#watching young justice s2 and man. the ambassador is so scary

[saprophetic]

really love when media has the bad guy be a man with evangelical pastor vibes. i love when the villain gives speeches that crowds love but skeeve me out

[nooradeservedbetter]

i'm very curious because i don't watch Skam but i always see Noora being hailed by the fandom as a social justice heroine and flawless angel -could you elaborate to which extent she's homophobic and a performative activist? I hardly ever see fans discuss this and it's a bit offputting

Hi anon!

To preface this answer, I want it to be clear that I love Noora. I love her as a character, I love her in ships (I ship her with… three different people? Like? If that’s not love idk what it is) and I relate to her a lot. Like when I was her age, I was a mix between Noora and Jonas, no joking. When I was her age, I was also A Shithead, and I think that a lot of her problems stem from her being 16.

That said. (Under a readmore because it’s image-heavy!)

In s2 there is one scene that makes me iffy re her lesbophobia (actually, it’s two but) and it’s about Mari, a girl that ends up having an important role but we still don’t know what when it happens.

Noora is in the bathroom putting on lipstick, Mari comes out of a stall, smiles at noora and then goes “you look sexy with that lipstick on”, not in a mean way but just. You know, nice.

[Source.]

And Noora immediately takes it off. Which can absolutely be tied to her struggle with her eating disorder and her not wanting to be seen as a sexual object, but. But then she calls her a “bitch” which is so unlike Noora and especially after she spent all her time going off at Vilde for how unfeminist she was being????

(I know it’s a bad screencap, rip.)

About her homophobia, it’s all tied to Isak’s story. I mean, I already think that Noora and Eva being obsessed with Isak’s sexuality is kinda… I guess that was the best thing they could come up with to set his role in s3? But still, it’s a bit iffy and could have been addressed. It doesn’t get addressed, they happily speculate about the sexuality of someone who’s struggling, and having lived–still living–the closet, it’s something really, really scary.

Plus:

[I’m sorry I don’t have the source of this gif bc I had it saved, if someone knows please hmu?]

This is what she says to Eva talking about Eskild hitting on a guy, like literally the same attitude as Straight Girl Emma™ saying “all gays are nice” or something. Yikes yikes yike yiks, you know.

Also she literally says to Eskild when he wants Isak’s instagram “I won’t give it to you, or you’re going to stalk him” but I don’t remember in which part of the season so I can’t take a screencap. But it was lowkey intender “because he’s a young pretty boy and you, a gay man, can’t resist that”. Ew?

After that, there’s the whole performative activism kind of mess.

In 2x05 there is a scene where Noora comes back home and finds Eskild in her room with Lito, the son of the Turkish ambassador who apparently left university to help with the refugee crisis. Eskild is trying to steal Noora’s clothes to donate them to Syrian refugees just to get into Lito’s pants (don’t let me get started on that, sigh), and Noora is–rightfully–pissed off. And the conversation goes like this:

Eskild is doing it literally just to get into Lito’s pants, and he’s moralising what he’s doing quite clearly. And yet he really gets under her skin insinuating that she doesn’t care. And she… kind of… starts to care. Or, I mean, “care”:

(Eskild doesn’t care, but it’s not like she thought about donating–or, in this case, make Eva donate–before Eskild got under her skin like that.)

And she keeps

Bringing it up

With everyone

And she acts like she has the moral high ground of this (it’s always in things like “why do you care about that when there are refugees dying? Look at me, I care about refugees!”), and in the end this happens with the Penetrators.

(There’s a text after this one who says “but only if you come to the party”. I can’t screencap it because it’s subtitled with the background conversation but. You know. She replies “you’re wrong in your head if you think i’ll come”, and he says “no that’s you. think of the refugees” and she starts bargaining on the amount.)

Someone corrects me if I’m wrong, but I think the refugee issue doesn’t get talked about again after this. (After that week in which Noora is butthurt over Eskild calling her out–and Eskild called her out because he was butthurt over the fact that she was ruining his plans to hit on someone.)(Amazing, isn’t it?)

[I’m sure there’s more instances, but these are the ones I can give you over the top of my head, I should rewatch the season to see it better, and it’s kinda triggering for me so idk if I can do it! I hope I was detailed enough tho?]

Does this mean Noora is a bad person? No, it means she’s 16 and her mind works like the mind of a 16-year-old. We can’t expect her to be mature, and we can’t hold her to the same standards we hold adults.

But also, does this mean Noora is a social justice heroine? Hell no, and it’s kinda iffy that the show doesn’t call out these attitudes. Noora is 16, but the show is made by adult people, and I hold them to higher standards than teenagers.