Nipple or Corner of an Eye? That’s the Iranian Censors’ Question

September 28, 2018

5 min read

Censors insist that women do not experience menopause and suggest that reviewers for the magazine 24 use the term "middle age" instead

Editors are asked to adjust photographs of movie posters that reveal women's hair, even if it is a film starring a famous Iranian actress such as Leila Hatami

“Better use a photo from behind the scene of another movie," this censor's mark says

Sometimes censors insist that the entire review be removed from the publication, as was the case for an article about Burning, a film directed by Lee Chang-dong

Censorship as entertainment? One answer to this might be: “Perhaps, if you are not the victim of censorship.” Iranian journalists, writers and artists have shown that they can keep a sense of humor even if the censors mangle, distort or even completely destroy or remove their works.

In August, the hashtag “#Censor_And_I” (#من_و_سانسورچی in Persian) began trending, used by Iranian artists and writers to come forward with anecdotes about their own experiences with Iranian censorship, many of which bordered on the absurd. Amir Jouleh, an Iranian satirist, journalist, movie actor and scriptwriter, was first to use the hashtag, and he invited other artists, journalists and writers to share their stories.

One of the latest to answer his call was Yahya Natanzi, a Tehran-based journalist, movie critic and deputy editor-in-chief of 24, a monthly movie magazine that has been published since 2010 by one of the biggest media companies in Iran, Hamshahri Institute, an affiliate of Tehran Municipality. In a series of tweets (in Persian) Natanzi provided illustrations of some of his magazine’s encounters with Iranian censors. The illustrations and descriptions, he writes, are for the purpose of “entertainment even if they do not reveal anything new.”

Most of his examples come from the latest issue of the magazine. At the same time, it is also entertaining to point out the absurdity of the fact that although Twitter is officially banned in the Islamic Republic, everybody uses it — from the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who has 162,000 followers in Persian, to President Hassan Rouhani, former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and so on. In other words, the ruling class of the Islamic Republic actively undermines and violates the law of the republic.

Here is a selection of Natanzi’s tweets about his brushes with Iran’s censors.

Remove the Nipple

Red Pencil: “Remove” the corner of the eye

The censors I have come across throughout these years always tend to interpret everything in sexual terms. Why do you think we had to remove the corner of the eye in this design for our magazine’s cover? Because “it resembles a nipple.”

No Such Thing as Menopause

Red Pencil: “Middle age,” not “menopause”

Any word in the text that mentioned something specifically feminine was doomed to be removed. I still have no idea why we had to replace “menopause” with “middle age.”

Beauty is Not for Girls

Red Pen: Remove “beauty"

Every word having to do with the looks of women was banned. You could never write that a woman is “beautiful” or has an “enchanting look.” Once, in describing a character in a movie, we had written that “wind was blowing in her hair” — but it was like we had committed a mortal sin.

Think Only of Marriage

Red Pen: “Future relationship,” not “a more serious relationship”

Any mention of a relationship between a man and a woman was suspicious and subject to correction. No man could pursue a “more serious relationship” with a woman. He was allowed only to think about marriage.

The Crime of Revealing Hair

Red Pen: “Correct the picture”

Stills from Iranian films, even those that might end up as posters or prints for movie houses, must observe sharia standards. Asking the editor to black-out the hair of an actress is one of the most painful tasks in the world, especially if the subject is [internationally acclaimed Iranian actress] Leila Hatami.

Use a Scene from Another Movie

Photo: Robert Aldrich behind the scenes of Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Red Pencil: “Better use a photo from behind the scene of another movie,” underlining “kiss”

God help us if the movie’s title was suspicious. Then we had to fight and negotiate to find a way to print [the article]. Kiss Me Deadly is one of the most famous film noir films. Needless to say, we had to prove that we were not including [references to] any erotic scenes.

Banning a Review in its Entirety

Review of “Burning,” a 2018 South Korean mystery drama directed by Lee Chang-dong

Red Pen: “Remove” the whole review

Unfortunately we could not touch some good movies that, according to the censor, “infringed” on the red lines due to a couple of scenes. Our 14-page report on the movie Burning was removed because of this crime. We were not even able to print a quotation from the director on the corner of a page.

Jim Carrey is no Prophet

Jim Carrey: The Prophet of Contemporary Elite

Red Pen: Remove “Prophet”

All words with religious connotations like “prophet”, “rosary” or “temple” had to be removed or replaced with neutral words. It is as though these words have one, and only one, meaning and cannot be used in any different context.

No Bones About it

“The bones were found accidentally after 30 years...”

Red Pen: Use “body remains” instead of “bones”

When talking about the martyrs of the Iran-Iraq War, we had to use [the phrase] “body remains” instead of words like “bones.”

Unpleasantness Happens Elsewhere

Red Pen: Remove “you are in a country where...”

Any mention of something unpleasant in Iran was doomed to be taken out or changed, even if it was coming out of the mouth of [film director] Farzad Motamen, talking about film production in Iran.

Women have no First Name

Red Pen: “Use family name”

Men in Iranian cinema could not use the first name of their female colleagues in their writing, as in this case, where “Ladan” referrs to Ladan Zhavehvand, an elderly lady.

Let them Drink Coffee

Red Pen: “café”, not “bar”

A reasonable ban (by the standards of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance) was on using words like “bar,” “girlfriend” and “boyfriend.” For example, “bar” could be replaced with “café.”

Law and Morality

Red Pen: Replace “she did not want to believe that law and morality would not always get us the results that we want” to “she was able to believe that law and morality always gets us where want to.”

We could not write that in the second part of the movie Sicario [a 2015 American crime thriller] law and morality do not always work. Because we were definitely wrong and law and morality always get us results.