Ali Abbasi and the danger of performative allyship in Hollywood

Posted On March 15, 2025March 15, 2025

At the premiere of Ali Abbasi’s 2022 film Holy Spider, the director was pictured on the red carpet with his cast, holding signs that read ‘Women, Life, Freedom’. Little more than a year later, the director was dropped by the biggest talent agency in Hollywood for groping an A-list actor at a Golden Globes after-party. Holy Spider was described as a ‘blistering critique of misogyny in Iran’, with critics everywhere blowing smoke up Abbasi’s arse for shining light on such an important subject, something that only seems to happen when men make films about gender-based violence with graphic depictions of poorly fleshed out female characters being beaten to a pulp.

Immediately after watching Holy Spider, alarm bells began ringing in my head. I was extremely disappointed to see the lashings of praise being awarded to Abbasi, with some audience members even going so far as to describe it as a ‘feminist film’. The story follows a journalist investigating a serial killer in Mashhad who has been targeting female sex workers, exposing the corrupt underbelly of the police force and normalised misogyny. However, while watching the film, I became extremely uncomfortable with the way Abbasi portrays this, objectifying the female characters and reducing them to the violence they are subjected to while showing this from the perspective of the male killer.

For a film that prides itself on its explosive critique of misogynistic brutality, it is ironic that Abbasi gives no thought to fleshing out the interiority of these women and their experiences, instead centring around the cruel gaze of the killer and becoming another exploitative and male-driven exploration of an issue that that the director has no understanding of.

By revelling in the violence inflicted on these women, Abbasi’s ‘cautionary tale’ becomes counter-productive and redundant by relying on the brutalisation of women to make his so-called feminist statement, only further oppressing women by indulging in the violence they are subjected to and turning it into a visual spectacle that is entirely detached from their humanity. There is a complete absence of sensitivity or nuance, with the director adopting the same moralist viewpoint of the killer and attempting to justify his actions and humanise his behaviour, with the horrific experiences and personhood of his victims being completely ignored.

Instead, they are treated as nameless statistics and vessels for his ideology, with more compassion being shown towards the killer than to his victims. In an interview about the film, Abbasi commented, “In a really strange way, I felt sympathy for the guy, really against my own will. I think there was a psychotic element to the pleasure-seeking aspect of his murders, the twisted sexuality and whatnot, but there was also this strange innocence about him. It was more about how a society creates a serial killer.” 

The idea that this could be considered a positive addition to the feminist movement is egregiously laughable, and I came away from the film feeling repulsed by what I had seen. Have we really become so critically illiterate that we consider this to be a positive representation of women? Have we all gone completely mad?

However, what struck me the most about Holy Spider is the common occurrence of men like Abbasi who exploit pressing social issues like these to advance their own careers, profiting from their hollow exploration of misogyny and attempting to paint themselves as socially aware and enlightened men. It’s become a trend for men to enthusiastically convey themselves as ‘one of the good guys’, blatantly virtue signalling and allowing this to seep into their work without infusing these ideas into their everyday lives, caring more about the clout that comes from appearing to be good instead of actually following through on these ideas in their everyday lives.

We can see this through figures like Justin Baldoni, who built a public image around being an ally to women—creating a podcast and book on the subject—while allegedly sexually harassing women on his set. By carefully curating his persona, he attempted to shield himself from accountability and discredit anyone who might speak out against him. It’s a calculated and insidious tactic designed to undermine the validity of accusations and silence victims, further contributing to a toxic culture that mocks and dismisses their experiences.

It is for this reason that after watching Holy Spider, I immediately found myself thinking, what is Ali Abbasi trying to prove? Or, more importantly, what is he trying to hide? Life imitates art, and art imitates life, and just as I suspected, his grotesque exploration of misogyny revealed his true colours just a few weeks ago after it was revealed that he groped an A-list actor at the CAA Golden Globe after-party.

Since then, The Apprentice director has been dropped by his talent agency and, allegedly, cancelled by the film industry. I am reluctant to believe that there will be genuinely long-term consequences for his alleged actions, as, after all, it is Hollywood, and the entertainment industry has never been harsh with their punishments for men, even for those convicted of worse crimes. Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey had their charges dropped, and women like Blake Lively are being obliterated by the press for speaking up about sexual harassment despite being far more successful than the crust lord that is Baldoni.

I have very little faith in men who revolve their entire personality around their so-called activism and allyship, something that has time and time again been proved to be a new tactic of survival within an industry that is allegedly cracking down on sexual harassment and abuse. But I ask why men are being given more opportunities and praised for making films about issues that primarily affect women. Do we not even have the right to our own stories? Men in Hollywood are being given opportunities to profit from our suffering, while women are being criticised for daring to discuss it – the irony is almost too much to comprehend.

Hollywood is a debased institution that prioritises image over integrity. While it attempts to convince us that it cares about social issues, the way it shares these stories often reveals its true intentions. When I look back at the image of Abbasi on the red carpet, proudly pointing to his sign about freedom for women, I can’t help but think of the blatant hypocrisy of his real-life actions—actions that only confirm my suspicions. Abbasi’s performative liberal politics were never about genuine activism; they were a calculated tactic to climb Hollywood’s greasy pole. Perhaps it’s time we take a closer look at those profiting from these stories—because sometimes, the reality behind the message speaks louder than the words themselves.

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