A decade after 9/11, Pakistan inspires Hollywood for all the wrong reasons

A Femme Fatale from Waziristan?

By Laaleen Sukhera Khan

(Warning: Contains Law and Order SVU spoilers from episode 299 ‘Acceptable Loss.’ Also contains several cringe-worthy *facepalm moments).

TV’s new villain is a virginal seductress from Waziristan.

Hollywood is making efforts to humanize militants and would-be terrorists from this part of the world. A recent Stanford-NYU study might have had something to do with this: http://livingunderdrones.org/report/

Call me masochistic, but I love crime (as long as it’s within fiction). I grew up on Agatha Christie and have had more than my share of Law & Order shows, http://www.nbc.com/Law_and_Order/ whose storylines are often inspired by actual news reports. SVU marathons http://www.nbc.com/law-and-order-special-victims-unit/ sometimes make me sick to my stomach, but there’s something to be said for watching rapists and pedophiles actually get caught and dealt with in a court of law.

So when I recently watched Law and Order SVU's current season online, I was taken aback by the show’s 299^th episode, ‘Acceptable Loss.’ It started off with sex trafficking—vulnerable young immigrants from Latin America and Eastern Europe exploited by violent New York pimps into prostitution. But the show’s terrorism side plot is what really stood out; the villain was an attractive young woman in a clingy mini-dress posing as a hooker who was actually—wait for it—a gal from Waziristan out to take revenge on the drone strikes by bombing Manhattan.

The premise is admirable; American and international viewers need to know that civilians and rescues workers are being bombed side by side with suspected terrorists.  However, the rendering could have been more detailed and even more sympathetic. The character Sofia was oblivious to the plight of the sex workers surrounding her, which I find very hard to believe. Any woman would be moved to tears unless she was a madam herself! For someone with so much anger towards exploited people from the developing world dealt with injustices, she was sure thick-skinned towards her own sex.

There was interestingly no mention of ‘Pakistan’ on the show. It seems that enough people have heard of Waziristan to know where it is! And, refreshingly, not one mention of clichéd rhetoric referring to ‘jihad,’ ‘honour killing’ or ‘the war on terror.’ Finally!

According to the storyline, by some miracle, Al-Q has expanded their female recruitment http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/06/analysis-women-and-children-constitute-the-new-faces-of-terror/  beyond a so-called ‘burqa brigade’ http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/al-qaeda-s-all-female-burkha-brigade-to-hit-western-targets-285708 and enlisted the help of svelte would-be prostitutes in terrorizing NYC.

At first glance, the character Sofia seems like a Victoria’s Secret model in her form-fitting garb that highlights her limbs. You’d think she was Latina with her looks or Eastern European with her accent; she mostly gets her ‘v’s and ‘t’s right but to our ears, she still sounds a little foreign, a bit like how we’d imagine a non-American vampire.

When you think of a Muslim or Pakistani woman in popular media, she’s usually either subservient and pathetic or a strong survivor. She is often the victim of stereotypical ignorance and cruelty: either acid-blasted or in danger of being murdered by her nearest and dearest via honour killing.

The guise of a provocative hooker is at least refreshingly different, given that she’s also a victim of circumstances. Like Gotham City villains in Batman movies, Sofia has undergone a traumatizing experience that has caused her to turn dark. In her case, it’s drone attacks in Waziristan that have overturned her ethics.

Sofia is embittered by the killing of her civilian father, a doctor who rushed to aid victims of a drone strike and became a victim of a secondary ‘double-tap’

 strike himself, like thousands before him.

But hey, it’s OK—Sofia’s only pretending to be a prostitute. She’s still a virgin, of course. Because she’s Muslim and there aren’t millions spent on hymenoplasties http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8641099.stm in Saudi every year http://www.novasans.com/hymenoplasty/saudi-arabia/ .  Just like all Catholics in the world are celibate unless they’re married and never, ever get a divorce.

Sofia doesn’t bat an eyelid when women around her get exploited, beaten and raped, but she’d never get a real tattoo because she’s a good Muslim (*facepalm)! Of course, no one in the Muslim world has ever gotten a tattoo either http://www.hning.asia/2009/01/tattooed-muslim-observes-daily-prayers.html , we just stick to henna.

I asked actor Evgeniya Radilova, who played Sofia, if there was anything in the storyline that she found perplexing. “Is there anything that you’d change in hindsight, or provide as advice to the show’s writers or producers?”

Her reply: “I think that the writer for Law and Order and many other big TV Shows, Ed Zuckerman did a phenomenal job in this complex story. Unfortunately, the show is only one hour long and there is not enough time to see the whole journey of these characters. But Ed Zuckerman picks the most important moment and tells a beautiful and very meaningful story.” Read more at http://tribune.com.pk/story/462671/tvs-bond-girl-from-waziristan/

A blog post on warcosts.com states: “…The U.S. government does not officially recognize drone use by the CIA in those countries” (i.e. Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia). “Shows like SVU provide a media spotlight to expose the effects of what has happened and puts the topic on the minds of the public.” http://www.warcosts.com/law_and_order_svu_features_double_tap_procedure_of_drone_strikes  

So yes, on the one hand, we’re glad it’s finally part of popular media.

On the other hand, we wish the writers did just a little more research…like asking us!

Dialogue from 3 Key Scenes:

Characters:

Sofia (Evgeniya Radilova);

Lietenant Alexandra ‘Alex’ Eames from the City/Federal Homeland Task Force (Kathryn Erbe);

Detective Olivia ‘Liv’ Benson of the NYPD’s Manhattan Special Victims Unit (Mariska Hargitay).

CAPTURING SOFIA IN AN APARTMENT BUILDING:

Lt. Eames captures Sofia and smudges her tattoo with her saliva-laden thumb, proving it to be fake.

Lt. Eames: “Did you know that tattoos were forbidden in Islam?” (*facepalm moment). The team enters a room where a Faisal Shahzad lookalike posing as a ‘john’ (played by Shehryar ‘Shezi’ Sardar) is trying to detonate explosives. He’s knocked down and captured by Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino).

SOFIA’S INTERROGATION AT HOMELAND SECURITY:

Sofia: “I keep telling you, I don’t know about bombs. I was just there to have sex!” (*facepalm yet again: no woman in Pakistan would ever admit to that. She’d rather admit to bombing!).

Lt. Eames: “No. See, Sofia, we’re way past that. We can have you examined, and when we do, we’re going to find out you’re a virgin, aren’t we?” (*facepalm once more!).

Sofia: “How can a whore be a virgin!”

Det. Benson: “She can’t…It must have been awful for you, living in that house.”

Lt. Eames: “I’m sure you had a good reason. What happened to you?”

Sofia: “You know what happened to me.”

Lt. Eames: “No, I don’t. I want to understand. What happened, did it happen to you? To someone in your family? You’re from Waziristan. Which village? Don’t you think people should know? They call you a terrorist. Don’t you think they should understand? Don’t you want them to understand?”

Sofia: “My father was a doctor. A drone struck some people near where we lived. My father went to help, to tend the wounded. He was not a fighter. He was trying to save lives, stop the bleeding. And then, another drone hit. Your government targets the rescuers. It is standard policy. My father, he was blown into pieces. We buried the ones we could find.”

Det. Benson: “So you came here.”

Sofia: “This is where the drones came from.”

Det. Benson: “And you hid among girls who were being raped, who were enslaved. And you let that happen.”

Sofia: “I was sorry for them. But there are so many people to be sorry for.”

BENSON AND EAMES UNWINDING AT A BAR:

Det. Benson: “It’s a rough story about the father.”

Lt. Eames: “They all have a reason. Something.”

Det. Benson: “And that’s how you break ‘em? Get ‘em to tell their story?”

Lt. Eames: “Isn’t that how you do it?”

More storylines incorporating Pakistan:

The Last Resort

Medium: TV drama series on the ABC network, currently in its first season.

Premise: In the pilot episode, a US submarine crew takes refuge on an island after refusing to launch a nuclear missile attack on Pakistan. A later episode shows a plot twist which results in the brutal bombing of Pakistan: 2 missiles detonate, killing 8.5 million of us (shudder). The upside: we’re not the villains. Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/09/homeland-vs-last-resort-the-war-we-have-vs-the-war-wed-like/262949/

SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden

Medium: A documentary-style made-for-TV film containing interviews and archival footage. Produced by the Weinstein Company for the National Geographic Channel. Accused of increasing support for Obama by including presidential footage and broadcasting it two days before the presidential election.

Premise: Director John Stockwell blogs on the Daily Beast: “The movie focuses on the men and women in the intelligence community who tracked and located Osama bin Laden, the local nationals in Pakistan who assisted us at great cost to their own safety, and the highly skilled members of SEAL Team Six who brought the world’s most wanted man to justice.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/29/seal-team-6-director-my-movie-isn-t-propaganda.html 

Zero Dark Thirty

Medium: Motion picture produced by Sony Pictures and directed by producer-director Katherine Bigelow. For theatrical release in January, in time for the Oscars.

Premise: A grittier take on the gazillion dollar manhunt for the elusive OBL http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/5752/media-madness-revisiting-osamas-fortress-mansion/ .  Bigelow explains the title in an email interview with Entertainment Weekly http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/08/06/zero-dark-thirty-first-look/ : “It’s a military term for 30 minutes after midnight, and it refers also to the darkness and secrecy that cloaked the entire decade long mission.”

NBC's 'Joan of Arc' from Waziristan

NBC's 'Joan of Arc' of Waziristan

Laaleen Sukhera Khan

http://tribune.com.pk/story/462671/tvs-bond-girl-from-waziristan

Evgeniya Radilova takes challenging roles in her stride. After playing a Chechen revolutionary and a Holocaust survivor onstage, she’s now appeared as a militant from Waziristan in NBC’s Law and Order SVU (episode 299, ‘Acceptable Loss’).

Viewers first meet her character, Sofia, emerging from a limousine in a form-fitting mini-dress. She has the panache of a Bond girl, though she’s in the improbable guise of a prostitute planning an attack on Manhattan. 

Later, when Sofia is interrogated, her accent may sound a little foreign to our ears but her fiery defiance makes it obvious that the role’s gotten under Ms. Radilova’s skin.  Director Alex Chapple might have called her “a Joan of Arc” because Sofia seems more like a wronged victim than your stereotypical radical terrorist. While viewers may be horrified by Sofia’s thirst for revenge, they can’t but feel anguished by the restrained passion in her voice as she describes the drone strikes that killed her father while he was tending the wounded in Waziristan. 

This, in itself, is a coup for the show’s writers. As Radilova puts it, “Sofia is a volcano ready to burst.”

Born in Bulgaria to an actor mother and director father, Radilova was 20 when she arrived in New York with a green card and big dreams. She studied acting and English and launched a politically themed theatre company aptly named Dare to Speak Productions.

Now 28, the actor reveals her insightful portrayals of distinctive Muslim characters from strife-ridden regions:

You've portrayed riveting characters in SVU and in the play, ‘I Plead Guilty.’ How would you draw parallels between the two?

Both characters have lived very difficult lives and have had to face almost the same fate. Sofia lives in Waziristan, dealing with the Taliban and the War on Terror and has lost her father. Seda lives in Chechnya, trying to stop the Russian troops killing and bombarding her country and has lost her husband. Their freedom of choice had been stripped away. In the conditions they were living in, these women had no other choice but to seek revenge.  

How did you research Seda?

I watched secret footage of the Chechen hostage takers and survivors from the 2002 Theatre Siege of Moscow. One of the so-called terrorists told her story about how the Russians killed her entire family. She couldn’t bear life anymore and was ready to give it up in the name of stopping the Chechen war.

Did you base Sofia's accent and mannerisms on any real-life women?

I took inspiration from different Pakistani New Yorkers for my accent. I also read about women from Waziristan who’ve spoken about the drone attacks.

Had you ever heard of this region before taking on this part?

I was aware of Waziristan and the war that has been going on for a long time. The most important part of your job as an actor is to research and investigate where your character is coming from and what they’re going through. I watched documentaries and studied Pashtun tribal culture.

What is your opinion on the realism and humanity of Sofia?

It is very difficult for me to even imagine how you would feel when everyone alive around you has been killed…when you wake up every day with the fear that today might be the day that the drones hit your home. I believe in the realism of Sofia’s past and in her plan for the future. 

Has it come as a surprise to be contacted by a Pakistani journalist?

Honestly, I was very surprised and honoured to be contacted by you. After performing the role of Sofia, I feel like part of me is Muslim and it feels like I have already been in Pakistan. I hope one day I have the chance to really see it.

So you’re a professional fire performer too?

Fire is my light! Some people do yoga, others do martial arts, and I dance with fire for relaxation, meditation and excitement.  It’s the other me. Poi is a Hawaiian fire dance that I learned on my own in Bulgaria using long chains attached to kevlar balls and dipped in fuel. I love to dance!

Evgeniya Radilova can next be seen in the sixth episode of CBS’ Elementary and as a Roma gypsy in the film, HorrorCon.

Trendy Screenplay Adaptations

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You:

Trendy Screenplay Adaptations

http://tribune.com.pk/story/269693/adapted-screenplays-coming-soon-to-a-theatre-near-you/
Studios are always in search of the next big thing, whether it’s adding 3-D special effects, casting young, rising stars, or buying the rights of bestselling novels. From JK Rowling, Tolkien and Stephenie Meyer to John Grisham, Dan Brown, Helen Fielding and Nicholas Sparks, screenplays adapted from popular fiction often have what it takes to rake in box office gold.

However, the process may resemble winning a lottery (particularly for lesser known writers) as scripts tend to remain in development mode for years, going through rewrites, dissected at executive meetings, and couriered over to actors to attract their participation. The lucky few that ‘win’ a production budget eventually get made while the rest remain in the preproduction vault, often for eternity. For instance, Warner Bros acquired Paulo Coelho’s bestselling The Alchemist back in 1994, followed by Laurence Fishburne and Harvey Weinstein, and the project still seems dormant.

While literary titles like Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice continue to inspire relatively faithful remakes year after year, notable deviations from traditional genres have resulted in distinct trends among adapted screenplays:

The post 9/11 world from ‘the other’ perspective 

The world finally seems interested in what we’re thinking and we’re welcoming the change, thanks to Mira Nair. The screen adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist is the first mainstream Hollywood project adapted from a Pakistani novel. Actors Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Keifer Sutherland and Liev Schreiber are currently filming in various international locations.


Period Horror

Classic literature meets supernatural horror in this growing genre. While Elizabeth Bennet is generally a plum role for A-list actresses, the macabre setting of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has scared off notable actresses, resulting in years of production delays. Smith also scribed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, whose film version is due for release next year.

Fairytales retold

Traditional fairytales with a dark, chilling twist: Amanda Seyfried plays a medieval Red Riding Hood whose icy village is threatened by a werewolf; a college student is hired to enact old men’s creepy fantasies of sleeping maidens in Sleeping Beauty; and the (currently filming) Snow White and the Huntsman, in which Kristen Stewart’s Ms. White is an anti-Disney warrior princess.

OMG! Tween Comedies

High school ‘dramedies’ have proved the ongoing significance of teenaged audiences since the Eighties, but it’s tweens who seem to be the new teens in terms of consumer buying power. This age group, ‘in between’ childhood and adolescence, has emerged as an integral part of current popular culture, as illustrated by the success of Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and it’s film versions, as well as Megam McDonald’s Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer, with their endearing brand of coming-of-age dork humour.

Less Fluffy Chick Flicks 

Hollywood’s search for the next Bridget Jones’ Diary or The Devil Meets Prada has resulted in movies like Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella’s The Undomestic Goddess is also development) and Emily Giffin’s Something Borrowed. While the typical Chick Lit heroine is a single, fun-loving, upper middle class city girl, upcoming book-to-film adaptations reflect changing standards, like the unglamorous Yorkshire waitress-teacher Emma in David Nicholls’ One Day (fans of the novel rue Anne Hathaway as an inappropriate choice) and married, mother-of-two hedge fund manager Kate in Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother (to be depicted by Sarah Jessica Parker).

Self Help Books as Entertainment 

In the tradition of guidebook-turned-movie-with-multiple-storylines-and-ensemble-casts (initiated by He’s Just Not That Into You), Heidi Murkoff’s how-to pregnancy bible, What To Expect When You’re Expecting, is in production, while John Gray’s 1992 relationship bestseller, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, is currently being developed as a feature film.

Womance 

While Hangover type movies typify the ‘Bromance’ genre (bordering-on-raunchy comedies focusing on heterosexual male friendships), Bridesmaids ushered in a new era of women’s ‘buddy’ films featuring coarse humour (like burping) and a plot centering on platonic female friendships amid a Rom-Com setting.

Recent literary adaptations that struck gold at the worldwide box office*

The Social Network: Aaron Sorkin won an Oscar for his adaptation of “The Accidental Billionaires,” Ben Mezrich’s account of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook revolution. Budget: $40 million. Box office gross: $224,920,315     

        

The Help: Adapted from Kathryn Stockett’s touching novel of the same name that tackles racism and society in 60s-era Mississippi. Budget: $25 million. Box office gross: $169,058,258 (to date)    

       

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: A film adaptation of Män Som Hatar Kvinnor  (Men Who Hate Women), the first in a series of Swedish crime novels by Stieg Larsson that feature a young rape victim as its heroine. Budget: $13 million. Box office gross: $104,384,415           

3 Idiots: A controversially loose Bollywood adaptation of Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone about three longtime college friends. Budget: $9,105,660. Box office gross: $48,563,520             

*Source: BoxOfficeMojo.com