Persian Breakfast Club

On September 16th, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died in Tehran after being arrested for failing to observe the Islamic dress code. Many Iranians suspected that Amini was fatally wounded by Iranian police during her detention, and the news of her death sparked mass protests against the country's mandatory hijab law as well as against the Islamic Republic in general.

The 1991 American film Not Without My Daughter tells the purportedly true story of an American woman who escapes with her daughter after her abusive Iranian husband relocates them to Tehran in the mid 1980s. We discuss the film's historical context, its characters, and the tenuous accuracy of its plot.