Malia, the young filmmaker, doesn’t want to be Obama. Surnames mark and even more if your father was the first black president of the United States, with what it means of love and hate.
The first-born daughter of Barack and Michelle made her film debut at the last edition of the Sundance festival. The play is an 18-minute short: The heart. According to the official description, it is a fable that “tells the story of a lonely man who mourns the death of his mother after an argument about buying groceries and a strange request in her will.”
She is the writer and director, but she clearly avoids her last name and signs as Malia Ann, her middle name.
Among the film reviews there is everything, clear and obscure. “There is a lot of potential in this story about pain and the sense of guilt”, pointed out one of those who were in the room at the premiere. “You can appreciate wonderful layers of absurdity and genuine pathos”, intervened another.
“This short represents a lot of wasted money”, replied one of the detractors. “Can you be a true indie director if your father has been president?”, they asked.
This is the yolk of the egg: why not? Everything indicates that the desire to forge his own path caused him to modify his identity. Numerous criticisms are influenced or affect what many consider an act of hypocrisy to avoid the use of his birth surname.
This attitude, so common among movie stars without being relevant, has only accentuated the accusations of nepo baby, another of the new expressions that are already global thanks to social networks. In this way, it plays against Malia, 25 years old, the attempt to conjure the stigma of being a daughter of nepotism.
Everything points to the fact that he wanted to avoid the accusation of taking advantage of the gold of his famous father’s surname and it has had a boomerang effect for the accusation of trying to hide and deceive about who he really is.
“He’s trying to avoid Nepo Baby’s speech by not using his last name. Colleague, you are Obama’s daughter!”, was spread in messages from X (formerly Twitter).
Malia was a White House kid who grew up at the center of world power. She arrived from her native Chicago at the age of ten to the residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington and moved out of obligation at 18. She and her sister, Sasha (she was seven), spent their childhood and much of adolescence as daughters of the President of the United States.
They are not the first, nor the ones that have had a more traumatic experience. Caroline was not yet seven years old when her father, President Kennedy, was assassinated. And the teenage Chelsea was thrust into the marital crisis of her father, President Bill Clinton, and First Lady Hillary, due to the sexual relationship with the intern Monica Lewinsky.
But it wasn’t easy for the Obamas either. They suffered unrelenting attacks from the extreme right and the white nationalists, led by Donald Trump as the main spokesman, that Obama was an illegitimate president, defending himself with the more than recognized lie that he was born in Africa.
Since the ultra media could find nothing to attack Obama’s moral integrity, they proceeded to harass Michelle and her daughters with racist comments and insults. It’s another factor that may have made Malia forge her own path.
However, his birthplace has been relevant in his career. He had no problems getting into the prestigious Harvard University – “Wasn’t he a good student?”, say his defenders – or to start a film career with important connections. She interned on the HBO series Girls, collaborated with the production company of Harvey Weinstein, then a major Democratic donor and now disgraced rapist, and was attached to Donald Glover as writer of the Swarm series.
Malia pretends to be someone else, but is haunted by a shadow.
