Heart-shaped Box (2016) features home video footage of the artist, taken in 1995, at the age of 3, just four years after her family had immigrated to Canada. As they settled into their daily lives in their new home, grunge music was at the height of its popularity. Naqvi’s sisters were particularly taken by bands such as Nirvana, Live and Hole and in this home movie, Naqvi’s sisters teach their youngest sister to sing the lyrics to some of the era’s biggest hits.
Despite the anti-establishment sentiment of the artists who were making the music, grunge began to see mainstream recognition in the ’90s. Here, the music resonates with newly immigrated Pakistani teenage girls. Naqvi’s sisters were on the outside of a new society aiming to fit in. This video is an example American popular culture influencing a generation of people for whom their product was unintended yet with whom it resonated honestly.
