly not outwardly Muslim in any pay.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yes, yes, and so they're the good westernized Iranians who
are going to rescue her.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And they do.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
They rescue her and at their own expense. Right, I
can't really tell if he's a smuggler, but if he
is a smuggler, he decides to give her a free ride.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
How much will it.
Speaker 9 (26:34):
Cost when you and your daughter safely back in America?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Then if you can, perhaps you will reimburse me.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
He arranges for her to leave the country, and then
she makes this really treacherous trip over the hills into Turkey,
which I just want to say, is actually pretty insane
that she does this with what is At that point,
I think like a five or six year old child, like,
it is remarkable that they got out of there safely.
That is an incredibly dangerous and it is true. You
(27:02):
know that the people who are smuggling people out of
Iran are not often good characters.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
They're not good people, so it.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Is actually remarkable that they make it out safely. And
then the final scene of the movie is she is
in Turkey, but she sees the American embassy and there
is literally an American flag like waving in the wind,
and she's like, oh my god, Usa us like we're here,
(27:31):
We're Hoby, and that's how the movie ends.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I should mention here.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
I don't think you know this about me, but my
dad went back to Iran in eighty five. And my
dad had been the president of Chase Tehran when the
revolution happened. He had been blacklisted and his best friend
had become the Minister of Economics for this short period,
(28:06):
so he was put under house arrest. And when my
parents left Iran, they made it out through the airport,
but it was because there just wasn't any organization yet.
And so when I was ten years old, he decided
he wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Back to Iran.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Really in a way that's similar to this story, which
is he hadn't been home for a long time, he
missed his family, He felt some draw I mean, in
the end, this idea that you can leave your country behind,
like if I said to you, you have to leave
New York today and never come back, like you do
feel sure this poll and in the movie that poll
is presented as insane, but it really made sense to me.
(28:43):
I mean, my dad really wanted to go home and
see his mom and see his family, and I was
very scared as a child. I was ten when he went.
I was really really scared. And when it came time
to leave, he had a perfectly good experience while he
was there, but when it came time to leave, they
wouldn't let him.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Leave through the airport.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
They were basically like, you have to stay here, and
he ultimately decided to make the trek out of Iran
by foot into Pakistan.
Speaker 7 (29:11):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
There have been.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Times when people have doubted her story, and I just
know that that is a real thing that happens pretty
regularly because my dad did it. And it's why I
know how dangerous it is. Like he kept notes through
the trip he had to sew his money into his
clothes so that if they searched him they couldn't find it,
so that he would have some money when he arrived
in Pakistan, and he was not a citizen. We were citizens,
(29:34):
but my dad had always kept his green card because
he was concerned he wouldn't be able to go back
if he was a citizen. And he got to the
American embassy in Pakistan, and we were living in England
at the time, and he was not allowed to come
see us because anti Iranian sentiment was so great. They
were not giving visas to Iranian citizens even if they
(29:56):
had a green card because of all the hijackings.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
So we actually had to meet him in Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
So in many ways this movie mirrors aspects of my
own life, but in a weird, twisted, funhouse mirror kind
of way, like we were on the other side of this,
which is he was Iranian, but he was trapped and
he was experiencing the anti Iranian sentiment that Moody talks
about in the film. And so it is so odd
(30:25):
for me to watch it. It's not that I don't
believe that there's truth in this version of events, it's
just presented in a way that's so objectionable to me. Yeah,
And I think wouldn't matter so much if it wasn't
the only representation, right, Like, if there was lots of
art about Iran, if there was lots of films and
TV shows, and then there was this one in the mix,
(30:47):
I'd be like, Okay, well that's one woman's experience whatever.
But it's like for most Americans, that's the only representation
they saw of Iranians their whole life until Charles of
Sunset came on TV.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yes, Tank, Yeah, I think that's the thing is no
one is questioning like the validity of the story or
or I guess some people are, but not not a
lot of people. But I'm rooting for her on some level.
To get away from your abusive husband, that's great. Like
maybe if this was made in a different era. I
always wonder it could have been good, because they've done
a good job of it. You know, I've watched it
a few times now, and every time I watch it,
(31:22):
I just have a lot of questions about her own
character because we don't actually learn that much about her.
It is only in the aftermath of watching it. At
some point I realized that she became like evangelical, I mean,
for Christianity is a very big part of her identity.
And so I wonder if the movie entirely from her
pov where she is even more fanatical than a lot
of the Iranians that she's pointing to here. And so
(31:43):
maybe that's why she sees them as primitive savages, perhaps
because we know that that is part of a type
of Christian rhetoric. So maybe if she had felt like
she could save these Iranians and convert them to Christianity,
could they have had potential in her eyes.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
So there are a couple things that happen in the
aftermath of this movie that I looked into, and I
am curious if you know about.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
So.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
One is mattob the daughter actually wrote her own book
many years later. She wrote her own book in twenty fifteen,
and she is also very Christian. She talks a lot
about her faith. I didn't read the book, but in
the book and in her interviews around that time, she
talks a lot about how her faith saved her, how
it made it possible for her to forgive her father,
(32:26):
although they never had contact again. And again, I don't
want to be seen in any way, like I am
doubting the veracity of the events here. But one thing
that's odd is she writes about her time in Iran
like she remembers it clearly. Oh and she was five
years old, right, So I do find that weird. Like
I left Iran when I was three and then lived
(32:47):
in Paris and came to America when I.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Was four or five.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
I have very few memories of that time in my life,
like glimpses kind of, right. So there's a weird thing
about that book where it's like she writes again based
on interviews because I didn't read the book, she writes
sort of extensively about what happened did Iroan, like seeing
her dad hit her mom about intervening, very detailed descriptions
(33:10):
of their time there.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
So I thought that was a bit odd.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
But the crazier thing I have to tell you is
that there was a documentary made about the father, about Moody.
Oh I did not know this, Yes, okay, So there's
a documentary that was made in two thousand and three,
made by an Iranian finish director, and it's called Without
(33:34):
My Daughter. All right, So okay, perfect, And so it's
actually quite hard to find. But I did find some
links to it on YouTube, and I was like, I'll
just watch like a couple minutes of this, right, I'm
not going to watch this whole documentary that clearly has
some weird agenda, and I ended up watching the whole.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Thing, Like the whole thing in parts.
Speaker 9 (33:58):
In all six parts, I have been portrayed as a liar,
a woman beat her, and a kidnap her. I have
been denied the right to see my daughter for fifteen years,
or even to talk to her. My sin, my only sin,
(34:18):
was that I love my only child, my daughter Macadi.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
It was deranged.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
It is based on extensive interviews with him, but the
action of this documentary is him essentially stalking his daughter.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Oh no.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
The premise of the movie is that he is trying
to get in touch with Mattob, who he has not
seen since they left Iran, and.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
He is calling her over and over again.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
So there's multiple scenes of him being like, pick up,
pick up, Mattob is your father, I want to talk
to you.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Pick up.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
There's one scene where someone answers and he gets off
and he's like, that was Betty.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I know that was Betty.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Like it is literally you're watching this very uncomfortable person.
I will say that this movie did not persuade me
of his innocence. He does not come off well in
this movie, and he is repeatedly like reaching out to them.
I can't even imagine how terrifying this must have been
for Betty and her daughter to get these messages. There's
(35:20):
a bananas scene where he screens the movie, not his
own movie, but not without my daughter to like a
class of people. And when that scene comes up of
him beating his wife in the hallway, he makes a
joke about it and laughs, again, not persuading me that
these things did not happen. You are making me feel
like you are a monster. Oh, it is the strangest
(35:42):
movie you will ever see.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Of course, he does not get in touch with her.
Oh there's another crazy thing I cannot fail to tell.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
You, which is there is a scene where the filmmaker
goes to her university where she is currently enrolled, and
asks someone at that university to give her a videotape
of her father there, besieging her.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
To make contact with him. They are literally stocking this
girl on camera. Oh my god, it is wil actually
pretty upsetting.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
He was like, who made this movie and why did
they think this was a good idea. The only thing
in this movie that's actually a little bit upsetting from
a more normal standpoint is that they interview the judge
that gave Betty custody and granted her divorce with him
in absentia, like he was not a party to his
(36:32):
own divorce, And that judge turns out to be a
virulent racist and anti Semite who says that if he
was in charge of the country, there'd be a lot
fewer Iranians on earth, like he would basically kill them all,
and then said something really anti semitic, So like, that's
not great.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
But so I don't know that he would have gotten.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
A fair shake even if he hadn't been a troubled person.
But I'm like, that does not actually persuade me in
the context of the fact that this is a movie
made entirely about harassing your child who's made it pretty
clear she doesn't want to have contact with you.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Oh my god, So that's bad. See it is the
aftermath this movie.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Would it just would have been better off that no
one talked about it. But I even remember the twenty
fifth anniversary of the film. There was all these articles
quoting Iranian Americans. Yea, and it might have been even
around when Mathop's book came out. But there were these
attempts to revive interest in this film, and so occasionally
people to ask me, have you seen it? I'd be like, yeah, yeah,
of course, and then sometimes they would watch it and
(37:29):
then they'd be like, wow, this is such a terrible movie.
Why doesn't everyone just ignore it? Which is a question
that makes sense in a way, but except what we're saying,
it's like the era made it so that we couldn't
forget it. Yeah, Like this badly made film ended up
having a much bigger position in the psyche of our
culture than people think because it was the only one.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Really honestly, this should have been a lifetime movie, like
that's what it would be now. But yes, it just
ended up being this significant cultural moment for Iranians. I
don't know that it was this larger significant cultural moment.
The movie did flop, and it was critically panned and
it didn't make much.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Money, thank goodness.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Luckily for all of us it was a flop because
I don't know if I would have been able to
take it if it was an Oscar movie on top
of everything else.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Right, Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Okay, Well, for Jesse, I feel like we have really
had a moment here about this movie.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Thank you so much for talking to me about it.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
But before you go, I want to spend some time
talking about your new book, which I just finished reading
last night.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
It is amazing. It's so funny and clever, and it's this.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Really sharp satire about a family of Iranian Americans living
in where else but Tarandelis, which is the name of
the book. The book comes out in June, but it's
available for pre order. Now, tell people a little bit
about it.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, So I have been working on this book for
a really long time. It sort of sat with me
for a while. When I started it, there wasn't Shaws
of Sunset. It was actually right before. Yeah, it was
in my head about an Iranian American family, the first
Iranian American reality TV family, at a time of war
with Iran, which has always been my big nightmare and
continues to be. It's just a thing that goes in
(39:07):
and out of our psyche every few years, with geopolitical
landscape always being so unstable in regards to Middle East,
so that was all I had at at one point,
and it was supposed to be my second novel. Actually,
I was having trouble selling my second novel, and all
these editors were like telling me what they wanted my
book to be, and they wanted it to be more
like these essays I was just churning out at a
(39:29):
rapid point at that period, like between like two thousand
and eight twenty twelve, I was writing a lot of
essays about like Iranian American experience, but the New York
Times and things like that.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
It was like during the personal essay industrial complex.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yes, I was just hoping it would help my first
books book sales. I was much more interested in journalism
and then fiction, but not this other thing. So I
started writing just for myself, a parody of some of
the requests the publishers were making, which was just like
we just want lots of women, just making about Iranian
American women. But I also didn't want to write the
trauma porn that is not without my daughter, you know,
I was very allergic to that. So I thought, what
(40:02):
about writing about something that I've never been able to
escape as an la based Iranian. I thought, why don't
I write about Taranngelis, and so I did write this
book with an all female cast and just like a
dad and like a cat and like a boyfriend that's
kind of hovers. And then I started getting interested in it,
like it became this satire, but I was kind of
(40:23):
approaching it like a weird experiment for myself. And so
then my second novel got published, and then I wrote
a was these nonfiction books, and so it's been something
I've worked on for years, but it wasn't until the
pandemic where I felt like, oh wait, this is actually
a pandemic story. If I said it during the pandemic,
I have a really good structure for it, especially because
just before the pandemic, Iranian's always remember this, January twenty
(40:47):
twenty looked very likely that we were going to go
to war with Iran, and it almost felt like the
pandemic provided a pause on that plan.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
It did.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yeah, So that was like, to me, a very perfect
setting for it. And during the early pandemic, I was
also reading Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asian series. Oh yeah,
I really want this to be like a Crazy Rich
West Asians, because what I liked about those books was
the satire, and I felt like some people would miss
the satire and just think like it's an advertisement for wild,
rich people.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
No, it definitely comes through that it's satire. I want
to say this because I feel like some people have
this too. I'm not someone who's dying to read a
lot of pandemic stuff just because I feel like I
just lived it. But this felt very relatable to me.
The pandemic stuff felt very natural to the story. I
didn't feel like I was reliving it in this terrible way.
It was a really important plot device. So I can't
(41:37):
recommend the book enough. I also want to say that
for people who haven't read your other books, your nonfiction
books are amazing. I think the thing that you do
really well in this book is that, even though it's
satire and the characters are in some ways awful, I
found myself rooting for them. I sort of loved to
these girls and I related to them. And a thing
that I think really comes out in the book is
(41:58):
that even in these families where they try so hard
to escape their iranian ness, yes, there is a generational
trauma that is just a current in the family and
handed down to each of them, and that is a
reality that I think doesn't get expressed in this way
because it is so often either trauma, porn or modlin
(42:20):
and to do it in this very comedic way, I.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Felt like it was really effective and really thank good.
I read this book so much.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Thank you so much, because I had to have really
come to like the characters. That was really important for me.
So that was when I really felt like it was
finally done, like where I started to have some affection
for them, even when they did some of the most
horrible things imaginable. That was the challenge, and I feel
like it brought to me a sense of peace about
some of the aspects of a diaspora that drive me nuts. Yes,
I didn't want it to just be like another book
(42:47):
making fun of Iranians or hating on Iranians. I just
wanted it to be like, let's talk about this thing
that we all feel weird about a little bit. It
also helped me to like imagine it like a film
or a TV series.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
I really feel like it could be by the way.
That's one of the things I was thinking when I
was reading it. It's really cinematic in the way you presented.
I feel like it could be a really good like
HBO series, so.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
It would be really fun.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
So if anyone's listening who is looking to pick up
a series, I really think it's great and I should
mention I didn't mention this at the top, that it
is one of the time most anticipated books, like it's
getting rave early attention, so everybody should go out and
get it. And thank you so much for doing this
with me today.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
I love this so fun.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Any time, Jess, I want to set up our next episode,
and I must admit I learned something about you when
we were recording this, which is that you in fact
attended a Miss America had.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yes, attended, to be clear, not competed in.
Speaker 6 (43:48):
But this episode is actually about Vanessa Williams, who made
history in the nineteen eighties as the first black Miss America.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
And we'll look at everything that came after that. I
hope to do the best I can.
Speaker 7 (44:01):
You up to get every person in Mars, no matter
what rate is.
Speaker 5 (44:05):
Seen, to cover all.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
This is in retrospect. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Is there a pop culture moment you can't stop thinking
about and want us to explore in a future episode.
Email us at in retropod at gmail dot com. Or
find us on Instagram at in Retropod.
Speaker 6 (44:24):
If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
and at Susie b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books
Feminist Fight Club and.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
This Is eighteen.
Speaker 6 (44:43):
In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and the Media.
Lauren Hansen is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our
engineer and sound designer. Emily Meronoff is our producer. Jaran
Atia is our researcher and associate producer.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Our executive producer from the media is sin Levy. Our
executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
And Katrina Norbel.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda
Rose Smith. Additional editing help from Mary Do. We are
your hosts Susie Bannacarum.
Speaker 6 (45:15):
And Jessica Bennett. We are also executive producers. For even
more check out in retropod dot com.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
See you next week.
Okay, So people to ask me, have you seen it?
I'd be like, yeah, yeah, of course, and then sometimes
they would watch it and then they'd be like, Wow,
this is such a terrible movie. Why doesn't everyone just
ignore it? Except the era made it so that we
couldn't forget it.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm Susie Bannacharam and I'm Jessica Bennett and.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
This is in Retrospect, where each week we revisit a
cultural moment from the past that shaped.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Us and that we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Today, we're talking to best selling author Portista Cockpoor, who
is a friend and fellow Iranian.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We're going to talk about the movie Not Without My Daughter.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
When we were growing up, this was really the only
mainstream representation of Iranians and it had a.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Pretty big impact on us.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Purtista, thank you so much for joining us on in Retrospect.
I'm so happy to get to have this conversation with you.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Well, so you and I have been talking about this
movie Not Without My Daughter. I reached out to you
because I was like, Hey, do you have thoughts about
this movie? Because I definitely do, And you were like, Susie. Yes,
and I've written about it. Then I read the thing
you wrote about it for the Early Times many years ago.
(01:15):
But this is a movie that looms very large in
the Iranian experience because, as you wrote.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
We were pretty invisible in culture.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I'd say we're probably still somewhat invisible in culture, but
growing up, this was the only representation I remember seeing
of Iranian people in pop culture.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Is that your memory too?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, there was very little, because I remember the commercial
the day that it aired on television. Our TV was
always on, you know, we had one of those households,
so the TV was always blaring, So I like vividly
remember the first commercial I saw for.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
It, nineteen eighty four, betting Mamody's husband took her and
her daughter to Iran to meet his family.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I dismember in our household. We were very excited at first,
like okay, wow, this is clearly something taking place in Iran.
This is amazing, And then like halfway through the trailer
we were like, oh yeah, the trailer is dark.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I don't know how to say this to you.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
We're not going back with staying here.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I want us to live in Iran.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
What are you crazy? We're Americans, your daughter's an American. Mainly,
we were excited because of Sally Field, and I feel like,
there's great There's like, I don't know, she must have
been huge and Iran because my parents told me a
lot about her. I mean, she was obviously of a
different era than our era, but Sally Field just seemed
like the perfect America's darling. This was shortly after she'd
been in Steel Magnolias.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
So this was just kind of like the height great movie.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Amazing movie, Like Sally Field has just had hits mainly
other than not without my daughter, so it's like she
was at the height of her power. And so of
course we were going to pay attention first and foremost
to a Sally Field movie being on television. And then
it was like, oh, whoa Iran. And I remember, for
a second we thought she was playing an Iranian woman.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Right because you didn't know the book, right.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
That's so interesting because I don't think we were familiar
with the book either. And I also was a huge
Sally Field fan. I loved Gidget. And we should mention
we both grew up in California, although you grew up
in LA which is more typical of an Iranian family.
My family very consciously decided to live in northern California.
My parents were a little afraid that we would be
(03:28):
subsumed by the kind of I don't even know how
to describe it for people who don't know it, but
there's this Iranian culture in LA that's very focused on
like money and plastic surgery, which no shade book, I've dabbled, and.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
All those things.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
But they were really like afraid we would become these
stereotypical Iranian girls. And so I grew up off in
the wilderness, like northern California is not the wilderness, but
for Iranian people, it kind of felt that way. We
didn't have this huge Iranian community. We had some friends
and whatever. But as a result, when the movie came out,
I certainly was not aware of the book, and so
(04:04):
I don't remember the way you do when I first
became aware of.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
It, or when I.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Saw it for the first time. Even I watched it
this week just to remind myself. And I don't know
that I had ever seen it from start to finish.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I think I just always caught it.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
On rerun, right, But I was aware that it existed
from a pretty young age, and I was aware that
everyone was appalled by it.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And not just see ronins. We should say it was
a flop do well in the box office at all.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
It did not do well.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Okay, we should describe the movie for people who don't
know what we're talking about. This movie is the story
of a woman named Betty Mamody who is married to
a man named said Ma Moody who goes by Moody.
Their last name is Mamody, but his nickname is Moody,
so just fyi. And it is based on a true story.
(05:00):
And we should say that because what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Is not whether or not the story she told was true.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
I don't have any way of knowing that, and I
think there's some evidence that in fact, the story.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
She told was true.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
But it's the movie that really had this cultural impact
on Iranians in a different way.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
The book was really popular, it was a bestseller.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I think we were just too young, because if we
were probably in our twenties or thirties, we would have
probably noticed that it was an international bestseller, but instead,
like kids, we noticed a movie more.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, but it was.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Huge and the book was I think pretty critically acclaimed.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Even Yeah, I mean it came out in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
The movie doesn't come out until nineteen ninety one, so
there's a little bit of a break in between it.
And it's probably worth noting that this period in American
history was really the most anti Iranian period, Like anti
Iranian sentiment.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Was very high for people who don't know the history.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
When the Iranian Revolution happens, it starts in seventy eight
and ends in seventy nine, some Iranian students barricade the
American embassy and take hostages, and this becomes a huge
national story.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
The United States Marine Corps guards use tear gas to
who try to disperse the mob of Islamic students, but
that wasn't enough. They stormed the embassy, fought the Marine
guards for three hours, overpowered.
Speaker 6 (06:14):
Them, and took dozens of American hostages.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
The hostages, men and women, were blindfolded and heard it
into the embassy's basement.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
These hostages are kept for four hundred and forty four
days while they're negotiating with American whether or not they're
going to release these American embassy workers. And it was
such a big story that I actually read that Walter
Cronkite would end every show by saying how many days
they had been in captivity.
Speaker 7 (06:40):
That's the word is Tuesday February nineteenth, nineteen eighty, the
one hundred and eighth day of captivity, the two hundred
and twenty second day of captivity, the two hundred and
eighty fifth day of captivity, the three hundred and seventy
seventh day of captivity for American hostages in Iraqi.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
And I think for a lot of Americans it was
the first time they'd ever really thought about Iran.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I mean, Iran was not like.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
In the popular culture and the way it became after
the Access of Evil comments by George Bush. So it
was their first exposure to Iran. And the idea was
that it was this really primitive country and there was
a lot of protests in America and there was a
lot of anti Iranian racism that people experience. So this
movie arrives on the scene when Iranians have kind of
(07:20):
been turned into the latest boogeyman.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
You know, America has to have someone yeah, yeah, the
Cold War was kind of waiting.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I feel like they needed someone new, and the Iranians
took that mantle.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
The timing was. I think that's a big part of this.
I've noticed younger people don't even know so much of
your experience of the US when you're Iranian has to
do with when you arrived. Yes, there were pockets where
it was a little easier, yeah, like when I came
or things like that, and then there's pockets that it
got worse. It always ebbs and flows. It has a
lot to do with the news cycle, and it has
a lot to do with US foreign policy and who's
(07:53):
our president all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I was a bit oblivious as a child.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
I don't know that I even really realized people didn't
like I did arrive in this country right after the revolution,
so it would have been at this height. But you know,
we lived in this small town in northern California. There
weren't a lot of us, and our parents taught us
that it was cool that we were Iranian. Like they
were kind of like, well, you're better than these Americans
were Iranian. That's something to be proud of.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
And I felt really lucky about that because it took a.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Long time for me to realize what I was was
supposed to be bad in some way, and then to
actually experience discrimination, which obviously eventually I did because I
live in America.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
But I think I've had this experience with a lot
of people who lived in Northern California, and I think
Northern California really could be another state. I mean it
to me always seems way more educated, way more culturally sensitive.
Like I wish my parents had decided to go to
northern California. First, they didn't because my aunt was there.
My grandma was in Long Beach, Yeah, which I mean,
we weren't in the Tarandulus part of La so I
(08:54):
was still like one of very few Iranians in our community.
We were in the San Gabriel Valley, but we were
still close enough to like the real La Iranian experience.
That the reason we heard so much anti iranianness is
because people were very aware of Iranians.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
We should explain, because I feel like you and I
just assume everybody knows what tarangelist is, but that's not
the case.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Will you tell people what that is? And then later
on we're.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Going to talk about your new book, which is called Tarangelis.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Which mistakenly people keep thinking I invented that word, which
is amazing.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I'm like whoa.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
I can't take credit for that. It's a portmanteau for
just like Tehran and Los Angeles, and it refers to
a part of the West side of LA It's very specific.
People would probably fight over exactly what areas, but it
certainly it includes Beverly Hills, parts of bel Air, parts
of Brentwood, even parts of Santa Monica.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Westwood definitely going to say Westwood is what I always remember,
and it's where there are a lot of Iranian shops
and Iranian restaurants exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
There's a little Persia plaque now which wasn't there when
I was a kid. So it's very much this particular area.
And then there's a whole culture that comes with it,
and it's very much which you were describing earlier, like
it is this culture of very flashy, moneied Iranians. You know,
it's all like upper class or upper middle class, and
people are pretending to be very upper class. Yes, I
often think of it very much like this one scene
(10:20):
and Clueless where Alicia Silverstones share a character points out
to her friend she goes and that's the Persian mafia.
And that's the Persian mafia. You can't hang with Emlis
you own a BMW.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
That, actually, by the way, is the second time I
remember Iranians being mentioned in.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
A movie was in Clueless and being like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
But it is of course that kind of thing that
eventually becomes what I think a lot of people associate
with Iranians now in pop culture. Shaws of Sunset, which
was a reality show on Bravo for a while.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
This season on Shaws of Sunset.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
It's like, you know, very flashy, lots of gold, very
ostentatious is the vibe, yes, And I think in Iranian
culture it's complicated because on the one hand, I don't
want to like talk shit about other Iranians. But it
is also true that when you grow up Iranian you
have a point of view about what that vibe is,
like that Persian American princess Yes sing and you and
(11:11):
I were both really very much not of that, And
I think that makes us kind of unusual, right, But
it makes sense that we're.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Friends totally exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
It also makes sense that we love New York, this
place and it's Iranians are so the antithesis of that
energy I feel like, which is still thriving. We should
mention too like there's tiktoks that are all about that.
They don't always use the word taranngulus, but they're very
much referring to like that kind of culture. And now
they're doing like the gen Z version of that.
Speaker 8 (11:38):
They're Lamborghinis, and yeah, like makes so funny that that's
like what's so associated with Iranian culture because in my mind,
Iranian culture is so many other things that have nothing
to do with money, Like not everyone from Iran is rich.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
That's just a wild stereotype that makes no sense to me.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Let's go back to.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
The movie and what was happening. So this book comes out.
Then the movie doesn't come out un till a bit
later in ninety one, but it takes place in eighty four.
It's really soon after the revolution, right, the Iran Iraq
War is raging, and for people who don't know what
that is, that was a conflict between Iraq and Iran
that went on for many years, and the Iraqi side
(12:35):
was very much funded by American intervention because of the
hostage crisis, but also they just felt at that time
that Iraq was a more friendly nation that would not
go on to be the case. But when the movie
comes out, is when that is shifting a bit because
Iraq has just invaded Kuwait and there's about to be
(13:00):
Operation Desert Storm, which was a short lived war when
we were kids, and that is literally happening right as
the movie is coming out. The movie comes out in
January on January eleventh, and less than a week later
the invasion begins.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
These guies over back then have been illuminated.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
We're being right, flashes going on all over the sky.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
So it's in that context that we are introduced to
the Malmoodi family. And I'm going to just walk us
through it, and you can tell me your impressions of
these scenes as well. But the way the movie starts
is that these two have the most idyllic marriage, like
the most adorable couple with the most adorable child.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Well it's my turn.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
You always say this beautiful, like lush, green landscape. And
he's a doctor and she's a stay at home mom.
And there's just one little hint that not everything is paradise,
and it's that one day they show him at the
hospital and other doctors are saying nasty things about Iranians
(14:10):
in front of him. He prayed themselves right back, and
the Stone.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Is soldier gets wounded in the field.
Speaker 8 (14:16):
Just let him die.
Speaker 9 (14:16):
He's gonna go to paradise.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Anyway, right, And he gets very upset. But even in
that he's presented in this very iererdyite way, like he
goes home and listens to classical music to recover from
his discrimination, and she's like it's not okay, Like I
stand with you.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
We moved here to get away from all of that. God,
he's just so awful.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Oh, they forget it.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
And then there is this scene where he's with his
daughter and she tells him that she's been discriminated against.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Also says, I hate Americans because you're from Iran, and
he says to her in this infamous line.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
I've lived in America for twenty years. I'm as American
as apple Pie.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Show you.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So that's the beginning of the movie. We are presented
to this family and this man. He's American like he's Iranian,
but it's almost incidental to who he is. And while
he is American, he is the perfect husband.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
The one thing that struck me this time watching it
again that kind of cracked me up is the dad
is played by Alfred Molina.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yes right, because they couldn't find an Amanian actor in La.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Apparently they do have other Iranian actress in the film,
so it's just sort of weird. It goes to Alfred Molina,
who's I think of Spanish and Italian descent. It struck
me this time. It's so funny because I think of
the name of the daughter, which is Matob. Matob is
one of the easiest names to say. Yeah, like I've
heard many many white Americans be able to say Matob
very easily. Yes, But from the beginning, it struck me
(15:41):
that they're just saying the daughter's name even weird like
Matabb and I's just like they couldn't get that right.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
The other thing I want to say here is that
there's a lot of Farsie spoken in this movie.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
My Farsi's not great, but it's better than this.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
It's the worst Farsiti you've ever heard, and it is
never translated.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
It is just present. It is this gobbledygook going on
in the background, but there's no captions on screen.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
It's just like, oh, they speak this foreign, scary tongue.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I guess they just realized it wouldn't make a difference,
because it's not like they were conveying anything that shows
their humanity through the Persian anyway, so they just don't
do it.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
They clearly had Iranian people working on the film. Someone
has to teach him the Farsi. He does speak, and
if you're going to go through the trouble of teaching
him Farsie and having him say things, I don't know
why you wouldn't translate them.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I mean that part's so weird to me, so weird.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
And they're living this idyllic life. And then he says
to her, I haven't been to Iran in ten years.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I would really like to go home, honey.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
I want to go more than anything. I miss them
so much. You're always talking about how important family is.
All I want to do is go for two weeks
with you and NOTAP and visit my family.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
And she's horrified by the idea that they would go
to Iran.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I guess it's fair.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
I mean, there was a war raging there, so that
does make sense. But it's just like the absolute horror
with which she responds that I find kind of funny.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Okay, go to Iran.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Why not.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I'm not about to take Matak to Iran. It's much
too violent.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
We're not going to go sight saying to the Persian
Gulf or anything crazy. We're going to spend two weeks
on vacation with my family.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Ody.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
There's too much going on over there.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
And he swears to her with his hand on the
Holy Holdan that they will be back in two weeks.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
I swear to you on the sacred Koran you won't
be in any danger.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Which I find also right, because if you're only going
for a two week vacation, why is there so much
a question about whether or not you're going to come back.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
You own your home, you have.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
A job, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
But then we get into this thing that you have
talked about, which is essentially this is a horror movie
about Iranians.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
It really has that structure because Betty math Boody's nightmare
and this is that she's being told that she's gonna
go to Iran for two weeks right right shortly after
she gets there, he turns into an absolute villain.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
You're in my country, now, you're my wife. You do
as I say, you understand me.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
And we realize he's kidnapped her kidnapping, and so she's
not gonna be able to go back to the US
and so she's just like stuck. Now in Iran. He
becomes like a demon, he's a confuser. Suddenly, what.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
You try anything like this again, I'll kill you.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
There's all these scenes of her praying with her daughter,
like to the Lord, you know, because she's very Christian.
She wears a cross Lord prayer, did you look for
your prayer? Please help us leave Iran and get back
to America.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
It really does follow this horror film structure like you're
talking about. It starts with this ominous music. Then there's
the calm before the storm, and now they're in Iran
and it is the storm, even from the moment they land.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Do you remember that scene?
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I was blown away by rewatching the scene when they
get to the airport, which is represented as like a
dirt field, like they're never in a structure, Like I'm.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Like, why is there no airport?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I've been to the airport, right, And then they're just
like this huge group like a hundred people, all cloaked
in black, and they're like surrounding her, and he immediately
starts laughing maniacally like it's I'm like, what's happening in
the scene.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
It's so wild that scene, because of course we know
as Iranians people often come to the airport seas some
family members, but it's not thirty family members or like
a whole village. It's so weird, and they're like screaming
and yelling. They're like mobs of family and she's like,
oh my gosh, this must be how Iranians are.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
At this point, they've been married for seven years, their
daughter is four. Presumably they have met other Iranian people.
I mean, in fact, they reference that some of this
family has come to stay with them before. So it's
this bizarre moment that they're like mauling this poor child
who looks terri off the bat.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
And then there is the scene.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
That truly scarred me so much as a child, and
I need to know how you reacted to the scene.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
But eventually they get in a car.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
And they go to where they are staying I guess
where his sister lives. And when they get out of
the car, someone is slitting a goat's throat and like
blood is gushing. I'm like, I'm genuinely I remember as
a child being like, what is happening?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Do people slick goats' throats in the streets.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Of tarant I remember asking my parents, is this a
thing that happens? And of course Betty and her daughter
are horrified by this animal being slaughtered in front of them.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
They wouldn't saying welcome, it's a great honor.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
They give the meat to the floor.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
Honey, honey, we had to step far right here.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Is that something you've ever heard of happening in any
Iranian family?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Like, it's so crazy.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I think they were trying so hard. There's several early
scenes where it seems like they're trying to really establish
the otherness of Islam in a very concrete way, and
so they're really stretching. Like I kind of feel like
the filmmakers got this project and they were like, oh,
Iran is more westernized than we realized. Shoot, let's amplify
these things that will make it look really other to
(21:16):
like regular Americans. So like, sure, and there's there are
villages in Iran where they will like slaughter an animal
in a sort of sacrificial thing. But this thing exists
all over the world. I mean this the idea of
an animal being sacrificed as a homecoming meal or something. Sure,
in my family, certainly not. I'm sure, nobody thought of any.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Notes when they I've been to Iran a number of times.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Have you been back since the rebels?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
I actually haven't been back. I was only there for
the first few years of my life, but I haven't
been able to go back.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
I was eighteen when I went back the first time,
and then I went back again after grad school, and
then I wasn't able to go back because once I
became a journalist, it became essentially impossible.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
But my mom lived up until recently.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
She had moved back when I was in college and
lived there for twenty years.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
And it's not such a backwards country.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I mean, of course, there are pockets of it that
are backwards, and it is ruled by an Islamic government,
so there are some things that feel very backward.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
When you're there.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
You have to wear a headscarf and you have to
cover up. What's interesting is, I think, even though I
lived in an Iranian family and we live nothing like
these people to some degree, even when I went at eighteen,
I expected the country to be this very dark, primitive,
backwards place because those were the only images I had seen. Also, right,
that's what media had taught me about what my country was,
(22:39):
and I remember just being so shocked because a friend
of my mom's had a daughter about my age, and
she came to pick me up to drive me around,
and I got in her car and she had a
guns and Roses bumper sticker on the inside of her car,
and I just remember being so shocked by that, Like
I was like, Oh, these are.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Just kids like us, Like these are just normal people.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
And then you would go to parties and everyone takes
their scarves off and everybody drinks even.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Though it's not allowed.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
It's actually a pretty sophisticated country, and before the revolution
it was actually considered this very cool place to visit.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
It was very urban. Like it is weird to.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
See it depicted in this way now having been to Iran,
but I think the first time I saw it, I
had never been, so I.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Was like, maybe this is what happens.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
So we get through this scarring scene about the goat,
and then it becomes clear that they're not going back.
He tells her that he's been fired actually from his job,
which now that we know he's an abusive psycho, kind
of makes sense. I'm a little curious about what his
bedside manner might have been like he takes her in
(23:43):
Matob's passports and they are not allowed to leave the apartment.
And there are these really weird details about the family.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Do you remember that they have no furniture?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Like.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Why don't they have any furniture?
Speaker 3 (23:57):
I've never been in an Iranian house with literally no
furniture of anything. He has sometimes to beat picnic style,
but you don't get rid of all the furniture.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
They all sleep in the living room together, as far
as I can tell, Like I don't. It's very weird.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
The word primitive comes up a lot, so so many times.
Speaker 9 (24:11):
It just seems so primitive.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Sometimes she'd stay here.
Speaker 9 (24:16):
This is a backward, primitive country, to.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Be clear, there are things about the way Iranians force
women to live that I also think are backwards, but.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
It's not such a primitive country.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
And we're not going to go through all the back
and forth with this because there's many more scenes that
indicate that Iranians are terrible people and this country is.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Just the cesspool.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
And eventually she realizes that the way she's going to
be able to survive this is that she's going to
have to pretend that she's bought in and that she
wants to stay. And there's this whole section of the
film where she's essentially convincing him that she's decided she.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Is into it.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
He continues to be emotionally and physically abusive. There's like
a particularly ugly scene where he beats her in the
hallway of his dog our school, and also hits the daughter.
And an important detail here is that part of the
reason she cannot leave without her daughter, not without my daughter,
is that in Iranian culture, in a divorce, the man
(25:12):
gets custody. She has no rights to her own daughter
in Iran. So she starts to hatch a plan. She's
constantly trying to reach the Swiss embassy, where there's an
American interests division, and eventually she does make friends with
a couple Iranians. And that's also interesting because there are
these two Iranian men in this movie that are presented
(25:33):
as kind people, but they are both people who love America.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
We love America. We're not real Iranians. We love America.
You are American.
Speaker 9 (25:44):
Yes, I like America very much. My son was with
University of Texas.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, they're supposed to be representing a minority. They're the
antithesis of all the regular Iranians who are primitive. They're
very well educated, they have librarries. They're talking about gardens
and ancient Persia.
Speaker 7 (26:04):
Whenever I think of what's happening to my country, I
try to remember its gardens.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
In fact, the word paradise is a Persian word.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
They're very affluent and very well dressed. And it doesn't
seem like they're Muslim or else. They don't have a
good close relationship.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
They're certainly not outwardly Muslim in any pay.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yes, yes, and so they're the good westernized Iranians who
are going to rescue her.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And they do.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
They rescue her and at their own expense. Right, I
can't really tell if he's a smuggler, but if he
is a smuggler, he decides to give her a free ride.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
How much will it.
Speaker 9 (26:34):
Cost when you and your daughter safely back in America?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Then if you can, perhaps you will reimburse me.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
He arranges for her to leave the country, and then
she makes this really treacherous trip over the hills into Turkey,
which I just want to say, is actually pretty insane
that she does this with what is At that point,
I think like a five or six year old child, like,
it is remarkable that they got out of there safely.
That is an incredibly dangerous and it is true. You
(27:02):
know that the people who are smuggling people out of
Iran are not often good characters.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
They're not good people, so it.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Is actually remarkable that they make it out safely. And
then the final scene of the movie is she is
in Turkey, but she sees the American embassy and there
is literally an American flag like waving in the wind,
and she's like, oh my god, Usa us like we're here,
(27:31):
We're Hoby, and that's how the movie ends.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I should mention here.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
I don't think you know this about me, but my
dad went back to Iran in eighty five. And my
dad had been the president of Chase Tehran when the
revolution happened. He had been blacklisted and his best friend
had become the Minister of Economics for this short period,
(28:06):
so he was put under house arrest. And when my
parents left Iran, they made it out through the airport,
but it was because there just wasn't any organization yet.
And so when I was ten years old, he decided
he wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Back to Iran.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Really in a way that's similar to this story, which
is he hadn't been home for a long time, he
missed his family, He felt some draw I mean, in
the end, this idea that you can leave your country behind,
like if I said to you, you have to leave
New York today and never come back, like you do
feel sure this poll and in the movie that poll
is presented as insane, but it really made sense to me.
(28:43):
I mean, my dad really wanted to go home and
see his mom and see his family, and I was
very scared as a child. I was ten when he went.
I was really really scared. And when it came time
to leave, he had a perfectly good experience while he
was there, but when it came time to leave, they
wouldn't let him.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Leave through the airport.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
They were basically like, you have to stay here, and
he ultimately decided to make the trek out of Iran
by foot into Pakistan.
Speaker 7 (29:11):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
There have been.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Times when people have doubted her story, and I just
know that that is a real thing that happens pretty
regularly because my dad did it. And it's why I
know how dangerous it is. Like he kept notes through
the trip he had to sew his money into his
clothes so that if they searched him they couldn't find it,
so that he would have some money when he arrived
in Pakistan, and he was not a citizen. We were citizens,
(29:34):
but my dad had always kept his green card because
he was concerned he wouldn't be able to go back
if he was a citizen. And he got to the
American embassy in Pakistan, and we were living in England
at the time, and he was not allowed to come
see us because anti Iranian sentiment was so great. They
were not giving visas to Iranian citizens even if they
(29:56):
had a green card because of all the hijackings.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
So we actually had to meet him in Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
So in many ways this movie mirrors aspects of my
own life, but in a weird, twisted, funhouse mirror kind
of way, like we were on the other side of this,
which is he was Iranian, but he was trapped and
he was experiencing the anti Iranian sentiment that Moody talks
about in the film. And so it is so odd
(30:25):
for me to watch it. It's not that I don't
believe that there's truth in this version of events, it's
just presented in a way that's so objectionable to me. Yeah,
And I think wouldn't matter so much if it wasn't
the only representation, right, Like, if there was lots of
art about Iran, if there was lots of films and
TV shows, and then there was this one in the mix,
(30:47):
I'd be like, Okay, well that's one woman's experience whatever.
But it's like for most Americans, that's the only representation
they saw of Iranians their whole life until Charles of
Sunset came on TV.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yes, Tank, Yeah, I think that's the thing is no
one is questioning like the validity of the story or
or I guess some people are, but not not a
lot of people. But I'm rooting for her on some level.
To get away from your abusive husband, that's great. Like
maybe if this was made in a different era. I
always wonder it could have been good, because they've done
a good job of it. You know, I've watched it
a few times now, and every time I watch it,
(31:22):
I just have a lot of questions about her own
character because we don't actually learn that much about her.
It is only in the aftermath of watching it. At
some point I realized that she became like evangelical, I mean,
for Christianity is a very big part of her identity.
And so I wonder if the movie entirely from her
pov where she is even more fanatical than a lot
of the Iranians that she's pointing to here. And so
(31:43):
maybe that's why she sees them as primitive savages, perhaps
because we know that that is part of a type
of Christian rhetoric. So maybe if she had felt like
she could save these Iranians and convert them to Christianity,
could they have had potential in her eyes.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
So there are a couple things that happen in the
aftermath of this movie that I looked into, and I
am curious if you know about.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
So.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
One is mattob the daughter actually wrote her own book
many years later. She wrote her own book in twenty fifteen,
and she is also very Christian. She talks a lot
about her faith. I didn't read the book, but in
the book and in her interviews around that time, she
talks a lot about how her faith saved her, how
it made it possible for her to forgive her father,
(32:26):
although they never had contact again. And again, I don't
want to be seen in any way, like I am
doubting the veracity of the events here. But one thing
that's odd is she writes about her time in Iran
like she remembers it clearly. Oh and she was five
years old, right, So I do find that weird. Like
I left Iran when I was three and then lived
(32:47):
in Paris and came to America when I.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Was four or five.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
I have very few memories of that time in my life,
like glimpses kind of, right. So there's a weird thing
about that book where it's like she writes again based
on interviews because I didn't read the book, she writes
sort of extensively about what happened did Iroan, like seeing
her dad hit her mom about intervening, very detailed descriptions
(33:10):
of their time there.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
So I thought that was a bit odd.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
But the crazier thing I have to tell you is
that there was a documentary made about the father, about Moody.
Oh I did not know this, Yes, okay, So there's
a documentary that was made in two thousand and three,
made by an Iranian finish director, and it's called Without
(33:34):
My Daughter. All right, So okay, perfect, And so it's
actually quite hard to find. But I did find some
links to it on YouTube, and I was like, I'll
just watch like a couple minutes of this, right, I'm
not going to watch this whole documentary that clearly has
some weird agenda, and I ended up watching the whole.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Thing, Like the whole thing in parts.
Speaker 9 (33:58):
In all six parts, I have been portrayed as a liar,
a woman beat her, and a kidnap her. I have
been denied the right to see my daughter for fifteen years,
or even to talk to her. My sin, my only sin,
(34:18):
was that I love my only child, my daughter Macadi.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
It was deranged.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
It is based on extensive interviews with him, but the
action of this documentary is him essentially stalking his daughter.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Oh no.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
The premise of the movie is that he is trying
to get in touch with Mattob, who he has not
seen since they left Iran, and.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
He is calling her over and over again.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
So there's multiple scenes of him being like, pick up,
pick up, Mattob is your father, I want to talk
to you.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Pick up.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
There's one scene where someone answers and he gets off
and he's like, that was Betty.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I know that was Betty.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Like it is literally you're watching this very uncomfortable person.
I will say that this movie did not persuade me
of his innocence. He does not come off well in
this movie, and he is repeatedly like reaching out to them.
I can't even imagine how terrifying this must have been
for Betty and her daughter to get these messages. There's
(35:20):
a bananas scene where he screens the movie, not his
own movie, but not without my daughter to like a
class of people. And when that scene comes up of
him beating his wife in the hallway, he makes a
joke about it and laughs, again, not persuading me that
these things did not happen. You are making me feel
like you are a monster. Oh, it is the strangest
(35:42):
movie you will ever see.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Of course, he does not get in touch with her.
Oh there's another crazy thing I cannot fail to tell.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
You, which is there is a scene where the filmmaker
goes to her university where she is currently enrolled, and
asks someone at that university to give her a videotape
of her father there, besieging her.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
To make contact with him. They are literally stocking this
girl on camera. Oh my god, it is wil actually
pretty upsetting.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
He was like, who made this movie and why did
they think this was a good idea. The only thing
in this movie that's actually a little bit upsetting from
a more normal standpoint is that they interview the judge
that gave Betty custody and granted her divorce with him
in absentia, like he was not a party to his
(36:32):
own divorce, And that judge turns out to be a
virulent racist and anti Semite who says that if he
was in charge of the country, there'd be a lot
fewer Iranians on earth, like he would basically kill them all,
and then said something really anti semitic, So like, that's
not great.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
But so I don't know that he would have gotten.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
A fair shake even if he hadn't been a troubled person.
But I'm like, that does not actually persuade me in
the context of the fact that this is a movie
made entirely about harassing your child who's made it pretty
clear she doesn't want to have contact with you.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Oh my god, So that's bad. See it is the
aftermath this movie.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Would it just would have been better off that no
one talked about it. But I even remember the twenty
fifth anniversary of the film. There was all these articles
quoting Iranian Americans. Yea, and it might have been even
around when Mathop's book came out. But there were these
attempts to revive interest in this film, and so occasionally
people to ask me, have you seen it? I'd be like, yeah, yeah,
of course, and then sometimes they would watch it and
(37:29):
then they'd be like, wow, this is such a terrible movie.
Why doesn't everyone just ignore it? Which is a question
that makes sense in a way, but except what we're saying,
it's like the era made it so that we couldn't
forget it. Yeah, Like this badly made film ended up
having a much bigger position in the psyche of our
culture than people think because it was the only one.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Really honestly, this should have been a lifetime movie, like
that's what it would be now. But yes, it just
ended up being this significant cultural moment for Iranians. I
don't know that it was this larger significant cultural moment.
The movie did flop, and it was critically panned and
it didn't make much.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Money, thank goodness.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Luckily for all of us it was a flop because
I don't know if I would have been able to
take it if it was an Oscar movie on top
of everything else.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Right, Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Okay, Well, for Jesse, I feel like we have really
had a moment here about this movie.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Thank you so much for talking to me about it.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
But before you go, I want to spend some time
talking about your new book, which I just finished reading
last night.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
It is amazing. It's so funny and clever, and it's this.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Really sharp satire about a family of Iranian Americans living
in where else but Tarandelis, which is the name of
the book. The book comes out in June, but it's
available for pre order. Now, tell people a little bit
about it.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, So I have been working on this book for
a really long time. It sort of sat with me
for a while. When I started it, there wasn't Shaws
of Sunset. It was actually right before. Yeah, it was
in my head about an Iranian American family, the first
Iranian American reality TV family, at a time of war
with Iran, which has always been my big nightmare and
continues to be. It's just a thing that goes in
(39:07):
and out of our psyche every few years, with geopolitical
landscape always being so unstable in regards to Middle East,
so that was all I had at at one point,
and it was supposed to be my second novel. Actually,
I was having trouble selling my second novel, and all
these editors were like telling me what they wanted my
book to be, and they wanted it to be more
like these essays I was just churning out at a
(39:29):
rapid point at that period, like between like two thousand
and eight twenty twelve, I was writing a lot of
essays about like Iranian American experience, but the New York
Times and things like that.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
It was like during the personal essay industrial complex.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yes, I was just hoping it would help my first
books book sales. I was much more interested in journalism
and then fiction, but not this other thing. So I
started writing just for myself, a parody of some of
the requests the publishers were making, which was just like
we just want lots of women, just making about Iranian
American women. But I also didn't want to write the
trauma porn that is not without my daughter, you know,
I was very allergic to that. So I thought, what
(40:02):
about writing about something that I've never been able to
escape as an la based Iranian. I thought, why don't
I write about Taranngelis, and so I did write this
book with an all female cast and just like a
dad and like a cat and like a boyfriend that's
kind of hovers. And then I started getting interested in it,
like it became this satire, but I was kind of
(40:23):
approaching it like a weird experiment for myself. And so
then my second novel got published, and then I wrote
a was these nonfiction books, and so it's been something
I've worked on for years, but it wasn't until the
pandemic where I felt like, oh wait, this is actually
a pandemic story. If I said it during the pandemic,
I have a really good structure for it, especially because
just before the pandemic, Iranian's always remember this, January twenty
(40:47):
twenty looked very likely that we were going to go
to war with Iran, and it almost felt like the
pandemic provided a pause on that plan.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
It did.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yeah, So that was like, to me, a very perfect
setting for it. And during the early pandemic, I was
also reading Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asian series. Oh yeah,
I really want this to be like a Crazy Rich
West Asians, because what I liked about those books was
the satire, and I felt like some people would miss
the satire and just think like it's an advertisement for wild,
rich people.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
No, it definitely comes through that it's satire. I want
to say this because I feel like some people have
this too. I'm not someone who's dying to read a
lot of pandemic stuff just because I feel like I
just lived it. But this felt very relatable to me.
The pandemic stuff felt very natural to the story. I
didn't feel like I was reliving it in this terrible way.
It was a really important plot device. So I can't
(41:37):
recommend the book enough. I also want to say that
for people who haven't read your other books, your nonfiction
books are amazing. I think the thing that you do
really well in this book is that, even though it's
satire and the characters are in some ways awful, I
found myself rooting for them. I sort of loved to
these girls and I related to them. And a thing
that I think really comes out in the book is
(41:58):
that even in these families where they try so hard
to escape their iranian ness, yes, there is a generational
trauma that is just a current in the family and
handed down to each of them, and that is a
reality that I think doesn't get expressed in this way
because it is so often either trauma, porn or modlin
(42:20):
and to do it in this very comedic way, I.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Felt like it was really effective and really thank good.
I read this book so much.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Thank you so much, because I had to have really
come to like the characters. That was really important for me.
So that was when I really felt like it was
finally done, like where I started to have some affection
for them, even when they did some of the most
horrible things imaginable. That was the challenge, and I feel
like it brought to me a sense of peace about
some of the aspects of a diaspora that drive me nuts. Yes,
I didn't want it to just be like another book
(42:47):
making fun of Iranians or hating on Iranians. I just
wanted it to be like, let's talk about this thing
that we all feel weird about a little bit. It
also helped me to like imagine it like a film
or a TV series.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
I really feel like it could be by the way.
That's one of the things I was thinking when I
was reading it. It's really cinematic in the way you presented.
I feel like it could be a really good like
HBO series, so.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
It would be really fun.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
So if anyone's listening who is looking to pick up
a series, I really think it's great and I should
mention I didn't mention this at the top, that it
is one of the time most anticipated books, like it's
getting rave early attention, so everybody should go out and
get it. And thank you so much for doing this
with me today.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
I love this so fun.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Any time, Jess, I want to set up our next episode,
and I must admit I learned something about you when
we were recording this, which is that you in fact
attended a Miss America had.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yes, attended, to be clear, not competed in.
Speaker 6 (43:48):
But this episode is actually about Vanessa Williams, who made
history in the nineteen eighties as the first black Miss America.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
And we'll look at everything that came after that. I
hope to do the best I can.
Speaker 7 (44:01):
You up to get every person in Mars, no matter
what rate is.
Speaker 5 (44:05):
Seen, to cover all.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
This is in retrospect. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Is there a pop culture moment you can't stop thinking
about and want us to explore in a future episode.
Email us at in retropod at gmail dot com. Or
find us on Instagram at in Retropod.
Speaker 6 (44:24):
If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
and at Susie b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books
Feminist Fight Club and.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
This Is eighteen.
Speaker 6 (44:43):
In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and the Media.
Lauren Hansen is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our
engineer and sound designer. Emily Meronoff is our producer. Jaran
Atia is our researcher and associate producer.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Our executive producer from the media is sin Levy. Our
executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
And Katrina Norbel.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda
Rose Smith. Additional editing help from Mary Do. We are
your hosts Susie Bannacarum.
Speaker 6 (45:15):
And Jessica Bennett. We are also executive producers. For even
more check out in retropod dot com.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
See you next week.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.