However, unlike some of my friends and students, I don't think it's a laughing matter. I think it is frightening to see what outrageous stories can be told in the United States and then are accepted by many educated people and academics as facts. Movies get awards, books become best sellers, heroes are made, and people become wealthy as a result of dishonest caricatures of Iranian people and society.

One topic which often brings liberals and conservatives together in the U.S. is Iran. There is a general consensus that the Revolution was the embodiment of backwardness and barbarism.

It is ludicrous to believe that he meant nuclear weapons can be used. It is truly fearful to see how the mainstream media in the west can construct an adversary and that there are so few dissenting voices.

Also, as a result of the involvement of American foundations that have backing from the U.S. State Department in Iranian internal politics, cultural exchange and dialogue have become more and more problematic.

I think there is a general interest in films that deal with contemporary issues. Constructions of Iran, Islam, the Middle East as well as the U.S. itself are also of interest, it seems.

In my opinion, the continued popularity of these gross distortions of Iran in the U.S. seems to reveal more about certain aspects of America than about Iran. It seems that the popularity of these memoirs is largely due to the fact that, while claiming to do the opposite, they regularly reinforce the dominant representations of Iran in America by constructing an exotic, backward, and barbaric Iran principally based on U.S. archives.

Our focus is not on current politics, but students seem to be naturally drawn to this topic. This is understandable, when the U.S. is constantly trying to terrorize the nation with threats of war, students obviously take notice.