From Polarizing to Shared Shame: Multicultural Daughters, Pakistani Mothers, and Norwegian Child Welfare Services in What Will People Say

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article is a close analysis of the feature film What Will People Say (2017) by the Norwegian-Pakistani director Iram Haq through the lens of shame as a filmic emotion experienced both by the Pakistani mother in the film and by the Norwegian majority viewers. The film’s reception reveals a polarized discourse that pitches the Norwegian majority against minority women and builds up the myth that shame in contemporary Norway exists primarily as an import phenomenon in diasporic communities such as that of the Pakistanis. My analysis shows how paying careful attention to the Pakistani mother’s role in the story and the Pakistani family’s interactions with the Norwegian Child Welfare Services becomes a productive avenue to challenge the polarized discourse and build up a sense of mutuality and community in multicultural Norway. In essence, the article shows how Norwegian majority viewers can share the shame of Pakistani minority women when they are willing to approach the mother’s shame as more than simply a twin sister of honour and embrace their own embarrassment at the way the Norwegian Child Welfare Services treat the film’s main character, a Norwegian-Pakistani teenage girl whose family sends her to Pakistan against her own will.