How has this happened? How did Skam Italia - the remake that deprived a Muslim actress of playing Sana - arguably released the best Sana season? I remember when it seemed like a no-brainer to predict that druck would provide the best version by far and Italia would be fighting to be the worst.
Hi anon 🐞 Lol I mean, how are we defining "best" here? Because tbh (and I'm hardly an Amira M season stan) I thought the way Druck combined the alcohol and fight scenes from Skam into one episode, to make a lot more sense, be more relevant to Amira M than Isak fighting Mikael or Martino fighting Luai (which is second hand drama for Sana at best), develop Essam beyond the super flat portrayals of the Elias Bakkoush characters, and doesn't invoke "homophobic Muslims" tropes.
Seriously, why is Sana A's season the "best" Sana season when off the top of my head, it has: Christian-style exorcisms performed on gay Muslims, a hijabi taking off her hijab at the insistence of two male friends, a close friend admitting to Sana she started the bullying that causes her trauma to this day and not being further touched upon after that clip, a whole bunch of time being dedicated to a side storyline about the gay couple breaking up in which Sana is a spectator to the drama rather than being involved (like I full on watched a scene where she went into the school counselor's office and stood and watched as people recounted this drama), and a Det Beste Fra Islam clip full of explicit Catholic imagery (because it happens during a Catholic ritual gsgvhvs)? And that's without getting into the politics of the fandom claiming that they hired a Muslim writer, when she's only ever credited as a consultant -- and not because Skam Italia never credits co-writers.
In my opinion, the Italian Sana season gets so much praise because of these two factors:
1) People who disagree with the casting of Beatrice Bruschi as Sana aren't big voices in Skam Italia fandom. Their voices aren't amplified, liked and reblogged among the Skam Italia fandom, for obvious reasons. So if these people watched the season and didn't like it, their posts weren't going to get reblogged because they wouldn't agree with Skam Italia fandom's position that "yeah ok they fucked up with the casting, but our season is the best!!!!" The reason critical voices were far more prevalent in other Sana seasons like Druck, Skam France, Skam España, even Wtfock, is because all these critical voices were already established in the actual fandoms. People in these fandoms already looked to them for meta, rather than sidelining their voices for being critical of the casting.
2) Sana Allagui's season was never, ever subjected to the same scrutiny as every other Sana season, because it never dropped in real time. It dropped all at once; therefore, viewers were never made to sit for hours with uncomfortable clips. (Like a number of the clips I mentioned above.)
Anyway, to me this is, idk, like making a bunch of humanities students take the final exam in a college-level Math course. One of them got a 4/10 instead of 1/10 or 2/10 or 3/10 like the others. Wow!! She is "arguably" the best! When you know all these seasons have engaged in harmful stereotyping that hasn't gotten subverted, have prioritized white characters and viewers over Muslim characters/viewers and characters/viewers of color, and have not pushed against the idea that Muslim people should integrate and all be cultural experts if they want to be accepted.
For me, the best "Sana" seasons are Zehra's season in blank, and Aisha's season in the 17-verse. They both treated centered their mains' experiences over those of white people's, both introduced a range of different male and female characters of color, both handled familial relationships in more interesting ways, both developed the love pairing well. I honestly think the only network that took the feedback NRK got after Sana's season seriously and worked to address it in meaningful ways was... NRK.
