‘Al Rawabi’ series takes centre stage at dialogue session

AMMAN — Shining a light on Jordanian high school drama, the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation (AHSF) on Monday conducted a dialogue session titled “Al Rawabi School… Did Jordanian Drama Go Beyond its Locality”.

Producer and Director of “Al Rawabi School for Girls” Tima Shomali joined the session which took place at the AHSF headquarters in Amman, and was also held virtually over the video conferencing platform Zoom, and live streamed on AHSF’s Facebook page.

The session, moderated by film Director Ghada Saba, mainly discussed how “realistically” the Jordanian drama series depicted societal issues that face youth, particularly girls at school.

“Al Rawabi School for Girls” is a Netflix original series that revolves around students and the problems they face in school, most importantly bullying.

“There are people who contend that the series reflects their realities and own experiences, but others believe that it does not represent the Jordanian society,” Shomali said during the session.

She continued by saying that one story cannot integrate all social conflicts and issues. She pointed out that “Al Rawabi School for Girls”, which is the second Jordanian Netflix original series, did not talk about a specific problem in a particular country.

However, the series focused on youth in all societies, emphasising the strong feelings of high school girls and the many societal challenges they deal with.

The Netflix series has uncovered bullying, according to Shomali, who described the phenomenon as a “new term to us”. She noted that the series took a new tone towards bullying that was different from a didactic point of view.

The Jordanian series premiered in 197 countries, and ranked highest among the top 10 most watched movies and shows in Arab and non-Arab countries.