wtfock: the case for a “believing” yousef
making one last “hopeful” post before the start of the season, but it’s really out of fear that they make britt/kato part of a bel!yousef love triangle with yasmina. but expanding upon a post i first made for skam españa’s s4, i want to circle back to a skam remake’s final opportunity to do something with its sana season that we haven’t seen before - give yasmina the option for a believing/practicing muslim bel!yousef.
some reasons why that is a positive development:
it shifts the conversation from yasmina and manufactured internal turmoil surrounding her faith (yasmina seems pretty steady in her faith from what we have seen thus far) to the more compelling storyline of yasmina trying to be her best self while living in a society that is both overtly racist (hello hijab ban! they have to address this) and subconsciously alienating (friend dynamics - see wtfockdown). and seeing yasmina and bel!yousef navigating that together with their shared faith would be a novel way to develop their relationship.
showing a believing bel!yousef would be so powerful! often in western media depictions of muslim men, we have two extremes: 1) the terrorist - almost always depicted as a believing, praying, bearded man; and 2) the secular muslim - often shown as a “woke” guy who was raised muslim but is now a non-practicing, often drinking/pot smoking, partying guy (think Omar in Elite or Aziz Ansari’s Dev in Master of None). unfortunately, by having this dichotomy, we associate the practicing muslim with the negative and the non-practicing, secular man as the positive. when that stereotype gets propagated as a positive depiction of a muslim then we are in essence saying that stripping away a man’s muslimness is what is desirable and lauded. yasmina has already hinted that her brother (elias) is not particularly religious, so having a practicing bel!yousef would be a nice contrast to this.
not forcing a sana to choose between her religion and love, and therefore saying that muslim women need to choose. according to scripture, a muslim (no matter if they are male or female) is not supposed to marry an atheist. here, yasmina has always been represented as a practicing muslim woman who is confident in her islam and in following the quran. if a take away from sana’s season is that a practicing Muslim woman can totally fit into “western society” without having to change who they are, then why are we still making her choose at the end of the day? unless we can saying that it’s better if a practicing muslim is still not *too* practicing and/or is still willing to make some compromises. yasmina is already living in a society that is stripping away the physical manifestation of her religion (hijab), so it’s even more bittersweet to imagine living your whole life praying and fasting without sharing that with the person you love.
finally, skam has never had the range or time to really explore how a sana would make it work with an atheist/agnostic love interest and how sana would reconcile that with her belief in the scripture, so there’s never been a really satisfying resolution imho. instead of not believing, what about having bel!yousef just be not as practicing as yasmina? i love the idea of someone who has drifted away from their faith and then journeys back.
