How HBO's Euphoria Refine The Genre of 'Teen Drama'

HBO's new series, Euphoria, has me feeling a lot of things. The show is centered around a group of teenagers who live in an affluent suburb, and I'm guessing you can imagine the crazy adventures they get into. What you might not expect, though, is that the drama is centered around Rue Bennett (played by Zendaya), who is navigating relationships, friendships, love, sex… and death from a drug overdose—all while trying to find her way and survive high school.

One of the main themes I noticed was that no one really knew what they were doing. The show covered some pretty heavy topics including cyber bullying (thanks Sexting Seth), teen suicide, drugs and death. These serious struggles were handled gracefully and truthfully on screen.

HBO's new series Euphoria is not your typical high school drama show. It's a realistic, sometimes harsh look at the life of teens today and the issues they're facing.

You won't find any juicy teen romances (though there are plenty of sexy scenes), no wild mysteries (though there is mystery around the disappearance of one character), and certainly no action. Instead, this show is driven by very real characters dealing with very real issues—and it's certainly not for everyone. If you're under 18, you probably shouldn't watch this show without a parent present to talk about it afterwards. But if you're over 18 and looking for something to watch that will really challenge your thinking and make you consider some difficult topics from multiple angles, this might be just the show for you!

Euphoria takes a realistic approach to telling the story of a 17-year-old girl named Rue Bennett who has just been released from rehab and is trying to get her life back on track. The show explores many different topics such as drug addiction and sex, which are both things that people deal with every day in real life. The show also shows us how some teenagers deal with these issues through use of social media platforms like Instagram or Snapchat and shows us how they affect their relationships within their friend groups or families.

There are many different characters within this show, each one having their own storyline which makes for interesting viewing. The main character Rue Bennett has an older sister named Gia who has recently come out as gay after dating someone for two years - this causes conflict between them because Rue does not want her sister to go through what she did when she was younger (drugs, sex etc.) but Gia believes she should be free to explore herself sexually regardless of what society thinks about her sexuality.

I loved watching this show because it was so different than other shows I’ve seen that are labeled as “teen dramas” like Riverdale or Gossip Girl. The characters were much more realistic because they weren’t perfect or super rich. They struggled with real issues just like any teenager today would struggle with them.

If you’re looking for a show that’s going to capture the struggles and adventures of what it means to be a teenager, Euphoria is a pretty great example of that. Sure, there are some over-the-top dramatic moments, but overall it’s a really relatable show. It also does a great job of showing the differences between different groups of people who tend to exist in high school (like popular kids, rebels without a cause, etc.). And I loved that Rue was a biracial character—that’s something that doesn’t really happen often enough in any kind of media, so it was nice to see her character portrayed on screen.