Last Thursday night I walked into Williamstown's Images Cinema with absolutely no clue of what to expect from the film, "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot." I left the theater much in the same way I normally leave the theater, happy I broke my monotonous college student routine but frustrated at the broader implications of the film.

The film stars comedian and producer Tina Fey (30 Rock, SNL, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) alongside a well-known cast, including Martin Freeman, Margot Robbie, Alfred Molina and Christopher Abbott. It is based on journalist Kim Barker's memoir, The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan, on her experiences in the mid-2000s as a reporter in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Fey portrays Barker as Kim Baker, a cable news writer who decides suddenly to change her life and career and become a correspondent when pressured by her network. She arrives in Kabul in a home that many reporters share, only to find she is now only the second female reporter living there and the men act like starved cavemen around her. Understandably, she is immediately overwhelmed by not knowing the language and the living situation. It seems like she is ready to give up and go back home but she perseveres. She makes it clear she is there to report news that does not necessarily reach most American homes, even if it puts her life in serious danger. Her own bodyguard, a Pashtun played by Christopher Abbot, leaves her eventually because he believes she is an adrenaline junkie, getting her fix by reporting these high-risk stories. She gets enveloped in a world her colleagues refer to as the "Kabubble," with lots of parties, drinking, and, oh yeah, putting your life in danger just to cover a good story. The film spans several years for Baker as a correspondent until she finally decides to return back to the states and spread awareness of the same issues she shed light to in the past, only now from back home.

At first glance, this film can generally be regarded as a "good" film (Rotten Tomatoes rated it at 65%). It's informative yet funny, witty, and interesting. There are not a lot of films made about Afghanistan or about the war that continues in the country to this day. In that sense, it is good that a Hollywood film is at least trying to shed some light on topics that are not so Western-centric. The film seemed to be quite self-aware of what it was doing as well. At one point, a Turkish reporter asks Baker why she is there reporting in the first place since she had never disclosed that to her friends. After listening to her tale of needing a change in her life (think "Eat Pray Love"), the reporter claims it to be the most white lady story she had ever heard. This moment is so important to what I think the goal was for the directors and producers of the film: to provide a space for discussion about things the general American public may not be aware about whilst still being conscious that it is only through the perspective of a white, privileged woman.

Although they did keep this awareness throughout several points in the film, it was not enough in order to redeem its shortcomings. Many critics have attributed these shortcomings to Fey's underwhelming performance of Kim Barker/Baker, but it actually extends far beyond that. Off the bat, the whitewashed cast and brownfacing immediately subdued that self-awareness that sets the film apart from so many others. Having Alfred Molina and Christopher Abbott play Afghans is something I would have expected from any other major Hollywood production, just not one which started off with the right mindset for change. Fey herself said she had begged the casting directors to hire native speakers but was told these performers were their preferred choice. She states, "I try to make myself feel warm about it in the fact that, y'know, Afghans are Caucasians, it's Caucasians playing Caucasians. If you really wanted to go to the mat on it, you could say it's not any different than, y'know, an Aussie playing a Brit, although I'm sure people feel that it is." Besides her ideas on what is considered "Caucasian" being extremely outdated (the contemporary view for Caucasian is someone who is light-skinned and of European heritage, noticeably excluding Afghans), this shows a complete disregard to Afghan culture and history.

Some people are labeling it as a "feminist comedy," and I wholeheartedly disagree (about the feminism, not the comedy, although that is also debatable). When Baker lands in Kabul, she is greeted by an angry woman calling her a whore because her veil has fallen off. Later on, another angry woman prevents her from holding hands with her partner. These small instances culminate in a scene where a woman wearing a burqa asks to speak to her to reveal the truth about a destroyed well site. Baker is invited to her home with more than twenty burqa-clad women present, but at the moment where they begin to disrobe so they can begin explaining their situation, the camera fades to black. They leave the women faceless and voiceless. Without Baker's "white savior" character in this scene the women would have been helpless as well. Baker herself had to wear a burqa and experienced what her colleague calls "the blue prison." While she walks in these clothes, the music played during the scene all make fun of how ridiculous it is to see women wearing this as beautiful or sexy. These all reinforce the idea that these women are oppressed and enslaved. It is not truly feminist unless it encompasses all women, even those who are Muslim and cover more of their body than their white female counterparts.

Fey said of the burqa: "It just made me very very grateful to be born in the West and be born in the United States." For a character who is supposedly so invested in women's education and rights as Kim Baker/Barker is, this adaptation clearly does not bring this forth. It reinforces all the notions of white feminism, where white feminists believe they have to save Muslim women because they are forced victims rather than willing contenders. This subject cannot be taken lightly and should not be given a comedic air at a time when the right to wear what you'd like is still controversial, especially for women. In France right now, heated debates are continuing after many famous fashion corporations launched their "Islamic mode" collections and received tremendous backlash from the government.

So, was it "WTF," like its intended titular meaning, or was it FTW (for the win)? It definitely had the potential of being FTW but all the frustrations from the problems I have already explained make it less so. On the one hand, squishing together topics like women's education and clothing in Afghanistan into a film that already tackles so much, creates more problems than it attempts to solve. Added onto the racism inherent in the casting decisions, the possibilities the film had get weakened and you're left feeling as unresolved as the issues it discusses. "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" ends up being exactly what Kim Barker's memoir tried not to be, another white lady story finding herself by traveling to the East. Barker wrote the novel because she was "furious with all that had gone wrong in these countries" that she had fallen in love with. In spite of this, she still recommends reading her novel "which as everyone knows is 'always better than the movie.'" But then again, it is discussing a region that does not receive enough recognition, brings up issues many Americans probably would probably not know, and is somewhat self-conscious of what it is doing.

All I want to do now is read Kim Barker's memoir because of her own insistence that it will be better and forget my frustrations from a film that was so promising with its message and leading actress.