American democracy and Iranian democracy are more similar than you might think. Iranians are allowed to vote for their president, but a rotten bunch of officially appointed assholes (the Guardian Council) decides the candidates they get to chose from, and thus what range of political ideas will be on the table. In America, there’s a rotten group of obscenely rich assholes serving the exact same function, only less officially, controlling things via funding and manipulation of the private mass media. Have you ever wondered why Barack Obama and Mitt Romney never seriously disagree in these debates? Have you ever wondered why there is no candidate in front of you talking about how America is starting to strongly resemble a third world country, with a thin layer of unfathomably wealthy and privileged elites living in splendor, looking down on vast ocean of poor, unemployed, and underemployed people, and a rapidly disappearing “middle class” that can barely hang on to their jobs and their homes? Have you ever wondered why there is no candidate in front of you talking about the staggering growth of poverty in this country, about how government social programs are necessary and good, about why we need universal health care, about why we need massive overhaul of the predatory financial industry, about how our government should not be carrying out an international assassination program, and about the staggering and frightening problem that “Citizens United” poses to our country? Well, now you have a place to start thinking about this problem!

American ignorance of the Middle East is really disgusting, especially ignorance of our role in shaping the situation there today. Ask a typical American why Iran-Contra was important, and they will (if they even know what you’re talking about) mumble something about Oliver North and how he told a lie. You certainly won’t hear about its relation to the Iran-Iraq war, where we (the United States) were supplying both sides with arms and providing both sides with military intelligence designed to keep the conflict a bloody stalemate for as many years as possible. The result: a millon people dead and two formerly healthy countries shattered and in the iron grip of horrible, repressive fuckers.

Persepolis tells the story of the Iran-Iraq war from the perspective of average Iranians. One of its most important contributions is to make the point that Iran was (and is) populated by actual thinking, feeling people, not a bunch of lunatic savages – it’s very sad that Americans need to be told this, but they do. These people had democratically elected a leader that they liked and who was not a religious whack-job, Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1951, who set about doing really good things for their country. Our government “took him out” in 1953 and put our friend the Shah in power, who we then helped maintain iron-fisted control of a population who rightfully resented his rule. When the religious whack-jobs ousted the Shah, we backed our good buddy Saddam Hussein in attacking Iran, and we kept that senseless slaughter going for eight years.

My point, and the point of the film, is that the common people of Iran were just ordinary folks trying to live their lives amid conditions that they could do nothing about, and Persepolis shows them doing just that – making moonshine, buying contraband shit from the United States, complaining about their repressive society (both under the Shah and under the Ayatollah,) trying to stay alive and out of jail, and fruitlessly dreaming of change. But Persepolis is not purely a political diatribe. It’s a quite personal account of one woman’s experience growing up in that hell-hole. The simple animation is very effective and lovely, and her story is captivating and moving. Clearly it’s the sociopolitical context that gives the story its power, but nevertheless you do not feel lectured while watching the movie. It’s both entertaining and educational.

So see Persepolis, and start thinking for yourself about the Middle East. Maybe instead of bombing Iran in 2013, we (the United States) should stop blocking the formation of the Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East, which Iran supports, which the population of Israel overwhelmingly supports, which basically every country in the world supports as the best way to deal with the problem of nukes in that region. It’s too bad our only choices for president are both itching for slaughter and destruction.