By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service 
Tuesday, October 27, 1998
 

TEHRAN – Sasson, 28, is a child of the Iranian revolution, reared on a diet of anti-American bile. He grew up in a country that marks the 1979 takeover of the
U.S. Embassy here with public celebrations, where newspapers denounce the United States as the "Great Satan" or "Global Arrogance." In high school, he heard his teachers blame Washington when they ran out of  chalk. When it comes to American-made entertainment, however, Sasson has nothing but praise. 

Not for him the propaganda-laden war epics or mournful, chaste love stories that fill Iranian movie screens, if not theaters. Like thousands of Iranian young people,Sasson is nuts about "Titanic," the lavishly produced Hollywood blockbuster that began
circulating here on bootleg videocassettes – taped inside movie theaters with hand-held cameras – within days of its U.S. release. 

 "I've memorized every line," said Sasson, who recently earned a graduate degree in electrical engineering and  admits to a particular fondness for Kate Winslet, the  movie's russet-haired star. "What do we call this in Iran? A cultural invasion? Whether it's accidental or not, it's a fact, and we can't do anything to stop it. ...
American culture is very dominant." 

In some respects, the Iranian appetite for "Titanic" – and "Face Off" and "Air Force One" and any number of other U.S. mass-market offerings – should hardly come as a surprise. Fueled by the  spread of English, the proliferation of modern communications technology  and the collapse of totalitarian regimes that sharply limited the flow of information across borders, cultural exports from the United States – books, films, music, computer software and other forms of "intellectual property" – have in recent years surpassed tangible goods such as grain and automobiles as its most important and valuable global product. 

               But Iran was supposed to be impervious to the
               corrupting power of "Baywatch" and Barbie. Resistance
               to Western, and especially American, cultural influence
               was a pillar of the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled
               the pro-U.S. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Chanting
               "Death to America" as a patriotic slogan, Shiite Muslim
               clerics led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini sought to
               remake their country as a true Islamic state, a place of
               rigid censorship and strict social mores where women
               shunned fingernail polish and cloaked their figures in
               billowy black chadors. 

               But even the mullahs, it seems, have not been able to
               keep American culture at bay. 

               Though officially banned, bootleg copies of the latest
               U.S. films are widely available in Iran, and it is rare to
               find a teenager who lacks at least a passing familiarity
               with the music of Michael Jackson or Madonna.
               Anti-American slogans share wall space with
               spray-painted odes to Metallica and Guns N'Roses.
               Bookstores are filled with Persian translations of novels
               by John Grisham, Sidney Sheldon and Danielle Steele. 

               To a greater degree, perhaps, than in any other country,
               the easy availability of American popular culture in the
               closed society of Iran demonstrates its appeal across
               political, religious and ethnic boundaries. It also shows
               the futility of trying to screen it out in an age when
               digital images fly across international telephone lines at
               the speed of light and Hollywood movies can be widely
               disseminated by anyone with a videocassette recorder. 

               Don't look for Planet Hollywood anytime soon.
               Conservative clerics, who still hold sway in the Iranian
               parliament and other powerful institutions, sound regular
               warnings about an encroaching "tide of godlessness" and
               lament the growing numbers of "rappers and West-struck
               youth," as one recently put it. Even among young
               Iranians, there are fears that an onslaught of U.S.
               videotapes, books and compact discs will dilute the
               richness of a 6,000-year-old culture of which most are
               extraordinarily proud. 

               But Iran's gradual opening to the outside world – a
               process that accelerated last year with the election of
               Mohammed Khatemi, a moderate cleric, as president –
               and the introduction here of modern information
               technology, such as the Internet, have inexorably
               weakened the country's defenses against American
               culture. 

               While hard-liners struggle to maintain barriers against
               foreign influence, Khatemi and his followers favor a
               subtler approach, one that emphasizes the positive
               aspects of Western culture – whether films, software or
               democratic institutions – while filtering out its more
               tawdry elements. At the same time, they are trying to
               ease restrictions on Iranian filmmakers, writers and
               other artists with the aim of making their work more
               attractive to local audiences, hence more competitive
               with foreign imports. 

               "What Khatemi wants is a sort of exchange," said Nasser
               Hodian, an American-educated political science
               professor at Tehran University. "He would argue that
               what the conservatives propose is not possible. Five to
               10 years from now, the Internet will be everywhere." 

               Particularly among Iran's Westernized elite there is a
               sense that Khatemi can hope for little more than to
               postpone his country's eventual assimilation into a
               single, global culture – in which U.S. influence will
               reign supreme. 

               "It's inevitable," said a former diplomat in the shah's
               regime who returned here from the West several years
               ago to reclaim family property confiscated during the
               revolution. "I mean, it's happening in France. Do you
               know how many McDonald's are in France now? And
               the French are supposed to have the best cooking." 

               Still, Gallic pride is no match for Iranian xenophobia.
               Having read in the history texts about centuries of
               domination by foreign powers, many Iranians are even
               more sensitive than the French to assaults on their
               language and culture. During the 1930s, Shah Reza
               Pahlavi earned the lasting enmity of tradition-minded
               Iranians by trying to purge them of their Shiite Muslim
               heritage, to the point of ordering a ban on veils. 

               Much of that wrath was later targeted at the United
               States, which supported the military coup that unseated a
               democratically elected government and restored power
               to the shah's son in 1953. Backed by a dreaded security
               apparatus, the new shah followed closely in his father's
               footsteps, relentlessly pushing his country toward the
               West with scant regard for tradition. 

               The shah's efforts did much to modernize Iran,
               especially its sprawling capital, which bears the
               signature of U.S.-trained urban planners in its looping
               highways and American-style car culture. But the shah's
               Westernization program caused deep resentment among
               Shiite clerics and ordinary Iranians. Decrying the loss of
               Persian heritage, the late Jalal Ali Ahmed, one of the
               country's most influential thinkers, coined the term
               Gharbzadegi – "Weststruckness" – in a 1963 book by the
               same name; it was subsequently banned. 

               Ahmed's definition of the term – "a disease that comes
               from without" – is said to have struck a powerful chord
               with Khomeini, the fire-breathing cleric whose
               triumphant return from exile in 1978 set the stage for the
               shah's ignominious flight and the subsequent taking of
               American hostages at the U.S. Embassy here. 

               Iran's new leaders sought to erase the stain of
               "Westoxification," as Khomeini put it, closing – and
               sometimes burning – movie theaters, bookstores and
               other portals of Western influence. Government officials
               grew beards and traded Western-style ties for collarless
               shirts. The powerful Ministry of Islamic Guidance
               imposed strict censorship, chasing many of the country's
               best writers and artists into exile. 

               With conservatives still dominant in parliament and
               elsewhere, a stifling prudery pervades Iranian cultural
               life, at least in public. Satellite dishes are illegal. So are
               performances by female singers and musical tapes that
               feature vocalists of either sex. 

               But there is less to Iranian censorship than meets the eye.
               Despite stiff fines, satellite dishes are widely if
               discreetly used, and customs authorities are helpless
               against the flood of tapes, videocassettes and other
               illicit materials smuggled from abroad; one diplomat
               described an Iranian friend who boasted recently of
               having passed through the airport here with 35 CDs
               hidden in his clothing and bags. 

               "Whatever you want, we can supply," said the owner of
               a video-rental store in north Tehran, although he added,
               "We are going to rent these tapes [only] to the people we
               know." 

               Guidance Ministry approval is still needed for
               publication of all books and they are subjects to strict
               censorship. In the last few years, however, as the
               government has eased restrictions on the printed word,
               Iranian publishers have issued scores of translated U.S.
               titles, including heavily expurgated works by Danielle
               Steele and John Grisham and self-help books such as
               John Gray's "Men are From Mars, Women are From
               Venus." Iranian publishers, who are not bound by U.S.
               copyright laws, pay nothing to use the material. 

               "In the last few years, Danielle Steele was like a fever,"
               said Hassan Kyaian, the owner of Chesmeh Publishing
               Co. in Tehran and the spokesman for the Iranian
               publishers' association. "American literature has two
               parts. One part is alive and deep, the other part is just on
               the surface, and each part has its own audience." 

               A somber man with a neat mustache, Kyaian, 47,
               emphasized that he has little time for the latter variety,
               preferring the work of Ernest Hemingway and William
               Faulkner. He traced his affection for American literature
               to high school, when he read a translated version of John
               Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." 

               "It was 30 years ago in one small city north of Tehran,
               and I can still tell you about one of the most human
               scenes, at the end of the book, when the old man is dying
               and the young woman feeds him from her breast," he
               recalled from behind a counter in his small bookshop.
               "In every good book there is a hidden thought and the
               thought is universal, and it does not belong to any
               geographic area." 

               By and large, however, it is American popular culture –
               especially music and movies – that has grabbed younger
               Iranians by the lapels. The lure of forbidden fruit is
               clearly one part of the explanation. 

               "The attraction of [American] movies is sex and
               violence," said Sasson, the engineering graduate and
               "Titanic" fan, who also had kind words for "Scream"
               and "Independence Day." 

               "If you want to induce a sense of love, how can you in
               Iran with the restrictions?" he asked. "Everything we
               have in Iran is forbidden." 

               During numerous conversations over a recent 10-day
               visit, younger Iranians repeatedly expressed a view of
               U.S. culture as dynamic, youthful and modern – qualities
               they say are lacking in their tightly controlled society.
               "They like to shake their body," said Behrooz, a clerk in
               a bookstore near Tehran University, when asked to
               explain the appeal of American pop music. 

               Noushabeh Amiri, an Oxford-educated journalist who
               edits an Iranian film magazine, attributes part of the
               fascination with American movies to Hollywood
               special-effects wizardry. "You have great technology,
               which enables you to make any sort of imagination," she
               said recently, citing Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park"
               as an example. "You make dreams, and those dreams can
               be understood anywhere." 

               The widespread availability of American music and
               films in a country where women are barred from
               appearing in public with their heads uncovered lends a
               surreal quality to life in the Iranian capital. At a recent
               party in affluent north Tehran, the hostess served caviar
               and homemade vodka to her guests – including one
               young woman in a thigh-length black mini-dress with
               faux-leopard collar – while Barbra Streisand crooned
               on the stereo. 

               "In Iran, people love America," said one of the guests,
               the former diplomat, dressed like a Wall Street banker
               in a charcoal pin-striped suit. "American culture, it has
               attraction for everyone, in music, in dressing,
               everything." The country's clerical leaders, he added,
               "think it's a plot. There's no such thing as a plot. It's just
               the inevitability of the culture." 

               The infiltration of American culture has sparked a
               predictable backlash among conservatives loyal to Iran's
               spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who remains
               the dominant figure in Iran's complex political hierarchy.
               "The biggest vice facing us is the cultural offensive,"
               one of the country's senior clerics, Ayatollah Jannati,
               told an audience at Tehran University recently. "What
               are those who are seeking the opening of the way for the
               U.S. thinking about? Why are you betraying Islam?" 

               But disquiet over American culture is not confined to the
               radical right. 

               Sitting on a brocade-covered couch in an elegant
               high-rise apartment, Azad, 20, seemed to embody the
               conflicting attitudes that many young Iranians harbor
               toward the West. A high-school senior who plans to
               enter his father's food-processing business, he likes the
               music of Bryan Adams and Celine Dion, considers
               "Titanic" "the best film I ever saw" and regularly attends
               mixed-sex parties – a flogging offense in Iran – where
               the sound track runs toward techno and rave. 

               "In our homes we have America," said Azad, dressed in
               Levis and Nike tennis shoes. 

               All the same, Azad is worried. "It will destroy the
               culture," he said of the onslaught of U.S. films and
               music, adding that he would prefer to watch Iranian
               films if only the government would lift restrictions on
               content. 

               Not that Iranian cinema is dead. Even under the Islamic
               regime, Iran's film industry has continued to turn out
               high-quality art films such as Abbas Kiarostami's "Taste
               of Cherry," a meditation on suicide that last year won the
               prestigious Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film
               Festival. 

               Like their counterparts in France and Italy, however,
               Iranian filmmakers worry that direct competition from
               Hollywood would soon drive them into oblivion. "As a
               general rule, there shouldn't be any limitation [on foreign
               imports], but the bad thing is if you open the door,
               people will go after the highly commercial stuff," said
               filmmaker Tamineh Milaneh, 37, draped in head scarf
               and black robe on the set of her latest project, about a
               woman who is prevented by Islamic law from divorcing
               her husband. "Right now everyone is watching videos.
               It's very hard to control." 

               Some conservatives have reluctantly reached the same
               conclusion. "The doors are open whether we like it or
               not," said Mohammed Kazem Anbarlou, editor of the
               daily newspaper Resaalat, which backs Khamenei and,
               judging from its content, regards the United States as the
               devil incarnate. "From the Internet, we can have access
               to an ocean of knowledge." 

               Sporting the three-day beard favored by acolytes of the
               revolution, Anbarlou acknowledged that American
               culture has its redeeming qualities. He was particularly
               moved, he said, by the scene in "Titanic" in which a
               minister clings to the rail of the sinking ship quoting
               from the Bible. "At the time they were sinking, they
               thought about God," he said of the scene, which was
               shown recently on Iranian television. "If the Western
               culture and Islamic cultures and all cultures reach to
               God, there will be no fight between them." 

               Trying to present a softer image to the world, some
               conservatives argue that Khomeini's diatribes against the
               West had more to do with his quest to reassert Iranian
               national identity, which the shah had done his best to
               erase, than it did with revulsion toward Western culture.

               "There are good points in any culture," said Hassan
               Ghofari Fard, a senior member of parliament who
               earned his doctorate in physics at the University of
               Kansas, where he volunteered on the 1972 presidential
               campaign of George McGovern. "Human beings are the
               same all over the world. ... The problem is we don't
               want our culture to be smashed. We don't want to to be
               washed away by American or any other culture." 

               Like the conservative parliamentary speaker, Nateq
               Nouri, with whom he is closely linked, Fard expresses
               the view that some restrictions on the flow of
               information and culture, such as the ban on satellite
               dishes, are an essential protection against "disease." 

               But Khatemi favors another approach. 

               A former culture minister who once lived in Germany
               and has read Alexis de Tocqueville in English, Khatemi
               has acknowledged that Iran has much to learn from the
               West, asserting last December that the country "will only
               succeed in moving forward . . . if we possess the
               requisite fairness and capacity to utilize the positive
               scientific, technological and social accomplishments of
               the Western civilization." 

               During his presidential campaign, he conspicuously
               failed to endorse the satellite-dish ban, arguing that
               government should instead seek to "immunize" Iranian
               youth against inappropriate material by providing them
               with a better alternative. Examples abound in Tehran,
               where garbage trucks broadcast Beethoven on their
               morning rounds and Persian folk melodies play
               incessantly from loudspeakers in Mellat Park. 

               In a similar vein, Iranian television has tried to liven up
               the content of its three channels, substituting soap operas
               for some religious programming and recently signing a
               contract with BBC to purchase serials such as "The
               Bill," a gritty police drama. It recently aired heavily
               edited versions of "Robocop," "Dances with Wolves"
               and "All the President's Men." 

               Perhaps the ultimate test of whether Khatemi's approach
               will succeed is the Internet, which was introduced in
               universities and research centers a decade ago.
               Recently, the government has permitted a handful of
               private entities to begin offering the service on a limited
               basis. The biggest is Neda Rayaneh Institute for Cultural
               Data and Communication Development, a nonprofit
               corporation that operates from a modern office block
               near a busy highway in north Tehran. 

               Using elaborate software to
               filter out pornography and
               other offensive material,
               Neda is trying to use the
               Internet as a means to
               promote Iranian commerce
               and culture rather than as a
               tributary for foreign
               influences, according to
               Nasser Saadat, 38, an
               intense but genial software
               engineer who runs the
               company from a spacious
               modern office equipped
               with Microsoft manuals
               and a portrait of Ayatollah
               Khomeini. 

               Among other things, Neda provides Web sites for
               several hundred Iranian companies seeking to market
               their products abroad, as well as Persian-language
               newspapers and art galleries trying to sell paintings to a
               wider audience. Its customers include Guidance
               Minister Ataollah Mohajerani and Khatemi, who surfs
               the Web at a respectable baud rate of 64,000, according
               to Saadat, who installed the system in his office. 

               "Here at Neda, we don't see the Internet as a cultural
               imposition," said Babak Davarpanah, 40, an economist
               who recently returned here from Paris and works as a
               consultant to the company. "We see it as a tool to
               promote Persian culture, Persian identity. There is a
               give and take." 

               Government officials acknowledged that restrictions on
               Internet access, like the ban on satellite dishes, are
               easily circumvented. But they say that is not really the
               point. "It's a kind of symbolic restraint," Mohammed
               Javad Larijani, a Berkeley-educated physicist and
               member of parliament who introduced the Internet to
               Iran a decade ago, said of the dish ban. 

               Such measures, he said, are designed to convey the
               message, "You should be aware, you should be
               sensitive." 

               But that may be asking a lot of Iranian youth. Sasson, for
               example, recently spent the evening at the home of a
               friend who has access to the Internet through his
               employer. They used it to look at pictures of Madonna.