For the past 6 weeks, Monday morning has been my favourite time of the week. Shocked, you may be, but I’m sure a small niche of Euphoria-loving others may understand where I’m coming from. Props to you if you were one of the ones who managed to stay up until silly o-clock in the morning to tune in live with American airtime, but for me, the past 6 weeks have consisted of my housemates waking me up as early as possible, the three of us running downstairs and shutting the living room curtains so to get the full experience. One morning we even had popcorn and it hadn’t even hit 9am. This week, however, there was a Euphoria-shaped hole in our day, so instead, we spent the same hour debriefing the series… as you do. The conversation we had brought up a whole lot, and we left it wondering whether the show was really as good to us as we first thought. Don’t get me wrong, the cinematography was incredible, and the soundtrack beyond beautiful, but a lot of the show’s plotlines were perhaps more traumatic to us than we originally received.
As with all non-PG shows, each episode is preceded by an announcement with warnings that the show contains “depictions of drug abuse, very strong language, some strong violence, scenes of a sexual nature and strong images of nudity from the start”. Just a few days before the release of the first episode, Zendaya, who plays protagonist Rue, took independently to Instagram to release her own, more sincere warning, reminding viewers that the show is for mature audiences only. It read;
“This season, maybe even more so than the last, is deeply emotional and deals with subject matter that can be triggering and difficult to watch. Please only watch it if you feel comfortable. Take care of yourself and know that either way you are still loved and I can still feel you support. All my love, Daya.”
Being twenty-one now, I sometimes forget these trigger warnings still apply to me. The whole way through Euphoria, I’ve found myself so encapsulated by its style and visual escapism, that I’ve been almost blinded from its extremely dark substance. In the first episode of this season alone there’s a shooting at a strip club, drink driving, emotional manipulation, a near over-dose of a 17 year old, and a fight leaving one of the main characters on the verge of death. It’s a lot to take in in just one hour.
Euphoria has been criticised from the get-go for it’s dark and twisted storylines. The amount of mature sex, violence, and nudity that the show displays through every episode makes it difficult to believe these characters are meant to be just 17. But for many teens and young adults watching, these issues are not just plotlines… they’re real life.
So, the question is, is the show triggering or beneficial in terms of its exposure of teen/young adult issues?
Let’s embark with the main plotline, and the underlying reason for the metaphorical eccentric cinematography – Rue’s opiate drug addiction. For many this is just a disturbing storyline, but for some young people, including director Sam Levinson, this is real life, and many took to TikTok and other social media platforms to express how triggering the show was to their own recovery. Rue’s storyline is haunted by Levinson’s own experiences to losing himself to drug addiction when he was in his young adult years
The show succeeds in not glamourising substance abuse to young audiences, unlike other teen/young adult shows such Channel 4’s ‘Skins’, which, 15 years after its release, is still just as popular amongst teen and young adult audiences as it was when it first hit television screens. Skins and Euphoria are disparate in their representation of drug usage, with the teenage characters of Skins using drugs for recreational purposes, in comparison to Rue’s clear reliance on them, resulting in her unmistakable demise. Euphoria is unsparing in its honesty of what drug addiction can do and lead to, thus hopefully deterring young audiences from recreational drug usage rather than promoting it. This no doubt rises the debate as to whether or not the inclusion of drug usage in teen and young adult entertainment is automatically glamourous, and whether or not it should be seen at all. On the one hand, yes, it is important to depict real issues and struggles that young people go through, both to make others aware and to create supporting communities, but Rue uses drugs as an antidote for her depression despite their negative side effects, so are these scenes perhaps setting precedent for other young people going through similar issues? However, lets be honest, I’m sure the show would still be criticised for aestheticizing addiction if its depiction was too filtered, so if the shows gonna show drug usage in young people, at least it’s been explicit in its negative effects.
Perhaps it is difficult to believe in the show when each and every single character has such a seemingly traumatic or upsetting life, but it’s important to remember that behind closed doors, most young people are dealing with something. The difference is, we’re an audience watching and subconsciously dealing with each characters’ issues all at the same time. The show takes adolescent issues seriously without belittling them. Alongside drug addiction, sex shaming, abortions, emotional and physical abuse, web personas and mental health issues are all touched upon, which definitely makes for uncomfortable watching, but is at the same time both reassuring and educational.
One scene that stood out beyond any other when discussing the educational purposes of shows such as Euphoria, is in the first episode of the entire series. The characters are at a house party, and character McKay (played by Algee Smith) takes his girlfriend Cassie (Sydney Sweeny) to the bedroom to have sex. During this, he begins to choke her to which she stops him immediately, upset that he could do such a thing and confused as to why. He explains to her that he had seen it in porn and ‘thought it was what girls liked’, highlighting contemporary issues of the impact of pornography on young people. In those regards, I can understand the success in Euphoria in educating young people through entertainment mediums, but once the nudity, sex and violence is taken away from the series, what’s actually left?
So, all in all Euphoria sure has its ups and its downs. I respect its honesty to adolescent issues, but I think that by the end of this series, we’re all in need of a break. How a person reacts to events in shows such as Euphoria is of course variant depending on their own personal experiences, but I don’t think that the effect they can have on individuals is spoken about enough, so it’s important that us twentysomething year olds stick together in starting and maintaining discussions such as this. But that’s just my opinion.
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