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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The reason why Iranians are obsessed with plastic surgeries is because ever since the 1979 revolution Iran was forced into changes no one voted for. One of these included the islamic laws which dictated women should wear clothes that did not reveal to much of their female figure, and to cover their hair in public. This lead to females felt a need to correct any minor perceived imperfection, because the face is the main thing that you are portraying to the outside world. Every day Iranian women find unique ways to be fashionable and push  the islamic laws to the extreme.
I included a link showing a women in Tehran
http://media.nowpublic.net/images//cc/6/cc6c29f5e72bba30fed97a530096d5e4.jpg[/quote]

This is really a fascinating explanation....that when a law is passed designed to discourage the beautification of women, the women actually sought out ways to beautify that which was legally permissible to show off. So the intent and purpose of the law was never truly achieved, which makes me wonder if imposing such strict modesty laws on women make sense.[/quote]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The reason why Iranians are obsessed with plastic surgeries is because ever since the 1979 revolution Iran was forced into changes no one voted for. One of these included the islamic laws which dictated women should wear clothes that did not reveal to much of their female figure, and to cover their hair in public. This lead to females felt a need to correct any minor perceived imperfection, because the face is the main thing that you are portraying to the outside world. Every day Iranian women find unique ways to be fashionable and push  the islamic laws to the extreme.
I included a link showing a women in Tehran
http://media.nowpublic.net/images//cc/6/cc6c29f5e72bba30fed97a530096d5e4.jpg[/quote]

I don't want to make to long post, but it is important to realize that Iran and the Iranian society is very different from what is portrayed in media. Iranians are mostly very secular, some ethnic groups within Iran (as for example Persian Jews, Persian Christians) have close ties to their religion because it is tightly woven into the fabric of their cultural identity. The revolution that happened in Iran was not really suppose to be meant as a Islamic revolution. This actually started in 1951 when Iran had complete and fully democratic elected government. The elected primer of Iran, Mr. Mossadegh wanted to push trough many social reforms, he wanted to limit the Shahs (Emperor) political power and he wanted to nationalize the oil. Back then the Iranian oil industry was controlled by the Anglo-Persian oil company (you might know it as BP now), this company dominated oil production out of the middle east. This oil company was run by the British despite Iran being a sovereign country, and Iran had either live with that or face war. But the premier managed to push through reforms with support of the people, but people did question his socialist tendencies. CIA carried out a coup'de'tat and overthrow the government of primer Mossadegh. Mainly because they feared Iranian oil ending up in the hands of a Soviet friendly government. The Emperor had all his powers reinstalled and Iran became a close ally of the USA during most of the cold war. During the Shahs time Iran had many liberties and as someone who visited western countries during that time I can say that Iran was in pace with them.  Unfortunately, the USA fueled the Iranian military and secret service with the same fetar and paranoia for socialism as we seen in the USA.  The Iranian secret service, SAVAK, became obsessed with chasing down and arresting anyone suspected to have communist/socialist ties. It went so far as to have people screened when they joined the Air force or applied for a government job to ensure they did not have ancestral ties to Russia. This all while the Iranian political scene was seeing more and more socialist parties, this was the 70s, socialist, liberal parties was the new cool thing for all the kids :) So the way the secret service treated these young folks caused the reform groups to grow stronger, the reform groups wanted to push through social reforms and convert Iran to a constitutional monarchy or even a republic. The opposition was composed of many different political parties, the Islamist where a minor one, they kinda became the spiritual leaders. Hard to believe know, but back then a lot of what they said made sense, and they always ensured people that government and "church" should be separated. However, the reform morphed into a revolution and the Islamist groups hijacked it (as they are so good at it). And it turned out to be one of the bloodiest revolutions in modern times, they systematically  dismantled the countries leadership and the Imperial armed forces in record time without any resistance. And then they turned on the other political factions of the revolution, including the socialist parties. And at the same time they pushed through their reforms, like their modesty rules for women. Iranian women almost literally went from miniskirts to chadors overnight. The Islamist started to see a strong opposition formed against them, people had not voted for them and did not support their reforms. But at the same time Saddam saw his opportunity to attack Iran, which had bullied him into some territorial gains in the Persian Gulf years before. Since the new regime in Iran were pretty much nutcases all the western countries and USSR supported and supplied Saddam. Iranians who opposed the new regime now had to go to the front to defend their country, and it was long and costly war because it took a long time for us and are armed forced to recover from the damage the revolution had caused. This gave the regime time to settle, in fact they deliberate delayed the end of war. Immediately after the war people where to tired to oppose them, but the opposition has grown and come out in millions against the regime. The Islamic reforms they pushed through as backfired on them in every way possible. What is most noticeable is how Muslim Iranians outlook on religion has changed, many have gone from secular to anti-Islamic, and people are converting to Irans pre-islamic religion, Zoroastrianism,  or to Christianity (which is giving Iranian Zoroastrianism/Christians a bit of unwanted attention from the regime). This is because for many Iranians the regime has been to pro-Arabism and anti-Iranian, and a lot of this is rooted in Iranian pride in their history, language and pre-islamic heritage and because Islamic invasion of Iran was very bloody and prolonged. There has always been some resentment towards Islam/Arabs, so with all the nastiness this regime has done it has kinda backfired on Islam in Iran in a big way.

That all being said, I saw the show, I did not think it so bad. I mean after 30 years as being portrayed as terrorist overlords I'll take shallow and materialistic any day. Besides, the show does show one thing, how Iranians no-matter if they are Zoroastrians, Bahia Christians, Muslim, Jewish, Sufis or just atheist  are bound together by their Iranian roots and have always lived in Peace. That's not something you see everyday in media. Remember that several revived sites in both Christianity (Church of St. Mary, second oldest church in the world)and Judaism (tomb of Esther and Mordechai) are in Iran and the Zoroastrianism which influenced all 3 big religions is from Iran.  [/quote]

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