Nudity. Sex. Money. Drugs.
That’s what comes into mind when the show “Euphoria” is mentioned.
While the marketing and public view, and assumption is a show entirely about sex and drugs, the reality is that it’s tackling deeper conversations about relationships and intimacy.
The American one hour drama series, “Euphoria” follows the troubled life of Rue, a 17-year old drug addict. Within their vicinity and mindzone are Jules, a transgender girl searching for a place to belong to; Maddy, a headstrong teen in a mental and physical battle with their abusive significant other Nate; Cassie, whose sexual history gets in the way of forming meaningful relationships; Nate, a future football star with abusive and malicious tendencies; and Kat, a self-conscious teen whose exploring her identity.
As the students navigate through the tricky waters of life, the series progresses and tackles teenage-perspective issues; from substance-enhanced parties to nerve-racking daily activities.
“Euphoria” is a lot more than the typical teen drama that highlights alcohol and substance abuse. In the show it deals with three common themes: sexuality, identity, and familiarity.
“It’s something that people have been looking forward to every Sunday, here they call it ‘Euphoria’ Sunday,” said Brianna Herren, a Mass Communication student.
However, does Euphoria’s advertisement marketing convey and capture the essence of teenagers relying on substances and dressing in confidence stylized in bold and saturated colors to exaggerate the character’s personality?
Yes, however, the show implores you to dive deep and reflect on “ this hits-home” philosophical thoughts. Euphoria’s characters provide context and representation to the dark realistic experiences that we all at one point had experienced.
Let’s take a look at Rue Bennet, while her character is primarily associated with substance abuse, a lot of it stemmed from them coping with their father’s death and balancing multiple mental illnesses.
While on paper, it might seem like Rue Bennet’s problems can be fixed if they simply “just got better” it just doesn’t work that way. Euphoria depicts drug addicts’ withdrawals and relapses through Rue; from a waxing and waning phase coined by Bennet to destroying every relationship around them to feel still and motionless for just one second.
Substance abuse isn’t glamorized, but emphasized to the point that Bennet has to rely on it.
While “Euphoria” centralizes their themes related to the American teen archetypes, it does a great job pushing their messages forward and causing people to create chatter around the end of the show.
For example, understanding the boundaries between toxicity and love; “Euphoria” depicts romance in a darker tone. While on the surface, Maddy and Nate’s relationship can be picture perfect where one compliments the other the both of them experience traumatic images that leaves deeper wounds that can and will continually inflict them.
Maddy, coming from a broken household where both of their parents don’t glance in each other’s direction. Nate, being the golden boy of football, witnesses their dad’s sex-tapes with underage boys.
While these might be exaggerated versions of a persona, everyone knows a couple that’s not right for each other and somehow is still together after constant downhill battles.
“It’s a show, but it does reveal some truth to it. Like as far as you probably would know somebody who’s just like the character or maybe even relate to,” says Marisa Mena, a San Joaquin Delta College student.
As Maddy is canonically painted as the headstrong baddie, her relationship with Nate illustrates that even the most confident can feel powerless in the hands of a broken relationship.
Their relationship highlights the common phrase, “you can’t break something when it’s already broken” in the show, these two always try to one-up the other ex-partner. While they may mask their head-strong personalities, lies two broken people who can’t settle on fixing a relationship that’s fragile and can be easily broken.
“I think it does touch on, it makes it funny and worse, but it definitely is something that teenagers struggle with in terms of sexuality. Using the example of Cassie, I feel like her character is all about validation,” says Sarah Teixeira, a Mass Communication student at San Joaquin Delta College, “Which is why a lot of scenes are always about relationships; because it’s something she craves. Even like with Nate and his hypermasculinity, or even Kat trying to show herself off in a way that she never really does.”
What sets “Euphoria” apart is the attention to detail and story telling.
Jules’ experience as a transgender girl navigating through sexuality and identity emphasizes the prevalent hook-up culture.
In the show, Jules struggles to find a connection even going through lengths of using dating apps to meet older men. With this, she uses this as an effort to be loved and cherished. It’s one of those moments, when they realized that in-order to feel loved and appreciated is during intercourse. Sex, an intimate and private action that’s commonly shared between two people.
Jules’ experience highlights a realistic experience that expands more than online dating but to feel connected with someone even if it’s for an evening; feel that during this moment in time, that you’re loved, and not alone again on another night.
Euphoria does a great job at highlighting LGBT issues when it comes to validation. One of Jules core memories as a child is their mother enrolling them into extensive therapy to mediate or defer Jules identity.
It was an experience that was truly heartbreaking. Although words cannot describe the cinematography and script-writing of the scene, it portrayed a young girl not being fully supported and accepted for who they are. Instead, seen as outrageous and a threat against the status quo, their mother enrolls them into a psychiatric hospital.
“I think ‘Euphoria’ touches on harder subjects that aren’t normalized and talked about in most TV shows. It kind of brings light on the situations, maybe something that someone is going through that is comforted,” says Herren.
While “Euphoria” might be a glamorized version of our experiences, it serves as a unique stance on the emotions and journey of navigating through highschool. Not only do they execute realistic and relatable script-writing, they pace the story where they don’t satisfy the insatiable hunger to crave more; to want more for the characters.