Read Online I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One on TV by Maz Jobrani - Free Book Online Page A

you are. Older immigrants tend to find other immigrants to hang out with. We were always goingto the homes of the other three or four Iranian families in Marin. They also had kids my age, so we could get together and play while our parents indulged in Persian card games. This gave us ample time to bad-mouth them and exchange strategies on how to distance ourselves further.
    â€œThe worst part of having an Iranian dad is that he wears too much cologne,” someone would complain. “Whenever he picks me up from soccer, I can smell him a mile away.”
    â€œYou think you have it bad? My dad insists on playing backgammon in the park while he waits for me to finish my practice.”
    â€œYou want fresh off the boat? My dad drives me around town in a Rolls-Royce and proposes marriage to thirteen-year-old girls on my behalf. He thinks he’s the shah.”
    Call Me Tony
    Kids often turn to film and TV to find people they can relate to. Nowadays, when my kids watch TV there are cartoons with Latino leads ( Dora the Explorer ), Asian leads ( Ni Hao Kai-Lan ) and bear leads ( Little Bear ). Being Iranian in America in the eighties, I didn’t find many people on TV who I could relate to. There was the Iron Sheik, who was a wrestling villain from the World Wrestling Federation. He was hard to cheer for because he would come on TV with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Volkoff, and shout, “Iran number von! Russia number von! America?” Then he would spit on the canvas. The crowd would boo and Hulk Hogan would arrive and distribute ass-whoopings for all the little Hulkamaniacs out there. The only other Iranians on TV or in film were the rich Persian neighbors in Down and Out in Beverly Hills and the Iranian husband in Not Without My Daughter .
    For anyone who hasn’t seen Not Without My Daughter, let me summarize. It is based on a true story and stars Sally Field, who is married to an Iranian man in America. The Iranian man is played by Alfred Molina, who looks more Persian than I do. (I actually took a Shakespearean acting class with him once and he was so nice that any animosity I felt toward him from being in this movie melted away.)
    While they’re in the United States, the Molina character, Sayed Bozorg Mahmoody, a.k.a. Moody, is a charming medical school student who seems lovely to Sally. He has romantic picnics with her and treats her like his queen. Then they go for a short trip to Iran and the guy changes on a dime. He becomes misogynistic and abusive. (Which I guess explains why they call him “Moody.”) He won’t let Sally out of the house and tells her that he’s going to kill her and sacrifice her like a sheep. Furthermore, Moody tells her, he won’t let her take their daughter back to the United States. So Sally sets out to find a way to escape with her child, and thus the title, Not Without My Daughter .
    This was in Sally Field’s heyday; it would be like a Middle Eastern man doing this to Reese Witherspoon today. This movie did more to hurt the dating lives of Iranian men in America than the hostage crisis. Many of my friends relinquished any pride they had in their Persian background and just pretended to be Italian. Somehow, they could handle the hostage crisis, they could manage “I Ran (So Far Away),” but Not Without My Daughter put them over the edge. They went from being named Shahrokh, Mahmoud, and Farsheed to all being named Tony. I’m not sure why they all chose Tony, but it seemed odd to me that women wouldn’t question you when you would introduce your friends this way: “I’m Maz. This is my friend Tony. Over there, next to Tony, is Tony. Over therenext to Tony and Tony is Tony. Yes, they’re all Italian. Very Italian. Me? I’m Iranian. Wait, where are you going? Did I say Iranian? I meant Persian, like the cat. Meow!”
    Finding Italian heroes on TV was easy. I became a fan of every Italian actor. If their names