The sexualization of once-youthful clothing makes sense given Euphoria’s complex exploration of how teen girls are hypersexualized-whether by their peers or themselves. Even Rue’s innocent little sister, Gia (Storm Reid), looks like she’s still wearing the same clothes she did when she was 9 years old her striped elementary-school tees appear to be chopped into crop tops in a symbolic representation of this blending of the ages. We see the sexualization of kindergarten overalls and animal backpacks, tie-dye t-shirts paired with caked eyelashes, and eye makeup reminiscent of the glow-in-the-dark stars pasted to the ceiling of a childhood bedroom. Despite its difficult themes, Euphoria is beautiful to watch: Its colors ooze over the screen like a Mars sunset, putting forth a defiant, intentional alien-ness, as if the visuals refuse to take part in the shitstorm of our present.Įuphoria’s fashion flips the trappings of innocence into avant-garde erotica, and falls somewhere between preschool and strip club in a way that is purposefully discomfiting. Referencing leaked teen pornography, Rue notes that, “n the same way that mass shootings, sex scandals, and stolen elections do, the whole thing blew over pretty quickly and we all moved on to the next thing.” But where Generation X piled layers of irony on contemporary chaos and inherited and troubled millennials wallowed in it, Gen Z has aestheticized it, amplifying stereotypical parental nightmares with outfits ranging from BDSM-ready corsets to tight-fitting pastel two-pieces that leave nothing to the imagination.
But Gen Z is unique in its forced exposure to catastrophic harms that have few-or no-consequences. “The world’s coming to an end,” says Rue, “and I haven’t even graduated high school yet.”Īll generations live through world-changing events in the troubled world they inherit. As Rue strolls towards a peer’s casket while narrating this landscape to viewers, it’s clear that the story Euphoria aims to tell is one about young people are just trying to live in the shadow of death.
Mass shootings are an everyday occurrence. As the show’s drug-addicted protagonist Rue (former Disney star Zendaya) tells us in Euphoria’s first episode, she was born three days after 9/11. It’s hard to judge Gen Z for how they choose to respond to their world they’re a generation raised in existential threat. Their clothes represent Gen Z’s controlled air of nonchalance, under which lies a thick layer of anxiety they treat with the sedatives of sex, drugs, social media, and misogyny-a response to a world that in many ways failed them before they even reached puberty.
Euphoria’s teen characters wear this dissonance on their sleeves, with fashion choices ranging from early-2000s rave culture (complete with fuzzy pink backpacks) and the lazy sexiness of the ’90s (think Zendaya’s silk maroon two-piece and bejeweled Members Only jacket in Euphoria’s pilot).
With palettes of lavender and rose undercut with moody, hazy blues and greens, the color scheme rips at the dystopia of Gen Z’s highly curated world.
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According to most media, the message is a hopeful one-we paste images of Gen-Z leaders like gun-control activist Emma González onto our social media feeds like deities-but HBO’s new series Euphoria shows us another story: one of a generation stuck between synthesized beauty and unrelenting despair.Įuphoria’s content has been plenty controversial, but its visuals have garnered attention as well. Hunter Schafer as Jules in Euphoria (Photo credit: Eddy Chen/HBO)Īs a millennial, I’ve often wondered where my generation’s ennui and today’s fucked-up political climate will take Gen Z.
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