لوطی

The لوطی is documented as a distinct urban archetype in Qajar Iran, a neighborhood tough bound by a code of chivalry: to work for a living, help others and defend the neighborhood. Persian cinema, especially the films of Naser Malek-Motie'i, immortalized the لوطی in the 1960s and 1970s. The word still evokes a rough nobility, what Italians might recognize in the man-of-honor figures of southern cinema, but it also has pejorative senses: 'rascal' or 'vagabond', and in older and vulgar usage 'pederast'.