300 Adds Up to "Disgust" for Iranians

Speaking to the Ayandeh-No daily, in a story bearing the headline "Hollywood Declares War on Iranians," an adviser to the Iranian president has taken aim at the American box-office record buster 300, attacking it as "part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological warfare aimed at Iranian culture." While the pic is unlikely to get a theatrical run in Iran, "The [bootleg] DVD is already very available," a Tehran-based producer says, "and people are quite angry," saying the comic-book stylized feature presents a distorted view of real-life events. Per Variety, an online petition formalizing Iranians' "disgust at such a heresy" has thus far tallied 35,000 signatures.