Rosen, Christopher. "'Argo' New Zealand Reference Upsets Local Residents." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 21 Mar. 2013. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.
This article tells of how not only Iran and Canada were upset with the film Argo, but New Zealand and Britain were as well. In an opening scene Mendez asks his supervisor Jack O’Donnell what happened to a group of American hostages when the Iranians attacked the embassy. O’Donnell tells Mendez, “The six of them went out a back exit Brits turned them away. Kiwis turned them away. Canadians took them in.” That passing comment has proven to be a hot topic of debate. This upset the people of New Zealand and Britain because it casted them in a bad light. It made them look like bad people, and wrongly so. In the actual hostage crisis there were four embassies that housed these six American hostages, including Canada, Britain, Sweden, and New Zealand. This information came from a U.S. State Department document.
This article is yet another example of the political controversy surrounding Argo. The average American probably did not think anything of the comment made by O’Donnell about the hostages being turned away, but for the people of those countries it really stuck out. I do not believe this comment should have been included in the film seeing as it is a blatant lie. The editors should have been able to understand that it might upset someone from one of those countries, not to mention the governments of the mentioned countries. Affleck recognizes this controversy and says that is it tricky because you want to be historically correct, but you also need the film to be exciting. This poses the question of which is more important, historical accuracy or box office success?