Does HBO's New Teen Drama Go Too Far?
by EG
HBO's new teen drama series Euphoria attempts to outdo controversial series like 13 Reasons Why in the race to be the edgiest take on adolescence. But does its sex-and-drugs obsession cross the line into exploitation? Read on for details.
On June 16, casual TV surfers (and AT&T executives) might be surprised if they check out what's on the company's HBO channel: an erect penis. It's just one of many jarring elements of Euphoria, the new teen drama that offers perhaps the most unflinching, not to mention explicit, take on modern adolescence ever to hit U.S. television.
The male genitalia in the pilot is not attached to any of the largely 20-something cast. Instead, it's care of actor Eric Dane, who commits statutory rape with a 17-year-old trans girl (newcomer Hunter Schafer, 20). Though the sequence uses a prosthetic, it's still likely to shock most audiences — as will a handful of other graphic scenes in the pilot, from a gut-wrenching drug overdose by star Zendaya, 22, to a sex scene between teens involving choking. In one episode alone, close to 30 penises flash onscreen.
"There are going to be parents who are going to be totally fucking freaked out," says Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, 34, son of director Barry Levinson, who wrote all eight episodes based on his own past struggles with addiction. It is for these and other reasons that former HBO chairman Richard Plepler would often tell people the series makes Netflix's teen suicide drama 13 Reasons Why look like an after-school special. "It's a good insight into how hard it is to grow up in this time," says castmember Maude Apatow, 21, who's hoping her parents, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann, watch the Drake-produced series. Adds HBO programming president Casey Bloys: "We're not trying to put out a Gossip Girl."
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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