Nowadays, TV has this strange habit of “bringing awareness” to difficult subjects. This includes a multitude of mental health problems being shown to viewers, such as addiction. Now, is this truly awareness? Or is it glamorization for the sake of Hollywood entertainment? Shows such as Euphoria and 13 Reasons Why are two great examples of how Hollywood portrays mental illness, addiction, abuse, and the very real traumas that people go through, but how they will also exploit those affairs for money.
Mental health advocacy has grown immensely in recent years, allowing people to reach out, to be less alone, and to find resources that can help them. Media takes advantage of these perceptible minds, making shows with beautiful cinematography, and horrifying lies behind all of the acting. And people feel drawn to the surface-level issues before realizing what it’s truly about, ignoring what is truly being shown to them. HBO’s Euphoria is a prime example of this issue.
Euphoria aired in 2019 and slowly became one of the most popular shows, trending on TikTok and spreading to an even larger demographic. The show deals with drug addiction, alcoholism, and abuse among many things, yet it still has popularity among watchers.
The show is undoubtedly beautifully filmed, using many different artistic devices, filters, and vocals to create this horrifying universe and reality. The beauty for many will override the actual meaning, morals, and issues that the show deals with. It is darkness hidden by a facade of beauty. That is what draws viewers in. Perhaps the extremities of the story can be looked past if people only see the art at first glance.
The problem with a big show like Euphoria is the very fact that it is created to make people feel every scene in depth because of the intensity of filming a lifeline yet completely dramatized issues that the characters face. People feel the active withdrawals the main character goes through. People feel what the characters feel. Normally, that is an incredible thing to do. Art is supposed to make viewers feel connected. However, this starts to become an issue when viewers feel connected to something dangerous and uncontrollable.
Bringing awareness to harsh topics can be very difficult to do; shows like Euphoria are meant to help bring knowledge to a “niche” topic and bring light to that situation. Euphoria to its credit, shows how it feels to deal with withdrawals. However, that does not take away the fact that it also glamorizes using and abusing substances, along with the many dangerous and unsettling ways that teenagers act in the show. This show is for an adult audience, even when the main characters are all around sixteen, to seventeen years old.
A similar issue occurred in 2020 when Netflix allowed the movie Cuties to be released on Netflix–a movie that glamorized the over-sexualization of children in dance. Even if the film was meant to bring awareness, it missed the mark significantly, romanticizing horrific events. This movie has had the same negative effects that Euphoria brings through watching it.
The issue is that a show will only be popular if it is glamorized and romanticized in some way, shape, or form. If something is not advertised as an appealing show, people will not have a desire to watch it. Many people are drawn to the beauty of the darkness that lingers with subliminal messages and dark themes, and ignore the actual harm that comes with it.
