What's in a Name?

My Name Is Khan Takes On Big Issues

As everyone who follows the ballyhoo for beloved Bollywood acting duo Shahrukh Khan and Kajol knows, the superstars have teamed up for the recently released My Name Is Khan by director Karan Johar. The film, which is often visually arresting and presented like a haunting fairy tale, attempts to tackle a host of global and societal issues through the eyes of a humble man.

“The film actually works on three levels. I’d like to describe it as a romantic love story. This one is a little different because the main protagonist has Asperger syndrome, which is a lesser form of autism,” said Shahrukh Khan at a press conference in New York, adding, “And apart from this love story, there is a real-life incident … which happens to be 9/11.” As the actor explained, the film addresses “the butterfly effect it has on the personal lives of the two main characters in the film, who are completely unrelated to the incident, and how it changes their lives and how it also comes in between their family and their love life. And how both of them, in a sense, go on a journey to pick up the pieces. The third [element] of the film is … things happening around the world within the context of religion and ideology from different parts of the world.”

The filmmakers can’t be accused of a lack of ambition, but at times the film suffers under the weight of trying to include too much: living with a disability, Hindu-Muslim relations, 9/11, paranoia-fueled bigotry, grieving, terror plots, detention centers, the role of the media, Hurricane Katrina, governmental ineptitude, a fight for justice.

My Name is Khan press conference in NY, held on February 1st. Photo Courtesy of Chhavi Arya Bhargava.

The strongest element is the poignant relationship between Shahrukh Khan’s autistic Rizwan Khan, who easily draws comparisons to the classic slow savant Forrest Gump, and Kajol’s Mandira, a beautiful and spirited single mom, who is Hindu. “Mandira is quite a normal person, and I think that’s what’s so different about her,” said Kajol at the press conference. “She’s a little broken, she’s a little bruised, she’s a little mad, she’s a little normal, she’s a little bit of everything. The good thing about her is that she doesn’t want to be perfect.”

After a lengthy pursuit against the romantic backdrop of San Francisco, Mandira gives in to Khan’s wooing and the two wed despite some family objections. The characters’ playful and tender relationship and the organic challenges that they would face are worth exploring, but the film takes a disappointing turn shortly after it begins to portray the post-9/11 world.

When an emotionally broken Mandira lashes out at Khan, it sparks the film’s tag line: “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist.” The character goes on an odyssey to meet the president of the United States and deliver this message. “What we’re trying to do is take an incident and a couple who is very far removed from this incident and show how their simple, small life is affected,” explains Shahrukh Khan. “Any incident which can happen internationally … does not only affect the people who are present at the incident. It has a far-reaching effect; it can change lives across continents.”

Unfortunately, the film goes off the rails here. The important message about the deadly effects of stereotyping is undermined by cringe-inducing stereotypes. Do we really need another movie with an obese, poverty-stricken magical Negro? Whites don’t fare much better with broad portrayals of ignorant, hate-filled rednecks. Some elements just don’t make sense. Khan’s effort to rescue the abandoned denizens of a hurricane-ravaged town seems less than Herculean, since it appears he only had to wade through waist-high water to get to them.

On the upside, the movie is so heartfelt and the players exude such irrepressible charm that it does succeed at delivering some thought-provoking material and a message about the power of goodness. Asked what she would like young people to take away from the film, Kajol said, “I think mostly what we’re aiming for is making a good film, an entertaining film…. Somewhere down the line, all of us lose our hope in humanity, lose our hope in goodness, so I hope that after they watch Khan they will somewhere believe in goodness all around us.”

“The bottom line,” said her co-star, Shahrukh Khan, “is that goodness and humanity will conquer anything that is negative going around the world.”

My Name is Khan press conference in NY, held on February 1st. Photo Courtesy of Chhavi Arya Bhargava.

Elaine G. Flores is a New York-based writer and editor, who specializes in covering beauty, style and entertainment.