My name is Khan is a bollywood movie that hit the theaters in 2010. This is a movie about Rizwan Khan an autistic immigrant living in the United States and his journey to meet the President of the United States. The plot of the movie summarizes the lives of muslim Americans pre and post 9/11. The open racism and islamophobia is clearly depicted in this movie. This movie also shows the hardships that many immigrants face in this country. One such example is when Rizwan tries to find work. It is incredibly hard for him to find a job because he is first an immigrant and second he is a muslim man and lastly he is a man with disability. However, Rizwan is determined to find work and earn money in an honest way. Furthermore, the movie focuses specifically on America’s reaction towards muslim people. The power struggle between the two groups is shown thoroughly in this movie. A very specific scene that shows this is the death scene of Rizwan’s step son Sameer. The scene shows a bunch of white boys beating Sameer up and calling him foul names. They call him a “Paki” and “Osama’s son”, the scene eventually ends with Sameer’s death. This goes to show the power struggle between the white group of boys and Sameer. These boys felt as if they had more power over Sameer just because they were Americans and white. They felt powerful enough to take his life. This is the event that triggers Rizwan’s journey to Washington D.C. As he flies out to his destination he gets stopped by airport security because of his islamic name. They question him for hours and let others go by. This is sadly still a reality in this country. Many muslim people find themselves in this similar situation when they fly into this country. At the end of the story we get to see Rizwan seeing the President and telling him “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist”. I think the purpose of this movie was to inform people about the injustice many muslim personels were facing after 9/11. Moreover, the audiences were able to get educated on important topics such as islamophobia and racism. This movie covered a lot of important educational topics and persuaded people to talk and learn more about immigrants, racism, islamophobia and disabilities.
