My name is Khan

The film ‘My Name is Khan’ directed by Karan Johar, is about the story of a man named Rizwan Khan, a Muslim man with Asperger’s syndrome who fall unconditionally for a woman named Mandira who is a Hindu, single mother living out her life successfully by opening her own salon in San Francisco. However, a tragedy tears his family apart. In order to mend back what is broken, Rizwan Khan innocently sets foot on a journey to meet the president of America and utters the words “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist” as requested out of anger by his wife, Mandira. As his travels continue, Khan inspires so many people in his own way and he brings joy to others whenever he roams by spreading messages of goodwill. One of the most interesting elements that were put forth in this film is human nature. In the film, Razia who is Rizvan mother, told her son that in the world, there are just two kind of people that are good people who do good deeds and bad people who do bad things. Razia do not taught her son to discriminate people according to their religion, races or social status but to understand that no matter who you are, if you do good deeds, then you are a good person but if you do bad things, then you are a bad person. In human nature, of course, there are good people and bad people. It depends on which side do the person want to act upon. In the film, Rizvan insisted marrying Mandira even though she has different religion from him because to him Mandira is a good person. However, his brother Zakir cannot accept the decision made by Rizvan. In this film, stereotype, prejudice and discrimination are few of the elements that were presented to the audience. These three elements often be the main problem in cross-cultural interaction. Stereotype is a fixed idea or image that major part of the society have of a particular type of person or thing that was not necessarily true (Gibson,2000). According to Lustig & Koester, (2013), whereas prejudice is define as people’s

References: Gibson, R. (2000). Intercultural business communication. New York: Oxford. Lustig, M. W. & Koester, J. Intercultural Comopetence: interpersonal communication across cultures. London: Pearson.