My Stolen Context: A “My Stolen Planet” Review

This review comes to us from our On-The-Ground correspondent and Santa Barbara native, Jack O’Mahoney.

This is a propaganda film. Let me explain. For a political documentary centering on the fallout of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and clearly produced for a “Western” (likely US American) audience, My Stolen Planet is dubiously lacking in historical context.

I am not an expert on Iranian politics, but I know a few things: The Iranian people tried, continuously, for over a century to establish democratic (often secular) governance in Iran. These attempts have been unfailingly kneecapped by foreign imperialist governments thirsty for Iran’s oil reserves, most notably Britain and the United States (although the Nazis did a brief stint as well). The Shah's “progressive” regime, that My Stolen Planet recalls with such reverence, was a puppet dictatorship under the thumb of the CIA (that notably ousted Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh).

The 1979 revolution, for all of its faults, restored Iran’s national autonomy and got the imperialists out. Since then, the US (the hegemonic world power–although this is changing!) has thwarted and punished Iran’s government and citizenry alike by imposing ruthless sanctions and meddling in Iran’s attempts to develop itself into a global power.

I know all this, and I also know that a majority of US American citizens–possibly Westerners in general–are aware of little to none of what I’ve just written. This is not some personal moral failing of US citizens, but the result of an intentionally biased and obfuscatory public education system, that serves to propagandize US citizens into accepting their nation’s supposedly innate exceptionalism, unconditionally supporting its imperialist endeavors, and positioning any state that resists its political and economic domination as an evil “other.” The only reason I’m even approaching this film with any semblance of critique is because I have intentionally put time, effort, and resources into deprogramming these ingrained pro-US biases. Most Americans do not have the time to do this, or don’t even realize that it’s necessary. Western-targeted documentaries like My Stolen Planet should expose US American audiences to realities that challenge their accepted worldview and serve as a stepping stone into greater political education, but this film unfortunately falls short.

I am not a supporter of theocratic governance, but I am a supporter of the national autonomy of Iran. I cannot speak to the current political tensions in Iran, or the experience of being a woman under the Iranian Regime, which is clearly oppressive and difficult. However, this film seems to take for granted Western reactionary tendencies–the assumption of US American exceptionalism is the only thing that really gives the film legs. Specific critiques of the Iranian Regime aren’t really brought up, instead the filmmaker accuses the government of vague non-crimes like “stealing our voices.” To underscore this, she relies on somber, lingering shots of Islamic fundamentalists as if this proves how backward and horrific Iran is–I guess Americans are meant to look at brown guys with beards and just immediately think “scary terrorist”? The lack of specificity in the narration was particularly frustrating and felt like a convenient way of bypassing the more complex and nuanced aspects of Iranian political history. As a cherry on top, the filmmaker includes multiple montages (with doom-and-gloom piano backing, of course) depicting (admittedly awesome) anti-American murals in and around Tehran.

This is where it crossed the line for me into outright propaganda, because it does not make sense for an Iranian filmmaker to be pandering to Western audiences in this way. Iran has real and legitimate beef with the Western imperial core. US Americans need to be confronted with the realities of US foreign policy, and the long term stress that colonial-imperialist meddling puts on nations in the imperial periphery. Unfortunately, as a bloc, US Americans need our hand held a bit when it comes to consuming real, actual world history and deprogramming the decades of pro-US propaganda we have been force fed. This film was clearly not concerned with engaging in any meaningful critique of US dealings in Iran, or contextualizing the present oppression of Iranian citizens, instead it existed in a weird anti-historical vibes-based vacuum. As such, My Stolen Planet felt specifically crafted to appeal to a certain breed of bleeding heart US American liberal who will patronizingly cluck and point the finger at any “evil,” “backward,” or “oppressive” government–except, of course, their own. What is the point of a film like this except to garner passive support from the masses in the imperial core for US “intervention” in Iran, either through a direct invasion, or more likely, some kind of CIA-backed “uprising”? The best way to liberate the people of Iran is for the West to leave Iran the fuck alone.

The central current running through My Stolen Planet–the desire of Iranian women to be allowed to dress as they please, and to remove the hijab mandate, is not something I can comment on too deeply, as I’m not particularly educated on the nuances of the situation (it would have been great if this film filled me in a little, lol). Nobody should be told what they can and can’t wear, obviously. I did feel as though the film presented a noticeably narrow swath of Iranian womanhood. The filmmaker and her friends are of the post-revolution generation, and clearly monied, educated, and city-dwelling. I would have been interested to hear from older women, poor women, and those living in the countryside, about how much the hijab mandate affects their daily lives.

Again, this is something that feels specifically cultivated for a Western audience: We are meant to presuppose that women hate being veiled and feel inherently oppressed by the hijab. It’s worth noting that between 1936-1941, under one of the Western-backed regimes, women were actually forbidden from wearing hijab, in an attempt to force the appearance of modernization in the eyes of the West. Neither are good, but given the cultural context of Iran, a majority Muslim nation, forbidding hijab is stranger than mandating it. Unfortunately, US American exceptionalism and passive Islamophobia go unchallenged in My Stolen Planet.

I don’t want to rip this film to shreds (although I may have just done that–my bad), because it’s clear that the filmmaker put a lot of her heart and soul into it. It is still softcore US imperialist propaganda though, and as a lover of humanity and liberation, I simply cannot let that shit slide ✌️ I can thank this movie for introducing me to my new favorite artwork, though:

This is awesome :)