History ComicBook / Persepolis

** Mrs. Nasrine, the cleaning lady, loses her faith in Islam when the government tries to convince her son to become a martyr, giving him a plastic key painted gold and telling him that it will lead him to Paradise if he's lucky enough to die on the battlefield.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The Mullah from Marjane's university.

* {{Hypocite}}:

* DarkerAndEdgier: While the book is by no means light fare, the movie makes good use of the benefit of timing and sound to present it's story less-matter-of-factly. Most noteworthy, the movie changes Adult!Marjane's reason for leaving the country for good from her disgust at the fundamentalist propaganda rubbing off on her friends to fleeing for her life when the police chase one of her friends off a building and leave him for dead (which did happen in the book, but was not a decisive factor).

** Marjane mentions that she found a huge CultureClash while in Vienna. She wasn't used to Julie being casual about sex or talking about the pill, or about the numerous vacations. Even at parties, everyone would lie around and smoke while in Iran people would dance.

* NotSoDifferent:
** Marjane's family is somewhat westernized and thus doesn't like the Islamists who claim that anything coming from the west is horrible and decadent. When she goes to Austria after some years under the Ayatollah, she is shocked when another girl openly talks about her pussy, and tells her she [[ReallyGetsAround had sex with 18 boys]] (without being married, of course). Downplayed in that Marjane doesn't believe in controlling other people about their sexual preferences, the way the Islamists do, and listens out of politeness.
** When Marjane returns to Iran her female friends are eager to hear about her sexual experiences, but when they find out that she slept with ''several'' guys they call her a whore.

* DirtyCommunists: A favorite boogeyman of the Shah's government, [[NotSoDifferent and then the Islamic republic]]. The communists Marjane actually meets range from noble idealists to narcissistic poseurs.

** When guards come in a raid, Marjane accuses a man of saying something indecent to her in order to save herself from being confronted over wearing lipstick. He's never seen again. Later on, she tells her grandmother about the incident-and also laughs about it. Grandma is far, far from amused. Since the movie takes place in post-revolution Iran, the man could've been [[spoiler:tortured or even executed]]. The scene shows how a police state could turn anyone into a monster.

* BungledSuicide: Marjane attempts to slit her wrists, but has no blade sharper than a fruit knife and can't do much damage. Failing that, she swallows an entire package of antidepressants - and wakes up three days later, experiences a few hours of [[MushroomSamba hallucinations]], but is otherwise no worse for wear. Even her psychiatrist is amazed she survived the overdose, as it ought to have been enough to kill an elephant.

* CerebusRollercoaster: The film has enough MoodWhiplash to break one's neck, jumping from lighthearted and funny to deathly serious to mundane and back. Justified, in that a real person's life tends to play out this way.

** Neda Baba-Levy is a young girl who dreams of a fairytale prince coming to take her away. She and her family are killed by an Iraqi missile.

* StarCrossedLovers: There is a minor subplot in the first half of the story that revolves around Mehri, the housekeeper in Marjane's home, and the son of a neighbor. After the neighbor discovers his son is secretly courting Mehri, he demands that Marjane's father do something about it. Marjane's father then has a chat with the boy, telling him to forget about Mehri, since he's a middle class young man who could get into a good school, make something of himself, and marry into a good family, while she's an illiterate peasant brought from the countryside to clean and cook, and will likely spend the rest of her life as an illiterate maid. After the discussion, Marjane is seen trying to console the heartbroken Mehri.

* AngerBornOfWorry: When Marjane and Mehri, the Satrapis' housekeeper, return from from an anti-Shah protest, Marjane's mother slaps them both, while berating them for going to a protest that ended with hundreds of arrests and dozens of dead after security forces opened fire.

* GoToYourRoom: When Marjane’s friend mentions to her that her father is out on a trip, Marianne replies that this means that her father is actually, or so it was with her uncle. This causes her friend to run home in tears and tell her mother, who assured her that he isn’t really dead. When Marjane’s mother finds out about this, she furiously tells her daughter to go to her room and stay there. [[spoiler: Marjane is half right. This father really WAS not on a trip, but was in prison.]]

* InnocentlyInsensitive: Marianne is shown to be this in her youth. Such as casually telling a boy that his father is cruel to his face while apologizing to him, and telling a girl that her father might actually be dead.

* KidsAreCruel: Marjane and her friends attach nails to their fists and chase another kid so they can beat him... because his father works for the government.

* ChangeTheUncomfortableSubject: [[spoiler:When Marjane assumes that the Baba Levy’s are safe because they are in a hotel when a missile hits their house, her mother reminds her that today is the Sabbath, when Jewish families such as the Baba Levy’s are supposed to stay home. Then she quickly tells her about the boarded up windows in their house not being impacted by the bomb. Marjane notes that she knew her mother was using this trope, and it doesn’t work. Especially when she notices the remains of the family’s daughter...]]

* TheBeard: A date with Marjane makes a boy realize he's gay. Marjane is unhappy.
* BigSisterInstinct: Inverted; Marjane is younger than her family's child-maid Mehridia, but she treats her like a big sister. When Marjane finds out that her father broke up a romance between Mehridia and a neighbor's boy, she calls him out and comforts Mehridia. It's her idea to go out and march against injustice to avenge Mehri's heartbreak.

-> ''"One can forgive, but one should never forget."''

''Persepolis'' is an autobiographical comic by Marjane Satrapi, published in 2004 and adapted into an animated film (directed by Satrapi as well) in 2007. It begins with her childhood in Tehran during the Seventies, as her middle-class family works to bring down the Shah. Soon, the fundamentalists are swept into power, and a new wave of repression begins. Marjane rebels in small ways, by buying smuggled rock tapes and denim jackets, drawing the attention of the police and compelling her parents to send her to Europe. She kicks around Vienna for a few years, alienated by the people there, before returning to a Tehran changed by years of fundamentalist rule.

* FallingInLoveMontage: The film shows Marjane and Markus pelting one another with snowballs, running through the park, smoking hash with content expressions and showing a gleeful, happy romance... [[spoiler:before he cheats on her. [[spoiler:Turned on its head soon after when she re-envisions the entire thing but with Markus as a slimy, creepy douchebag. In his defense, she does mention in the comic that she was a huge emotional load on him, as she pretty much expected him to be an ersatz for every man in her life]].

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: In the graphic novel, Marjane points out the hypocrisy of her parents, who wax poetic about human rights while keeping an underage maid, Mehridia. Mehridia was born to a poor family in a destitute village, and the Satrapis took her in when she was a small child. While the Satrapis did feed and clothe Mehridia and try to teach her to read, they still kept her out of school and used her as a source of child labor. None of the characters (except the author) bat an eyelash at the situation, which was apparently common in Iran at the time.

** Her first serious boyfriend, Enrique, turns out to be gay, and she was his LastHetRomance. In the comic he's gentle about it, and assures her that she's pretty.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: After her neighbor dies in a bombing, Marjane becomes rebellious and reckless. She gives this speech for her teacher saying BLatantLies about there being no more political prisoners, citing how her uncle was executed by the regime. While this earns her a round of applause, her parents worry that the regime will use this as an excuse to arrest, rape, and execute their daughter, so they decide to send her to Vienna.