Interpreting "Brand Malala"

Interpreting: "Brand Malala": Western Exploitation of a Schoolgirl. By Carol Anne Grayson

            The text by Carol Anne Grayson revolves around Malala’s swift succession to the international stage as a symbol of freedom for oppressed women everywhere despite herself, and her image, being oppressed by the double standards of the British media exploiting her story to increase profits without actually helping women anywhere, especially those within the UK. The following blog post is my attempt and dissecting Grayson’s article from five perspectives: the social perspective, the emotional perspective, the rhetorical perspective, the logical perspective, and the ethical perspective.

            The main social perspective of Grayson’s text is a criticism of British media for “[seizing] upon a very profitable ‘alliance’ with the young Pakistani schoolgirl” (594). Grayson explains throughout her blog post that despite politicians and media outlets, such as Gordon Brown and the Edelman PR firm, crying out to the world claiming that they are doing all they can to help the case of this young girl overcome her oppressive past, in actuality they are simply trying to line their own pockets and advance their political agendas by pushing the “brand Malala” (596) into the limelight and thereby influence the world to see them as heroes. Grayson emphasizes the social perspective of a manipulative western media which “[propels] the ‘good west versus bad east’ narrative” (593) to prove her point that the story of Malala is no longer about saving the oppressed but has become an issue of political victory for the west, primarily Britain and the US, without requiring them to actually fix real social issues relating to gender inequality.

            Given the sensitive and controversial nature of Grayson’s argument and her clear jabs at the unnecessarily prolonged war in Pakistan, pushed forward by the US and the UK, her emotional perspective in this post is clearly anger towards “former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, Malala’s avid supporter [who] is known as a misogynist by his former work colleagues and to human rights campaigners for his refusal to address the [light of widows whose husbands were unlawfully killed by the state” (594). Brown and others like him who are simply leeching off of the story of this young Pakistani girl are the main targets of Grayson in this blogpost due to their hypocritical actions when addressing, or lack thereof, gender equality issues and women’s rights around the globe.

            The rhetorical perspective of this text is composed of an argumentative semi-impersonal text which is used to address the issue of double standards when considering gender equality and the influence of the media on the reality of the situation. Grayson’s argumentative rhetoric can clearly be seen in her thesis sentence where she says “My issue is not with Malala, I support and respect her wish of education for all, however (and it shames me to say this being British) I doubt she fully realizes the extent to which she is being exploited by her new “mentors” in the UK” (563). This sentence sets the stage for the rest of the text where Grayson continues to breakdown the approach of PM Brown and the Edelman firm to Malala’s situation while proving her point that they do not truly care for solving the issue of gender inequality, but simply care to increase their reputation with the public.

            Building off of her rhetorical perspective, Grayson implements an inductive logical perspective to show how politicians and marketing are using Malala as “a pawn in a bigger game [where she] was being unduly influenced by the people around her” (595). Additionally Grayson’s style of writing does not include many counter arguments to her perspective but shows in-depth analysis of gathered evidence on actions taken by politicians and marketing firms to expose their hypocrisy and exploitation of a celebrity case while disregarding other, possibly more pressing, cases such as the man who was ignored “on his deathbed requesting a meeting [with Gordon Brown] in a last ditch attempt to obtain gender justice for widows left behind” (Grayson, 597).

            Finally this text has a strong ethical perspective which relates the ideas of the oppression of women, the exploitation of celebrity, and the disregard of gender equality, or even human life, with the case of Malala and her bloated image in western media. Although Grayson strongly emphasizes that she “[supports] and [respects Malala’s] wish of education for all” (593) and furthermore commemorates her “as an intelligent young role model” (598), she also states that the treatment of Malala’s case by the media “does not help the cause of woman while one is exploited and others suppressed” (598). Grayson’s perspective in this text is that despite the government’s propaganda implying that they have their arms wide open for any and all victims of oppression, especially women oppressed by the Taliban, the truth of the matter is that the government is only interested in promoting themselves as saviors without actually saving anyone.

            Grayson’s text breaks down the fundamental flaw with how Malala’s story is being presented by the western media and employs a range of social, emotional, rhetorical, logical, and ethical perspectives to present her point to the public and influence their opinions on the Government’s and institutions controlling and subjecting the people to their own self-righteous view without providing any actual actions to prove their heroism.