Bidding Farewell to Sensationalist Dramas: Ushering In A Wave of Candid Television
From its very inception, television has long been identified with escapism and how the consumption of its content can provide emotional comfort or relief. It is hard to ignore, however, that the television space has transformed immensely from the network era to today’s streaming platforms. Cultural historian and media industry expert Cynthia B. Meyers contends how network television in the 1960s and 70s strived to create the “least objectionable programming” by keeping shows “unconscious of the social and cultural upheavals around them” (74-75). In other words, viewers did not care to witness cultural discourse unravel but rather wished to be strictly entertained, oftentimes by fictional worlds that embodied ideal standards in our society. However, the recent increase in TV dramas on streaming platforms have shown that, alongside their indisputable hunger for entertainment, audiences are also seeking authenticity in the media they consume.
The HBO procedural Mare of Easttown (2021) and teen drama Euphoria (2019-) exemplify how television strives to challenge escapist tendencies by offering authentic depictions of people within their respective scopes, yet, what separates the two shows is their varied approaches to crafting the dramatic story. While Mare of Easttown understands how everyday life and interpersonal relationships can be a fruitful source of drama, Euphoria makes a spectacle of trauma and relies heavily on shock value to elevate tension and suspense in its audience. Therefore, this piece will examine the limitations of sensationalist TV and why the case for mundanity– as the essence of dramatic television programming – should not be overlooked.
Although pitched as a drama centered around the murder of a young mother, the emotional depth of Mare of Easttown distinguishes the show from other crime dramas on television. Throughout its seven-episode run, we follow the titular detective Mare (Kate Winslet) as she attempts to solve a murder and two missing person investigations within her close-knit community in a small town in Pennsylvania. Mare would not be Mare without her stoic facial expressions and demeanor. Devoted to her work, Mare withholds vulnerability altogether to uphold her seemingly impenetrable facade of cynicism. Behind closed doors, however, Mare is a loving mother and grandmother. She is a flawed woman who has overcome divorce whilst still dealing with the repercussions of her son’s suicide. Like many of us viewers, she is by no means perfect and that is precisely why we become attached to her.
In her article, Fani Papageorgiou posits how “everyone feels real” in the series because the “complexity of these characters grants the show serious staying power, so it is no surprise so many of us lingered on”. Here, she commends how the show’s realist characters grant the show longevity. But, beyond that, the author goes further to claim the show as “a matchless character study of an unwandering life”. Thus, the mundanity of these characters (and how they individually reckon with trauma) ultimately culminates into what makes Mare of Easttown so compelling. Because of this quality, the show champions a narrative that is as authentic and heartfelt as it is suspenseful and riveting. Additionally, a New York Times interview conducted with actress Kate Winslet explored even how Mare’s hair was instrumental in creating an authentic woman on-screen: “the massive regrowth of roots in her hair… it symbolizes how, from the point that [Mare’s son] Kevin died, she never went to a beauty parlor ever again and probably never will.” While so many shows on television prioritize making actors look pretty, Mare of Easttown does not shy away from making their actors look as raw and flawed as their character. Every aspect of Kate Winslet’s presence on-screen went towards showcasing the character’s emotional past, making us forget that this is, in fact, a fictional performance. The underpinning of it all is that someone like Mare can and probably does exist. To say that the show is immersive would be an understatement; it is spellbinding and keeps its audience hooked until the very end. Therefore, in lieu of sensationalism, the confrontation of trauma in this show transpires quietly and gradually but never spoonfed as its audience is treated as clever viewers.
Nonetheless, what distinguishes Mare of Easttown from other crime dramas on TV lies in its specificity in terms of place and its interconnected relationship to characters. Abundant are crime dramas that are set in certain locations only to amplify the story’s dramatic impact. Let us consider, for example, the peaceful small town in Riverdale (2017-) stripped of its innocence after a spine-chilling murder. In contrast, the fictional Easttown showcases an authentic portrayal of small-town life where a murder alone did not leave the townsfolk shaken to the core. Rather, the lives within this rust-belt community go on despite all the horrible things – the opioid crisis, kidnapping, gendered violence – happening around them. To illustrate, Sophie Gilbert’s article “What HBO’s New Crime Show Gets Exactly Right” details how the series “does an artful job of laying out the stories of other women who have disappeared, including how opioids stunted their promising lives. Without making addiction its hectoring focus, the show paints it as an ingrained reality for locals, as commonplace and impossible to avoid as guns and fists.” Easttown is far from being an idealistic suburbia, given its crime-ridden colors are continually displayed. Thus, Mare of Easttown’s rendering of place and characters’ relationship allows for a nuanced portrait of this suburban Pennsylvanian community that is messy but ironically symbiotic.
Meanwhile, Euphoria lives and breathes spectacle. Its experimentation with unique cinematography, stylistic visual design as well as provocative subject matter fulfilled its purpose of challenging conventions of the teen drama genre, making its predecessors pale in comparison. Indeed, the show garnered vast acclaim (including the Emmy for Lead Actress in a Drama Series by Zendaya) and, perhaps most importantly, an outstanding level of viewership, averaging 16.3 million viewers per episode during its second season’s run on HBO (Maas). At its best, Euphoria offers a frank portrayal of suburban teenage life that does not shy away from addressing sensitive topics in new and nuanced ways. At its worst, Euphoria adopts a reductive approach where plot points and characters are often overplayed at the expense of authenticity. Thus, instead of living up to its proclaimed progressiveness, Euphoria epitomizes contradiction; it perpetuates the very systems it aims to subvert or critique.
To illustrate, let us consider the hypersexualization of teenage bodies (played by adult actors) in the show. With their acne-less skin and perfectly sculpted bodies, the depiction of near-impossible beauty standards becomes problematic when the show’s audience is dominated by the demographic it is supposedly centering the story around. In their thesis, “Euphoria: The High Highs and Low Lows”, Ali Alkhalifa condemns the excessive use of nudity in the show and how “many impressionable kids are tuning in every week to consume a show that glorifies and misconstrues puberty and adolescent sexuality” (36). The nature of teen dramas has always been educational, even if it does not intend to be. Young viewers who tune in weekly to shows like Euphoria are not merely consuming its content but subconsciously identifying its stories as standards to live up to. For this reason, Euphoria carries the burden of projecting realistic images of teenage bodies and sexuality. To that respect, by knowingly allowing gratuitous nudity to linger on-screen, the only lesson that the show is teaching is that hypersexualization is normal. By making plentiful noise with little to no actual meaning or purpose, Euphoria falls short when letting sensationalism supersede moral responsibility.
In addition, Euphoria allows Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schaffer) to experience statutory rape and, yet, have the emotional impact of the incident – one that followed a pattern of numerous one-night-stands with older, more powerful men – go entirely unnoticed. What this means is that Jules fails to understand or even label her experience for what it truly was. In the series pilot, Jules decides to meet with a man who happens to be the dad of her soon-to-be crush-turned-blackmailer Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi). Suffice it to say, the sex in this scene is anything but romantic; it is hard to watch and even more difficult to process when the obvious abuse of power unto Jules is casually cast aside. Thinking of this scene in a bigger picture (i.e. what it means to teenage audiences), Euphoria confronts the issue of minors going online for sex and its immediate benefits but rarely does the show discuss the mental and emotional consequences of doing so. It feels almost as if the scene itself was a segue into dramatic conflict for later episodes: Jule effectively forgets the whole ordeal and is only reminded of it when she runs into Nate’s dad at a carnival, where he is manning a food stall with his family. Therefore, Euphoria diminishes the seriousness of this problem (and a myriad of other issues unexplored) by raising it as a mere plot point and letting its repercussions remain idle. Sometimes, it even feels like the show combines too many issues in its limited time on-screen.
On the other hand, after a threat to her reputation following a leaked sex tape, the arc of Kat Hernandez’s (Barbie Ferreira) newfound empowerment as a dominatrix cam girl appears to be skewed towards the male gaze: “Kat engaging in underage sex work is participation in her own sexual exploitation — not a reclaiming of her sexuality — as she is a minor and cannot understand the full scope of sexual activity” (Sequeira). The glamorized depiction of the path Kat has taken can be harmful to its impressionable audience when focused primarily on the financial benefit of camgirling and less on how dangerous it can be. Knowing that her character is producing child pornography, we viewers cannot help but worry about her safety and well-being if her actions fall into the wrong hands. To some extent, it can even be argued that Euphoria is irresponsible in its depictions of some characters exhibiting self-destructive behavior and coming out the other end unharmed. In addition, Euphoria contradicts itself by giving Kat ‘autonomy’, only for it to cater to the male gaze, and ironically under the pretense of sex-positivity and self-confidence. Her character fails to acknowledge the concerning direction her life is taking while crafting a persona that is sexually desirable to her male counterparts, in hopes of eradicating the built-up insecurity after years of bullying. Therefore, what becomes apparent is an illusion of agency, dominated by the patriarchal standards imposed on young women like Kat.
However, what Euphoria should be commended for is how it humanizes mental health disorders and the rehabilitation process. Without judgment, our protagonist Rue Bennett (Zendaya) is rendered in a way that is multi-layered and flawed but never broken beyond repair. Alkhalifa posits how, in the seventh episode of the show’s first season, “the portrayal of her depression is poignant because it does not glamorize her mental illness for one second” (12). Although frequently trivialized and misappropriated in popular culture, the exploration of Rue’s bipolar disorder – a significant contribution to her drug addiction – is no laughing matter within the show. Indeed, in Season 2, Rue’s drug addiction worsens when she breaks down in an animalistic rampage during an intervention planned out by her family and friends. At this point, her addiction and mental illnesses have strained her relationships. But, at the end of that season, Rue decides to stay clean and work on herself, leaving us feeling hopeful for her future and her potential to find happiness. Therefore, by demonstrating how patterns of recovery can be bumpy, Euphoria’s unromanticized portrayal of mental illness is a triumph in and of itself. Through Rue, we, as an audience, understand that mental illnesses do not define a person’s future or personality and how recovery, no matter how hard to begin, can be achieved.
All things considered, pitting the two shows against each other as if they are somehow in competition would prove to be pointless. We cannot dismiss that Mare of Easttown also utilizes sensationalism in some areas of its story, like how the killing of a teenage mother is the overarching plot of the show. Similarly, Euphoria is not so out-of-touch that authenticity is effectively erased given that it has revolutionized representation for mental illnesses, specifically addiction and its repercussions on not just the addict but also their loved ones. Thus, neither one is more high-brow than the other as there is something to learn from both shows. What can be surmised after investigating how each show operates both on-screen and throughout its creation, is how there is a clear increase in appreciation for realism in dramatic television. But this is also not to say that sensationalist, escapist media will die out completely as they will continue to play an important role in our entertainment. In the end, there are no one-size-fits-all for being on the edge of your seat. The drama of Euphoria and Mare of Easttown is heightened precisely due to its seamless interweaving of mundanity, authenticity and sensationalism. That is exactly why we tuned in in the first place and why they have even become a pillar of and model for success in the realm of contemporary dramatic television.
Works Cited
Alkhalifa, Ali. Euphoria: The High Highs and Low Lows. 2022. Ohio State University, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Euphoria. Created by Sam Levinson, HBO Entertainment, 2019-
Gilbert, Sophie. “What HBO's New Crime Show Gets Exactly Right.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/04/hbos-mare-easttown-kate-winslet-review/618661/.
Itzkoff, Dave. "Kate Winslet Embraced the Ordinary in ‘Mare of Easttown’." The New York Times, 2021. ProQuest, http://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/kate-winslet-embraced-ordinary-mare-easttown/docview/2550776472/se-2.
Maas, Jennifer. “'Euphoria' Is Now HBO's Second-Most Watched Show behind 'Game of Thrones'.” Variety, Variety, 2022, https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/euphoria-season-2-finale-ratings-1235192015/.
Mare of Easttown. Created by Brad Ingelsby, HBO Entertainment, 2021.
Meyers, Cynthia B. “From Sponsorship to Spots: Advertising and the Development of Electronic Media” Media Industries: History, Theory and Method, edited by Jennifer Holt and Alisa Perren, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 69-80.
Papageorgiou, Fani. "The serious staying power of Mare of Easttown." The Financial Times, 2021. ProQuest, http://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/serious-staying-power-mare-easttown/docview/2547385745/se-2.
Sequeira, Sunny. “Opinion: 'Euphoria' Is Emblematic of the Exploitation of Teens in Media.” Washington Square News, 17 Feb. 2022, https://nyunews.com/opinion/2022/02/17/euphoria-is-emblematic-of-exploitation-of-teens-in-media/.