Iran's Lovin' It

        As I sit at the front desk of the Fleming Museum pondering life and its endless complexities, my focused concentration is distracted by a rather irritating song that fills the otherwise silent front lobby.  A recording of a group of young Iranian students singing an unfamiliar song plays on repeat; it's in a language I can't understand so instead of singing along, the melody simply lodges itself in my memory and refuses to leave.  Despite my strong urge to hurl something in that general direction, I instead force myself to respect the music as part of a piece of art.  The piece is actually a short film by Iranian born artist Shahram Entekhabi.  After a series of various emotions wash over me (annoyance, anger, incredible rage, and finally exasperation), I finally decide to push my biased feelings aside and attempt to consider the piece as the work of art that it is.

        According to the Fleming’s information pamphlet, Shahram Entekhabi’s media exhibit Happy Meal (2004) forces its viewers to question stereotypes of both the eastern and western worlds by filming a young Iranian girl clad in a traditional burqa, chowing down on a good old American Happy Meal.  The information pamphlet speaks of an exciting “hybrid” culture that is born out of such collisions between the two opposing worlds.  It suggests that such fusions of eastern and western culture will eventually lead to a more open-minded population in general.

        Nonetheless, I find myself extremely perplexed and intrigued by the piece.  My immediate reaction mirrors my original reaction to the sound track (annoyance, anger, incredible rage, exasperation) but instead ends on a more confused, rather than annoyed, state.  It seems absolutely absurd that he opts to elect a corporation like McDonald's as worthy of representing the western world.  Yet, the longer I watch the film and listen to the joyous (though slightly irritating) background music, the more I begin to realize that Shahram Entekhabi is on to something.  The young Iranian girl is meant to embody the Western world’s idea of what it must be like growing up in an Islamic culture.  Her burqa sheilds most of her from our view and I must admit that as an American woman, my first impulse is to pity her.  But my immediate reaction to the ‘poor’ girl is stifled by her pure enjoyment of a happy meal.  As she gobbles down her McChicken and fries, I find myself laughing at the young girl’s innocent excitement.  As I continue to watch her play with the toy that comes with every happy meal, my amusement turns to shame and eventually anger.  Why is it that the eastern world is represented by a small innocent child while all that represents the "land of the free" is a lousy happy meal?  McDonald’s is nothing to be proud of.  It exhibits everything I dislike about my own country: corporate greed, unhealthy lifestyles and those awful commercials that advertise McDonald's food as 'fresh'.  It takes a great deal of swallowing my own pride to admit that this is the way other countries often see us.  And the more I consider that, the more I begin to appreciate what Entekhabi is attempting to dispute.