Unveiling Agency: Analyzing Muslim Girlhood on Global Screens Though <i>Skam</i> ’s Character of Sana

Skam is a web-series focused on the turbulence of adolescence with nine international versions airing in the U.S. and across Europe. Included in the cast is Sana, a veiled Muslim teen navigating her religious identity in the West. Every adaptation of Skam is shaped by its cultural context, revealing much about each nation’s anxieties surrounding Islam. In Skam, representation is mixed. Muslims functions as symbols of difference, a form of superficial inclusion, and hijabis are shown as subjugated, an Orientalist trope, all while showcasing Sana’s agency within her community. Watching Sana’s struggles, viewers learn about the interior lives of hijabis and the pressures they face in unwelcoming places. This textual analysis of the Skam universe utilizing Said’s Orientalism and Abu-Lughod’s articulation of postcolonial feminist theory for analysis, interrogates how teen programming portrays the social and political tensions between Islam and the West through the experiences of Sana, a hijabi teen.