FILM & TV
Movies, television programs and the commercials that air with them reach the largest number of Iranians and are therefore the most regulated. In the documentary, A Cinema of Discontent: Film Censorship in Iran by Jamsheed Akrami, the popular actress Fatemeh Motamed-Arya explains that the restrictions and religious imposition are so heavy-handed that many of the top filmmakers stopped making movies.
Nourideen ZarrinKelk, widely regarded as the father of Animation in Iran for starting the first school of Animation, lost his faculty position because he touched the hair of a female student during a lesson. The Islamic guidelines originally implemented to protect woman are now used to silence the voices of Iran's most accomplished storytellers.
Mad Mad Mad World (1975)
When an infraction of the rules can end a career and film projects are approved or denied arbitrarily, a frustration festers in young filmmakers who find ways to defy the system. Using a coded language and often with humor they point out the absurdity of applying 7th-century Islamic code to film making, the art form of the 20th century.
Many who viewed this parody of athletes competing at the Olympics thought it was real footage from Iran's state-run sports network.
Anonymous
(Meanwhile, in America, Stephen Colbert reports on the nonsensical rules applied by television censors who draw the line distinguishing the point at which Art is considered pornographic. Using humor, Colbert points out the arbitrary application of rules.)
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, CBS (2015)
And I am reminded of a quote by Marjane Satrapi
"If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it’s that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same..."Sexual Revolutionarie by Michelle Goldberg, Salon (2005)
POETRY & MUSIC
Of all Art forms Iranians love poetry the most. Saadi (Abū-Muhammad Muslih al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī (1210-1292), revered as the master of speech wrote Bani Adam, an aphorism about our common humanity.
Bani Adam بنی آدم
بنی آدم اعضای یک پیکرند The children of Adam are the limbs of one body
که در آفرينش ز یک گوهرند That share an origin in their creation
چو عضوى به درد آورد روزگار When one limb passes its days in pain
دگر عضو ها را نماند قرار The other limbs cannot remain easy
تو کز محنت دیگران بی غمی You who feel no pain at the suffering of others
نشاید که نامت نهند آدمی It is not fitting for you to be called human
Obama recites two lines in his Nowruz Greeting (Persian New Year) on the First Day of Spring (March 20, 2009) to the people of Iran.
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Bani Adam Rug, Mohammad Seirafian, 5 x 5 meters ,Wool, Silk, Gold, 2005 United Nations Bldg, New York City, NY, USA (Gift of Islamic Republic of Iran)
source UN Photo Library
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There are only three genres of music sanctioned by the government,: folk, classical, a.k.a. traditional. and pop (as long as it's made in Iran by Muslims. - so no GooGoosh or Gaga.)
Iran's contemporary musicians are masters of a special language. They hide the meaning of their songs between the lyrics.
Described in The New York Times as" a sort of Bob Dylan of Iran," and "the most controversial, and certainly the most daring, figure in Persian music today" (2007) Mohsen Namjoo is not allowed to perform in Iran. He is no longer welcome to perform in Islamic countries because he sang on television a phrase from the Quran, the central religious text of Islam. Here he is singing the words of Hafez, a 14th Persian poet who work was entirely inspired by holy books. The ironic tone of Hafez revealed the hypocrisy of the ruling and religious class on his time. Seems absurd that it is OK to sing words inspired by the Quran, but not the actual words in the Quran.
Zolf Bar Baad (Tresses in Wind), Lyrics by Hafez, lyrics and translation
Musician Shahin Najafi points out the irony of his exile
The 94-year-old religious leader who wanted to silence Najafi must be dumbfounded or ignorant of the fact that his actions are the reason Najafi’s message is now amplified to the world. Shahin is unflinching and continues to sing, bringing attention to those marginalized by self-titled leaders who have forgotten the words of their Prophet who inspired Saadi:
"My songs didn’t make me famous, The fatwa did.”
source When God Sleep by Till Schauder
The believers in their mutual kindness,
compassion and sympathy are just like one body.
When one of the limbs suffers,
the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever.
The Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Hadith Collection, Sunan Abu Dawood in English
Mammad Nobari (2015)
EPILOGUE
In Iran, all form of artistic expression must adhere to an Islamic code. These government guidelines are sacrosanct because they said so. But contrary to popular belief the most effective method of adherence is not state-mandated regulation, but the hegemony of self-censorship from 40 years of fear, not faith.
And to make my bitter posting palatable an Iranian joke
An inmate at Evin prison goes to the library to look for a book. When he can't find it, he asks the Librarian who says, ‘We don’t have that book, we have its author."
CURRENT CASES
In 2013, Mehdi and Hossein Rajabian and their friend Yousef Emadi are jailed in Iran for distributing underground music. 2 years later they are found guilty of ‘spreading propaganda against the system’ Hossein Rajabian’s conviction has also stemmed from his feature film The Upside-Down Triangle, which dealt with the issue of women’s right to divorce in the country.
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About the Author: Kurosh ValaNejad is an Iranian-American, who was born an American-Iranian in Tehran in 1966 to an Iranian father and American Mother. He currently lives in Los Angeles and Laguna Niguel, California. Kurosh's collection of Art books censored in Iran are featured in The Artist, the Censor and the Nude; A Tale of Morality and Appropriation. Bani Adam, mentioned in this essay, has also been a source of inspiration for a series of his works.
An earlier version of this essay was posted on March 30th, 2018 on the blog of Independent Lens, a PBS primetime series of independent documentaries. It was commissioned and edited by Craig Phillips to complement When God Speaks.
Special Thanks to the Three Amirs.
Left to Right Amir Arzanian, Amir Blue, and Honorary Amir, Craig Phillips.
