I’ve been thinking about who gets to tells a story.
There is a TV show airing in Pakistan right now that has been the topic of discussion. It is called ‘Hadsa’ (Incident). The ‘incident’: a woman and her son are driving on an empty highway at night when they are accosted by four armed men. They are pulled from their car, dragged off to a clearing, and the woman is raped while her son is gagged and bound just a few feet away. After they are found and rescued, the show deals with the police investigation, the effect on the family, the trauma the woman endures, and how the people around her treat her and the ‘incident’.
Why are we talking about this show? The story closely resembles a case that took place in September 2020. It made waves in a country that is otherwise quite inured to violence against women. A woman travelling on the motorway from Lahore with her children had some car trouble (she reportedly ran out of fuel). As she waited for help, she was attacked by armed men, dragged from her car with her children, taken to a nearby field and raped. I distinctly remember the feeling I had when I read reports that her children were made to watch. There was anger, but also fear. It came from that unexpected detail. Children made to watch. It is one thing to fear violence, it is another when you do not know the cruel and unusual forms of violence you may be subjected to. That is a different kind of fear.
Some of the reactions to the attack were expected. There is the police chief who questioned why the woman was out so late, if she had her husband’s permission, why she hadn’t checked if she had sufficient fuel before travelling. But it was unexpected that such comments made people furious. They protested, called for the police official to be sacked, and they called out the kind of victim-blaming that we see every time something like this happens. We didn’t let it slide.
And now, three years later, we have ‘Hadsa’. On Monday journalist Fereeha Idrees tweeted about receiving a phone call from the survivor of the motorway incident. She was very distraught, and it seems the show’s airing has re-traumatised her, to a great extent because she had no idea something like this was in the works. While the show’s producer and lead actor say their story is not intended to resemble the September 2020 incident in any way (other than the detail of the highway), the survivor feels there are too many similarities and viewers have immediately drawn parallels. People didn’t let them off the hook. They asked why they would gaslight a survivor. The country’s media regulatory authority - usually busy keeping an eye on “hug scenes” and TV shows that deal with “feminist issues only” - has acted quickly and prohibited the broadcast of ‘Hadsa’.
Here’s my question: should this story have been told?
And because I never have just one question: who gets to tell this story? Why would it be told?
Many stories within the public domain get made for TV/movies without the subject’s consent. ‘Within the public domain’ is a neutral term though, one that strips away the human experience of any particular story. The families of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims protested Netflix’s show on the serial killer as it re-traumatised them and ‘profited’ off their loss while they were never consulted on any details. “Basically, you are just a thing owned by the world, you belong to the world,” Pamela Anderson said when she saw a bit of ‘Pam & Tommy’, the (awful) TV series about the theft and release of her sex tape. “This feels like when the tape was stolen.” She never gave her blessing for the TV adaptation, which was based on a 2014 article in Rolling Stone. Sometimes even if producers get permission, the subject may not be happy with how they’ve been portrayed - Rachel DeLoache Williams, for instance, sued Netflix over how she was represented in ‘Inventing Anna’, about the scammer Anna Sorokin. There’s the backlash over lack of proper credit in an episode of ‘Made in Heaven’ that dealt with Dalit author Yashica Dutt’s story. Closer to home, Qandeel Baloch’s parents were unhappy with a TV series based on their daughter’s life as they said they were not clearly asked for consent or compensated sufficiently.
There are so many more - these are just the few I remember from the last two or three years. We want to be told these stories, that much is clear. Who gets to present a person to us?
There are questions you should ask.
Intention matters. Why do you want to tell this story? Does the person you’re writing about remain at the forefront and will you consider them before your own gains? What does ‘duty’ look like to you in this case?
If the person you are writing about is no longer alive, you need their family’s permission and you should be explicit about what you’re trying to do. In Pakistan, we have little understanding of informed consent - does the family understand that your work could be adapted for other forms? It is your duty to understand the person you’re writing about as much as possible. Know that you will likely not use most of it because it is not your right to. That person is no longer there to talk back. For instance, if you’re writing about a woman who was killed. Lets say you found out she was having an affair, and you can confirm it has absolutely nothing to do with her death. Do you share that information? Some say yes, its all material.
But is what you’re writing serving a larger purpose and telling a larger story? You can use what you have learned and find other ways to cover those angles, for instance, that women have lives that their parents/partners know nothing about. Unless you’re writing about a public figure, I believe that rule applies. When it comes to private individuals, I have lost count of the number of times their friends or family members have told me, “She was really private” or “She didn’t share this” or “She kept her feelings to herself.” In those times, I can have their text messages, laptop, diaries, social media inboxes, but I cannot use any of that. How crucial are those private details and can I tell a bigger story without them? Side note: I think this is why it really bothered me when people accused me of “profiting” off of Qandeel’s story and “using her”. I worked really hard to maintain her privacy. When I was asked how it helped her parents. I didn’t - couldn’t - do any of it to “help” anyone. I don’t do that kind of activism/advocacy and I’ve been burned the times I’ve tried. All you can hope is that you get a conversation going.
Sensitivity matters.
Acknowledging your own ignorance matters. You cannot fully speak to the person’s experience - you’re likely not writing about them because you’re twinsies. Are you honest about all that you do not know and are you comfortable asking questions that you may not know the answers to? You aren’t here to teach or spoon-feed.
Are you using this person’s experience to ask questions beyond them, to speak to the importance of their story and what it says about us/our culture/society? Are you writing a biography and if so, why? We’re more comfortable sharing every detail of a person’s life if they are “bad” or there’s a class/power difference at play. Is that fair?
Are you curious? Do you understand your limitations? And not like Jonathan Franzen who, when asked if he would write a book about race, said, “I have thought about it, but - this is an embarrassing confession - I don’t have very many black friends. I have never been in love with a black woman. I feel like if I had, I might dare.” (yeesh)
The makers of ‘Hadsa’ used a key part of the motorway rape survivor’s story - her child being present at the time she was raped - in their show. Why did they not get in touch with her and ask if this was okay? What kind of TV show would we have if she was included in the making? Was no one in the room asking this at any point? If they did not want to risk refusal, why not centre the story around any kind of sexual assault? There is certainly no shortage of material to draw from. I think that comes back to intent. What is ‘Hadsa’ about? Having sped through the first 10 episodes, it seems to be about the culture of shame and silencing that women face after a rape.
I found the writing and acting to be one-note and overwrought in the way that most Pakistani TV dramas are.
When Taskeen (played by Hadiqa Kiani) and her son Kumayl are found by the police, her husband and younger son, the son keeps bleating, “Dad, Dad, what’s happened, Dad?” His mother is tied to a charpai, bloodied and with ripped clothes. I’m not sure what this teenager was confused about but you quickly understand that rape is apparently so far out of the realm of what these people expect that they can’t wrap their heads around it.
At the hospital, the female doctor keeps referring to Taskeen as “aap ki Mrs” (your Mrs) to her husband. If the writers were trying to emphasise that a woman is first seen as a mother/daughter/wife, they didn’t need to be so heavy-handed.
The word ‘rape’ is never mentioned. The doctor says, “bohot burra hua hai” (something very bad has happened) and “Aap ki Mrs bohot traumatised hain” (Your Mrs is very traumatised). We don’t hear from Taskeen - we are left to guess what has happened to her based on the reaction of the men around her at the hospital. Her husband, brother, police, bystanders and some other guys - they all share the same horrified expression. The women in the family beg the men to tell them what has happened and when they finally do, it is wordless. Literally. This awful music takes over and drowns out what they might have said. Kumayl, who witnessed his mother’s rape, is similarly wordless. He writhes on a bed, sedated, and later, is unable to talk to the police about it. A family friend tells his father, “His mind is unable to process it.” The same seems to go for every other male character, really.
‘Rape’ is not said - I don’t care if this is for censorship reasons. How can you have any meaningful discussion if you can’t even say the word? (maybe make that tv show - each episode about a word we cannot say here) Every tired trope is used instead. Taskeen tells her husband, “I won’t get back the respect that I lost.” “A soul can’t return to a dead body”. “Kill someone while they’re still alive.” “My destruction”.
By the ninth episode, the husband thinks that dropping any police case is the best way forward. He advises Taskeen to “forget about it, its better for us to.” Their children are suffering because they see how the rape has affected Taskeen - marriage proposals hang in the balance as does one kid’s grades. This man is very big on the silencing. He tells his daughter, “For God’s sake, be quiet. The problem with your generation is that you are unable to understand the sensitivity of such incidents.” Really, uncle? This could have been a moment that the daughter schooled the father on the importance of agency and accountability, but instead, she tells him he is wrong to drop the case because it means “the criminals roam free”. That is quite simplistic. A rape is not just a story of crime/punishment - if you’re talking about it, you’re dealing with the subjects of power, culture, trauma…
There is no mention of therapy or similar interventions. When Taskeen has panic attacks, her family hysterically calls for glasses of water before she is taken to a hospital and sedated. At one point, she stops herself from spiralling when she sees the effect it is having on her son. At every turn, the show emphasises that she is not just the victim of a crime - she is a wife, mother, daughter-in-law and those roles must be considered as she thinks of what she wants to do. She doesn’t have any family of her own or friends she can speak with. No lawyers, no female police officers, no doctors. If she wants to take the case forward - against her husband’s wishes - she is going to have to rely on herself. This kind of narrative of isolation is dangerous.
The problem here isn’t whether the family drops the case or pursues it. Its that we live in a culture that enables this kind of violence against women. We have little idea of how that shapes you. There’s a moment when Taskeen consoles her son as he was unable to sit for school exams after her rape. “At least I know my son is not a robot,” she says. Robot. You know what I thought of? (Then) Prime Minister Imran Khan’s casual comment about this country’s rape epidemic: “If a woman is wearing very few clothes it will have an impact on the man unless they are robots. It’s common sense.”
I appreciate that we have a ways to go before we can have nuanced discussions of trauma, triggers, agency, and any conversation about rape that doesn’t centre shame. We especially need our drama-watching awaam to begin to have these conversations. But this ain’t it. I don’t think Pakistani dramas made today are equipped to handle such conversations - they’ve given us problematic storylines on marital rape, used blackface, body-shamed, cast harassers/abusers… Don’t get me started on what-in-the-Gone-Girl-hell this is. They’re either irritatingly preachy or just plain bad.
If ‘Hadsa’ wanted to talk about silencing and shame, were certain specific details important? No. Could it have addressed these issues by using any incident of sexual assault? Yes. Should this story have been told? Yes, and there are ways to do it without re-traumatising survivors. If you’re going to make something about such a crucial, sensitive subject, do better ffs. What are the stories we need to tell about rape? To be honest, I don’t know. What would I want to see? I don’t want a hero-story or the same tired one about how the system fails us.
‘Hadsa’ is at pains to tell us what happens when you try and silence someone. The makers should have considered that it is equally damaging when you speak on their behalf.
Quick recommendations:
Chanel Miller’s ‘Know my Name’ for its gorgeous prose and the insight into a survivor’s experience. Here’s Chanel reading from the book at an event I was lucky to be at.
“The complaint seems to be less that some people ask writers to think about cultural appropriation, and more that a writer wishes her work not to be critiqued for doing so, that instead she get a gold star for trying.”
“Within the world of journalism, the UVA story has been instructive as a cautionary tale.” — this piece and this one on how a rape story was bungled and the implications of getting it wrong. Jia Tolentino also wrote about this in Trick Mirror.