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I chose to review The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini as it offers a series of injustices layered within one another; between religions, between nationalities, between genders, between social statuses, and many more. The story opens in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1975 and follows two young boys, Amir and Hassan. Amir is considered to be the social elite, owning a large property in which a servant family, which Hassan is a part of, also live and serve Amir’s family. Hassan’s family are also Hazaras, an ethnic minority in Afghanistan at the time. While Amir knows that Hassan is his best friend and most loyal supporter, when around others Amir tends to neglect and abuse Hassan, a behavior reinforced by the societal structures and injustices towards Hazaras and people considered to be lower class. Hassan becomes a Subaltern in this novel after Amir frames Hassan for stealing his family’s money and Hassan finds himself silenced and unable to defend himself due to the societal forces in play. As a result Hassan’s family is banished from the property.

Several years later, power structures shift after Kabul became a war zone under Soviet control, and Amir and his father lose all of their possessions and are forced to flee Afghanistan. At this point, the citizens of Afghanistan can all be considered Subalterns, as their homeland is invaded and they become silent ‘casualties of war’. These shifting power structures in the novel made me begin to question the way in which injustices become intertwined with in each other, but also can crumble at the face of a greater and violent One, like war.

After their escape to Pakistan, Amir and his father spend everything they have left and go to California to start a new life. Even more injustices are revealed at this point in the novel, as Amir attends college and is faced with racism from his classmates. His father has similar experiences, and while facing this, both men struggle to maintain their connections to their culture and find others that they can relate to. This feeling of alienation despite all of the experiences of Amir and his father represents yet another injustice that is present to be analyzed in The Kite Runner. 

I chose to review the movie Argo, a movie about the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crises that took place soon after the 1979 Islamic revolution that took place in the nation. The movie illustrates how Tony Mendez (portrayed by Ben Affleck) managed to sneak six hostages out of Iran who were likely to eventually be found and killed. In February of 1979 massive riots and protests erupted outside of the US embassy in Tehran, primarily comprised of college students. They at last broke through the gates and stormed the embassy putting tens of Americans at risk. While most were taken hostage, six Americans escaped through the back and found asylum in the Canadian embassy for a short period. With a short window of time to act, the US sent Mendez to pose as a Hollywood producer looking to film a movie in different locations around the globe, Tehran being one of them. Upon arrival to the country, he reunited with the six hostages in the Canadian embassy, gave each of the hostages a new identity with passports and social security numbers, and ensured they all were prepared to play their new roles in order to survive. In the end, Mendez was hardly able to fool airport security in Tehran. The thriller was so successful that in 2013, it won three Oscars and was nominated for seven total, winning the Best Motion Picture of the Year. While Argo was awarded prestigious achievements, the movie depicts themes of “otherness” in several ways, primarily due to its success. The movie visualizes the 1979 protests with anti-USA propaganda in a modern context, making viewers who are, for the most part, not Iranian think that the Iranian people hold this negative sentiment towards America now. This sparks anger and distaste towards Iranians in and outside of Iran. Argo’s depiction of how the CIA outsmarted Iranian intelligence puts forth the notion that Iranians are easily gullible and weak. Both themes being spread by the 2013 movie of the year contributes to the marginalization of Iranians worldwide, and further reinforces Adichie’s accusations of the presence of otherness in society.

I chose the documentary film “3 ½ minutes, Ten Bullets” for the text review assignment. This is the documentary made based on the event that happened on the night after Thanksgiving of 2012. That night a young black man (Jordan Davis) got shot ten times within three- and one-half minutes by a middle-aged white man (Michael Dunn) over an absurd reason: where Davis and his friends were playing loud music outside of a store. The film contains a sequence of interviews with Davis’s parents and friends where we can see outright discrimination they have faced. This documentary sums up all the stereotypes and injustices African Americans face here in the United States, and this is what we have been talking about throughout the semester. The film lays out the reasoning behind Dunn’s predisposition action where his conscious or unconscious assumption about black teenagers with loud rap music with guns and gangs. The murderer Dunn stated on the trial that he saw a weapon held by Davis and was being attacked so he counter-attacked for his safety but no sort of weapon was recovered after the event. The color of the skin of a person should not be seen as a weapon. Just being black does not mean they are a threat to other non-blacks. This is just an example; it seems like the system is designed to disproportionately impact people of color since there are many other cases where black men are getting killed for similar reasons recent example being the death of George Floyd. The director of this film had captured all the events outside of the courtroom not just to tell all the details of what happened that night, but rather to make viewers aware of what is happening around them and to gain more understanding of an individual who is unable to tell their own story.

Photo courtesy of: The Royal Astronomical Society

The text that I have chosen to examine is the 2016 film Hidden Figures, directed by Theodore Melfi. Based on the real lives of mathematicians Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan, the film follows their lives as they navigate their careers as Black women as they face segregation and discrimination based on their sex and race. Our main character, Katherine, is assigned to work as the first Black woman on a Space Task Group, where her expertise and knowledge are often dismissed.

Over the course of the film, it is made apparent to the audience that Katherine is an outsider, viewed as lesser than by the white men she works with. She is unable to take credit for the work she does, with credit instead going to her the white, male head engineer. This discrimination goes without much acknowledgement until her supervisor confronts her about her lengthy “breaks”. The audience is aware of her reason why: Due to Jim Crow laws and general sexism, there is no bathroom, that Katherine is permitted to use in the building she works in. Because of this, she is forced to walk a half-mile to use the restroom. Her supervisor admits that he was unaware of this. It is an example of how ingrained this discrimination is—of course her supervisor was aware of segregation, but because of how deeply ingrained it is in his mind, and how much this issue doesn’t affect him personally, he wasn’t consciously aware of how it affected her.

In relation to the content we have discussed this semester, this movie shows racial injustice and intersectionality (Katherine and her colleagues, as Black women, experience a combination of injustices that are unique to them). When recalling this text, I was reminded of March, Vol. 3 by John Lewis. Lewis writes of the part he played in the Civil Rights movement, which occurred at during the same general time period as Hidden Figures. His struggles parallel those of Katherine and her colleagues, as they face injustice both outright and in more subtle insidious ways. The women’s intelligence is underestimated, their ideas are taken from them, and their humanity is dismissed.

The director and screenplay writer would want their audience to come away from this film with a heightened understanding on the intersectional effects of racism and sexism. The film is meant to be both informative and empowering, as Katherine, Mary, and Dorothy go on to make history in their fields against all odds.

The short story “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Lui follows a young boy named Jack as he grows up and struggles with his identity as an Asian-American. Jack has a White dad and a Chinese mom who immigrated to America. Jack’s mom does not speak English well, and Jack finds that as he grows older it is difficult to have a good relationship with her because of it. Throughout his childhood, though, Jack’s mom communicated with him through origami animals in which she was able to turn them alive. Jack’s origami animals served as a tie to his mother as it was one of the only true ways in which they connected. Jack loved his origami animals until a friend made fun of him for having toys made from trash. Following, he began rejecting his mother and his Chinese culture after that same boy at school was giving him a hard time. He grew bitter and became resentful of being Chinese altogether. He shamed his mother for not speaking English and for giving him his Chinese features. When Jack’s mother becomes ill and eventually passes, she leaves him a note and outlines her story and how she and her family had struggled greatly in China.

Jack’s struggles with his identity and accepting his identity as a bi-racial child is relevant in this story as he actively rejects his culture following his desire to be accepted by classmates. This desire to be accepted him follows him throughout his high school years and until his mother’s death. The note his mother left him finally allows Jack to feel connected to his mother once again, and he feels ashamed to have treated her with such anger and ill judgement, as he was not aware of the obstacles she had to overcome. This rejection of identity and struggle with acceptance parallels to Lisa Ko’s The Leavers, as Deming rejects his culture as he is separated from his mother and finds himself wanting to fit in with the other kids at school.

Lui would want the reader of this short story to try to understand the struggles of a biracial child without much guidance or support from family. Lui would also encourage the reader to be empathetic towards those who struggle to assimilate into American culture after immigration, as their stories are often complex and difficult to conceptualize.

A depiction of one of Jack’s favorite origami toys. https://www.bulbapp.com/u/the-paper-menagerie-by-ken-jiu~2

The text that I have decided to review is the Netflix original series “Arcane”. This show is actually based off of a video game called League of Legends, but it is not necessary to have played the game or to have any background information before watching it. It’s a fantasy show that takes place in the fictional nation of Piltover, which is split into the well-off, progress-oriented, top side, and the less fortunate undercity. One of the main sources of conflict in the show is the difference and lack of understanding between people from the two different sides of Piltover. In a way both sides of Piltover are shown to exhibit “othering”. (SPOILERS) For example, in one scene, Jinx, the sister of Vi, who both grew up in the undercity, discovers that Vi is working with the topside enforcer (police officer), Caitlyn. Jynx is outraged by the news, as she believes that all enforcers and topsiders are enemies, and a similarly othering sentiment is shared by most of the undercity. On the other side of things, one scene shows Caitlyn and Vi getting caught together by Caitlyn’s parents, to which her mother remarks “You found a stray”. (END SPOILERS) Once again, this attitude is shared by many of the topsiders who see the inhabitants of the undercity as dirty and dangerous. 

Power and injustice also play big roles in the show’s plot. As the main villain’s motive is to gain enough power to stop the injustice that he has experienced his whole life as a citizen of the undercity. The show’s political situation is essentially an oligarchy, one council that decides the fates of all of Piltover. Interestingly enough, there are no individuals from the undercity on the council. It is an injustice that echoes real life for a large portion of the population not to have proportional representation in government. Since this is the case in the show, violence is used as a tool to force change. We can see this same phenomena in our world, looking back at the Black Panther movement during Civil Rights, or even some of the more violent BLM or ANTIFA protests.

I think that the creators of Arcane were one hundred percent intentional in their mirroring of our world’s political and social issues. Seeing these issues of injustice in the show inspires people to look for them in their own lives, and perhaps also acknowledge that the solution is not to hate the other side, but instead to work with them.

The movie Dope follows a high school student named Malcolm Adekambi in a low-income area near Inglewood, California. Malcolm and his two friends find themselves in possession of a large amount of Ecstasy after a drug dealer slips it into Malcolms backpack in an attempt to hide it. After a chase around the town, Malcolm realizes that a Harvard representative and alumnus set him up and that in order to get into the school of his dreams, he must sell all the contraband. Using a black market site, Malcolm and his friends manage to sell all the drugs and threaten to send the money directly to the Harvard representatives account, incriminating him of selling illegal substances. In order to keep Malcolm from doing so, the Harvard representative must get Malcolm admitted to Harvard. The movie ends with Malcolm writing a college essay about a straight A student that loves punk rock, and another student that struggles through poverty by selling drugs. He then asks “which student do you think I am?.”

The movie ultimately deals with the systematic injustice of growing up in impoverished areas. Because of where Malcolm was born, getting into Harvard requires a wild ride dependent on the sale of drugs. Crime is embedded into the area where Malcolm lives, so much so that even a straight A student with a love for punk rock can be dragged into the scene. Students from these areas are automatically disadvantaged simply because of the things that surround them. The movie Dope illustrates this perfectly. Not only does it depict the difficult situations in a town like Malcolms, but also shows how these situations lead to inequality in the education system on a country-wide scale. While the movie may be fictional, the narrative is certainly applicable to many areas where crime and violence are overwhelmingly present. Those who inhabit these areas are subject to extreme disadvantages based solely on the fact that they are exposed to a completely different lifestyle. Dope is the perfect movie to highlight the systemic injustices that stem from these low-income, high-crime areas.