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Mermaid
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how oliver stone fucked up..
« on: 2004-09-25 16:28:35 » |
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hollywood needs some sensitivity training..just because its the world's fastest fading religion doesnt mean that there arent enough people to point out hollywood's glaring errors-Mermaid who just returned from watching Troy and is appalled by hollywood's version of the Trojan War....err...let the greek among us rise and reply..didnt Menelaus live long after the TW and didnt Helen return to Sparta with him..also..didnt the fucking war go on for longer than a decade or something?
anyways..to add insult to injury..the guy who composed music is zubin mehta...a parsi himself....here goes..
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_3618.shtml
Hollywood director Oliver Stone's forthcoming movie, Alexander , based on the life of the 4th century BC Macedonian king, has evoked protests from an unusual quarter -the minuscule Zoroastrian diaspora.
The growing criticism against the use of the Zoroastrian holy symbol called the "Farohar"(a winged figure) in the movie's promos being aired in the US is slowly percolating down to Mumbai, where the majority of the Parsis is based.
According to Mumbai-based Firuza Punthakee Mistree, co-author of the book Zoroastrian Tapestry, unlike the western world, the Parsis know Alexander as the accursed because he had murdered the community's priests, destroyed fire temples and burnt down Persepolis, the ancient capital of the Persian empire.
Asked Sam Billimoria, a California resident, "How would Christians react if Genghis Khan or Atilla the Hun was shown with the holy cross as the backdrop? From what I have seen from the promo, Alexander's name on the Farohar symbol is very insulting to the whole Zoroastrian community. I consider him an an exterminator akin to Hitler. History condemns Hitler, yet glorifies Alexander."
Community members based in the US said the man spearheading the protest was none other than music maestro Zubin Mehta, a Parsi himself.
On August 28, Mehta was a guest of honour at a function organised by the Zoroastrian Association of California (ZAC) in the city of Irvine, which is in the greater Los Angeles area.
It was here that the world-famous conductor informed the audience about the "misleading" use of the Farohar symbol.
According to ZAC member Maneck Bhujwala, who was present in the gathering, Mehta said that he had called Oliver Stone (who knows him) and left a message for him and others connected with the movie to remove the symbol immediately.
"He urged all of us to follow up on this and organise a huge protest about it," said Bhujwala in an e-mail to Times News Network.
Dhun Dalal, another ZAC member, said, "Zubin had called me to tell me that he had seen the Farohar symbol behind the name Alexander in the advertisement for the movie. At that time, I had not seen the ad. He asked me if there was someone from our community who would write a letter protesting this ad."
replies to the same issue on a times of india article ... http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinions/837048.cms
<begin snip>
The incident that I am about to relate that happened to me personally, shows the ignorance of these so called advanced westerners: I am a Parsi and outside my Boston apartment, I had put a 1 inch by 1 inch "Asho Farohar" symbol for good luck (just as hindus would put "Ganeshji" for example. After 911, my landlord comes running to me to remove it. I ask why. He said that neighbours complained, that this symbol dipicts a turbaned man (symbolic to muslim terrorists) and he has wings (symbolising airplanes, that muslim terrorists responsible for 911 used)!!! I gasped in shock and told my landlord, that I was not going to remove the symbol at any cost and my American neighbours are so stupid to think that if I supported terrorism I would I display it outside my house?!?!?!<end snip>
as my parsi friends like to say...
vispa humata...vispa hukhta...vispa hvarshta...baodho-varshta
good thoughts..good words..good deeds..all come from intelligence.
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rhinoceros
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Re:how oliver stone fucked up..
« Reply #1 on: 2004-09-26 08:34:04 » |
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[Mermaid] hollywood needs some sensitivity training..just because its the world's fastest fading religion doesnt mean that there arent enough people to point out hollywood's glaring errors-Mermaid who just returned from watching Troy and is appalled by hollywood's version of the Trojan War....err...let the greek among us rise and reply..didnt Menelaus live long after the TW and didnt Helen return to Sparta with him..also..didnt the fucking war go on for longer than a decade or something?
[rhinoceros] True, according to the tale of the quasimythical Trojan war as told by the also quasimythical poet, Homer, Menelaus took Helen back home and lived happy ever after, while Agamemnon also came back home to be murdered by his wife and her lover. The war was supposed to have lasted a decade (Ulysseus' homecoming took another decade). One possibility is that the director said to himself "Heck, Homer was a storyteller too... and how did he do with the box office..."
There are many sites out there pointing out the discrepancies (like they always do with Disney's movies). Personally, I only watched the first 10 minutes, fast-forwarded for another 5 minutes, and let it go, for reasons other than historical accuracy.
[Mermaid] anyways..to add insult to injury..the guy who composed music is zubin mehta...a parsi himself....here goes..
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_3618.shtml
Hollywood director Oliver Stone's forthcoming movie, Alexander , based on the life of the 4th century BC Macedonian king, has evoked protests from an unusual quarter -the minuscule Zoroastrian diaspora.
The growing criticism against the use of the Zoroastrian holy symbol called the "Farohar"(a winged figure) in the movie's promos being aired in the US is slowly percolating down to Mumbai, where the majority of the Parsis is based.
According to Mumbai-based Firuza Punthakee Mistree, co-author of the book Zoroastrian Tapestry, unlike the western world, the Parsis know Alexander as the accursed because he had murdered the community's priests, destroyed fire temples and burnt down Persepolis, the ancient capital of the Persian empire.
Asked Sam Billimoria, a California resident, "How would Christians react if Genghis Khan or Atilla the Hun was shown with the holy cross as the backdrop? From what I have seen from the promo, Alexander's name on the Farohar symbol is very insulting to the whole Zoroastrian community. I consider him an an exterminator akin to Hitler. History condemns Hitler, yet glorifies Alexander."
<snip>
[rhinoceros] Heh, the last sentence tempted me to say "But Alexander won -- Hitler did not! Big difference!"
Seriously now, unlike Genghis Khan or Atilla, Alexander went there to stay. Historians hint at a well-planned cultural invasion involving adoption and adaptation of elements of the indigenous culture and high-status people. According to Encarta:
http://encarta.msn.com/text_761564512__1/Persia.html
III. Alexander the Great and the Seleucids
Many revolts took place in the next century; the final blow was struck by Alexander the Great, who added the Persian Empire to his own Mediterranean realm by defeating the troops of Darius III in a series of battles between 334 and 331 bc. Alexander effected a temporary integration of the Persians into his empire by enlisting large numbers of Persian soldiers in his armies and by causing all his high officers, who were Macedonians, to wed Persian wives. His death in 323 bc was followed by a long struggle among his generals for the Persian throne. The victor in this contest was Seleucus I, who, after conquering the rich kingdom of Babylon in 312 bc, annexed thereto all the former Persian realm as far east as the Indus River, as well as Syria and Asia Minor, and founded the Seleucid dynasty. For more than five centuries thereafter, Persia remained a subordinate unit within this great realm, which, after the overthrow of the Seleucids in the 2nd century bc, became the Parthian Empire.
[rhinoceros] The following text is quite interesting. Among other things, it points out one of the historical uses of religion in rallying people behind something resembling national identity.
http://members.tripod.com/~Kekrops/Hellenistic_Files/Hellenistic_Persia.html
Persia After the Death of Alexander and Its Resistance To Hellenistic World
by Maryam Hedayati
Alexander's victory at Gaugamela in 331 B.C. was his third and final defeat of the Persia armies of Darius III. A period of drastic political and social upheaval began for the Orient when the Macedonian conqueror, looking for the consolidation of his conquest, settled Greek and Macedonian veterans in the Near East. Hellenic occupation meant the suppression of native rule and traditional kinship. Under Alexander's successors, Antigonos the One-Eyed, Seleukos, Ptolemy and Lysimachos began development of permanent Hellenic occupation of the region.
Oriental theology about kingship was the Kings were believed to be viceregents of the great high gods, of Ahurah Mazdah(Zoroastrianism, the supreme creative deity), of Yahweh, or of Marduk(Babylonian religion, the chief of the Babylonian deities), or even to be gods themselves,as in Egypt. The law these kings enforced was divine a therefore, Macedonian and Greek imperialism was an attack on the all-ruling gods of the East.
The word "Hellenism" is used to cover all the facets of Greek culture, and therefore embraces not only philosophy, drama, and the rational view of life, but also other Greek and Macedonian values. Many Hellenes were deeply concerned with the maintenance of armies, the conduct of economic life, the business of the various departments of Hellenistic monarchies, or the pursuit of high personal status, than with philosophical schools, the theater, or the empirical study of nature and human institutions in areas they occupied. The society of the Hellenistic world was very much diversified and extremely complex, and this was true for the Orientals as well as for the Greeks.
<snip>
The burning and destruction of Greek, or Babylonian temples by the Persians did not come out of the conviction that foreign deities were necessarily evil, but because temple spoliation was a source of easy treasure and because diety-kidnapping was universally practiced in the East to undermine the local will, and even the ability to resist. We know that Persians on the other hand sometimes enlarged non-Iranian temples, as in the case of the Temple of Ammon at Hibis in Egypt. Nor did Persians have any objection to specifically Greek rites or Greek religious personnel; for example, when Xerxes captured Athens 480 B.C., he ordered the restored Athenian exiles with him to offer Hellenic-style on the Acropolis.
<snip>
Alexander thought that the empire that he wanted to consolidate could be ruled in peace and no arrogance was needed like some of his generals had suggested. The official treatment of the beaten Persians was by ancient standards remarkably lenient and human. Not only Alexander continued to employ many of the provincial governors in his own administration in Asia, he also behaved according to the customs prescribed for an Achaemenian monarch, recruited noble Persians for his army and gave them high rank and privilege, and undertook to marry his generals to aristocratic ladies of Iran. Alexander's policy of fusion of East and West found its most impressive expression expression in his celebration at Opis, where Greeks and Persians consummated together a sacrificial communion meal, while Alexander the Idealist prayed that, homonia, a "like-mindedness, concord," might be created and made to last between his European and Asiatic subjects. Greek seers and Persian magoi(a class of Zoroastria priest in ancient Media and Persia, reputed to possess supernatural powers) together conducted rites to solemnize this attempted marriage of East and West.
<snip>
Persian resistance to the Macedonians, therefore, never lacked for provocation, and in fact never stopped after the death of Darius. Some of the satraps Alexander had retained in service turned out to be halfhearted in their support of the new regime, and some actually rebellious to it. Those who remained loyal to the idea of native Iranian rule were gradually eliminated and replaced by Europeans. The failure of guerrilla resistance like that of Spitamenes of Sogdiana, however showed the Persians that the immense technical and organization superiority of the Europeans made further attempts at open military resistance as vain as the deployment of the huge armies of the Great king. But if the physical resistance was impossible, religious resistance was not. It was even natural to the ideals of Persian civilization.
Since the existence of a Persian monarchy, preferably Achaemenian, was part of the right order of this world created by Ahura Mazdah, hopes for resurrection of a specifically Persian state were in part religiously inspired. Ahura Mazdah, like Marduk or Asshur, was an imperial deity who having created the earth, set human beings to rule it as he wanted it ruled. As immortal and beautiful Ahura Mazdah continued to live, so did his state continue to survive.
Two ideas, the displacement of the notables and the interruption of the divinely ordained state and kingship, underlined all the Persian religious literature of resistance.
<snip>
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Mermaid
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Re:how oliver stone fucked up..
« Reply #2 on: 2004-09-27 16:30:37 » |
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rhino, i have to read this in leisure and reply later. thanks.
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