While watching the short film Flee, one important storyline that stuck out to me was the main character, Nawabi’s journey with discovering his sexual orientation and realizing that he was gay. This discovery made his experience during the refugee’s plight unique because he was constantly worried that he would not be accepted by his family, and then he would really have no one he felt safe around.
The short film uses the stylistic choice of flashbacks back to Nawabi’s childhood, in which many he reflects on the first memories of realizing he preferred dating men. He remembers staring at celebrities he found handsome, confused about why he felt this way. At one point he even remembers asking for medication to fix his sexual preferences because he thought there was something wrong with him.
Nawabi was already feeling confused and upset because of how the government in Afghanistan was treating him and his people. Him and members of his family eventually had to flee in order to find a place with more freedom. Nawabi had no real father figure for much of his life, as the government took his father away for suspicion that he was committing treason. With no male figure to talk to, Nawabi was left on his own to try and discover his true self. He had to do this all in the midst of facing discrimination and torture by his government, and eventually while escaping the country on his own.
Although Nawabi did know he had some family still alive, he was forced to life for many years In order to protect himself from getting sent back to Afghanistan. He had to hide his true self from those around him, including his family whom he couldn’t see because they too had escaped to a different country and had to lie to protect themselves. This means that he had no one to open up to about his sexuality.
When Nawabi eventually was able to see his family, he was still concerned about telling them about being gay, because in his culture this was often unacceptable and families were known for banishing their children because of their homosexuality. Luckily, when he did tell his family they explained they knew all along and welcomed him with open arms.
Nawabi’s journey to discovering his sexuality makes his refugee experience unique because he not only had to hide his true identity for years to protect himself, but for most of his life he had to hide a large part of who he was (his sexuality) for fear of being rejected from his country and his family. The flashbacks made throughout the short film helped to highlight this as an older and more confident Nawabi reflects on his experiences growing up as a gay refugee.
I find it interesting that you focused on Amin’s decision to hide his sexuality because that wasn’t something that I focused on a lot throughout the film, although it was a very big part of his identity and story. I was focused much more on the physical obstacles that he was determined to overcome. However, after reading your response from that perspective of the film, I realize how important hiding his identity was throughout his journey, especially when he finally makes it to his brother. He had to pretend that his family was dead to get through security during his final point in his destination and I didn’t realize how traumatizing that was for him especially because this was something he had to do his entire life. It’s captivating how our two perspectives aligned, even though we discussed very different components of Amin’s story.