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9 Int'l J. Soc. Sci. Stud. 76 (2021)
Media Post-Coloniality and the Ethereal 'Empress': How Hollywood Weaponized the Nostalgia of Exile

handle is hein.journals/ijsoctu9 and id is 605 raw text is: International Journal of Social Science Studies Vol. 9, No. 6; November 2021 ISSN 2324-8033 E-ISSN 2324-8041 Published by Redfame Publishing URL: http://ijsss.redfame.com Media Post-coloniality and the Ethereal Persian 'Empress': How Hollywood Weaponized the Nostalgia of Exile Sarah Boroujerdi 1 Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, State Center Community College District, Fresno, CA, United States Correspondence: Sarah Boroujerdi, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, State Center Community College District, Fresno, CA, United States. Received: September 22, 2021 Accepted: October 14, 2021 Available online: November 6, 2021 doi:10.11114/ijsss.v9i6.5393 URL: https://doi.org/10.11114/ijsss.v9i6.5393 The more one is able to leave one's cultural home, the more easily is one able to judge it, and the whole world as well, with the spiritual detachment and generosity necessary for true vision. -Edward Said, Orientalism Abstract The osmosis between Iranian exile, Oriental repertoires, and the commodification of nostalgia in film and contemporary1 culture alludes to the Disney reproduction of the East that is capitalized by Hollywood's invisible hand. The commodification of Orientalist logic via nostalgia of old civilization and Achaemenid grandeur is conveyed by Hamid Naficy's (1991) reference to Edward Said's (1978) 'imaginaryl geography'-the inventive tool of narration that augments tales and anecdotes of exilic narratives, while heightening essentialism of the East. The European modeling of coronation, bejeweled scepters of royalty under the Pahlavi period (1941-1979), and cinematic repertoires of Iranians in film are perpetuated for viewers via fetishization, lust, and enchantment. The televised 1967 coronation of Queen Farah (b. 1938) solidified the trope of the Persian 'Empress' through picturesque markers of Achaemenid rulership (550-330 BCE). Medial propagations of nostalgia in the paradisiacal Pahlavi coronation can be paralleled to current illusions of the Orient presented in the film Paterson (Jarmusch, 2016), starring exiled Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani. I refer to the Pahlavi coronation to expand on the spectacle of 'nostalgia', and the desire for a distant homeland. Naficy's (1991) interpretation of 'nostalgia'-a factor of exile, expounds how relics and objects induce a longing for the distant and ahistorical. Objects of nostalgia are inexplicably weaponized in Hollywood inventions of Near Eastern characters and serve as palpable symbols of the East via skewed representations of women, sexuality, and the exotic4 (Ahmed, 2006). Poetry, nostalgia, and fictional tales of the Orient in Paterson (Jarmusch, 2016) allude to Said's (1978) vision of the imperialist project in Orientalism. The inventive and imaginary power of color media in the televised Pahlavi coronation and the fashioning of a politically permanent subject of interest-Iranians and the East, augured a pertinent era of media post-coloniality via the preservation of orientalism, rather than the Orient. Keywords: orient, postcolonialism, imperialism, orientalism, Pahlavi, nostalgia, exile, poetry, return, homeland Introduction The nostalgia of regal history dating back to Cyrus the Great's founding of the Persian Empire (559 B.C.), fast- forwarding to the pseudo-modernism of the 1967 Pahlavi coronation presented European emulations of imperial majestry and Orientalist logic. The coronation of Queen Farah served as the example of ancient and regal idolization-a spectacle of nostalgia promoting love of homeland through dysphoric Iranian affinity to the past. The practice of crowning under glistening chandeliers...and Persian carpets to rays of diamonds modeling traditional monarchy of the Sasanians presented a step back to tradition, and a step forward to the cosmos of ahistorical void (Steele, 2021, p. 179, 185). The 1967 coronation showed imitations of not just King Shapur's (309-379 A.D.) rulership, but of European self-crowning similar to that of Napoleon in 1804 (Steele, 2021, p. 175-179). European presence reflected the royal family's European tastes, but also the shah's desire to prove that he was no less majestic than his European counterparts (Amanat, 2017, p. 666; as cited in Steele, 2021). The color film of European coronation utilized by Iranian ambassadors in 1966 set the precedent of what the Pahlavi coronation unwittingly reflected-quintessential and pseudo-modern imperialism (Steele, 2021, p. 182). The Pahlavi monarchy's attempt to adapt, evolve, and ultimately lead Iran into the modern world suggests the tension to imitate European imperialist discourse-one stressed by Said's 76

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