In an era where conversations around consent and women’s autonomy are finally taking centre-stage, popular culture presents a complicated narrative. This contradiction is sharply captured by a few shows, particularly Euphoria – a critically acclaimed teen drama allegedly portraying the realities of adolescence, but often sexualising its female protagonists.
The cultural influence of this show becomes undeniable. It has shaped online discourse, set the tones for fashion, and even created the lens through which adolescents imagine themselves. However, if influence exists, responsibility should follow suit, and this is precisely where Euphoria fails.
Sam Levinson’s glossy universe of Euphoria inescapably shapes how its women are to be seen. While characters such as Jules, Kat, and Cassie are complex individuals, each dealing with their own identities, insecurities and desires, the show’s design often ends up simplifying their complexity to a visually consumable baseline: their bodies.
This critique is not novel. In a 1975 essay titled Visual Pleasure & Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey introduced the concept of the male gaze, a notion that mainstream visual culture presents women from a heterosexual male perspective, imagining them simply as objects, rather than characters with agency and autonomy. Euphoria falls squarely within this theoretical framework.
To instantiate, the show depicts desire differently. The camera itself nods to the weight of male fantasies with intimate and aesthetic close-ups and shifts in distance, with the lens physically pulling back when female characters do the same, as if to establish how the former is immersive, the latter purely observational. Reading this through Martha Nussbaum’s objectification theory, the show conveys a subtle but powerful message that desire itself is gendered, where one is meant to be seen and felt and the other merely acknowledged. This repeated representation of the female body shapes how society perceives them. When a character’s emotional arc is repeatedly interrupted by an emphasis on her anatomy, the message is loud and clear: Her body is her entire narrative.
Euphoria’s creators defend their work as a reflection of reality heightened by dramatic exaggeration. Levinson himself suggests that the focus should be the emotional turmoil young people experience while navigating their sexuality and adolescent life, and not on moral policing. But such alleged portrayal of authenticity cannot be interchanged with amplification of reality. The question is not the existence of teenage desire; it is the filtering of adolescent reality through the lenses of adult fantasy. And when that happens, the lines between what’s depicted and what’s consumed begin to blur.
When placed in the backdrop of real-world issues, this tension becomes more critical. Gender-based violence remains pervasive. As per the WHO, nearly one in three women experience some form of physical and sexual violence in their lifetime. A similar pattern also persists in India with high rates of violence against women, including sexual harassment. These statistics are not abstract, but a reflection of a cultural environment that treats the female body as a site of entitlement, control and violation. And what Euphoria does best is weave this into its narrative.
Feminist theorists always situate such media representation in “rape culture”, a term used to describe an environment where sexual violence is normalised, trivialised and often legitimised. This does not establish that the show leads to violence, but implies that repeated eroticism of vulnerability and consent can lead to an ecosystem that thrives on rationalised violence.
Recent global scandals, such as the Jeffery Epstein episode, uncover how structures of power enable the exploitation of women at astonishing scales. Investigative reports have also exposed online communities that engage with internet-enabled sexual assault. While such examples are extreme when held against a show, these two issues fall in the same continuum that is shaped by everyday attitudes towards women’s bodies.
In this context, Euphoria’s visuals are not just creative choices but part of a broader cultural dialogue. A show that depicts obsession or control in a visually appealing format dilutes the discomfort such themes instil. While Euphoria positions itself as progressive, addressing issues of queerness, addiction, and mental health, it remains deeply traditional in its objectification. Despite having an ensemble queer crew with their own narratives, they remain mostly ornamental. This is where Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectional feminism becomes relevant. Diversity alone cannot override the male gaze if the treatment remains unchanged.
So what would a more responsible approach be? It begins with greater proactive engagement with concepts of agency and consent in popular media. The depiction of sexuality is not problematic; it should be engaged with. But this engagement should be foregrounded in consent, agency and consequences. On the other side, consumers, especially young adults, need to engage critically with what they consume to delineate reality from fiction especially when laced with a particular gaze.
Euphoria is not an anomaly but a part of a larger landscape that fails to portray desire and agency without the spice of exploitation. And as the show continues to be successful, the more it should invite conversations. When violence is a lived reality of many, representation becomes the conditioning of how we learn to treat one another.
Mandar Prakhar is an associate fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. The views expressed are personal
