ʻEuphoriaʼ and the portrayal of trans characters

The narrative in cinema and TV series has shown LGBTIQ+ people (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans, intersexual, queers and other) in different ways. It went from a complete invisibility of these collectives —an imperfect characterization— to only showing some negative or simple or mocking stereotypes and representations—, to the current narratives with fair representations that treat LGBTIQ+ people in a multidimensional way.

The TV series Euphoria, from the North American pay-television network, shows the daily lives of a group of high school students and it illustrates, with enough realism, their vicissitudes in love, friendship, drugs, social networks and sex, among other issues. The North American version is a non-accurate adaptation of the original Israelian series, which uses the same name, and which is set in the nineties; however, they share the description of the life of a group of teenagers. 

The main characters in Euphoria are, among others, Rue Bennet, a teenager with drug addiction problems, played by Zendaya; Fezco, a drug dealer; Nate, a jock with anger issues, and Kat, a girl who defends body positivity.

The researchers at the Faculty of Communication of UPF Rafael Ventura and Eduard Ballesté, together with the researcher at the Faculty of Information and Audiovisual Media of the UB Maria José Masanet, focused their study on the representation of the character named Jules Vaughn, a trans teenager who keeps an intense relationship with the main character, Rue. Hunter Schafer, trans actress and model, plays Jules.

“We wanted to analyse Jules in order to explore the portrayal of trans characters in fiction”, notes Rafael Ventura, researcher and member of the Research Group on Critical Communication (CritiCC). “The most interesting thing about Jules is that this character can be an aspirational model not only for the trans audience but also to cisgender people”.

“The TV series normalizes and shows the trans character as ordinary, it shows Jules as a multidimensional teenager” 

Therefore, the researchers analysed —in several episodes— elements such as the context, aesthetics, the narrative, the content and the meaning.

The results, published in the journal Social Inclusion, show that the TV series Euphoria represents the trans character in a way far from the traditional ones:

1. The story goes beyond the trans fact: it is not only about presenting how the trans character comes out of the closet, or the transition, but it explores other sides of the reality and it presents complex and plural stories.  

2. The trans character is represented as an element of value and love, far form the sexual and fetishist objectification.  

3. The character exists in spaces that are not violent or negative, but in spaces of comfort and freedom.  

“The series normalizes and makes the trans character ordinary, it shows Jules as a multidimensional teenager”, continues Ventura. “It does not deny that Jules is trans and it does not hide Julesʼ problems, she is a girl whose life goes beyond this. Julesʼ character is not defined by being trans, but by being a teenager, who in addition, is a trans character. This change is a very important part of the story”.

The study is part of the funded projects by the Ministry of Science and Innovation “Transmedia Gender & LGBTI+ Literacy”, coordinated at the UB and led by the researchers Maria José Masanet and Maddalena Fedele, and the project “LGBTIQ+ Pantalles”, coordinated at the UAB and led by the researcher Maite Soto. These two research projects work together aiming to analyse the contemporary media representations and explore to what extent these portrayals can contribute to reduce homophobic, lesbophobia, biphobia, transphobic prejudices in other audiences.