She's selfish, a slut, and uncaring of others. She lashes out on others like crazy and goes from one man to another. I liked her husband but she left him in an instant because she "wasn't in love." She started out okay as a child and tween but was an obnoxious adult.
I purchased this film because I love hand-drawn animation. I hate the protagonist.
i guess you were expecting a hollywood cutie face...?
The main character is pretty interesting because she acts like a real person. She does bad things eventyally, like everyone else (except the original poster, of course).
"Oh! there're frogs falling from the sky!"
Magnolia - 10/10
I actually somewhat agree with the original poster, and I've read the book as well.
It's not that I outright hated Satrapi, I just found her actions to be often extremely selfish and petty without any corresponding good points to balance them out. Also, it seemed the tone of the novel/film could be very self-aggrandizing for no valid reason.
One of the incidents that sticks out in my mind the most was when she was kicked out of the convent in Vienna for calling the nuns whores. Both the film and the book portray this as some sort of heroic "standing up to authority" moment, when in reality I thought the nuns were entirely within their rights to complain if she was going to be rude enough to eat out of a saucepan in front of the television. Hell, my folks would certainly have bitched at me if I'd done that, that's for sure.
I think complaining that the female protagonist is 'rude' is sort of missing the point of the film.
share[deleted]
she reacted that way toward the nuns because she was sick of veil-wearing old crones talking *beep* to her
shareIn the book, she feels bad about the whole incident when she tells her mother about it. She has to promise that she shall not do such things again, and later struggles while keeping that promise. I think she is simply very honest in depicting her not-so-brilliant reactions too. Also, she was just a little girl at that time.
shareOne thing is to educate one child about how to eat properly. Other thing is to insult a whole country accusing them of being a bunch of uneducated savages. That is called bigotry and racism.
shareThe nuns were being racist and ignorant. The old bitches deserved a thrashing.
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This isn't the end
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15YgdrhrCM8
Being racist is of course the worst sin one could commit in these times of ours. It far outweighs the good these nun did by taking in the girl, giving her shelter and feeding her.
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I think she's only human. She makes mistakes like we all do.
The richness of the movie is that we see her going up and down struggling with her life. She's not perfect, not for Iranian parameters (none of them along the years), not for Occidental ones; but I wouldn't say she's "despicable".
Clearly there are issues of Orientalism. Several times there are negative references to Iranians and yet that is not mentioned alongside her 'rude' response? Strange! It is true that she did not heed her grandmother's wise advice regarding people like the nuns and the women at the cafe ("You'll meet a lot of jerks in life. If they hurt you, remember it's because they're stupid. Don't react to their cruelty. There's nothing wrong with bitterness and revenge. Keep your dignity and be true to yourself."), however if it was our country and culture being insulted in this way would we simply turn the other cheek?
As for the original poster calling her a slut, tell me ... are you a virgin? Sex is a natural act and while she slept with more than one man and was not a virgin when she married it is never mentioned how many men she slept with. It is definite that there were three men, one being her husband, but how this makes her a 'slut' I will never know! This isn't the 1950s and as far as I'm concerned the word slut is a vulgar word that says more about the person saying (or in this case writing) it.
As you can see from reviews and awards and nominations this film has received it is both popular and well regarded. Any negative thoughts I have are only for those who try and pull the film or its main character down out of some archaic beliefs about women and the role they think they should play in society.
most of her teen actions are forgivable, she was a snotty brat so what? but she crossed a moral line when she accused innocent man of molesting her who likely getting him tortured or even murdered. the fact that she presumedly did this in real life makes it all the worst.
shareYes, exactly. I find her basically totally unlikeable as an adult, but that's not the same thing as despicable. But with the incident you mention, she does cross the line and become despicable.
That you are the only person to mention this here is quite baffling to me. It's the main thing I remember from the movie.
This woman deserves no success and certainly no admiration. This is the story of a person who responded to extreme circumstances in the most cowardly way possible and never really faced up to anything.
And the poster who called the movie strangely self-aggrandizing for no reason was also spot-on.
Yes, but she does admit her actions. People respond in ways they don't normally do in extreme situations -- we all would like to think that we'll be brave and courageous but a lot of humans aren't when the time really calls for it. She thought that she was cleverly pulling the slip on the police but upon reflection she realized that she in fact did a horrible thing, scapegoating another human being to avoid arrest. The fact that she was willing to write/draw this experience and include it in her film actually struck me as quite courageous.
If she had been famous already, the admission might have been courageous. As it was, she had little to lose and everything to gain through telling her story in all its gritty detail.
Even if you take the act of including it in the book as courageous, it's still courage when it's too late and doesn't matter. If this passes for praiseworthy in our world, we're definitely doomed.
She could have chosen to depict herself in a different way completely.
Also, she had published two or three previous volumes of Persepolis already, so she was already a public figure, if not yet internationally known.
It wasn't praiseworthy but honest. And it doesn't matter, so what should she do about it now? Go back to Iran? Even if she is full of herself and doesn't deserve the praise she is getting, she has drawn awareness to Iran and life for Iranians.
For all I know she's a great person now; I hope so. The question of this thread was whether she was despicable in the movie, and I definitely think that the act of false accusation cinches that.
So I don't think we're disagreeing all that much.
As far as the "drawing awareness to Iran and life for Iranians" argument, I'd be shocked if her story's success had made/will make any real difference at all for the people of Iran.
I recall the guy was ogling her, but I didn't know she falsely accused him.
shareOP, I'm glad to see you feel the same way as I do, I came to the boards specifically for this reason. I consider myself rather patient with people, but this woman was just an egotistical and rude biotch. I think her obnoxious behavior already started in Vienna, where she was rude to people for no reason whatsoever (and I've been there, the people were very nice, I don't know what she's complaining about). And yeah, I understand, it's tough to be a child living in a strange country without its parents, but no reason to behave that way to people that want to help and did nothing wrong to her. And she didn't even admit her behavior at the time was unreasonable. What's even worse, she just kept going on when back in Iran with her grandmother, who taught her better than that. And nice to diss people so many years later while they have no chance of telling their side of the story. I think most people are confusing a work of social commentary with an autobiographical egotrip, which this movie clearly is. She doesn't want to tell the story of suppression in Iran, she just wants to complain how much SHE suffered, while there are many more that have suffered MUCH more. I'm more interested in the story of her chldhood friend.
share> she just wants to complain how much SHE suffered, while there are many more that have suffered MUCH more.
Not sure which movie you watched, but she does describe quite a lot the immense suffering of other people. In the book even in much more gruesome detail than in the movie.
I watched this movie, you condescending asswipe. Who cares about the book.
shareyou mad bro?
shareI disagree about the "bitch" stuff, but overall a pretty unlikable character, yes (partially also her family was, I opened a topic on the granny).
Daughter of a rich and lucky family, stupid parents draining themselves to give her a living she doesn't deserve, her doing nothing, wasting her parent's money, being totally rude to people who "only partially" deserved so, totally selfish and only concerned about her and her well being.
One of the worst thing was when she had that poor guy arrested (the movie shows she was looking at her back, while the book shows he did absolutely NOTHING), and the bastard also laughed about the poor guy.
She's selfish, a slut, and uncaring of others. She lashes out on others like crazy and goes from one man to another. I liked her husband but she left him in an instant because she "wasn't in love." She started out okay as a child and tween but was an obnoxious adult.
Don't try to cash in love, that check will always bounce.share
I can't believe some of the replies here...
As a human being I can understand someone else making bad decision, acting weird, being selfish, getting angry. I'm no different.
I haven't empathized so much with a lead character in ages.
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