Other Media Review

Movie Review: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

This is Tina Fey’s movie based on Kim Barker’s memoir, The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan, about a reporter’s experiences in Kabul, Afghanistan, from 2003-2006.

In 2003, Kim is working behind the scenes at some news network (I don’t think it’s named in the movie), when she’s called into a meeting (of the people that are moderately qualified that also don’t have spouses or children) where they are asked if they’d like to volunteer to go to Afghanistan. The Iraq war is just beginning, and all the current talent is heading over there, so they basically need to call people up from the minor leagues.  Kim goes for what is initially a 3-month assignment, and stays for 3 years.

The press all stay in one guest house, and when Kim gets there, there’s only one other woman- Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie). The other people are other reporters, camera people, fixers and translators, and security.  Kim is embedded with Marines, interviews government officials, visits Kandihar, gets together with a Scottish freelance photographer, and does a lot of drinking in her time in Afghanistan. Mostly, she does what everyone does in these movies: finds herself, gets out of the monotony of her life, etc etc.

Tina Fey is great. I think she did a really good job portraying Kim’s frustration with her mundane life, and the anxiety and restlessness of someone who just found out she’s an adrenaline junkie. Margot Robbie is also good (I liked her much more in this than the one other movie I know I’ve seen her in, which was Wolf of Wall Street, and that wasn’t her fault at all).  The dudes are all okay- I have severely mixed feelings about Martin Freeman in general, but as a douchebaggy Scot, he was fine. Billy Bob Thornton plays a Marine General and he was PERFECT.   Alfred Molina plays an Afghan official which…he’s a great actor, but we’ll get into that.

The Taliban Shuffle
A | BN | K | AB
I think this movie was trying to position itself as an anti-Eat, Pray, Love. There’s no yoga or food, or peace or serenity. This is a war zone and a highly unstable country. While the press is generally somewhat protected, if they venture out of their bubble, things can go south really fast.

Kim’s frustration with her boring, mundane life comes from a moment when she realizes that she’s been riding the same bike in her gym for miles and miles and never got anywhere. Her boyfriend was perfectly beige and bland, so when she gets this chance to live, she jumps on it. I get it, I do. God knows if I got a similar (though less dangerous, let’s be honest) chance, I’d probably jump on it. This is a thing people do. It’s even called out by a Turkish journalist in the film as being “the most American white lady thing I’ve ever heard.”

The problem is that these stories often have the emotional development of the white person (and it’s often a white lady) arrive because of the service of the people who actually live in these places. It’s not like (in the movie) that the whole war in Afghanistan existed just for Kim Baker to get her groove back, but it’s still kind of disquieting that most of the American films made about the war in Afghanistan are about white people.  And while there are Afghan films, there aren’t many, they don’t get wide release, and they don’t get much press. The American movie industry is huge, and it could support those stories.

WTF also doesn’t have much exploration of the Afghan characters. Fahim Ahmadza is Kim’s “fixer,” the guy who helps get her access and does translation service for her. He’s played by Christopher Abbott, who is not an actor of color, and is played very sympathetically, but by the end of the movie all we know is that he was a doctor, he gets married (but not his wife’s name) and that they have two babies. There’s a sense of less is more, and I get that as a storytelling technique, but it goes back to the fact that we just don’t have the Afghan point of view much at all. So it’s doubly frustrating when all we have is a story of “how the Afghan War helped me become a better person and then I went home because this is not something I have to live with.”

Also it’s worth noting that the two main Afghan characters are played by white dudes. Please stop doing this, Hollywood. PLEASE. Alfred Molina and Christopher Abbott are great actors, but they weren’t the right guys for these parts.

Look, I enjoyed this movie, a lot. There were things that Kim Baker was able to do and stories she was able to tell as a female reporter that male reporters never would have gotten. And I think the movie was sort of able to tentatively explore the idea that there was a lot of freedom she had a Western woman that other women in Afghanistan didn’t have…. but there were NO speaking roles for Afghan women. None.

I think there were great things to say here, and in the realm of holding a window up to what women can be and do, it’s partially successful. But I wanted more, because the substantial shortcomings are painfully visible.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is in theaters now and you can find tickets (US) at Fandango and Moviefone.

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  1. Joanna says:

    Actually Kim Barker was a print journalist with the Chicago Tribune, not a tv journalist (they did an interview with her when the movie came out – she is helping to promote it). She said they changed it for the movie – like they do – because they thought it would be more interesting. I guess the makers of Spotlight never got that memo.

  2. Rose says:

    RHG, I understand your concerns about the focus on American rather than local stories (though I can also understand why this makes sense financially). But from what I know of Afghanistan (admittedly, not much), it has a very ethnically diverse population, and I am not sure what sort of casting decisions you think would have worked. To me, a fair criticism is that more Afghani actors should have been cast in relevant roles – or members of ethnic groups that are well-represented in Afghanistan – rather than a general criticism about certain cast members not being actors of color. Would a British or American actor of color be more representative of, say, Pashtun or Tajik people? I don’t think that is necessarily the case; this part of your critique may even misrepresent the diversity of Afghanistan’s population, which is of course different than what you’d find in western countries.

  3. Sheila says:

    I agree with Rose. That line kind of reminded me of the recent Vulture headline which described Sarah Shahi as the first person of color to play Nancy Drew. She is the most ethnically diverse actress to ever play her and certainly more so than the original (and traditional)conception of the character but… Ethnicity isn’t always defined as clearly or easily or the same way in other parts of the world as we think it is in North America or Western Europe. The population of Afghanistan especially is really unique to that area,it’s part of the region where Europe collides with Asia. Is it better to hire a non Afghani actor who looks like what people who know nothing about Afghanistan would expect to see, or to hire someone with that heritage who won’t look the part?

  4. Heather Lovatt says:

    Wow. I’m not yet paying attention who I am replying to but I read all of the “Mamma Mia” movie review and it gave me some interesing thoughts and so did this review. Thank you for that.

    I enjoy movies but I know, for a long time, I felt like something wasn’t working for me about film. Probably a contributing reason to why I kinda stopped going, though I catch the odd film once in a whlie. I was always kind of a “Hollywood” movie type.

    I think one thing was this: I’m not really represented in these films; and the people I MIGHT identify with are rather poorly portrayed. Hope that makes sense. I DO love film. I often think in my writer style I would be more a screenwriter than a novelist; but reading these two movie reviews, which I really reallly enjoyed, I am reminded how narrow the corridor still seems to be for entities not from the ‘mainstream’ element.

    I really stopped watching film with any regularity when I came online around 1996 or so. I’d been really into movies my whole life. Reading your comments on this movie created some interesting thoughts for me and I agree with where your writer mind is going on this thing.

    I have not seen the movie and barely even knowing who Tina Fey is (she’s a comedian? I’ll come back to that point in a sec cos when I watched the trailer you offered, something popped into my head.) but wow do my old senses of ‘movie-ish-ness’ pop into place reading you comments on the film you watched and then watching the trailer for this film.

    As I watched the trailer (and not yet REMEMBERING who Tina Fey was) I thought to myself, oh, an Adam Sandler movie; it has those same kinds of fish out of water, isn’t this funny, kinda elements.

    Then I realize Tina Fey IS a comedian. Oh boy. That’s the sad point, I think; she’s being double whammied as a stereotypical ‘white striving female’ AND the lame comedian stereotype. NOT having SEEN her in film and simply watching that trailer, I thought to myself: she has this look; I met she’d make a good SERIOUS actor if someone let her.

    Funny, huh?

    So much of EVERYTHING is about genre, isn’t it? Too bad the only ones who really notice this are people like you, a writer.

    Again, my OWN dilemma on what to write.

    Thanks for the thinking!

    Heather

  5. Linda says:

    Okay so, I promised myself I wouldn’t fight people in the comments here anymore, but Rose’s comment made me see red, but in a way that’s a little hard to articulate beyond “OH MY GOD WHAT IS WITH THIS RACIST APOLOGY” so please bear with me.

    > To me, a fair criticism is that more Afghani actors should have been cast in relevant roles – or members of ethnic groups that are well-represented in Afghanistan – rather than a general criticism about certain cast members not being actors of color.

    But she’s not arguing that, RHG’s larger issue was that these two characters are ethnically Afghans but Tina Fey cast white actors to play the roles and that she would in general, like to see more stories from an Afghan point of view.

    Also, just because some of the population in Afghanistan is white-passing (which is what I assume you’re implying with the weird coded term “diversity of Afghanistan’s population”) it does not make them a white person. Just like how some half asian women can be white-passing but it does not make it alright for Emma Stone to play them in movies. Or for a white man to play Michael Jackson because MJ had vitiligo. Also, I think it’s weird for you to consider this movie in isolation from the huge racist history of Hollywood casting white people in roles where they play people of color. This is a systemic issue and it’s troubling that you are dismissing it because, parts of the population in Afghanistan can pass white.

    (Also, Afghani is the currency, not the people.)

    > Would a British or American actor of color be more representative of, say, Pashtun or Tajik people?

    My second issue is your implication that British or American actors of color cannot also be ethnically Pastun or Tajik or just Afghan. I mean, as a woman of color who was born in a western countries, I get it a lot. (“You’re not a REAL Chinese person.”) But many of us in the diaspora are culturally connected to our ethnicities so it’s upsetting when people in your homeland reject you because of your ethnicity (“go back to your country”) while also erasing your cultural heritage by implying that you wouldn’t be more representative playing a character of the same ethnicity than a white british or american actor.

    I’m just really tired to seeing ignorant comments being seen as good rebuttals because they’re framed from a “reasonable” tone. None of the arguments RHG made were wrong.

  6. Suleikha says:

    Did I really just see two people in a row defending whitewashing with, “Afghanistan is so ethnically diverse, casting white people is safer than messing up the nuances”? Because that is some gall right there.

    India is ethnically diverse, too. Doesn’t mean I’d take a white guy in shoe polish over a Tamil Brahmin playing a Kashmiri Muslim. We’ll take “close enough” over “not even on the map.”

    I have to pick my jaw off the floor.

    RHG, thank you for the thoughtful review.

  7. Rose says:

    “The diversity of Afghanistan’s population” refers to the fact that its ethnic makeup is diverse, but not necessarily in the same way as Western countries.

    It is neither ignorant nor racist to point out that different countries have different ethnic groups and dynamics; obviously, diversity can take many forms. Furthermore, I was not arguing that actors of color cannot be members of any of the ethnic groups I mentioned; but given that “actors of color” refers to many different people and with very diverse backgrounds, I was arguing that RHG should have been more specific in her critique of the casting.

    Honestly, I feel like that part of RHG’s review, and your entire comment, come across as applying an American-western perspective regarding race and ethnicity where it’s not necessarily relevant (see Sheila’s comment #3, which hopefully won’t make you see red).

  8. Lora says:

    Imma be the first to say I know next to nothing about Afghanistan, its culture or population. That being said, when I got to the line in the review stating Alfred Molina was playing an Afghan native, I groaned. Like, oh not again. Remember the time Ciarin Hinds aka Mr. Rochester on the BBC played a Russian terrorist in Sum of All Fears? REMEMBER THAT? It was stupid and annoying but not as way offensive as this. It was a nonRussian actor playing a Russian character rather poorly. It was not a white dude playing an Afghan. Was it impossible to do a casting call in Afghanistan? I’m certain there were plenty of individuals there who could have played minor speaking roles as well as the Afghan native principle roles. /headdesk/

  9. Rose says:

    @ Lora: Was it impossible to do a casting call in Afghanistan? I’m certain there were plenty of individuals there who could have played minor speaking roles as well as the Afghan native principle roles.

    That’s the point I was trying to make, and probably didn’t do a good enough job articulating. The issue for me is that the movie’s cast is not representative of Afghan society because they did not cast Afghan actors, and I felt that the review could have been clearer on this, rather than commenting on the more general issue of actors of color.

    Did The Kite Runner have Afghan actors in the cast? I think so, right?

  10. I have never seen a movie trailer with Amy Poeler or Tina Fey that made me want to see the movie, because as Heather said above, “Adam Sandler” pratfalls and slapstick seem to be the gist of them all.

    I have no clue if this movie was like that, but seeing the ‘first female drive put car in reverse’ played so much like it, that I couldn’t bring myself to want to see this movie at all.

    And after reading this review, I am pretty much still of that opinion.

  11. Linda says:

    > “The diversity of Afghanistan’s population” refers to the fact that its ethnic makeup is diverse, but not necessarily in the same way as Western countries.

    WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN? Obviously Afghanistan is diverse in a different way than western countries which (FUN FACT!) are also diverse in different ways from one another, but I’m trying to figure out why you think that in any way justifies white men playing Afghans. As I said earlier, just because someone might *look* white to you, does not make them a *white person.*

    You keep accusing us of applying a “western” perspective to this AMERICAN MADE AND WRITTEN movie. And honestly, you’re the one who keeps pushing this very western attitude that birthplace/place of residence cancels out ethnic background when convenient. There are many of American actors who were born in Afghanistan but immigrated to America/other western countries, such as Fahim Fazli and Mustafa Haidari. I’m confused as to why y’all think the only possible solution is to do a street casting in Afghanistan.

    > It is neither ignorant nor racist to point out that different countries have different ethnic groups and dynamics; obviously, diversity can take many forms.

    Again, what does this even have to do with anything?

    I was very clear in saying that you are being racist because you are justifying and defending a racist practice (whitewashing in hollywood movies) while also implying that casting Afghan actors of color who are british and american is somehow about the same as casting white british and american actors. As Suleikha said, “We’ll take “close enough” over “not even on the map.””

    And I said ignorant because you even admit you know nothing about the situation but you keep making assertions like they are facts. Beyond referring to Afghan people with the term for their currency, did you know that the the majority of the Kite Runner cast was non-Afghan and filmmakers actually had to relocate four of the street-cast young Afghan actors out of the country because they were afraid that the boys would be harmed or killed? (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/movies/03kite.html?_r=0)

    “Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson interviewed three of the four boys and their families, all of whom are increasingly frustrated with the filmmakers and say if they had it to do all over again, they would not have been in the film.” (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16368932)

    @emily: http://cdn2.crushable.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/mal-what.gif

    I GIVE UP.

  12. Suleikha says:

    “…your entire comment, come across as applying American-western perspective regarding race and ethnicity where it’s not necessarily relevant…”

    So, Rose, you’re saying that you and Sheila are the *well-meaning* ones here, trying to do right by ethnic casting and Linda is the wrong one? (I’m, of course, just a bully who doesn’t need to be responded to.) I’m even more appalled than I was before. You can sound as rational and reasonable as you like, but at the core you still sound like an apologist trying to place YOUR standards of what’s acceptable as the ones that should apply across the board.

  13. Esha says:

    “RATHER than commenting on the more general issue of actors of color.”

    That’s your problem Rose, yes we know that there are people who are ethnically considered white in Afghanistan. You seem to be implying that the real error is that they cast a white Brit instead of an Afghani who may appear white by “western standards”. The point that others are trying to make is one of erasure. Please stop trying to fall back on this “western-racism” non-sense as though just because the movie is set in Afghanistan it is somehow magically a non-issue. I am first generation Caribbean-American and I have family everywhere. Let me tell you something racism/white supremacy is not some special flower that blooms only in America, colonialism made sure of that.

  14. FWIW, Tina Fey was aware that there would be uproar about the Christopher Abbott casting, at least, and she says she argued against it but was overruled (or persuaded to go along with it).

    http://www.people.com/article/tina-fey-whiskey-tango-foxtrot-casting-controversy

  15. Rebecca says:

    @Caroline – Thanks for the link. In a way, it not only confirms the problem, but speaks to other ones RHG had with the film, namely that it’s relentlessly focused on the “American white lady.” Tina Fey quotes herself as worrying that SHE would “get in trouble” over the casting. Not that the casting was perpetuating and continuing an overall history of white washing and erasure. Not that it was depriving an opportunity for work and recognition to an actor who had to struggle twice as hard for roles. That the American white lady was “the only one who would get in trouble.” In a way it makes it worse, because it’s clear the film makers thought about the issue and basically decided there would be no consequences so they could get away with it. That’s hardly naive good faith. And if the entire movie was written with that level of tone deafness, I question how it could possibly avoid giving offense. (Worth noting here that the infinitely repeated joke in the trailer is at the expense of a nameless Afghan woman. An adult whose suffered severe restriction of movement can’t drive well? Cue uproarious laughter.)

  16. Rebecca says:

    Edit *who’s suffered. Damn auto correct.

  17. shoregirl says:

    Wow! I really like Tina Fey, but I won’t see this movie. Heather, I am so Anglo Saxon white American, that white bread might as well be my nickname here. But I also can’t watch movies anymore. I used to love movies. But I find that most U.S. movies are so disconnected from anything real, that I get depressed thinking about them. And I completely get the idea of stupid escapist movies. But, I have been overseas, to the places white women can leave behind, and because of that, my view of the world and of this country has been changed.

    I do think, though, that it will be a long time before we can make a real movie about Iraq or Afghanistan. I had hopes for Tina Fey, though. Robin Williams did it for Vietnam, and Tina Fey could reach that.

  18. Michele says:

    As soon as I saw the previews with Alfred Molina (an actor I adore) as an Afghan character, I groaned. Louder than when I saw the preview for Gods of Egypt. Because the latter is so ridiculous on all counts. But the former could have done better. It seems to be a problem for Fey over and over again*, and it disappoints me greatly because she is a smart, funny, talented, powerful woman.

    *http://www.themarysue.com/tina-fey-cops-out/

  19. Kris G says:

    Casting issues aside, for me, the huge disappointment was finding out that the movie wasn’t based on David Shafer’s completely hilarious novel “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot”. I was so stupidly excited for the movie until I found out it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be…

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