VILIFIED Persians, Motherfuckers (inset)

How do you say irony in Farsi? Artists and politicians in Iran are protesting 300, complaining that the action movie about the battle of Thermopylae distorts history to vilify Persians—ancient and modern. "No doubt it is hard for the hegemonic powers to see a firm, religious Iran that has pricked their bubbles," reads a somewhat inscrutable statement from a group called the Artists of Fars Art Bureau, according to the Tehran Times. In other words, a strong Iran gives Westerners the willies.

To ease their anxieties, claim Iranian critics, filmmaker Zack Snyder turned the Persian villains into the sort of "monsters and freaks" you might meet at the next Motherfucker party. "They are black creatures with bloody eyes looking like the terrorists of today. Xerxes is eight feet tall, clad chiefly in body piercings and garishly made up."

Meanwhile, members of Iran's parliament are seeking to block the film from being screened throughout the Islamic world, especially, for some reason, in Malaysia.

If all this sounds a bit conspiratorial, just remember: When it comes to historical revisionism, Iranians know whereof they speak.