Ash: On Euphoria
You'd think that someone as mentally ill and fucked up as I would be the type of person to enjoy the show Euphoria.
You'd be wrong. :/ I hate this show with a burning passion. I hate every single character, I hate how it's not an accurate representation of drug users OR mentally ill teenagers (although that one toxic fratboy is accurate), I hate everything about it.
I don't care about the shitty music, or the LGBT+ representation (which isn't even that good, come on guys), or the scenes of teenagers losing themselves to drugs and sex under bisexual lighting. Because none of that matters to me if the characters are all downright insufferable and everybody acts like the same overemotional, hysterical garbage person who hurts others. In fact, I'd say that the excessive melodrama actually removes from the likability of the characters, probably because they're less "relatable" to teens and/or former teen druggies. Skins, this is not.
Last but not least, where the fuck are the drug withdrawals? The physical destruction of one's own body? The illnesses? The psych ward admissions? The episodes which utterly destroy you as a person? I was expecting some sort of teen version of Trainspotting, with all of its compelling characters and realistic portrayal of drug addiction from start to finish, and instead I got a fucking soap opera with spoiled, overprivileged theatre kids.
If I remember correctly, the creator of the show said he based it off of his childhood or something like that. So I know exactly how privileged and cushioned his self-destruction and descent into addiction must have been. Meanwhile, I've known people who weren't protected by money or friends or social status or anything like that. People whose lives were a living hell. People who just barely survived adolescence by the skin of their teeth, and lost time, freedom, innocence, joy, motivation, creativity, direction...everything, really. Some of these people are no longer alive.
None of this is supposed to be romanticized for the viewers. We should see the times where these characters realize that they are utterly alone. When they have no one to talk to. Or rather, when they feel they don't. When they can't even trust their friends. The soul-crushing realization that nothing is going to get better unless they can finally grow up and change something.
I guess there's a silver lining, though. It made me realize something about myself. As much as my teenage years were marred with social ostracism, isolation, manipulation and mental illness, I consider myself lucky. I knew people who were way, way worse off. Most of these people did not have rich parents and/or stable families, but this allowed them to try and escape. They found an escape in art, in music, in writing.
And here's the thing: they were not rich in money, but they were rich in soul. Many of these people were kind, and wise, and could teach you anything. Sure, they were often as immature as those rich pampered teens on TV, but they were never hostile or rude. With the exception of the odd sociopath or two, most of them had a code. It wasn't enough to save them from drug addiction, but it kept them going enough to seek solace in something that they could create for themselves.
That's the real tragedy: these teens are people. They are children, forced to grow up in a world which hates and fears them, under the most hellish conditions imaginable. To be a teenager is to constantly be at war with yourself and society. But when you're a teen who's growing up in an environment which actively harms you, you'll do anything to escape. You'll isolate yourself from your friends, lose connections, give up your previous hobbies. That's the scariest feeling of all. Deep down, you're still a lost child, trapped by unhealthy coping mechanisms and forces beyond your brain. Sometimes you're aware of how horrifying this is, and you'll be powerless to stop it.
So yeah, Euphoria could be good, if it pulled no punches in showing every horrifying detail of drug addiction and mental illness. But...it doesn't. Just the "attractive" heroin-chic parts you can add to a tumblr post for sad girls. By refusing the whole picture, you are denying the characters of their proper dignity and a hope for recovery/growth.
I think that's why I can't like it, no matter how much I try.
