![]() Traces of this idea resonate in Euphoria. Bex’s only crime in the eyes of these men is living honestly, which is perceived as an attack on the status quo to which they feel compelled to conform. After one of the straight guys in her school is exposed for having a relationship with Bex, she is targeted, kidnapped, and nearly hanged by a group of teen boys in a series of truly horrifying scenes. But they diverge in their attempt to grapple with the resolution of these struggles, something illustrated well in the differences between Jules and her predecessor in Assassination Nation: Bex, portrayed by trans model and actress Hari Nef.Īs the film - touted as a modern retelling of the Salem witch trials - devolves into violent chaos, we get no assurance that Bex is invincible. Both works share obvious thematic threads: the impact of violence, toxic masculinity, and what happens to individuals and a community when we try to escape the truth about ourselves. ![]() This kind of ambiguity marks a notable shift away from the moral messaging of Levinson’s 2018 film, Assassination Nation. The series makes few judgments about the darker side of teenage experiences, and instead just asks questions - along with acknowledging that some of those questions can never be definitively answered. Why does Rue, portrayed by Zendaya, seek the absence of feeling she gets from using drugs? Why does Nate resort to violence at every turn? Why does Jules hook up with older men in seedy motel rooms? Sex, drugs, and violence exist in Euphoria because they exist in real life, and the show, which begins each episode with a deep dive into a different character’s history, seems most concerned with the why behind that reality. “I was the person who didn’t want to get the s- beaten out of me,” he recalled, explaining that he used the same knife tactic to save himself. “Oddly, that’s a true story,” series creator Sam Levinson told EW. When Jules announced her invincibility, I immediately knew that Jules was going to be something special in TV’s still incredibly limited pantheon of trans characters.Īfter the initial controversy around Euphoria’s salacious content, I was thrilled to find that unlike Netflix’s similarly controversial hit 13 Reasons Why, Euphoria doesn’t seem particularly interested in using teens to act out gruesome horrors in the name of “awareness.” Like many other moments in Euphoria, the confrontation between Nate and Jules was grounded in reality. But then comes Jules in Euphoria: pink hair and neon eyeshadow, practically a superhero as she makes a bully squirm and assures him, herself, and the audience that she can’t be hurt - that there’s nothing to fear - even if we know the danger is still very real. “I’m fucking invincible!” she yells, as Nate recoils.įor queer audiences, there are always pangs of fear when a trans woman is onscreen - fear that, like in real life, her mere existence may solicit violence from the men around her. Her visible fear and his imposing figure create a gut-wrenching sense of danger, at least until the scene takes a turn: Jules grabs a knife from the counter, scares him off, then slices her own arm and holds it up as it bleeds. “I know what you are,” Nate whispers as he threatens Jules, a seeming allusion to her transness. In the first episode of HBO’s Euphoria, Jules (stunningly portrayed by first-time actress Hunter Schafer) is confronted at a house party by Nate (Jacob Elordi), a raging jock looking to take out his anger on the most vulnerable person he can find.
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