The HBO hit show Euphoria follows a 17-year-old girl named Rue–played by Zendaya–on her journey as a drug addict in high school. It first aired in 2019 and just finished its second season. The depiction of drug addiction in the show set off a firestorm of responses.
Initial reactions by some viewers suggested they thought the show’s depiction of drug use was laughable.
One TikTok trend specifically made fun of how unrealistic the show is at portraying teens and drug addiction. The TikTok known as “Euphoria High” showed a typical high school student walking into the frame dressed in everyday clothes. Then a cartoonish voice would ask “And why aren’t you in uniform?” at which point, the student would come back into the frame wearing bright, colorful, revealing clothing with glittery makeup, an exaggerated version of the way the characters look on the show.
On the other hand, groups like The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, or D.A.R.E said the show glamorized drugs.
If the show was glamorizing drug use, it would be understandable to criticize it. After all, according to drugabusestatistics.org, 8.3% of 12-17-year-olds reported they had used drugs in the last month. 11.2% of overdose deaths are people aged 15-24 years old in the US alone.
But anyone paying attention can see the show is not making drug use look appealing.
When season 1 ended and HBO announced there would be a season 2, it caused a storm of conversations on social media, particularly surrounding the show’s depiction of drug use.
Multiple times throughout the first season Rue is seen overdosing, suffocating, and surrounded by puke. In season 2, more heartbreaking parts of addiction are shown. In episode 5, Rue is seen going through withdrawal. She screams at her family to tell her where they hid her pills, and when they don’t, she escapes.
Rue even goes to lengths to go into her friend’s house and go through his grandmother’s medications.
According to healthdirect.gov, some signs of withdrawal include irritability, changing moods, and vomiting.
All of these were portrayed in the episode of Rue’s withdrawal.
The director and writer Sam Levinson is a former addict himself, giving the show a first-hand perspective of addiction.
At the 2019 premiere for the show, Levinson told interviewers, “I spent the majority of my teenage years in hospitals, rehabs, and halfway houses. I was a drug addict, and I’d take anything and everything I could until I couldn’t hear or breathe or feel.”
With this perspective and Zendaya’s (Rue) acting, it makes addiction raw and real, something that would make someone never want to touch a drug.
Marcell Rév, who was the cinematographer for the first few episodes of Euphoria, in an interview with Deadline, that the show’s look is “not really based on realism. We called it ‘emotional realism’ that’s more based in the characters’ emotions, and not how the world around them really works.” Essentially he’s saying drug addiction isn’t all snorting coke off of your high school textbook with glitter on your eyes, the whole point is that’s just how Rue is seeing herself.
Armand Carignan, a Hamilton resident who has faced drug addiction says that when he started doing drugs “I was just bored bro. I was like life is fucking vanilla as fuck, so it’s like, let me pop a lil xan let me pop a perc.”
Asked what he thinks about Euphoria, Carignan says, “They think it’s all sweet.”
But the show doesn’t depict addiction as sweet and the glittery aesthetics aren’t confusing viewers.
In an anonymous survey of more than 30 Mercer County Community College students familiar with the show, 69% said they did not think Euphoria promotes addiction.
One student said, “I think it’s doing the complete opposite actually. I think Euphoria shows teenagers what drugs can do to your body and the negative effects mentally that can be developed from substance abuse. If anything, I would expect it to help steer teenagers away from drugs because of the observed behavior of the characters from the show.”
