Euphoria is an American teen drama television series created and written by Sam Levinson for HBO with 16.3 million viewers.
The series stars Zendaya as Rue Bennett, a troubled teenage drug addict who struggles to get sober, find her place in the world, and adjust to her relationships after rehab.
The series has received generally positive reviews, with praise for its cinematography, score, performances of the cast, and approach to its mature subject matter. However, some critics found the nudity and sexual content excessive due to the high school setting and its teenage characters.
Euphoria follows high schoolers who seek hope while balancing the strains of love, loss, sex, and addiction.
“Things explored during the series include child abuse, drug abuse, toxic relationships, toxic positivity, hookup culture, revenge porn, blackmail, codependency, abortion, infidelity, relapsing, gender transition, repressed homosexuality, sobriety, human trafficking, domestic violence, rape, self-harm, toxic masculinity, drug dealing, dating violence, mental illness, mental health, anger issues, depression, temper tantrum, hallucination, theft, attempted murder, alcoholism, and grief” is what you get when you search up what Euphoria is about.
Now is Euphoria accurate to real life high school students’ experience in High School? Looking at it from a normal perspective, you would think the events of the series are absolutely unbelievable.
However, many students struggle with these things in their everyday life. When you really get to know somebody, you see all the under layers and find out who they really are and what they struggle with. Let’s talk about the main topics explored in Euphoria.
Teen Drug Abuse.
Although in Euphoria, the characters are shown doing hard kcore drugs, I believe this is very accurate.
Many students struggle with drug abuse every single day, no matter the drug. Around 5,926 teens die of overdose a year. The series shows real raw struggles with “withdrawal” from the drug.
It also shows how drugs can affect a person’s everyday life and how it changes them. It displays how drug abuse can have a horrible impact on one’s mental health, and cause conflict in relationships. In reality, teens struggle with drug abuse everyday and it is an ongoing problem because people keep feeding into the source.
Toxic relationships.
Toxic Relationships are something almost every teen has dealt with. Toxic is the new normal when it comes to relationships.
People find it cute to gaslight, manipulate and disrespect their partners. In the series, we witness the relationship of Maddy and Nate.
Nate Jacobs and Maddy Perez are two problematic characters who both contribute unhealthy tendencies to the relationship while making it seem like they’re in love. Nate is very controlling. Maddy is very rebellious and manipulative.
We see physical abuse when Nate becomes aggressive, slamming her into a wall and choking her. Many teens in the real world go through things like this. They don’t know how to love healthily and properly.
Depression.
Around 1 out of 5 adolescents experience a depressive state according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Especially whilst in High School teens experience depression whether it is due to stress of school or personal problems.
In Euphoria, Rue has many depressive episodes as that is what her character is based on. A quote by Rue directly from the series, ““The other thing about depression is it kind of collapses time,” Rue continues.
“Suddenly, you find your whole day’s blending together to create one endless and suffocating loop. So you find yourself trying to remember the things that made you happy. But, slowly, your brain begins to erase every memory that ever brought you joy. And, eventually, all you can think about is how life has always been this way. And will only continue to be this way,”
This quote gives a basic rundown of how one can feel during the overwhelming feeling of sadness. I believe so many teens struggle with depression and find it hard to find an escape.
Hook up culture.
You would believe sex is an intimate thing that happens between two committed partners. In the series, the actors hook up with each other left and right. Whether it is to make their partner mad or just for the fun of it.
The series makes having sex a normal non intimate thing as if there is no soul tie to it. I strongly agree with the way they presented hookup culture in the show because that’s literally how it is in the real world.
People will hook up with randoms, just for a “get back”. The show did a great way in displaying this because it is very realistic.
Conclusion
After going through all of these things and analyzing the show in a more in depth way, I believe that the show is realistic in certain aspects. It may be a bit over exaggerated.
However, the main key points are very similar to what teens go through everyday. It shows the struggle and hardships. Not leaving anything sugar coated.
Having such a realistic overview. Being able to see things I have seen happen in real life to my friends and family. The writers of Euphoria did a great job making it relatable and realistic in certain situations.
