I love finding new series to watch. It’s like an undiscovered gem waiting to be found and shared with the world. Tumblr, admittedly, fuels that and is the reason I came across SKAM. While scrolling through my feed last year, I found a gif set of a girl calling out another girl for calling her friend a slut. This piqued my interest and after a few minutes of searching, I found out that it was from a Norwegian web series called SKAM (translated to ‘Shame’ in English). I did more googling, found the first season with subtitles, binged the first season and was sucked into the web series, SKAM.
The teen drama follows the lives of a group of students who attend Hartvig Nissen School. There are four seasons in total and each one revolves around a different student, giving the audience a different perspective and how the characters lives intertwine with others. I grew to love the series and find that is one of the most accurate portrayals of teenagers and high school. These are some of the reasons you should watch SKAM:
- The characters are fleshed out brilliantly and you can relate to them
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The first season revolves around Eva Kviig Mohn who was starting her first year at Hartvig Nissen School. She’s awkward and doesn’t have any friends yet because she’s spent so much time with her boyfriend Jonas. Within the first episode, it’s obvious that she’s dealing with problems from one of her old friends and has trouble making new friends. As the season continues she deals with love, friendship, sadness and heartbreak, but it doesn’t come off as forced conflict but seems more fluid and natural. This is because the director of SKAM interviewed over 1000 teenagers and then wrote characters based on the actors who she could create stories for. The actors also had input into their own characters to make it believable. Every character has their flaws and it’s not blatantly hidden or brushed off as a ‘cute quirk’. All the actors bring their roles to life, each one with a unique feel.
- The show deals with real life issues in a sensitive matter and has great representation of it
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Bullying, sex, homosexuality, cheating, sexual harassment, drug usage and mental illnesses are just a few topics that SKAM highlights throughout the seasons. One of the main characters in season four, Sana, is Muslim and has experienced ignorant comments about Islam from season 1 but that doesn’t stop her from putting people in their place. It is refreshing to see a religious girl represented in media, especially when religion can be a sensitive topic and media tends to shy away from it.
- The amount of girl power is fantastic!
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Womxm in media are rarely shown supporting each other and society has a skewed way of depicting teenage girls. This is not the case in SKAM and the girl power shown is unbelievably amazing. The girls do have their disagreements and can’t stand each other sometimes, but they are loyal and will help each other out even if the idea is completely stupid. I was floored when I finished season one and all the girls stood together no matter how bad the situation got and gave each other advice.
- It will make you want to learn more about Norwegian culture (especially Russ)
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Russ is a huge three week long party that happens after the students have graduated and takes place before their exams start. These students take it to the extreme and usually start planning Russ from the beginning of their high school life (roughly three years). Russ includes buying a bus and fundraising to be able to decorate the bus. The whole point of Russ is for the students to be able to party and have fun after graduating. Quite a few towns get involved with Russ and host music festivals, as well as sponsor Russ groups. For more information on Russ and Russ culture, this article explains it pretty well. It could be the equivalent of a Matric ball, but involves buying a bus and going on a week long music festival across the country as an after party. I asked two Norwegian girls, Brontë and Andrea, in my Anthropology class about Russ and they immediately reinforced how important it is to partake in Russ otherwise you’re considered an outsider. SKAM portrays that perfectly in peer pressures of being in a good Russ and how it will change your social status according to Vilde, one of the main characters, in season one.
- Episodes are fairly short and the characters have their own social medias
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Skam episodes range from being eleven minutes to 21 minutes long which makes it easy for binging as well as a nice quick study break before getting back to work. One thing that is incredibly special about SKAM is that the main characters have social media, like their own Instagram. You can find a full list all of their Instagrams here.
- There are different versions of SKAM
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If you’ve binged the whole four seasons already and feeling the post-SKAM withdrawals or the Norwegian one just doesn’t interest you at all, don’t worry! After SKAM became a global sensation, it was announced that there would be French, Italian, Druck (German) and Austin (American) versions of SKAM made with other versions to follow. The French and German SKAM do follow the original Norwegian SKAM plot quite closely, but fans are hoping that the other SKAM adaptations will have slightly different plots and changes. This has been noticed and SKAM Espana (Spain) decided to have a lesbian couple in season 3 instead of a gay couple like the other versions.
Fans were overjoyed with new takes on the characters and comparing iconic scenes together. I won’t say what else has changed to prevent spoilers, but give SKAM a try. The writing is fantastic, a great rep for the LGBTQ+ community and you’ll fall in love with the characters. SKAM took me on a journey that I am excited to relive with watching the remakes. I hope that it will give you the same joy it has given me!