Unpopular opinion, but R-rated “teen dramas” like Euphoria should just be set in college.
The characters don’t look or act like teenagers. They’re played by adults, doing adult things—clubbing, drinking, hooking up, and having way too mature relationships for high school. Yeah, some teens experiment, but not like this. If you removed the scenes at school, everyone would assume these characters are 21-25.
Character ages should make sense narratively. Nickelodeon and Disney shows like iCarly or Victorious worked because they were actually about teens, played by teens, written for teens. Even Spider-Man makes sense as a teenage story—he’s a kid juggling real responsibility. But with Euphoria, it feels like they just made everyone “15” for shock value.
If your show’s rated TV-MA and aimed at adults, just make the characters adults. It’d be more believable and way less creepy.
I really sincerely don’t mean this as an insult OP, but this post just makes it obvious you had a pretty safe and sheltered childhood.
Kids in my school were absolutely clubbing drinking, hooking up, doing drugs, getting pregnant etc. at 15 or 16.
I never said that they didn’t, but TV will glamorize it and make it look “cool” and “edgy” and romanticize it when it’s really not. There are teens who dated their high school teachers and got married, but just because this happens doesn’t mean we should romanticize this relationship on the screen.
I’m with this guy.
Because like it or not, TV sets an example.
Sometimes it can be used for positive things as well.
Developed in Scandinavia over decades starting in the 1920’s, the concept of a designated driver was imported to the United States on a large scale in 1988 through the Harvard Alcohol Project,[2] an initiative by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Center for Health Communication, led by Jay Winsten. With heavy involvement by television networks and Hollywood studios, the campaign popularized the concept through public service announcements, as well as the encouragement of drunk driving prevention messages and designated driver references in popular television programs,[2] such as Cheers, L.A. Law, and The Cosby Show. The U.S. Department of Transportation used public affairs commercials with the phrase “friends don’t let friends drive drunk”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_driver
Yep. Many of my friends within my age group definitely started drugs/sex/drinking at 14-15. I actually thought it was normal until I got older, met new people, and shocked them with the shit I was up to at that age. I’m shocked I’m still alive tbh.