Malala Yousafzai recently made her appearance at Variety’s Power of Women event. It was attended by several heavyweights like Hilary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Elizabeth Olsen, Oprah Winfrey, and Ava DuVernay. The aforementioned personalities were at this year’s event that took place in Los Angeles.
In her speech, the 25-year-old girl talked about the lack of diversity in Hollywood, especially with the representation of Muslims. So let’s find out who she is and what exactly she said regarding this issue in her speech.
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Who Is Malala Yousafzai?
Born on 12 July 1997, Malala is a Pakistani women’s education activist and the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. She received the award at the age of 17 and became the world’s youngest Nobel Prize laureate.
Malala was vocal about girls’ education in the Swat district of Pakistan. On 9 October 2012, while on a bus in Swat District after taking an exam, she and two other girls were shot by a Taliban gunman in retaliation for her activism.
The bullet hit her head and she was airlifted to Birmingham, UK, where her condition improved. The Taliban’s actions were widely condemned by politicians, organizations, and celebrities.
After recovering from the injury, Malala became a prominent activist for the right to education and has been living in Birmingham since. She’s also the recipient of the 2013 Sakharov Prize. Last year, she tied the knot with Asser Malik, a manager with the Pakistan Cricket Board.
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What Did She Say About Representation In Hollywood?
At Variety’s Power of Women event, Malala highlighted the fact that Muslim actors only make up one percent of the popular television series leads. While accepting the honor, she also revealed the first slate of projects from her production company Extracurricular.
“I learned that Asian people like me make up less than 4% of leads in Hollywood films. Muslims are 25% of the population, but only 1% of characters in popular TV series,” Yousafzai said.
She continued, “I know that the executives have passed on dozens of quality, equally amazing projects because they thought that the characters or their creators were too young, too Brown, too foreign, too poor. Sometimes it feels like they’re saying we just don’t belong here.”
Among her first projects is a documentary film with A24 about South Korea’s matriarchal Haenyeo society of elderly fisherwomen, and a series based on Asha Lemmie’s novel ‘Fifty Words for Rain.’
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