Hostage Crisis In Children Of Heaven

November 4, 1979, seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran and the hostage of four hundred and forty-four days following, were the first steps leading up to the perpetual War on Terror. In the book Taken Hostage by David Farber informs about the Iran Hostage Crisis and the First Encounter with Radical Islam. United States and Iran got into conflict, leading to the Iranians holding American Embassy members hostage as revenge for them feeling betrayed by the United States. It also informs us about other events that occurred in a decade that caused the United States many problems. Farber believes the failure of American policymakers and more specifically from President Carter, to identify the severity of the crisis made for the prolonged crisis. The sheer ineptitude of the Carter administration was the cost of the US to lose it’s way economically, culturally, politically and even military. Carter struggled to respond to the impulses of Islamic fundamentalism within the prevailing Cold War paradigm. They saw the real problem as against modernism and they knew that the US was the major force spreading this belief throughout the world. The media misrepresentations of the struggle and mass media manipulation of Americans played on the peoples emotions. Although Carter was popular at the beginning of his presidency, this began to change when he was unable to solve economic problems and was unsuccessful in negotiating the release of the American hostages in Iran.

But after they left America for about 2 years, everything had changed. This was all an effect of the Great Iranian Revolution. Upon the return to America, a lot had changed around

Even today some American people have a strong biased towards Iranian and Muslim people based on their stereotypes as terrorist. The change in view point started in the 70s as Fawaz A. Gerges, Academic Journalist, states in his journal Islam and Muslims in the Mind of America that, “The 1978-1979 Iranian revolution and ensuing hostage crisis shocked many U.S. officials into viewing Islam as a threat to Western interest” (Gerges 70). The media also played a large part of the ways that Americans viewed Iranian and Muslim people. Cissy Shelton recollects her memories of media coverage by stating “The Iranians were always shown on TV as very angry there was always demonstrations they always were saying death to America they totally wanted nothing to do with America” (citation). She also argues that the coverage show on the television was also a reason why people have issues with Islamic people today: “And I think that’s why we have problems today with the Middle East”

By continually representing the Muslim or the Arab as the heartless villain, even cartoon movies contain a biased perspective against the Muslim image in America. All that glitters is not gold, and this is true for films fresh off the reels of Hollywood, as some contain an unfair perspective of Muslims.

Although the movie was an attempt to show the negative outcomes of prejudice, racism and stereotypes, it used these stereotypes to convey this message. For example, there was a Persian shopkeeper, who looked Arab, and could not speak clear English or fully understand it. An exchange between a White American gun shop owner and the Persian shopkeeper was a prime example of not only race relations but international relations represented in American culture. After the tragic events of 9/11, citizens who possessed Muslim and or Middle Eastern characteristics came under great attack from all other Americans including minorities. It is apparent that Americans are unacquainted of other people in countries around them. When the gun shop owner called the shopkeeper, “Osama”, because he was getting impatient due to the time it took for the shopkeeper’s daughter to translate the conversation, he expressed his disdain and ignorance about

The world is full of people who all have different points of view and this always leads to conflict. Many times people take drastic measures to prove their point, and this occurred during the Iran Hostage Crisis. The Iran Hostage Crisis threw both the US and Iran into chaos. The whole situation was outrageous and was all because President Jimmy Carter decided to allow the outlawed Iranian Shah into the US for cancer treatment. The people of Iran were enraged and stormed the U.S Embassy, taking all of the people inside as hostages. I learned about all of this through the movie Argo, which takes place during the crisis.

The complexity of America’s relationship with Iran increased steadily beginning in 1908, when Iran struck oil. The Shah, the king or emperor of Iran, after taking the place of his young predecessor Reza Shah Pahlavi with the help of the CIA, led Iran into a period of extreme wealth and prosperity, the likes of which the Iranian people had never experienced. However, with the growth of wealth in Iran came the growth of Iranian resentment towards the West, specifically the United States. The Iranian’s resented the uneven distribution of wealth that they felt existed and the United State’s influence in “westernizing” their society. In 1963, this growing hatred led to a conflict with the Islamic clergy. The conflict was quickly settled by the Shah, but he was unaware that this dispute was the beginning

Maz Jobrani is showing with this movie that he is breaking stereotypes of the Middle East specifically Iranians.

The film is arguable a film about torture, and portrays torture as contributory in the finding of Osama bin Laden. The film portrays the real account of events which follows the Navy Seal Team 6 who ultimately kill Osama bin Laden. The film doesn’t provide the audience with any historical or political context, besides the mention of the 9/11 attacks. All the viewers need to know is that these al-Qaeda terrorists want to destroy the US because they hate the values and freedom which Americans hold, no other clarification of their reasons is

In spite of the portrayal of the terrorists in 1970s movies where they are shown to be some how victims of circumstance, being a war veteran and having suffered years of torture, financial losses, and marital problems, in the 80s movies barely make any effort to explain why an individual has chosen the wrong path. Villains are purely evil in fact the movies portray the terrorists as savages who are secluded from the society and have psychotic tendencies. Even though the picture of an Arab gun man was becoming more and more prevalent in the terrorism-themed movies of the 80s, a biased association of middle eastern ethnicity or the religion of Islam to terrorism was not formed yet. It is apparent that Hollywood was not particularly focused to

It is debatable that most people of western societies especially here in the U.S share a common perspective about the country of Iran having a reputation for terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. In the media today, Iran is accused of having nuclear weapons and various politicians have made references to its contribution to the constant violence in Iraq. The information that we absorb everyday from news reports adds to our biases and enhances our negative opinions of Iran as a country. Through the help of the media, people of our culture stereotype the Iranians based on an ethnocentric viewpoint without developing a clear sense of understanding or the reasons behind their beliefs. In the graphic novel Persepolis, the

War has been present since the beginning of human history. Likewise, war movies have been present since the movie industry began. Just like most other genres of film, war films have been created as a form of entertainment to profit a person or organization. More people are willing to spend their money and time on a feeling of action, excitement, heroism, and patriotism than gruesome and horrid images of real and common human destruction. Propaganda has been used by governments for a very long time and when motion pictures came into existence, governments almost immediately saw the new medium as an opportunity to influence the public. Governments such as the United States of America, cooperate with the movie industry to

The 1980s were actually the time when action films became very popular and of course, profitable. As Daniel Mandel says, “the emergence of the Arab-threat in the 1980's American cinema could be seen as intertwined with the birth of a new cycle of ultra-violent Hollywood action spectacles” (qtd. in Soberon 27) . These films were full of violence and conflicts, usually between the United States and the scary, aggressive others, where the United States are seen as a peaceful community which is threatened by foreign evil. In addition to that, there is always one American who catches or kills bad Arabs and saves the

The director showed the strain between the U.S and Iran by using memory, because the movie itself is based on a true incident which happened in 1979. In 1979, the American embassy in Iran was invaded by Iranian revolutionaries and several Americans were taken

The misrepresentation of minorities is frequent in Hollywood films and Arabs are one of the many minority groups Hollywood misrepresent. Arabs are portrayed negatively in films for long time even before 9/11. The Arabs characters are portrayed with always having accent, wearing traditional attire, untrustworthy, aggressive and almost always associated with terrorism. The continuously falsification could lead to stereotypes, misjudgment, and damage to Arabic culture.