The first season of “Euphoria” was released roughly a year ago, and it remains more relevant to Generation Z (or Gen Z for short) than ever. It manages to paint a picture of teen struggle in a way that feels relevant, even if the character’s lives don’t directly mirror common experiences.
The show takes place in a small town high school and opens with Rue Bennett’s (Zendaya) narration, a (sort of) recovering drug addict. She expresses how she was once happy and content in utero and then was forced into the world three days after 9/11 without her control. The camera zooms in on a TV and the baby starts crying, “My mother and father spent days in the hospital, holding me under the soft glow of the television, watching those towers fall over and over again.” These first few lines speak to why the show has been such a success with its young audience.
Gen Z individuals were thrust into a world that carried more trauma and fear than any before it. What defines Gen Z is that they were born into a world with technology and such as the World Wide Web already in it. Children don’t need to go to school to learn the history of our nation’s past or read a paper to understand harsh global realities. There’s this need to grow up earlier, not in the traditional sense of past generations—getting married, having children, etc.—but in the sense of maturity and the ability to deal with the unknown and being comfortable with the fact that the future and the state of the world is not in our hands.
We are the generation that will have to deal with climate change we didn’t ask for, we are the generation that has seen the most radical change of presidential power in history. Gen Z is a generation that knows and understands instability as a part of life. It’s a group that demands and fights for change, with the knowledge that corporations and the wealthy in power are to blame.
Although not every teen is a drug addict, there is something to Rue’s story that’s very accessible. We see how mental illness is something she’s struggled with her entire life. Additionally, we see how loss only heightens her struggle, as she carries the weight of her father’s death on her back in his sweatshirt that she wears the entire season.
According to the American Psychological Association, “more than nine in 10 Gen Z adults (91 percent) said they have experienced at least one physical or emotional symptom because of stress, such as feeling depressed or sad (58 percent) or lacking interest, motivation or energy (55 percent).” In comparison to adults overall, Gen Z reports more stress in relation to global crises and issues from mass shootings to climate change. Clearly, there is a mental health crisis in this generation, but Gen Z is also more likely than previous generations to discuss these struggles. Rue’s story is one of struggle and it comes from the need to escape a world that seems too insurmountable to deal with. This is in no way meant to imply that severe illness and addiction isn’t something that should be taken seriously. I think these generational struggles extend beyond Rue’s character.
In Jules (Hunter Schafer), we see an outward fearlessness In her introduction, she challenges Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi), an angry and complex football player with deep childhood trauma, head-on and shouts, “I’m f****** invincible!” However, this gutsiness often places her in dangerous situations, and over time through both the change in her clothing and disposition, she shows how hard it becomes to face a world that seems to punch back at you. There are also issues here with how the show treats its characters and oversexualizes them, especially Jules as someone who is trans.
There’s something similar in Maddy (Alexa Demie) as well. She has confidence that exists on another level, but as the season progresses we see how she denies the toxicity of her relationship to remain in this place of comfort. We see how her desperation to remain comfortable and maintain this vision of a life different from that of her parents leaves her in an awful place.
Sam Levinson (director, writer and producer) seems to understand how trauma is passed between generations, as the adults also play a role in the story. This is no Charlie Brown story—we see the complexities of the adults first hand, some in very disturbing ways.
In the fifth episode, Cal Jacobs (Eric Dane), father of Nate, exclaims, “do you think this stuff affects them? Even if they don’t know it? Do you think hiding it creates the same thing in them?” In the context of the scene, he’s sharing his worries of how repressing his homosexuality may affect his children, but it can be looked at in an even larger sense of generations dealing with trauma.
Older generations have been taught not to talk about things that are difficult or different, but most of Gen Z is incapable of being sheltered because of access to the internet. There’s global knowledge at our fingertips, and that understanding of these things existing makes it harder for them to be concealed; in fact, when they aren’t talked about, it can create internal turmoil. In childhood flashbacks we see Rue getting aggressive messages from strangers, and Maddy watching her mom working as an esthetician rolling her eyes with her phone in her hand. It’s clear that the internet has been a part of their lives from the start.
The familial trauma surrounding identity in this bigoted and racist society we all live in is heightened because the understanding of oppression isn’t simply told through stories or old photographs: it’s everywhere. Whether it’s the story of Rue’s addiction or Nate’s anger, the pain of living in an uncertain and ever-changing world is tangible in every aspect of the season. However, therein lies the power for change: in the past the experiences of trauma were experienced silently, and perhaps as media changes, more people will see and demand change.
