Towelhead Director: Name Stays The Same.

27-08-2008 08:36

Towelhead Director: Name Stays The Same.... The director of controversial movie Towelhead has hit back at calls to retitle the film, insisting it is "important" to stay true to the original concept.Muslim leaders have urged movie executives at Warner Bros. to rename the flick because the word is "offensive and exploitative" to American Muslims and Arab-Americans.But Alan Ball, who directs the film adaptation of the Alicia Erian novel, insists he will keep the title as it was intended. He says, "As a gay man, I know how it feels to be called hateful names simply because of who I am. Therefore, I felt it was important to retain the title of Alicia Erian's novel, in which she so effectively dramatises the pain inflicted by such language, something many people of non-minority descent never have to face."I believe one of the unintended consequences of forbidding such words to be spoken is imbuing those words with more power than they should ever have, and helping create the illusion that the bigotry and racism expressed by such cruel epithets is less prevalent than it actually is, which we all know is sadly not the case."The film, starring Aaron Eckhart, Summer Bishil and Toni Collette, is about a young Arab-American girl's struggles with life and sexual obsession. The heroine of Erian's story is dubbed 'Towelhead' by her enemies.