Talk:Not Without My Daughter (film)

Untitled

I just don't understand where the controversy with this movie/book is coming from. Father makes mother choose "this life" or "life without your child". Seems pretty clear cut to me. Other views? 162.39.180.2 13:49, 25 September 2005 (UTC)Jp

Since the establishment of Islamic regime, Divorced women in Iran have had custody of girls until they are seven, and of boys until they are two. When the child is older than this, the custody right goes to father. The reverse happens in United States. At the moment (after 2003) Divorced women in Iran have custody right of boys up to 7. Yes, in Iran when a couple get divorce, their child will go to father if the child is more than seven years old. -- Sina Kardar 20:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree, and there are plenty of people who think this film is a fairly accurate representation of what women have to put up with in Iran and other Middle Eastern theocracies. However, there was one user who kept adding partisan commentary to the article, so I added the NPOV tag. ProhibitOnions 15:29, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, I did my best to make the article more objective, say, like taking out some words like "horrific" or something like that. That Betty girl whose last name escapes my mind became one of my heroes when I saw the movie. However, we must also consider that when the tag line says "based on..' it means that some scenes depicted may or may not have happened in real life. That said, I have %200 respect to the woman and the child involved in the case and my hearts are with them for their bravery.

One last word: A scene that deeply shocked me and opened my eyes to what may be going on in some families of the Arab world is when a husband came in and punched his wife just because she was talking to Betty. That really shook me to the core. Its been 14 years since I last saw the movie and I still cant forget that!

Antonio End the violence against Muslim women! Martin 09:07, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

If there exist any propaganda movie in the world, this is the one. The best evidence (for a non Iranian) is that the Islamic regime screened the movie repeatedly in Iran. If the movie had any thing to do with reality or it could somehow induce a feeling against the regime, they would not screen the movie. I myself have seen it inside and outside of Iran a few times. It just induces anti-western feeling in Iranians. You see streets full of mullahs! Teachers who violently separate children from their parents on the first day of school!! A man who is beating his wife in public !!! and violently!! All women look ugly and dressed in black. Everybody is shouting and doing stupid things. The movie was supposed to show one of the most beautiful cities of the country. However it looked like palestine ! You see in the capital of the country, Tehran, that a group of sheep are passing !! Ask people who lived in Tehran for last 50 years!! Nobody have seen such things. In this movie you see very few "good" Iranians. Those "good" are all against regime and anti revolution!! Good peoples have relation with mafia and can help Betty escape the country illegally! Are good and civilized people in Germany and France able to help a person escape their country illegally ??!! Do they have relation with mafias ? There many many more things about the movie. Not without my daughteris not a movie about Iran with some exaggerations or mistakes. It is an awful piece of trash. There are lots of books and movies made by Iranians in exile about Iran or situation of women in Iran. I recommend those. 22:14, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I recommend the movie to those who do not know any thing about Iran and do not want to know any thing about it.

So many people in the world have been brain washed by the movie. I am not surprised as the whole knowledge of most of them about iran is that "Iran is Iraq in which q is replaced by n". -- Sina Kardar 19:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Not without my daughter was a propaganda movie. Not that I agree with what Dr. Mahmoodi did, even if only 10% of the movie was true. No one should be allowed to treat his wife or child the way he did and he had no right to decide for them where to go and how to live their lives, but the movie was not based on truth and made solely for propaganda against Iranians over all and not against action of one person. I did see both interviews with Betty and Dr. Mahmoodi and it did seem like they both were not truthful. Betty did this because she wanted to sell the book and Dr. Mahmoodi was not truthful either, he did make many mistakes on not being up front and straight forward with his wife and specially his child. I do think Sally Field should be ashamed of herself for having the leading role in this movie and being the puppet of some political agenda. Please see discussions here Movie Discussion -- Sina Kardar 19:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this movie is obviously a piece of propaganda as Iran is known, throughout the world, as a bastion of human rights. When I think liberal democracy, I think Iran. And of course, this movie can't be truthful because, as we all know, Islam, and states that follow Islamic law, does not treat women as second-class citizens. So obviously the woman who is the subject of this movie must be lying because Islam treats women equally and Iran, the paragon of human rights it is, is a paradise on Earth.

Criticism of the book

It would be nice to see some sourced criticism from the Islamic world about this book here. I know it exists; in Alison Wearing's Honeymoon in Purdah, the author recounts several conversations she had in Iran about this book.

The general trend from Wearing's conversations seemed to be anger at Mahmoody's alleged stubborn ignorance of Iranian/Muslim customs and culture. For example, one woman recounted a bit about how Mahmoody was apparently appalled when her in-laws slaughtered a goat upon her arrival, though they intended this as a gesture of warm welcome to her. --Saforrest 07:04, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it is all a cultural misunderstanding. The fact that she would have no custodial rights and the fact Islam treats women as little better than chattel? That has absolutely nothing, at all, to do with it. It's all just a little misunderstanding. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.138.145.181 (talk) 14:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

There had been at least 2 documentaries where it was shown that she lied and that Betty M was an unstable person. Also her former husband said that she attacked him with a chopping knife — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.247.244.100 (talk) 18:14, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

This article is currently POV

In Iran, there are people who are very conservative (as portrayed in the movie) and others who are much more liberal and westernised. However, all Iranians agree this movie is basically a hatchde job and very much biased. You won't find too many Iranians agreeing with this. The article should be changed to reflect this viewpoint - that the movie is not an accurate reflection of Iranian life or culture. --Commking 03:14, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

the movie, like the book assumes the point of view of an outsider's experience in Iran. You can call the book or the movie POV, but the article is simply a report of the movie. If anything, the article is unbalanced *against* the movie. For example, Roger Ebert's review of the movie (parts of which are quoted) is overall positive. The article cherrypickshis review to make it appear that he didn't like the movie.--74.195.63.121 (talk) 04:48, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Propaganda Tag

The propaganda tag is not justified and is somebody trying to express their opinion about the film. The movie is simply based on the book written by Betty Mahmoody about her own story real life story. Perhaps some folks might feel that the film reflects poorly on the Islamic culture but it is not a propaganda film.--CltFn 04:00, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

But it has been accused of such: http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/not_without.html. We can't use our own opinions about the movie to determine whether or not the movie is actually propaganda. BhaiSaab ^talk 04:09, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Then create a category Films accused of propaganda. "Accused of propaganda" and " is propaganda" is not the same thing.--CltFn 04:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

How do you establish that a film is without a doubt propaganda? You'll get people on both sides of the argument all the time. I think that, for the purposes of Wikipedia, they are the same thing. BhaiSaab ^talk 05:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

A film is propaganda only if it meets certain criteria . You would have to establish , that a film was made with the purposeful intent to futher a political view, such as for example a film made by a political or ideologicial party. Farenheit 911 is such a movie or movies made by the German government in world war 2. In wikipedia we cannot sloppily tag articles with a category tag unless they meet the criteria of the category. You yourself have demonstrated an understanding of this concept , when you changed the category of certain books from criticism about Islam to Criticism of Islamism.--CltFn 11:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

The movie is a propaganda film. It is very much different from a criticism. I suggest you see some films from Iranian film directors. They extensively address women rights and oppression of women. But "Not without my daughter" is a collection of lies and the writer tries to take revenge from Iranians. A Lie is a Lie. And propaganda is nothing but distributing lies. Do you expect does who made the propaganda come and say that???!!! The movie was shot in Israel and funded by US and it is against Iran, their common enemy. I have to admit that the propaganda was very successful. From Japan to south america, people have seen it, while they have not seen even one film from highly celebrated Iranian cinema Sina Kardar 18:41, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

US have been very productive in making propaganda films: Category:American propaganda films. US continuously made films against its enemies during the last decades. many of those propaganda films become bestsellers and awarded!! If "NOt without my daughter" was not a propaganda film, there was no need to make a documentary as a responce. Sina Kardar 18:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The film director of "Without my daughtor" said that the aim of the 90-minute documentary was to "show the lies in the American film and present the real story behind" what turned into an acrimonious custody battle for Mahtab Mahmoody.

Propaganda is nothing but distributing lies. Sina Kardar 19:09, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Iran is a theocratic hellhole. Sorry, but claims this movie is "pure propaganda" because it portrays Iran in a negative light is pure garbage. And of course, what would criticism of this movie be without someone bringing up "the Jews". And we don't need to see a film from an Iranian filmmaker to know what Iran is "truly" like. Get back to us when Iran is not theocracy that supports Islamic terrorists, daily calls for the destruction of Israel, executes homosexuals, stones "adulterers", shoots peaceful protesters, enforces Sharia, etc. I don't need to watch "Not Without My Daughter" to know Iran is not a liberal democracy with a good human rights record. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.138.145.181 (talk) 14:37, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

References

"Not without my daughter" or "Can I leave Iran, please?"

I just saw the movie for the first time and something is becoming clear to me: the filmmaker should have put more emphasis on the wife's legal situation. You see, it happens that I have a foreign wife and a foreign daugther, and they both live with me in my home country, in South America. When we lived in their country, anytime I wanted to travel to my country with my daughter I had to show a permit, signed by the mother, at the border. Conversely, now that we live in my country, anytime my wife wants to travel with my daughter she has to show a permit at the border, signed by me. This means that anytime one parent tries to take the child across the border, he or she is asked by the authorities: "Do the other parent agree with this?" regardless of who is leaving which country. Now, of course my wife can leave my country in the middle of the night is she pleases, after all, she is not an underage woman. But my daughter is underage, and she needs the permit of both parents to cross an international border, at least here at South America. As I understand, the situation in Iran is that both the child and the mother are considered "legally underage". But I was left with a taste that the real situation, in this case, was that Moody was willing to let Betty go, but alone. That situation is exactly the same that we can have here in Latin America should one parent oppose to a family travel, althougth in this part of the world Betty's right to leave would have been guaranteed by law, something that in Iran was up to Moody to decide. Aldo L (talk) 06:18, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Factual Error

It says in the plot section that Betty was helped by Houssain and his WIFE. That woman was supposed to be his sister, not his wife. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.0.95.132 (talk) 23:19, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Introduction

The intro makes no summary of the Controversy and Criticism section. As such it is not NPOV. Could users interested in this film contribute here please to make the introduction better? --Why should I have a User Name? (talk) 09:21, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe just including the first sentence from that section at the end of the lead would sufficient e.g. The film has been criticized for its alleged misrepresentation of Muslim Iranians and of Iranian Islamic culture. Having said that, I suspect that the Controversy and Criticism section itself probably doesn't comply with NPOV at the moment. It seems a bit improbable that no one defended the film's treatment of Iranian culture given that it's such a partisan issue. Perhaps there are some sources out there that need to be incorporated for balance. Sean.hoyland - talk 09:54, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Why not? I made a small change in the sentence to link it to Iranian culture. I will add it to the end of the introduction if you don't mind. --Why should I have a User Name? (talk) 11:06, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

The lead certainly doesn't comply with WP:LEAD at the moment in that, as you point out, it doesn't incorporate a summary of the Controversy and Criticism section section, so adding a short statement to the end would resolve that. I guess there might be some positive reviews out there but they can be dealt with when and if anyone finds them. The book "Epic Encounters : Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East since 1945" p. 229 onwards (ISBN 9780520244993) looks like a good scholarly source, but unfortunately its focus is the book rather than the film... Sean.hoyland - talk 11:32, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for all that useful information. I take this as "go ahead". Regards. --Why should I have a User Name? (talk) 11:34, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

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