#clip analysis

i can only shake my head at this point. after a week of whatever the heck that was torture porn for yasmina, we continue the onslaught. we finally have the boys make an appearance only to get a bench scene that’s even worse than the OG’s?!

first, let’s talk about aaron, who clearly has learned nothing from his racist actions in week 1. the complete lack of empathy and unwillingness to help when yasmina approaches him to talk to amber.

to then pivot to the next scene with robbe white boy mansplaining racism to yasmina?! seriously, even if wtfock has moyo or luca or someone attempt to talk to yasmina later, they have so butchered this attempt at a bench scene.

robbe totally negates all of BA’s racism and instead calls yasmina out for not standing up for her friends?? calls yasmina a bossy bitch and being too hard on BA for being racist?? totally equates the experience of being a muslim woman of color in belgium to being a white gay boy in belgium?!! the circles wtfock is going around to make this oppression olympics make sense…🤦🏽‍♀️

and to make it all even worse, robbe circles back to remind the audience of the scene of yasmina’s mom judging him and sander being together while shopping, links it as being just as bad as whatever yasmina is going through, and once again we are equating islam and muslims with homophobia. give me a break. 🙄

look at his face. he looks almost scared because he is aware of the fact that what he did hurt liv. he looks like he didn't sleep much and clearly meant his words but he speaks franctically until he sees liv is actually listening.

his brother is scaring him too, but at that moment he was afraid of her safety.

i feel like whatever went down with his brother, it was more than a 'he was a manipulative kid' situation. he was harsher than all the williams to get her to leave and he was more pleading than them as well.

you can literally see the moment where he is debating to tell the truth or choose the easy way. there is clearly stuff that he doesn't say but at least he is honest with the core reason.

i'd like to think his honesty has two reasons. 1) he knows liv well enough that she will see through his bullshit and he wants to be honest with the only person he cares deeply at the moment. 2) he is actually dreaming of a day where he can introduce her to his brother and he wants to make sure that no harm will come to liv.

monk's acting is spot on, woah. he really invented speaking with his eyes, huh? wide eyes, still nervous... he just wants liv to believe in him.

i guess when she stayed the night, it was the first time he had real hope and HE screwed that up the very next day. that's why it makes sense that he was this shaken

in all the years sana (and her avatars) have been gracing the screen, in all the years of her being mistreated, forgotten, accused by her supposed friends, in all the years of her being degraded and humiliated into apologizing for expressing herself in the face of racism, never has she experienced physical violence and assault at the hands of a girl squad member...until now. and of all people...amber?!

i've spent years watching muslims get shot, blown up, stabbed, and assaulted on screen. i can't tell you how damaging and dehumanizing it is to see your people suffer from a violence that is omnipresent and suffocating. and the image of yasmina being slapped by a racist, gaslighting, selfish, callous white girl is one i never need to see again. and then all the girls running to support amber and leaving yasmina in the dust after an assault?! with only moyo to support her?! and save me the self-righteous guilt trip sermon zoë 🙄 who doesn’t even acknowledge what yasmina has felt all season!

there is no coming back from this, none. amber is done. the girl squad is done. anything to the contrary will be a personal affront and literal slap in the face to every muslim, woman of color watching.

okay so yasmina brings together BOTH the girl squad and blonde ambition so she can apologize and let’s look at the language these racist writers are making yasmina use within a 3 minute clip.

“I made a mistake”; “I’m the reason”; “It’s my fault”; “Sorry”; “What I did was wrong” - literally how many times are they forcing yasmina to apologize to not just the girls but BA too? it’s pretty disgusting and invalidates all of her own pain and all of the egregious racism that’s occurred this season.

that helena responds to yasmina with “If you weren’t that fucking sick in your head, none of this would’ve happened. You even dragged down your own friends.” and it’s complete silence from the girls. no one steps up to defend yasmina after that horrible statement??

and the body language in the clip. how down yasmina appears in the beginning and literally every time she gets that fire back and tries to stand up for herself, she gets no support from the girls, who immediately run off to coddle a crying amber at the end of the clip. it’s as if the writers are punishing yasmina for even trying to tell her side of the story. it’s like “just say sorry and sit down quietly” huh?

we keeping saying that each new clip between yasmina and the girls further prevents any sort of reconciliation by the end of the season. but at this point, the writers are not treading any new ground. they are continuing to torture yasmina and force her to degrade herself not just to BA and the girls but to the audience too.

a smiling, laughing yasmina to balance out the pain from the last clip. and how yasmina is really expressing how she is feeling with taking off her hijab and pushing aaron out of his comfort zone.

so harkening back to the last clip in which she took off her hijab, it’s so heartbreaking that yasmina has to literally plan out her future career based on whether the belgian government will let her practice her religion, in this case becoming a lawyer, as there’s a chance women won’t be allowed to wear hijabs and practice law. (FYI: there are plenty of kickbutt practicing Muslim lawyers in the world and the hijab does not diminish your intelligence in demolishing bad arguments nor does it affect your ability to be neutral).

sadly the “why don’t you just take it off” (obviously from kato here) is such a common rejoinder from people who don’t think it’s worth fighting the system over “just another scarf.” it can be very difficult to make people understand faith and what it means to you.

there’s also a nice parallel to the fight between elias and aaron where yasmina is taking the higher road (it‘s Ramadan after all!)

but this “apology” scene shows what a lot of POC brush aside and compromise on when trying to keep the peace within friend groups. it’s a lot of emotional labor on the part of yasmina but at the same time, she knows for her at that time it’s not worth harping on, so easier for her to accept the apology from aaron (done for amber’s sake) and move on.

yeah, sorry, this scene is a big no from me. okay, so the good, younes and the way he looks at yasmina. and the bad, pretty much everything else in this clip.

i didn't appreciate younes telling yasmina "do realise how wrong that insta account was?" and i didn't appreciate having younes to once again reinforce that yasmina has to apologize. again, we are guilt tripping yasmina and equating her actions on the same moral level as what BA did because literally what yasmina says next is what happened to amber is "just as wrong." no girl, it's much worse! this is such a false equivalency here. and to paint it for the audience is the same as what BA did is so harmful and gross.

and now let's talk about yasmina's "apology" which is more or less a word for word copy of what OG sana told the girl squad during OG episode 8. i had problems with it then, but it feels even more out of place here. because yasmina is NOT sana. we can't all of a sudden ascribe of these anger issues to her. there was definitely more of a gray area to sana's actions in the OG, but it's not the same for yasmina - the heightened level of racism and gaslighting in this season is so much worse than anything we saw in the OG.

in this "apology," yasmina literally puts the girl squad and their feelings above anything else. she says that "when I’ve got you guys, it’s not important to be muslim enough or Flemish enough." like huh? are you serious? as long as i have toxic friends like you, my own struggles with my identity and combating racism don't matter?

omg, a suhoor clip?! wow, i never thought i'd see a remake actually incorporate suhoor but here we go. gotta give wtfock some props here. so suhoor/sehri is the pre dawn meal that muslims eat before fasting during ramadan. it's not required but highly recommended (at least to drink some water!) before you begin your fast. and yasmina looks good for 4 in the morning (she must be using Mac 😅)

so i'm glad yasmina cleared up the confusion with her family and the bottle and said that it wasn't younes'. and yes, elias is right - younes just wanted to help by covering for the faults of others. and yes, it's ramadan and even though lying isn't great, it's all about the intention. and i know i sound like a broken record, but ramadan is about forgiveness just as much as anything else.

and i'm sorry but papa ait omar, you need to cut younes some slack. i just don't understand where the continuing anger/strictness is coming from because you can't fixate on one part of ramadan (not lying) without considering the other parts (forgiveness and letting go of grudges). and it's certainly a marked difference in characterization compared to the sanas' parents, where the OG sana's dad literally was making bottle jokes with yousef after the alcohol incident. and this is where i think her parents' rules/influence play a larger role in yasmina's world view compared to the other remakes.

yeah...i didn't like wtfock's take on this OG conversation between a sana and her mom. so yasmina and her mom are out and about in the streets talking about life and religion and run into sander and robbe. and we have yet another reference to muslims (and islam) being homophobic in yasmina's mom's reaction to sobbe and then yasmina talking about islam and homosexuality.

first, what yasmina said isn't entirely accurate. muslim men can't just marry whoever they want - and certainly, scripture does not permit muslim men to marry atheists (as younes is coded) - so it's not as if yasmina were a boy then that would solve that issue with younes, as it seems to be implied here??

and i'm so tired about this link between islam and homophobia. just like every religion, there are people who are homophobic and interpret the religion that way. but that undercuts all the practicing queer muslims out there (not to mention the queer mosques, community centers, academic research and scholarship that's been going on in quranic tafseer and fiqh related to homosexuality and islam, etc.) so if wtfock is going to double down on these tropes, then sure as heck need to come full circle is dispelling these stereotypes.

also bittersweet that the first appearance of sander is tinged with homophobia. 😥