HBO has always been notorious for showing nudity in TV shows. With the premiere of the new season, Euphoria has gathered a lot of discussion about the nudity in the show. Fans of the show have consistently been live-tweeting the new episodes each Sunday night, giving their unsolicited opinions on characters and plotlines. They have made comments on particular scenes where we are shown breasts and genitalia, some in complaint and some have enjoyed it, joining in the objectification of the characters and actors that play them.
Euphoria follows the lives of high-school-aged-teenagers, all of the characters being minors. This is made complicated by the fact all of the actors playing them are in their mid-20s, but still we are supposed to believe that these people are under 18 and in high school. Even though the actors are legally allowed to do nude scenes, doesn’t it make it a little weird that the characters naked on screen are supposed to be portraying children? This makes room for pedophiles to observe these scenes and perceive the nudity in a gross way. The locker room scenes of all the boys with their penises out and shots of different actresses’ breasts, can serve as subsequent material for pedophiles to consume without doing something illegal. I think that this is ironic since one of the major storylines includes pedophilia. The character Cal Jacobs is an older man who meets young people on the Internet and records himself having sex with them. One of the people he has on these video tapes is the character Jules Vaughn, who is a minor, so this is not necessarily consensusl and is statutory rape. The videotapes Cal Jacob’s has seem to play a big role in upcoming episodes, so it is ironic that the antagonist of the show is a pedophile, but it is also creating a potential safe space for pedophilia.
A lot of the nudity and sex scenes involve Sydney Sweeney, who plays Cassie Howard. It’s almost every episode that we see her breasts. While she has consented to these scenes and probably was aware of the voyeuristic reactions that would come from horny people, I think the character Cassie has opened a window for people to objectify and sexualize the actress that plays her. Sydney Sweeney’s performance in the first three episodes of season two have shown us how talented of an actress she is, but this has been eclipsed by people hypersexualizing her. I personally don’t think that it would damage the integrity of the show if Cassie’s boobs were not shown in each episode.
Another point that someone always tries to make with nudity in film is that “nudity is art” or that it is some liberating form of expression. Obviously everyone has the choice of how much or how little of their body they want to show the world and seeing nudity can be enjoyable for all people. I do not think that this makes it something revolutionary. Showing breasts on television seems to benefit the male gaze more than anything else. Euphoria’s claim to artistic expression with nudity seems a bit useless, since nudity serves no purpose to the integrity of the show and its plotlines.