Euphoria

Tried to watch with an open mind. But just one more example of "I'm young, good-looking, live in the suburbs and my life is awful."
Boo-fucking-hoo.

 

So...we’ve been here before with art like this - Kids, Skins, Ken Park, Doom generation, thirteen - and a lot of times, shows like this come down to, OK, beyond the prurience, what’s the essence of the story? Where’s the conflict, what potential resolutions are there, and how, if there aren’t many resolutions, is the art dark (and ultimately contemplative) and not merely hateful and exploitative? Just no way to know for sure until 3-5 episodes of it.

And hatefulness comes in many art forms. Girls on HBO wasn’t at all hateful. Angry? At times. Never hateful.

 

That's quite a stretch from me complaining about spoiled rich kids who seemingly have no purpose in life other than to get laid and get high to accusing me of being in favor of segregation.

 

If only that's what I was doing ...

 

The only dollars most of that generation got was from Mommy and Daddy Baby Boomer giving it to them. That and student loans they're never going to pay back.

 

There's one for every occasion!

 

I think the segregation response is a bit much.

Oddly, hondo's take on show...is more the underlying critique, in theory - thought it's too early to make that critique - than the obvious one, which is that the show revels in decadence and debauchery, using teenagers of underlying just how serious its worldview is. (Doing all this with adults just leaves the audience judging the adults, like we do, for example, in Savages. Doing it with still-developing teenagers indicts the viewer, nay, America. And many Americans love shitting on their own country.)

Shows like this - well, almost every show on the planet - is made by and typically for upper-middle-class people. Euphoria's creator is the son of Barry Levinson. Now, however hard that kind of life was, I damn well know what it probably wasn't...a life of poverty.

One reason Moonlight was so good is because Barry Jenkins didn't grow up with shit in Liberty City, grew up in chaos, is someone who damn well knows the value of goodness...because they haven't seen nearly enough of it growing up. Which is why Moonlight ends with, essentially, two scenes of forgiveness, even as we know the longterm story may involve more addiction, even death. It's a wise story that way.

 

I wasn't saying hondo was pro-segregation.

I was saying the broad criticism of "Millennials" is just as ridiculous as the broad criticism of Boomers, even though Boomers wrecked the planet.

 

As a parent of soon-to-be teens, I hate-watched at first but then couldn't look away. This doesn't seem like a series about whining teens; more like how they navigate a post-9/11 world. The part about porn really hit home, how everyone watches it, how it's almost always rough and violent, and boys assume that's what girls want (and vice versa). My kids and their friends idolize Zendaya (lead actress) so I anticipate some tough conversations ahead.

 

The series seems to indicate that all kids are behaving this way. If you want to level any criticism about painting an entire group with a broad brush, this show is it. I think it's a slap in the face for kids who are going to class, staying sober and trying their best to be good citizens. I saw one kid who seemed to have a conscious and he wound up treating his girlfriend rough ... and after she said stop, she offered the hint that she might like it under certain circumstances.