At first they're effective, carried by Malala's incredible life story thus far, and especially moving when paralleling her father's victory over his stammer and fear of public speaking with Malala's own journey toward discovering her skills as a public speaker. Familiar with the ungenerous assumptions made about Pakistani fathers, I was especially grateful that the co-star of He Named Me Malala is Malala's father, teacher and firebrand activist Ziauddin Yousafzai. But the animations are styled as if for a children's public programming special—a hint of what the movie could have been like had the producers stuck with their original plan for a feature film as opposed to a documentary. The title of the movie references the film's implication, that perhaps Malala's name, shared by the storied Malalai of Maiwand, inscribed a fate upon her from birth. Guggenheim should have saved such prophesying for the Disney reboot.Guggenheim replaces the events that shaped Malala, her father, and their home for a story of individual resilience, a single rising note held for poignancy. The war on terror is not a feel-good tale of triumph over adversity; yet He Named Me Malala is. How do we evaluate a movie whose central narrative is activated by a reality the film ignores?The war on terror is not a feel-good tale of triumph over adversity; yet He Named Me Malala is. How do we evaluate a movie whose central narrative is activated by a reality the film ignores?
As wonderful as it is to see Malala show us the bookshelf in her new room in Birmingham, England, and watch her be teased by her brothers, safe and sound, I'm left disturbed. The documentary offers a comfort those of us in America and England have not earned. Reviews exclaim how inspiring the film is, but it isn't illuminating. What exactly will viewers be inspired to do? There's nothing to challenge the prevailing ignorance about the region's history, the land Malala came from and why she can no longer live there.Military interventions in Afghanistan and Pakistan have been sold to the public as a rescue mission to save Muslim women from Muslim men. When shot at 15, Malala became one of those women. Despite her love of her homeland and proud identification as a devout Muslim, her story is shared with the assumptions about a region that remains clouded by shallow, manipulative representation.Media outside of Pakistan talk about Malala as a girl shot for wanting to go to school. Like the way clueless parents urge children to finish their vegetables because some kids somewhere in Africa are starving, Malala is often introduced with a reminder of how some American kids have the gall to complain about attending school. There is little curiosity about why she couldn't—instead, we are led to assume that the barbaric attack on Malala is all that can be expected of a barbaric people. In the Western imagination, the Middle East and Pakistan exist in a state of crisis that assumes an ahistorical retardation of the so-called "Muslim world."The chief convenience of a far-away tragedy is that the commiseration, a voluntary engagement, can feel like charity.
If Malala's father is a good man, it's only because he's not like all the other men "over there." If Malala was shot on her way to school, it's simply because people "over there" can't stand girls in schools.
When the mujahideen took root, so did a vision that would be inherited by generations, thanks to a Saudi investment in its dissemination. Since Operation Cyclone, the mujahideen who didn't become Al-Qaeda became Taliban, and imams in madrassas around the world deliver made-in-Saud narratives of an infidel world and a martyrdom rewarded with virgins. As the memory of Soviet bombs cools, American invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan and drone deaths in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, heat these sermons with a fresh urgency. There were many men with guns before one appeared between Malala and her life."It was a very enlightened society generations before," Guggenheim explained. "It was a very peaceful world. It was like a paradise. This Taliban thing was a very recent thing, and a lot of American's don't understand that." However Guggenheim's film does little to alleviate the misapprehension.Listening to Guggenheim explain his film to me felt a lot like watching the film, pleasant until you realize what you're being distracted from. By what right can Americans allow ourselves to feel good about our embrace of Malala? The casualties of an imperial war effort shouldn't be cordoned off into charity projects with marketing teams. This is not politicizing a tragedy—rather, this is remembering that the depoliticization occurred, and continues. Positioning Malala as the hero of the process veils that process.You don't love Malala because you're grateful she survived—you love her because she's not angry. Despite the starstruck media's insistence, the star of this story isn't an astoundingly gracious child—it's the resounding relief of politicians and officials whose violent foreign policies aren't indicted.