‘The Persian Version’ And The Limits of Secular Pluralism
(REVIEW) “The Persian Version,” by falling into all the familiar cliches around non-White, non-Christian immigrant families, reminds us how Western secular pluralism is not a neutral space for worldviews but an exclusive worldview in its own right.
“The Persian Version” follows the contentious relationship between Leila and her mother, the matriarch of a Muslim Iranian-American immigrant family who has to confront its deep-seeded trauma and divisions when the patriarch suddenly gets admitted to the hospital and Leila ends up pregnant.
Despite its flaws (which I’ll get to soon), the movie has some entertainment value in how it handles its conventional semi-autobiographical family drama with various visually and narratively witty conventions, taking a heaping helping of “Ferris Bueller”-esque fourth-wall breaks by the protagonist Leila and the voice of whatever person she’s writing to tell their story. The pacing keeps things moving, even when the same deeply cliche scenes would have been unbearably tiresome in another movie. Its references to Islamic beliefs — particularly praying for help from a famous Muslim saint — are both funny and ultimately affirming.
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None of that can ultimately make the movie truly enjoyable. It’s so proud of its opinions and insights (which are all so shallow and conventional), including the misunderstood outcast protagonist, the uptight and tyrannical mother, the privileges and abuses of the patriarchy, the bigotry of the West and the strength of women. Every single thing this movie does is a cliche, while demanding that you treat it as some deep and daring insight.
It’s how cliche this movie is that’s actually one of the most interesting things about it. The movie centers on a Muslim Iranian immigrant family. And it seems like almost the only story line we ever get about Middle Eastern, Asian or South Asian immigrant families is about a rebellious, Westernized kid with an overbearing family or counter-family in the old world (usually the mother) who wants to marry them off and stomp their dreams. We’ve seen it in the past with “Bend It Like Beckham,” “The Big Sick,” “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Blinded By The Light,” “Turning Red,” “Shang Chi,” “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and in three other movies this year alone. They also include “Polite Society,” “Mother Teresa & Me,” and now “Persian Version.”
This seems like a disservice to those ethnic and faith communities who can often be fairly traditional in their values (as exhibited by these movies, which constantly portray the progressive protagonist as the “edgy misunderstood outsider”). Muslim Americans, for example, are one of the most traditional groups on issues of sexuality. This adds fuel to the fire of the critique that Western society, despite what it says, doesn’t actually believe in diversity, but only diversity on its terms.
Modern society often claims that because it’s secular, it doesn’t promote any particular religion and therefore is not putting forward a point of view. It clearly does. It says we will celebrate the diversity of your skin color and heritage, as long as you fully embrace our views on everything. This conflict is starting to break out openly in the cultural and political realm, with Muslim Americans siding with socially conservative Christians on LGBTQ+ issues in the fight against promoting the progressive view of sexuality and gender identity in public schools, and other related issues. Some progressive activists have talked about being “betrayed” by Muslims, who they seemed to forget have always held such socially conservative views.
Of course, part of this seeming limited perspective on these communities is probably because many of them are so religiously conservative that the only people rebellious enough from them to have a career in the arts at all are the ones seeking to put aside their family’s values wholesale. After all, most of the titles I mentioned are written and directed at least in part by members of those very communities they’re writing about. Alexis de Tocqueville mentioned this in “Democracy In America” as a contrary explanation as to why many “love marriages” ended in disaster — a response to those who said those disasters were evidence that marriages based on love rather than arrangement were intrinsically disastrous.
Furthermore, it’s totally reasonable that any culture would have some limits on which values it promotes and voices it elevates. In fact, many would argue it’s totally necessary. The principle of “the paradox of liberalism” states that in order to be a “liberal” society — that is, a society that allows the pluralism of different ideas and cultures to live together and tolerate each other — must in fact be intolerant of certain ideas and cultures, specifically ones based on intolerance. If intolerance is tolerated, intolerance will grow and stamp out tolerance. Therefore, a tolerant society cannot tolerate intolerance.
This hardly seems a sufficient excuse for every movie of this kind to be so overwhelmingly in favor of modern, liberal Western values and give a thumbs down to the old country’s values. Liberalism prides itself on the space it gives for different viewpoints; surely there is room for more diversity than we have right now if it's truly committed to it. Surely, liberalism can survive one or two movies with a positive — or at least sympathetic — view of arranged marriage. After all, movies about Hispanic-Americans fare better, with ones like “Coco,” “Half-Brothers,” “In The Heights,” “Flamin’ Hot” and “Blue Beetle” at least attempting to reconcile the values of the old and new world.
In “The Persian Version,” however, Western liberal values and immigrant communities seem committed to not understanding one another. This is tragicomically blatant in “The Persian Version,” with Leila attempting to understand her mother by … writing about her? Not by talking with her and asking her what she thinks and feels, but by taking what she saw and her grandmother’s stories and putting words in her mother’s mouth as to what she would have felt in her shoes. As a result, the mother’s actions become sympathetic — but in no way does she ever learn to consider that her mother could be right about some things. Hence, at the end of the story, her mom is the only one who apologizes.
This is one of the reasons that the faith-based film industry was created (with studios like Sherwood Pictures and Kingdom Studios), and why there is a recent rise in conservative entertainment media. Mainstream entertainment has portrayed such a narrow vision for whose stories get represented on screen.
If nothing else, movies like “The Persian Version” are reminders that the principles of pluralism in the secular liberal project have far more limits in practice than its defenders are typically willing to admit. That’s not a good or bad thing, that’s just how it is, and it’s no use pretending otherwise.
Western liberalism is not a neutral ground for viewpoints but a worldview with one of its own. Therefore, as with everything else, people with differing opinions will have to actively make a point to make their own voices heard and tell their own stories. Because if there is a promise of Western pluralism, it’s the opportunity to do just that.
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Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York City. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at his website josephholmesstudios.com.