My last blog post on My American Rights Trump Your Muslim Honor described how Muslim men feel the need to protect their "honor," and how the simplest of things can make them feel publicly humiliated and insulted. Case in point: Iran now wants Hollywood to apologize for all the "insults" against Iranians from Hollywood movies over the past 30 years.
One recent movie that the Iranian president's adviser finds particularly offensive is The Wrestler, because a character has the stage name The Ayatollah. Come on. This is laughable. At least, it would be laughable if these people weren't like ticking time bombs waiting to go off if their demands are not met. So what is Mr. Ahmadinejad going to do if Hollywood does not apologize? Blow it up? Is this all a veiled threat? And who does he want, exactly, to apologize on behalf of "Hollywood?" Maybe Governor Schwarzenegger? Hasta la vista, Baby.
The story below is just one more example of how we in the West can never fathom the minds of the Muslims, nor can our laws and lifestyles ever be acceptable to them. Mr. Ahmadinajad's adviser even thinks that "the aim" -- the aim! -- of our films is "insulting" Iran. Don't they understand entertainment and profits? How best to insult Iran never crossed their minds, otherwise the insults would hardly be so subtle as to constitute the stage name of a wrestler. Yet Muslim men think the world revolves around them and their honor.
They are absolutely opposed to all that we hold dear -- including our movie industry -- and we must therefore, of necessity, be opposed to them. No apology whatsoever should be offered, ever, for exercising our rights to freedom of speech in our own country. The Iranians can simply change the channel or not go to the cinema if they don't like our movies, or stay out of our country. The nerve they have to demand that we edit our speech here because they find it insulting there is the same kind of audacity that we must be prepared to oppose, resist and defeat within the United Nations and at home. From CNN.com's Iran Attacks Hollywood Over Movie "Insults":
Hollywood should apologize to Iran for "insults and accusations against the Iranian nation," a top aide to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a visiting Hollywood delegation Sunday.
"The Wrestler," starring Mickey Rourke was also attacked for being insulting towards Iran.
..."Representatives of Iran's film industry should only have an official meeting with representatives of the Academy and Hollywood if they apologize for the insults and accusations against the Iranian nation during the past 30 years," said Javad Shamghadri, Ahmadinejad's advisor on the arts, ISNA reported.
He singled out the 1991 Sally Field thriller "Not Without My Daughter," about an American woman who marries an Iranian and then tries to flee Iran with their child, and the comic-book-inspired action flick "300" as "two clear examples of total lies."
..."How can we sit and have a sincere meeting with American film makers while they humiliate and insult the Iranian people and the great revolution of this nation?" he asked, ISNA reported."The Iranian nation and its revolution has repeatedly and undeservedly been attacked by Hollywood movies," he said.
"The film "The Wrestler" is the latest among them," he said of the film for which Mickey Rourke received an Oscar nomination this year. "We know that even right now there are other films being made with the aim of insulting and accusing the great nation of Iran and its rich culture."
"The Wrestler" features a character known as The Ayatollah, played by Ernest Miller, who takes on Rourke's Randy 'The Ram' Robinson.
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