Hamid Dabashi quotes:

This is Not Another Revolution. This is a Civil Rights Movement

While [European] national cultures were concocted to distinguish one economic unit of capital from another, civilizational thinking was invented to unify these cultures against their colonial consequences. Islamic, Indian, or African civilizations were invented contrapuntally by Orientalism ...in order to match, balance and thus authenticate 'Western Civilization'.

The visual possibility of seeing the historical person (as opposed to the eternal Qur'anic man) on screen is arguably the single most important event allowing Iranians access to modernity.