Fil-Am and Persian-Am, The Similarities

My sexist friend has a joke that 'they' cover up their women because they are so fine. Might be true.

Super Old Kriss, like, even before I started saying that, at one time was a film buff. not movies mind you...film. The late 80's and early 90's was made of awesome. There was Almodovar, Woody Allen's serious phase, David "I think you are so awesome even tho you promote Transcendental Meditation" Lynch and many others. Then...I stopped checking out film (and there is not a good reason, I just stopped). Well, fast forward to right now. There is a new film on the scene that has peeked my interest and perhaps will usher in a return to being a film buff.

Circumstance (2011) is about "A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brothers dangerous obsession (IMBD).

Hey super young ladies, do you have any older sisters, or your mama, that I can go out with.

I grew up here in the good 'ol U.S. of A. and not in the Philippines (thank goodness) and I certainly can relate to the duel identities that the characters in Maryam Keshavarz film deal with. In the SF Gate review she states that growing up in Iran there were two identities  1) one  for the outside world and 2) one in the safety of the home. For me, sort of funny to say now, I was white at school and Filipino at home. Outside I was gregarious, vocal and fun and at home I kept quiet (because noise got the shit beat outta ya. assholes).

Now I live in an atheistic freedom mecca (Nor Cal forever, bro) and I can't even imagine being oppressed because of my beliefs or things that I do. Apparently growing up in Iran is quite different (no shit really). Very bravely the female characters press the limits of an oppressed society with sexual experimentation, dress and basic socializing (that we/I take for granted here in the states). When I was just starting to check out the pretty white ladies as a teen, the only thing I had to worry about was a dad busting into the room and kicking me out. In uber religious Iran, the brother will kill you, or the dad, or the authorities and as the director says, "you will be marked for life."

This is why globalization and secularization and The New Atheists are so important. If somehow we can, as a world community, ditch the bronze age thinking that The New Atheists keep talking about, then we can nurture the younger generation and grow positively as a society. Here in the states there are movements that want to return to that 1950's America (that probably never even existed) of repressed sexuality, unquestioning faith in government and God, and very important to atheist feminist me, getting those women back in the kitchen (dudes, make your own sandwiches, really). Meanwhile, in the rest of the world great strides are being made to become secular and to break the cultural taboos that have been holding back the youth.

I haven't seen a film, or a movie for that matter, in years, but Nu Kriss is a-thinking about returning to being a film buff. Circumstance is deff on my list and i just hope that it comes to our humble small cow town.

Awesome peeps.

* IMBD

* SF Gate review.