Much of the debate about the HBO teen drama series Euphoria (2019-) centers on its portrayal of drug use. This is understandable, if also predictable. There is a plethora of drug use on the show, and, while Americans continue to debate the relative merits or demerits of marijuana, there remains a broad-based opposition to opioids such as heroin and fentanyl—drugs that also appear regularly on the series. Euphoria centers on a teenage girl named Rue Bennett (Zendaya, in a performance that utterly shatters her Disney Channel persona), who falls into drug addiction after the death of her father. As the show’s narrator, Rue situates her story in the larger context of youth culture in Southern California. In this sense, Euphoria formally resembles a series such as Saved by the Bell (1989-93), with Rue effectively taking the place of Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar). Both shows take a clique of high-school students and treat them as representative of different aspects of the teenage experience. It’s just that, in Euphoria, the content of that experience is shockingly different. Gone is Saved by the Bell’s hangout of choice—a local diner called The Max—replaced by seemingly daily ragers at the house of some absent (or indifferent) parent. Burgers and Pepsis have given way to Everlear shots and Oxycontin pills.
Helmed by showrunner/writer Sam Levinson, Euphoria has the feel of Casino era Scorsese and Boogie Nights era Paul Thomas Anderson—kinetic, explosive filmmaking. There is extensive use of freeze frames, tracking shots, needle drops, metatheatricality (“breaking the fourth wall”), and various lighting techniques. Its form thus reflects its content. Herein, I think, lies the concern with Euphoria’s portrayal of drug use. According to the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program, the show glamorizes drug use and other social vices. Even Zendaya has admitted that, in showing “the difficulties of navigating life today," Euphoria features “scenes that are graphic, hard to watch and can be triggering. Please only watch if you feel you can handle it." In contrast, others have argued that Euphoria is a kind of morality play, showing how the ecstatic seductiveness of youth culture bears a dark underbelly of anxiety, depression, and self-harm. Indeed, on this reading, what began as a “statement” about postmodern transgressiveness is evolving into a more nuanced study of character.
For my own part, I think Euphoria’s apologists and detractors are actually missing the real “difference maker” in the series. Despite changing television mores, it’s not as if Euphoria’s most controversial elements (drugs, sex, porn, etc.) are new to youth culture. What is new how easily these elements are organized, shared, enhanced, and popularized via the Internet and smartphones. Indeed, the various characters of Euphoria are constantly online; it is where they live and move and, in a sense, have their being. But this leads to a palpable existential disconnect. For example, one character paradoxically decides to leave her boyfriend because he is nicer than the guys she meets online. Indeed, for many on the show, the intoxicating flux of digital existence seems reproducible in reality, that is, until they run up against painful reminders of law and order. And yet, Euphoria never really explores the role of the Internet in its characters’ lives. To the extent that it is a critique of youth culture, its analysis remains (to borrow Martin Heidegger’s famous distinction) on an ontic rather than on an ontological level. Euphoria shows us the symptoms but fails to check for the disease.
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Truly an impressive range of subject-matter within one week, from Clausewitz to Zack Morris! :D
Really like seeing your perspective on these big topics. I suspect the internet is so much a part of a teenagers life, it is like wallpaper. It is just there. And one can argue it does as much good as harm.