On Wednesday, Iranians celebrated Sizdah Bedar, the 13th day of the New Year. Families and friends gathered in the countryside and green spaces for picnics.

But it was not just a day for relaxation: the Rouhani Government used Sizdah Bedar for some soft power — and they did it not in Farsi, but in English with a Southern US accent.

Meet Iran, a website established last year to support the administration’s public diplomacy, tweeted:

The chicken is not exactly what I grew up with in Alabama, and the geography is a bit different. However, the language is impeccable.

There’s the “y’all”, which is definitely from the Heart of Dixie and the correct spelling of barbecue.

I won’t comment on whether the injunction on hygiene says something about the cleanliness — or lack of such — of my fellow Southerners. But full credit to Iran’s Web 2.0 activists for the combined film reference/idiom for the destruction of the food: I hope Sylvester Stallone would be proud.

This wasn’t the only notable tweet on Sizdah Behar. As the Rouhani Government is under pressure from hardliners for its campaign to open up culture, Meet Iran tries to score a couple of points with this image of a woman — jeans-clad, smoking, and a scarf barely covering her hair: