There are many classic lines in the movie "Persepolis", but my favorite is:
"In life you'll meet a lot of jerks. If they hurt you, tell yourself that it's because they're stupid. That will help keep you from reacting to their cruelty. Because there is nothing worse than bitterness and vengeance... Always keep your dignity and be true to yourself."
We even printed the original English version of this quote on the packaging of the toy. If you've seen the movie, you'll recognize the scene on the packaging where two Iranian women catch the young protagonist Marjane and question her about her "improper" jacket. We paid homage to that classic scene in the movie by incorporating it into our packaging design.
In the movie, the English words on Marjane's jacket read "PUNK IS NOT DED", which is obviously not a typo but rather an expression of her limited English skills as a 9-year-old Iranian girl. We "parodied" this classic scene by changing the two Iranian women, who acted as "moral police", into two punks and changing the words on the jacket to "PUNK IS NOT DAD".
Along with the toy, we will also include a comic book that tells the story of Lola being caught by two pseudo-punks and questioned about why she is wearing an Eminem medal (which they mistake for a Snoop Dogg one) and why she has "wrong English" written on her back. Lola isn't afraid at all and responds with a friendly "F" word greeting to those two self-proclaimed punks.
So, in the end, we use the image of Lola, a young girl, and a SOFUBI toy to express what UnDeR20 wants to express. We believe that toys should not only be about appearance, but also have rich storytelling.
In the year we designed the toy, September 16, 2022, in reality in Iran, a 22-year-old girl named Mahsa Amini unfortunately passed away. She was arrested on the street by religious morality police patrols for allegedly not wearing her headscarf properly. Two hours after her arrest, she was rushed to the emergency room and died three days later. People around the world have reason to suspect that she was severely beaten and died as a result of police brutality.
Subsequently, there were three months of protests and demonstrations in front of Iranian embassies nationwide and worldwide. Iran had to cut off the internet to prevent domestic news. And at the end of the year, the Iranian men's soccer team refused to sing the national anthem at the Qatar World Cup, and Iranian fans in the stands also held up banners to protest.
On the bottom right of the second page of the comic book that we include with the toy, we wrote "Mahsa Amini R.I.P." to express our condolences for this Iranian girl. This is what we want to say: we want to pay tribute to a movie and remember a person.