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A Bollywood film about a Muslim man with Asperger's syndrome seeking a meeting with Barack Obama is turning into an international hit.
My Name Is Khan has smashed box office records in the UK to become the most successful Bollywood film ever in Britain, the Sun reports. It grossed more than $1 million in its opening weekend to jump into the sixth place on the UK box office.
The movie stars Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan, who made an appearance on opening night with Jonathan Ross. It tells the story of Rizwan Khan, a Muslim from Mumbai, who has Asperger's syndrome and marries a Hindu single mother, Mandira, in San Francisco. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, he is detained at LA International Airport, where his autism is mistaken for suspicious behaviour. He later starts a journey to meet the US president and clear his name.
Khan joked with fans at the premiere that he had autographed his full body scan from the security check at the London airport.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From monstersandcritics.com:
