Impact of Stories: ‘He Named Me Malala’ in international campaigns
He Named Me Malala (Davis Guggenheim, 2015) follows the touching story of Malala Yousafzai as she became one of the main figures speaking out for women’s rights to education in Pakistan and her call to action for viewers to engage in her campaign. The documentary was one of 15 films shortlisted for the Academy Awards Documentary Feature award in 2015 and is a great example of visual story-telling being used to raise awareness and initiate action within a targeted audience.
The visual narrative of He Named Me Malala brings relevance to Malala’s story by combining personal narrative with photographic and news report material of events taking place around her. In “Making Human Rights Claims Public” , Meg McLagan considers these ‘persuasive images’, which describe a process of globalising images and making them and the atrocities they represent recognisable to audiences (191). McLagan suggests that these images can be used to mobilise audiences by creating an image of the human rights violators – in this case the Taliban. Notably, Malala is as much a witness of the Taliban’s actions as well as a victim of it. However, her speech is aimed at mobilizing hope for the future instead of shame on the past. The director brings attention to the aftermath of her gunshot injuries to use her body as testimony of the Taliban’s actions. However, the discussion is not focused on this physical violence, but on the healing body – showing scenes of Malala succeeding in physiotherapy and taking authority over the way her body is perceived.
Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for Superman) approaches this project with a focus on Malala’s intimate life and relationship with the rest of her family. This allows him to bring to life a figure that many would know of solely through news reports and social media posts. At the same time that he brings focus to her political and social presence worldwide, he also reminds the viewer that the main actor in this movement is a child. Viewers we are led to empathise with her as she casually talks about her favourite sport celebrities, Hollywood actors and even her opinions on relationships. Alongside her playful relationship with her brothers and exchanged witticisms, this technique brings the viewer into a private sphere, in which a sense of responsibility to these children is born from the audience’s identification with them. To cite Julia Lesage’s words, the effectiveness of documentaries, particularly that pertaining feminist activism, is based on “a picture of the ordinary details of women’s lives, their thoughts – told directly by the protagonists to the camera” (“Political Aesthetics of Feminist Documentary Film”, 507).
This serves to reflect on the intended audience of the documentary. At the Los Angeles premiere of the documentary, attended by 7,000 young women, the director states that he “always [makes] a movie with a certain audience in mind. […] With this film, the audience is you… This movie has a global story, but it really speaks to every girl everywhere”. This highlights the role of establishing a relationship between the story on screen and the viewers’ reality. At the same night of the premiere, the LA Fund for Public Education launched the Girls Build LA campaign for empowering girls to take control of social and political issues affecting their communities. This meant that immediately after the documentary prompted action, attendees were able to join the initiative. Recalling Lesage’s work, this takes advantage of the collective effort to support and take political action “into the public world” (515). Arguably, the film then has two audiences: a direct one of viewers who attend the screening and engage with campaigns and an indirect one composed of decision-makers and international organizations who use multiple platforms to raise support for movements.
He Named Me Malala clearly illustrated the two principles set up by Sam Gregory: “Video should be part of a campaign, complementing other forms of activism” and “Story-Telling should be audience-oriented and should provide a space for action” (“Kony 2012 Through a Prism of Video Advocacy Practices and Trends”, Journal of Human Rights Practice). The documentary’s activist stance is clear, if not through Malala’s and her family’s testimony, through the statement at the end of the film: “When you educate a girl it transforms our world – www.henamedmemalala.com – raise your voice, stand #withmalala – www.malala.org”. Following the first link leads to the film’s official website with more information on the film (from the stories of Malala and her family members, to presence in social media) and an option to “Take Action”. That will take the viewer to the second link, the homepage of the Malala Fund website. At this point, the viewer is able to contribute to the cause by making either a one time or a monthly donation.
Gregory discusses the effectiveness of reaching out to youth audiences through the concept of ‘drillability’, which describes the spread of one message through different platforms in order to give complex meaning to the narrative – allowing audiences to identify and amplify the message. He Named Me Malala was associated to a series of external campaigns that confirm this claim, including the UNESCO project “Better Life, Better Future”. This meant that the film as well as Malala’s Fund gained international reach as part of their acclaimed programme to bring together efforts to educate girls around the world and, in doing so, empowering them to change social and political frameworks. Furthermore, in anticipation to the film’s broadcast release in February 29, 2016, National Geographic, partnered with 21st Century Fox, launched a campaign to bring awareness of the Malala Fund. Appealing to Facebook and Twitter users, 21st Century Fox donated $1 to the fund for every user that uses the hashtag #withMalala and changed their profile picture to yearbook photos. Over the course of a year, 21st Century Fox’s donations added up to $50,000, which combined with donations from the company’s employees bring the overall fundraiser to a total of $125,000.
We can connect Sam Gregory’s closing argument that one witness’ testimony is able to bond with the audience and mobilise a diversity of voice to Malala’s statement, “This film tells the story of one girl, but I am one of many”. As part of a process of using images and stories to bring awareness to an issue, He Named me Malala illustrates the effectiveness of a multi-platform approach in creating social and political impact.
Bibliography
“’Better Life, Better Future’: Global Partnership for girls’ and women’s education” UNESCO. Available on: https://en.unesco.org/themes/education-and-gender-equality/better-life-better-future.
“Fox Searchlight Premieres ‘He Named me Malala’ to 7,000 Young Women and Girls” 21CF Social Impact. Available on: https://impact.21cf.com/what/2015/10/fox-searchlight-premieres-he-n/.
Gregory, Sam. “Kony 2012 Through a Prism of Video Advocacy Practices and Trends”, Journal of Human Rights Practice 4, no. 3 (November 2012). Available on: https://academic.oup.com/jhrp/article/4/3/463/2189429.
“’He Named Me Malala’: 21CF’s Yearlong Campaign to Support Girls’ Education,” 21CF Social Impact. Available on: https://impact.21cf.com/features/he-named-me-malala-21cfs-yearlong-campaign-support-girls-education/
Kojen, Natalie. “15 Documentary Features Advance in 2015 Oscar Race,” Oscars, December 1, 2015. Available on: https://www.oscars.org/news/15-documentary-features-advance-2015-oscarr-race
Lesage, Julia. “Political Aesthetics of Feminist Documentary Film,” Quarterly Review of Film Studies 3, no. 4 (1978)
McLagan, Meg. “Introduction: Making Human Rights Claims Public,” American Anthropologist 108, no. 1 (March 2006)
“21CF and National Geographic Channel launch girls’ education campaign for ‘He Named me Malala’ (Broadcast premiere on Feb.29)”, 21CF Social Impact. Available on: https://impact.21cf.com/what/2016/02/21cf-natgeo-social-malala/.