Sarah Youseff as Tasneem has been able to effectively bring out the vileness of the character in the second season of Alrawabi School for Girls. The queen bee of the school is seemingly perfect, and all the girls in her class are just crumbs of that supremacy. She is equally beautiful and smart, which helps her garner a lot of admirers. Little do people know about the wickedness that she has deep within the fake smile helps her conceal her real intentions. Will Tasneem realize her flaws later? Will she try to help Sarah? Let’s find out!
Spoilers Ahead
Why Did Tasneem Want To Create A Fake Image Of Herself?
Tasneem, who was considered to be the most popular girl in Alrawabi School for girls, wanted to wear a fake persona around others. She wanted others to think that she was perfect and did not have any flaws. She would sugarcoat her words just to make others believe that she was sweet like a fairy. Little did people know about her real side and the fact that she was extremely self-centered. It is possible that her quest to make herself look like the perfect girl in class stemmed from an over-controlling mother. She was always in fear of her mother and wanted to prove a point to her.
She was intent on garnering followers on social media so that she could be more popular among her classmates. However, during a game, it was revealed that Tasneem would buy followers on social media just to have that appearance of popularity. The spoiled little girl that Tasneem was made her walk all over everyone. Despite her pretense, she had a set of ardent followers, which shows how skillful she was as a manipulator. Tasneem was extremely self-conscious and wanted to ensure that she was the most sought-after personality in her school.
Was Her Eating Disorder A Result Of Her Familial Stress?
The seemingly perfect life of Tasneem was, however, a fake image that she had built for herself. Tasneem’s mother expected her to be a perfect girl and could not digest the fact that her daughter was a normal human being who was allowed to have flaws. The stress that the over-expectations of her mother gave her made her fall back into an eating disorder. Whenever she would feel stressed, she would eat and vomit it out. The symptoms hinted at the fact that she was bulimic.
Tasneem was often seen giving in to her anxiety, eating to her heart’s content, and then puking it out. This trait was seen in her when Hiba dissed her for giving too much importance to Sarah. She was also seen falling back on her habit when she thought that her boyfriend was cheating on her with Nadeen. Despite the trauma that Tasneem was facing, she was unable to discuss her problems openly with her mother. It was not until Nadeen advised her to turn to her mother and tell her the issues she was facing that she decided to open up about her troubles.
The high expectations that her mother had of her made her mold herself into a selfish character who would only look after her own interests. The side effect of the wannabe ‘perfect girl’ resulted in her developing stress due to her subdued feelings over the years. She tried venting out her frustrations by relying on her eating disorder.
How Was Tasneem Using Sarah?
Tasneem had been exploiting Sarah to gain more followers on all her social media accounts after Sarah became famous. She invited her to her home and brought her into her group.
She was being overly friendly with Sarah, as she knew that associating with her would help her gain more popularity. These events bring out her selfishness, as she had started being overly friendly with Sarah after her transformation. When Sarah was just a nobody, she wouldn’t even look at her. Her vile mindset was revealed when, one day, she told Hiba that she was just friends with Sarah because Sarah’s tags on social media were helping her garner more followers. She sugarcoated her words with Sarah and tried to make her feel included in her group just to utilize her and use her fame as a pillar of her own success. She also used Sarah to go to big influencer parties.
Tasneem’s words of comfort to Sarah were just to manipulate her and not because she thought of her as a very close friend. Tasneem decided not to even stand up for Sarah when she was being absolutely destroyed by others. She thought that standing by Sarah’s side could tarnish her own reputation, making people think that even she was like Sarah. She did not think twice before turning her back on her so-called best friend when she needed her the most!
Why Did Tasneem Want To Help Sarah?
It was not until Hiba and the other girls started ignoring Tasneem that she realized the true value of friendship. She went to Nadeen and sought her forgiveness for a rift that they had had three years ago. Tasneem told Nadeen that they had to stop Shams from making the documentary on Sarah, as it would break her spirits even more. She realized that Sarah had already been very traumatized after the incident and wanted to protect her. She went to Shams’ house along with Nadeen to delete the videos that she had made for the documentary. She was eventually successful in deleting the videos, but that, however, couldn’t keep Shams from creating the documentary anyway.
When Tasneem was cornered for the first time in her life, she understood the pain that it caused others. She realized that she had been mean to others and that her comments had hurt them. She wanted to make sure that she made up for all her sins by trying to help Sarah out of the hopeless situation that she was in. She realized that friends like Hiba could turn their backs on her any day and that she should better stick to loyal friends like Nadeen and Sarah. The mental comfort that she had with Nadeen and the way she could open up to her were things that she could not do with her fake friends. Over time, Tasneem started realizing the importance of true friendship and started rooting for Sarah.
Final Thoughts
The portrayal of the seemingly perfect girl with a thousand problems and inner conflicts that are concealed from the rest of the world has been effectively done through Tasneem. She chose to portray herself as an infallible character at school so that nobody could question her or cross her path like her controlling mother at home. The impact of bad parenting on a teenager’s mind has also been highlighted through the character of Tasneem in Alrawabi School for Girls season 2. Tasneem’s transformation in the second season of the series has been portrayed quite subtly. She might have been portrayed as extremely mean in the first segment, but later, a series of events made her a completely different person.
