Lena Dunham is Writing a Film Adaptation about Syrian Refugee
Lena Dunham is being criticized for writing the film adaptation of a book about the journey of a Syrian refugee to Europe. The story is about Doaa al-Zamel who fled Syria over the Mediterranean with her fiance. The book was also criticized for the absence of al-Zamel’s voice. Although J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg are two prominent directors connected to the project, critics questioned why Syrian were not given the task of screenwriting or directing.
The stories of their respective communities is often best told by those who have the lived experience. The success of Moonlight and Crazy Rich Asians are examples of this. Lena Dunham is well intentioned but is a white women best for the job? This is another example of symbolic annihilation when Syrians are capable of telling their stories themselves. The absence of the Syrian voice in the story creates another film of “trauma porn” about refugees in the Middle East.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosebuchanan/lena-dunham-is-adapting-a-story-about-a-syrian-refugee-and
I completely agree. First of all, Lena Dunham has barely demonstrated the basic requirements of being the ally she tries to project. Like who really thought that this was the right person? Also Hollywood can say that they understand and feel sympathy for the Syrian people, but they obviously have no lived experience on the Syrian war or the humanitarian crisis. There are so many Syrian novelists and filmmakers who have covered the war and its personal effects and have received little to no seating at the table. From the get go, this is a clear symbolic annihilation on the Syrian people as the book itself is not written by a Syrian but someone from the United Nations refugee agency. What's also interesting is that the article uses tweets from men saying that Dunham is the only one coming under fire for this unlike J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg. I'd argue that's true but probably because Lena Dunham has a public history of her white feminism excluding anyone who isn't her.
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