The Teen In Me Loves Euphoria
While the mom in me screams in fear.
Therein lies the dichotomy of my inner conflict: I’m an adult woman who loves to watch teen dramas, and I’m a mother of three. Two of which are teen boys.
Yes, I watched “13 Reasons Why,” and I actually use examples from the Hunger Games for teaching. And now the adult woman in me, Tess, who was once a girl teen herself back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, can’t stop binging season 1 of the hit show, Euphoria by HBO. The mama in me, mother to a ten-year-old girl plus the teen boys, feels her heart racing and a nervous stomach throughout each episode. It’s very much close to home, “…a gleefully excessive soap on the outsized trials and tribulations of suburban California teens” labels The Guardian. That’s basically my backyard.
Why would I willingly put myself through such a shot of nerves, then, you ask? Because I discovered two days ago that my oldest son, my 17-year-old, has already watched the entire season. Ok, that’s not the only reason why…
To be clear, I’m still steadily binging but haven’t finished the season, which I can already tell has probably not peaked in terms of its hypersexual scenes or graphic portrayals of drug use. But I need to know what my son saw, and what inevitably my freshman boy will probably soon watch. By the way, I’m not on Tik Tok but I know Euphoria is all over that medium. I know it’s the most tweeted about show of the decade (Twitter reported), and HBO has reported it’s the second most watched show since 2004, with “16.3 million viewers per episode.” I also know it inspired the makeup my son’s girlfriend and all her friends wore to the winter formal.
For this meditation on tv, I’m going to openly list what I love and hate about the show, in relation to my own life (and, well, the human condition).
Things I love:
The characters: I’m not exactly sure how a middle-aged, male head writer (and the one who conceived of the show) can be so in touch with today’s Cis teens (this point fits into my things I hate section below too). In fact, all the characters are inklings of people I’ve ran into at some point in my life: Fez, Cassie’s mom, Nate, McKay. The one character I haven’t met in my life is Jules…which leads me to my next point:
The character Jules: I love her for many reasons; that we don’t see trans teens much on screen, that the actress who plays her is trans, that through Rue and Jules’s relationship we witness the intersection of sex and gender, that we see how their generation views and integrates nonconformists into their community. I love that Nate represents a closed state of humanity, and is most terrified of Jules because she represents what he can never do: be himself, be free, and be accepting.
The Cis, white boy and his rage: I think it’s important to understand that rage is a learned behavior, and aware of how not to be on the other end of it. I don’t think the show glorifies pent up rage, yet at this point Nate is getting away with beating up one boy to a pulp, choking his girlfriend, and manhandling Jules. If there’s no retribution, this point will fall into things I hate below.
Does not glorify addiction: Zendaya does an incredible job portraying an addict, and the show does not make the handcuffs look fun. The trick is to make the high NOT outweigh the low — so however great the drug looks, the come down is ten times worse.
Things I hate:
That men wrote these two seasons. Hate it. I don’t know for sure if there are no female writers, but everything I’ve read has said that it’s all male writers. Although I commend the head writer for being in touch with his teen self, I also can’t understand why he’s writing so much over sexualization of teen girls. As one Medium commentator stated in a post, the actress herself has to rehearse being raped, and then record it most likely in multiple takes — all while being watched by male writers, producers, cameramen. Nevermind the millions of male teens who consume the scene and ingest it.
The hypersexualization of young girls. See point above. It’s basically soft core porn (or maybe it is). There’s this portrayal of how teen girls think they need to present themselves to male teens. The message I’m getting is even though you might feel like you’re 16 inside, still a kid who likes to goof around on the ferris wheel and suck on slushies, you should also be wearing short skirts, heavy make up and be ready to have sex behind a ride.
I’m not a lover or a hater, but I’m a binger. The show has a pull, obviously if it can retain those kinds of numbers. I’m curious to see if it’s able to maintain this level of soapy-yet-compelling narrative or jump the shark in an attempt to up the theatrics and hurtle so far from realism it’s no longer relatable?
In the end, I’m trying to walk that line of not taking it too seriously, it’s just television afterall. But, also, I know media has a huge influence on people, especially our young ones. I was influenced; I can count the ways. I’ve decided the best I can do is participate and be aware.
