Jalla! Jalla! and Import-Export: Two multicultural romantic comedies

Abstract

Abstract Boy meets girl, the couple goes through a series of obstacles, they split, they reunite and there is a happy ending. This formula has reached international success in the genre of romantic comedy. Two immigrant Scandinavian writer-directors of non-western ethnic background, Josef Fares (Lebanese-Swedish) and Khalid Hussain (Pakistani-Norwegian), both employ this romantic comedy formula to engage their audiences with the multicultural issues second-generation Scandinavian ethnics face when falling in love with native Scandinavians. The Swedish film Jalla! Jalla! (Fares, 2000) and the Norwegian Import-eksport/Import-Export (Hussain, 2005), confront and expose stereotypes of immigrant identities in Scandinavia and explore the complexities of inter-ethnic romance. Both films also subversively reverse the hegemonic �insider/outsider� positions common to most Scandinavian film representations of the ethnic/racial outsider. In this article, I discuss how both director-writers approach multiculturalism, a relatively new phenomenon in Scandinavia, by adapting and personalizing the romantic comedy genre to reveal the unique experiences of immigrants in a way that audiences can understand. Additionally, I analyse ways in which the two films satirize the multiple stereotypes of immigrants and native Scandinavians to pose the question of what it means to be an immigrant or a Scandinavian, and sometimes both.