The Nudity in Euphoria Brings Nothing
There. I said it. There’s no reason for it. It’s so Americanised, so clearly derived from the puritanism that America, en masse, still regards nude bodies with. So there are tits and ass and cock on screen, and for what? Is the show a nuanced commentary on teenagers’ relationships with their bodies? No. It is solely to create shock value and stun an audience into talking about it: to their friends, to their colleagues, online.
The nudity is there to titillate a sheltered audience, which is perhaps why I find it so damn boring.
In the 2018 Quartz article by Annabelle Timsit, ‘The vast gap between how the US and Europe think about teens and sex’, they quote Betsy Bozdech, the executive editor of ratings and reviews for Common Sense Media. She says: “[i]n general, the US does tend to rate sexuality [in films] more harshly than violence, and this is pretty much flipped everywhere else in the world.” Furthermore, Timsit cites a 2013 Pew poll, in which 30% of US adults polled still believed that sex between unmarried adults was “morally unacceptable”, whereas, in Europe, only 6–13% of those surveyed felt the same.
This does not go all the way to explaining the attitudes shown by the audience of Euphoria, but also its writer, Sam Levinson. Whether or not the show’s loyal audience has cottoned on yet, the show exhibits disturbing levels of over-sexualisation, especially when considering that these characters are supposed to be teenagers, anywhere between 16–18 years old.
The audience — whom the rating classifies as supposed to be adults, regardless of the demographic is discussing it on Twitter — are therefore watching teenagers expose themselves. For what? Why? The rampant over-sexualisation, which turned me off the show in season 1, reached a new peak in season 2, where people who had previously had no problem with it were expressing their discomfort. The episodes with the least or no nudity were heralded as the best of the season.
We have now reached a point in the article where we need to talk about Cassie Howard. In the first season, it was clear that men, old and younger, family members and classmates, viewed her as a sexual object. At the time, it seemed like this was supposed to inspire sympathy in the audience. However, the narrative of season two has taken a backslide. At the end of the season, we have a hyper-sexualised character who, is wholly unsympathetic in the eyes of some audience members. It is difficult to tell whether or not this is a choice by Levinson.
Indeed, “a Cassie” has now become shorthand for a specific type of girl. If you’d never watched the show, TikTok would have you believe that “a Cassie” is anywhere between a girl hysterically crying or that girl that sleeps with her friend’s boyfriends and exes. They’re not wrong: that is essentially the characterisation this season. However, there is one thing missing from this simplified narrative.
Cassie’s storyline feels less like a critique of the impact of hyper-sexualisation and more like an invitation to participate. Unfortunately this is not unusual for Hollywood. Since filmmaking began, young women have been sexualised and commodified as a selling point. Sexualisation is a real issue impacting girls’ and young women’s mental health in various ways and for decades. A study by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2007 found that girls and young women were impacted over three areas: cognitive and emotional consequences, mental and physical health, and sexual development.
The issues associated with the cognitive and emotional effects were the undermining of “a person’s confidence in and comfort with her own body, leading to emotional and self-image problems, such as shame and anxiety.” Levinson addressed this in season 1, as the spreading of Cassie’s revenge porn made her “[want] to swallow a whole bottle of Tylenol.” However, in my opinion, the show’s treatment of the videos pivots away from Cassie to how it impacts her then-boyfriend McKay’s view of her and their relationship.
The impacts of sexualisation on girls’ and young women’s mental and physical health are described by the APA as “[linking] sexualisation [to] three of the most common mental health problems diagnosed in girls and women — eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression or depressed mood.” In season 1, Cassie’s low self-esteem seems more connected to her appearance, whereas, in season 2, I would argue that it has localised in her ‘relationship’ with Nate. He is the be-all and end-all, and if that makeover scene is anything to go by, Cassie is not secure in what she likes about herself. She goes through a depressive period at the beginning of season 2, linked to her self-image and low-self esteem, which she has always defined around which boy she is dating. This aspect of her characterisation has been consistent.
Finally, the “research suggests that the sexualisation of girls has negative consequences on girls’ ability to develop a healthy sexual self-image.” We’ve watched the show. Need I say more?
We are not invited to empathise with Cassie — or even to understand her motivations. I find it curious that while the character of Nate has been watered down to a stealth villain, where in the first season he was the obvious aggressor, the character of Cassie has borne the brunt of the backlash for the relationship: in the show and in online reactions. There is little horror at Nate targeting Cassie in the first episode of the season because it is quickly overshadowed by the comedic farce that Cassie goes through to retain Nate’s attention.
We are invited to laugh at a teenager going through another abusive relationship cycle: because, yes, the sharing of revenge porn and the way young men have been treating Cassie in previous relationships is abusive. Perhaps it is easier to see Cassie as a villain this season because Nate isn’t physically abusive towards her as he was with Maddie. However, Cassie is, as Maddie said “just [at] the beginning” of her relationship with Nate, and he has already been showing emotionally and verbally abusive behaviour towards her. And still we are invited to laugh.
Interestingly, some shows show overt displays of teenage sexuality without over-sexualising the characters and turning the audience into unwilling voyeurs. Netflix’s Sex Education is one of them. In the show, the teens, and by extension the audience, are educated on sex and relationships by various characters, most notably the mother-son sex therapist extraordinaires Jean and Otis Milburn. Each episode discusses topics like safe sex, female pleasure, a wide range of sexualities, fetishes, abortions, and STDs, all while avoiding using the male gaze and giving us complex female characters.
[insert maeve here]
It is notable to add here that the writer’s room of Sex Education sways majority female, so of course, the views presented in the show would be more varied than when a single man creates, writes and directs the show himself. Yes, some Euphoria actors flag issues, but that belies the point that those issues shouldn’t be there. Levinson should not need to change the script hours before shooting, or sometimes mid-scene.
Therefore, like many on Twitter, I am once again asking Sam Levinson: get a writers room.
