The Taming of the Rude: Ultraconservative weekly shut down after calling actors “cuckold”
They paraded on the red carpet, flaunted their sense of fashion (some less appreciable than others), and received awards on Saturday 23rd of July. Though all are familiar with post-event objections to their appearance, few would have guessed insults would be part of the package.
The 16th edition of Hafez Awards, annual competition and gala of Iranian cinema which is sponsored by Donya-ye Tasvir film review magazine, was held in Roudaki Hall, west of Tehran early last week.
As usual, circulation of the events photos, now faster than ever thanks to social media, infuriated conservatives. Ahad Azadikhah, Principlist MP and speaker of the parliament’s cultural committee, related to Tasnim News Agency on July 29th that Minister of Culture Ali Jannati, a favorite punchbag of hardliners, will be summoned to Majles to explain about what Azadikhah called “violation of norms” and “spread of cultural libertarianism” in the Hafez gala.
The tide turned against hardliners, however, when a clipping from an ultraconservative weekly went viral. Lasarat, affiliated with hardliner group Ansar Hezbollah, had published photos from actors and their wives (dressed up, heavy makeup) decorated with the headline “Who’s a Cuckold?”
Though Lasarat has a long history of badmouthing its diverse range of targets (Reformists, feminists, ‘mal-hijab-ed’ women) with enviable impunity, this had been the first time it went to extreme lengths to attack a target. The backlash was overwhelming.
Mehran Ghafourian, male comedian and one of those whose couple photo was published in Lasarat, responded by recreating his Hafez award photo, but this time next to an unidentifiable individual fully covered with a blanket. Shahab Hosseini, 2016 Cannes Festival’s best male actor, a normally reticent figure on social and political affairs, strongly slammed the weekly on his Instagram account, asking it to “put pens down”, “join [their] Daesh comrades” and “wash [their] mouth” before talking about Iranian artists. House of Cinema, blanket alliance of cinematic guilds, called Lasarat’s name-calling “immoral” and “insincere”.
On Monday, August 1st, pressures finally came to a result and Hossein Noushabadi, speaker of the Ministry of Culture announced that the weekly had been ordered to shut down for its “ignoble language” and “using words that have no place in [Iran’s] religious culture.”
Nonetheless, it is a matter of question whether the shutdown would do much to correct such behaviors, mostly by hardliner media. Lasarat was involved in a similar controversy in January for bashing the outspoken Vice President on Women and Family Affairs Shahindokht Molaverdi, calling her a “shrew” with unpardonable feminist ideas. The weekly’s license was revoked by the Ministry of Culture after the slander. However, the decision was overturned by Lasarat sympathizers in the judiciary and the hardliner weekly was given a temporary license to continue publication. Such a safety net gives the weekly confidence to follow its current line. In his interview with moderate Principlist newspaper Sobh-e No, Lasarat editor-in-chief Abdol Hamid Mohtasham denied allegations of insult: “if anyone feels we have insulted them, they can sue us. We hold ourselves accountable and humble against the law”.
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