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working on a thread but idk if it's my place to speak on it aksjdkd but I haven't seen a thread about this issue that's comprehensive? so I feel like I should? it's about depictions of south asian and/or muslim teens + young adults in media.
okay imma do it bc it's been brewing in my mind ever since never have i ever came out lol
this is focusing on ya shows, aka shows about and targeted at people aged between 14 - 20ish. this will feature characters from degrassi, the bold type, SKAM, elite, etc. this is also mostly about female characters bc male characters have their own set of stereotypes.
muslim and south asian female characters are very rare in YA media (hell, all media). but the very few portrayals out there seem to all follow the same couple of themes.
there are two versions of the muslim and/or south asian young woman: the more traditional and conservative hijabi (that is deemed "unattractive") who is almost always a background character...
...or the boy-obsessed rebellious young woman that is at least somewhat ashamed of her heritage/religion. this one has become increasingly common in recent years. notable examples who will be discussed further are depicted below:
now before y'all start I love all these characters lmao but when you think about it...these characters are NOT being written by people who are muslim or south asian. which makes these portrayals suspect at BEST.
I've mentioned this before, but a lot of writers try so hard to combat old stereotypes so hard that they end up accidentally creating new ones. I believe part of the reason this stereotype is so common is bc they wanted away with the "oppressed subservient hijabi" thing.
but the other part is mostly the fact that to western writers, a hijabi that WANTS to wear her hijab and LOVES her culture/religion and in no way feels oppressed by it is...wrong. obviously these writers share extremely islamophobic beliefs.
so for starters there's my girl alli bhandari from degrassi. she's one of my favorite degrassi characters but she's also p much the prime example of what I'm talking about (and probably the first one in a popular YA show too)
alli's VERY FIRST INTRODUCTION to the audience is of her changing out of her more conservative looking clothes after he parents drop her off from school. her first two seasons (aka her freshman year) involve her chasing a yt boy, having sex, sending nudes, and catching an sti.
she is often framed next to her more traditional yt christian friend clare, who often shames alli for her actions. alli quickly gains the reputation of the "school sl*t". and it again needs to be reiterated that she spends 2 seasons chasing after an 18 year old yt boy.
this is EXTREMELY common for SA/muslim female characters. most of their plots revolve around a yt guy/non-muslim that they feel the need to change or step away from their religion for.
degrassi would fall into this trope AGAIN several seasons later with goldi nahir. goldi initially started out as a positive portrayal of a young hijabi who was proud of who she was while also being a feminist.
but then, because it MUST be required for writers to include this any time they have a muslim character, they have her have a crisis of faith over not being able to date a non-muslim boy.
they also have ANOTHER very common scene of having the hijabi girl take off her hijab (however this is due to her being hatecrimed and having an even stronger crisis of faith over not feeling "normal").
(that being said, goldi felt uncomfortable over showing her hair and immediately put it back on, which was good on the writers but the scene still felt unnecessary)
next is nadia from elite who is probably the most offensive example of this lmaooo
nadia's story resolves around her relationship with a yt boy and her fear of her parents' reaction to it. she is also met with multiple islamophobic jabs at points.
nadia again, has sex and drinks alcohol and actively rebels from her parents in secret. not saying that doing those things are bad, but how come almost every portrayal feels the need to have the character do this to feel "empowered"?
anyway moving on bc this thread is long asf lmao but next is SKAM which had MULTIPLE chances to fix this issue in each of the remakes but instead made the same mistake every! single! time!
