The television series, Pahlavi Hat, currently being aired in Iran is a representation of the social and cultural transformations the Pahlavi monarchs imposed on twentieth-century Iran. Named after the type of hat Reza Shah Pahlavi made Iranian men don as a sign of having embraced the program of modernization, the TV series also takes aim at the sartorial changes Iranian women were forced to undergo. Under the cover of the theme of clothing, this dramatization of history decries the many forms of injustice to which Iranians were subjected during the reign of the Pahlavis. In this presentation I will analyze the series’ manifest attempt at negotiating a path between a discourse of rights based on Shi’ite jurisprudence and a grudging acceptance of the necessity of certain reforms. On the surface, the series offers a binary opposition between Iranians who, on the one hand and under the influence of foreign powers, particularly the French and the British, become enforcers of new standards and, on the other hand faithful Muslims who do endorse the idea of improvements to public health, delivery of basic education, and the country’s infrastructure. But the ideological polar oppositions the television series aims to convey are undermined, given that the defenders of faith fail to articulate an alternative vision of reform. Instead, they stage their rage against the injustices they and their compatriots suffer. Over and over again the community leaders are called upon to oppose what are seen as obvious abrogations of the law such as forcible unveiling of women, introduction of Western suffragists’ ideas, and the substitution of sharia law with an imported secular system of justice. As the cries of injustice grow louder, those who oppose the reforms increasingly take aim at the foreign instigators of change, i.e. the British and their desire to make Iran into a consumer of its goods. In my analysis I will focus on particularly charged moments in the series when the possibility of resisting the injustice of becoming disenfranchised and subject to imperialist forces is raised, but ultimately foreclosed. Instead of fulfilling its didactic intention to reinforce Iran’s capacity and will to assert its autonomy, in this re-envisioning of history Pahlavi Hat fails to demonstrate how justice might have been served and, by extension and perhaps unwittingly, ends up drawing attention to fundamental questions of rights and justice that have not been resolved by the new regime in power.