In the movie “The Terrorist,” which my post-fem class just watched, a 19 year-old Indian woman named Malli must make a choice, to assassinate a leader who is trying to eliminate her people and thereby kill her unborn child, or to forgo the assignment and save her child. At the beginning of the movie, she has no qualms about acting as a suicide bomber, moreover, she has no problem killing anyone who gets in the way of the cause for which she and her people are fighting. The problem arises when she finds out, or rather, when the farmer with whom she is staying until the assassination, tells her that she is pregnant.
At the end of the movie, Malli decides to save her child and not assassinate the leader, or the VIP, as he is called throughout the movie. I think that the choice to save her child or save her people hinges finally on her own realization that she is a vessel for life, and that her most important purpose on earth is to produce children. Her child, and children in general in this movie symbolize hope for a better future. After all, if Malli were to kill herself and her child, she would essentially be attacking her own people, her own blood line, and her own nation. Even though she would have killed one of her oppressors, the VIP and his supporters, she would have also been eliminating herself, and her child, a potential warrior himself, as well. But I wonder, aren’t there other women, besides Malli, who will have children for this nation of people? This movie brings up the question of whether a woman must make the choice between being a vessel, having children, begetting the race, and being a warrior.
I found the resolution of this movie to be very traditional and a little backward. In the end, Malli chooses the role of the mother over the role of the warrior. She comes to understand that being able to give life is more powerful than being able to take it. I suppose that this text could be viewed as being a commentary on how women have, and will continue to be stronger than men because of their biological capabilities. Of course, the decision to preserve the life of the child was Malli’s individual choice. I wonder, if Malli had considered her capability to produce life before she decided to be a suicide bomber, would she have refused to take the mission? After all, she was a girl when she began training for the role, and probably had not even considered her biological destiny. From this assumption, we can then assume that the movie is making a distinction between girlhood and womanhood, that before a girl can have children, she is physically her own person, she is for herself. Like Pikea in the movie “Whale Rider” or like the mythical Joan of Arc. The dreams and freedom and potential of prepubescent girlhood vanish when Malli realizes that she is responsible not only for herself, but also for her unborn children.
What bearing does this have on female soldiers? I think that the movie is trying to say that women have a higher calling than self-sacrifice in war. Instead, women must sacrifice their bodies and their individualism in child birth and rearing, they must sacrifice their lives for their children. This movie expects women not to sacrifice their bodies to the guns and the bombs of rival tribes, nations, or states, but they sacrifice their bodies, wombs, and even their livelihoods to future generations. For some women, this might be a difficult burden to except, just as the draft maybe be a difficult and unfathomable burden for a man to except.
