Iran was not pleased when Ben Affleck's "Argo" won the Oscars for the Best Film with its local TV calling the movie an "advertisement for the CIA."
Affleck's "Argo", a movie based on the Iranian revolution, is highly acclaimed and even won the 2013 Oscars for the Best Film. However, the victory didn't go down too well with the people of Iran, where the movie mostly takes place. According to local TVs of Iran, the movie is an "advertisement for the CIA."
The film tells the story of the escape of six American hostages from the besieged U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. The film has not been screened in any Iranian theatre but many people have watched it on bootleg DVDs, which sell in downtown Tehran for less than a dollar, reports USA Today.
A report by Aces Showbiz also quoted Tehran City Council member, Masoomeh Ebtekar, as saying that the film exaggerated the violence among the crowd during the eruption of the revolution, November 1979.
Entertainment Weekly quoted Ebtekar as saying that in the movie Affleck "goes and shows scenes of a very violent and very angry mob throughout the film. It is never mentioned that these are a group of students."
A retired teacher named Reza Abbasi, who bore witness to the revolution, said that while he was aware that Hollywood sometimes exaggerates, the scenes depicted in the film somewhat resembled the realities of that time.
Not all Iranians were against the movie and some said it was nice to see the revolution from a different perspective. "I want to know what the other side is saying," Shieda, a student at University of Tehran, said.
While local newspaper Hamshahri criticized the film for targeting the civilization and culture of Iran, it also said that the movie was important for Iranians to see a different perspective of the events that led to the collapse of relations between the U.S. and Iran.
Affleck was criticized yet again when he went on stage to receive the Oscar for the film and shouted out to his "friends in Iran living in terrible circumstances right now." According to local news channel Mehr News, this depicted a very poor picture of Iran.
