Lipstick Jihad: An exploration of the underside of life in Tehran

 

A young Iranian-American journalist returns to Tehran, where she realizes not just the repressive and extravagant life of her Iranian peers who have grown up after the revolution, but also the agony of yearning for a nation that may not exist.
Azadeh Moaveni has struggled with her complicated identity as an Iranian-American as she can remember. Azadeh lives in two worlds in suburban America. She was the daughter of the Iranian refugee community at home, pouring tea, adhering to tradition, and daydreaming about Tehran. Outside, she was a California girl who listened to Madonna and did yoga. She had disregarded the heated standoff among the cultural groups for years.
But college heightened the tensions between Iran and the United States, and after graduation, she traveled to Iran to work as a journalist. This is the narrative of her struggle for identification in the midst of two cultures torn apart by a tragic past. It's also the narrative of Iran, a restless country in the throes of a revolution.
Moaveni's return overlaps with the period of the country's reform movement when young people took to the streets and chanted for the end of the Islamic dictatorship. In these turbulent times, she fights to make a living in a dark country that is diametrically opposed to the dazzling, saffron, and turquoise-tinted Iran of her fantasy. Moaveni creates a unique portrayal of Iran's rebellious future generation as she brings us into the drug-soaked, underground parties of Tehran and into the hedonistic lives of young people longing for change. Her Tehran landscape—ski slopes, fashion shows, shops, and cafes—is filled with a cast of young people whose enthusiasm and misery bring Iran's modern reality to vivid life.