Trans TV, a concept created by Goddard and Hogg, focuses on the ‘appearance of transgender, non-binary and other queer figures in a range of high-profile television shows’ (Goddard and Hogg, 2018). I will be considering how successful the programme Euphoria has been in its aesthetic approach and practices of representation.

Released on HBO, Euphoria’s first season averaged just over 550,000 viewers per episode (Travers, 2019). Before Euphoria, HBO was looking to target a younger audience and despite the programme being, as Bloys said, ‘no more for teens than ‘Sopranos’ would be for mobsters. It’s more about a world you may not know, or changes that are going on that you may not understand’, its majority audience are teenagers. This is because, in my opinion, the aesthetic approach of the series. The use of soft, neon lighting and popular music can allow the viewer to romanticise the show and its characters. A trend of ‘Euphoria makeup’ also began after the second series which includes lots of colour, glitter and gemstones. Do these things take away from the seriousness of the subject matter and glamorise drug abuse, suicide and queer issues or does it address them in a normalised, artistic way? I would argue that Euphoria represents queer identities in a subtle but effective way. For example, the lack of labels of sexualities in the series means the characters are never stereotyped, they ‘have space to develop and be themselves’ (Ashleigh Brink, 2019) which is extremely important in media representing queer identities. As Goddard and Hogg said, ‘what we mean by the word ‘television’ has changed radically from the classical network era model of one-to-many transmission’. What they mean by this is that TV now takes so many forms that there aren’t strict codes and conventions of what a television programme should include. Therefore, shows like Euphoria are able to include more transgressive, transgender and queer representations in creative ways.

References:

Travers, B. and Travers, B. (2019). HBO President Casey Bloys on How ‘Euphoria’ Is Leading the Charge on Streaming. [online] IndieWire. Available at: https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/euphoria-hbo-ratings-lovecraft-country-release-date-1202160765/.

‌Goddard, M.N. and Hogg, C. (2018). Introduction: Trans TV as concept and intervention into contemporary television. Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 13(4), pp.470–474. doi:10.1177/1749602018798217.

‌Brink. Ashleigh, (2019). Queer and Now: Euphoria is the Representation the LGBTQ+ Community Deserves |. [online] Available at: http://www.capilanocourier.com/2019/09/05/queer-and-now-euphoria-is-the-representation-the-lgbtq-community-deserves/ [Accessed 15 Nov. 2022].

By Maddie Wood

‌