AlRawabi School for Girls

An exceptional piece of storytelling, this mini-series delves into the grim realities of bullying and the pervasive influence of abusive authority figures on school-aged girls in Jordan. It sheds light on the experiences of girls navigating a deeply sexist and misogynistic society, where fear of violence and familial retribution is commonplace. From objectification to victim-blaming, the show starkly illustrates the myriad challenges faced by young girls. It skillfully unveils the distorted priorities of Jordanian and Middle Eastern societies regarding women's rights, depicting how girls are often broken at home and further fractured in school. Notably, it refrains from using the 'broken glass panel analogy' to caution against mistreating these girls to the point of shattering their spirits.

This 6-episode series is a solid production from Jordan. I like to point my opinion in specific points if you bear with me 1- Its main case (and almost all cast) are females, which is something new to Jordan and even Arabic drama.

2- The music/songs in the series are pretty solid, seem to come from different accents. I didn't like it though when Liann was lip-singing to a well-known Arabic song for 3 minutes in Ep 3 or 4. Just felt very unauthentic. Otherwise music was superior.

3- The acting was mostly well-done, you could feel the expressions of pain/anger/joy on their faces are mostly real. Occasionally though you could feel it was amateurish.

4- The accent used was the "modern" Arabic spoken in Jordan, claimed to be one spoken by the wealthy even though I don't think that's true. However it's a dialect that the cast and producer probably felt more comfortable using but it's why other reviewers were disappointed calling this series a poor representative of the authentic traditional Jordanian accent.

5- the series focus on toxic relationships between students and bullying. I don't remember this being portrayed in Arab series before despite it happening in all Jordanian schools I know of (happened in my school and every Jordanian friend of mine in other schools).

6- There are some subtle feminist messages - it's not shameful to talk about your period, how women get degraded for being in love, "the honor" of a girl being permanently lost for sending a slightly inappropriate picture. I like how subtle but important these messages were.

I understand if others didn't like the series as much as I did. Possibly other men won't relate to it as much. But the ones who gave it a "1" are Jordanians triggered by a strong female cast, the discussion of tabooed topics, girls not being dressed very conservatively, the modern Jordanian accent....etc. The themes that this series focuses on are very widespread in Jordanian schools and in the society. Tina Shomali tried to avoid controversial scenes (no kissing) or language (no heavy swearing) in order to not distract from the main focus of the series.

Overall I think she and the crew did a great job.

Season 1 was brilliant, well thought out and engaging. *But* it set the bar for season 2 impossibly high.

Here are the main issues I had with season 2:

• Tima Shomali, the producer, didn't disprove the rumors about the release date until many fake release dates circled around the internet in the 2.5 years we waited. She disproved them on 10 August 2023 and didn't even give us a rough timeframe. I get that she wanted to use the hype to her advantage but it has worked against her, as fans were infuriated by this whole situation
• The show wasn't originally planned to have more seasons. The producer had clearly given in to the pressure from fans and/or the appeal of repeating season 1's success. She was out of ideas and it shows. I didn't appreciate that she changed the makeup of the series but recycled major plot points and gave us a similar ending to season 1
• Season 2 killed the rewatch value of season 1, as it doesn't do it justice. As much as I loved season 1, I'm afraid I'll never go back to this show again.

• Maybe we could've enjoyed season 2 as its own story, had our expectations been properly managed by giving us a hint that we won't get a sequel but more of an anthology continuation. They kept hyping the new season up so much for 2.5 years but what we got was underwhelming the least to say and many people are rightfully disappointed and frustrated.

• I'd like to pay special attention to the time they took to make this season. 1 year of writing and 8 months of editing and *this* is the result? People in the producer's team clearly decided to spare her feelings on more than one occasion, judging by the result. Also how on earth does it take 8 months for a team of professional video editors to put together *6* episodes?

The bottom line is that it's hard to repeat the success of something undeniably remarkable and it's even harder to admit that you tried and failed.

I can't in good conscience give the show less than 7/10 and I only take away 3 stars because of season 2.

Not really sure how Jordan lifestyle is, but that wasn't western like everyone is saying. Maybe some of the music, but that's about it. Lol or are westerners the only ones that have teenagers that bully others? If they threw a McDonald's in there I would have agreed, but other than that, very different. Honestly I like seeing a different aspect to a typical teen show and found it entertaining. Hope there is a season 2 because of that ending.

Ignore all the haters and prepare your self to watch something that could be considered a step forward for Jordanian tv. Criticise constructively, its how we can support them.