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 imagine part of it has to do with relatability. People like to insert themselves into the stories. And nostalgia is a strong drug. More people have experience with high school than college, so you’ll automatically appeal to a large audience.
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.
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.
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.
Just watching a movie where the “schoolgirl” daughter is at least 30.
Lost my v card at 15, drank and smoked weed in high school. My friends were partying too, and I went to an elite prep school. Kids got kicked out of school for doing opiates, someone dropped a bottle of MDMA pills in the girls’ bathroom and one of the teacher’s kids got his GF pregnant. There was a couch in the library that there was effectively a public challenge to fuck on. Don’t even get me started on the shit that went down in the drama department. Theater/band kids FUCK.
Kids do these things, especially the kids with money and little accountability.
Well that was a different time. Kids these days are focused on getting good grades so they can get a decent job and prepare for the climate wars.
Teenagers should be piloting giant robots, not doing drugs and hooking up
teenagers should be strangling one another on dimly lit beaches surrounded by a sea of human-soul-tang and esoteric christian iconography, not going to clubs and having sex.
Yeah, some teens experiment, but not like this.
What makes you believe this?
It’s not too far off some stories of my childhood except mine was in the 90’s so all LGBTQ’s were in the closet. We were drinking, doing drugs and having sex the majority of our teen years. And on a regular basis.
Honestly the only unrealistic part of the few teen dramas I’ve seen are the cars, the beauty standards, and the percent of girls that become teen parents. I knew 6 people practising makeshift bdsm and rope play before junior year.
We didn’t have internet porn so our sex was pretty awkward. I had bdsm fantasies but didn’t know that that was actually a thing people did.
I’ve not seen Euphoria, but drugs, drinking and sex plus underage clubbing were all things that happened at my schools between 15-18.
A drama like Euphoria is of course going to be way over the top regardless of setting.
I do agree casting 25year olds (zendaya is 29 years old) feels bizarre but that is what American TV has always done. Presumably it’s to do with experience given these are expensive shows that need to work to strict production schedules given how expensive these shows are. Its understandable they’d want a cast who have been proven to be reliable and experienced, and also are not restricted in the hours they can work. Also age consistency matrers - once you have one 25 year old cast member all of them need to be the same age or it looks disturbing with a mixed age cast set in a high school.
I suppose profile may matter too - Zendaya was already famous; the pool.of famous 18 year old actors is smaller than the pool of 25 year old actors. Certainly regardless of fame the pool of 18 year old actors with a big CV is going to be small. It’s risky to cast an unproven 17 year old but less risky to cast a 25 year old who has done plays, and maybe TV or movies, or completed acting training.
I agree they could just not set it in a high school but then the specific dynamics and stories they want to tell would not be available. High school is a strange time - in the US but also globally - where people are on the cusp of adulthood (16 in many places, 18 in the US), yet totally restricted by the law, family and school. It’s a perfect setting for conflict, which makes drama, and it is universally relatable as almost everyone went to school.
Meanwhile if you set something 19-25, it is no longer universal. About 50-60% of people in rich countries go to university / college. And those institutions massively vary from community colleagues, poorer universities, up to elite places. Meanwhile 40-50% do other things.
So yeah, I get that it feels bizarre that shows set in high schools are all 25 year old actors but I think it makes sense why, and setting things in high schools make sense too. These shows obviously make money and have a wide audience, even if it’s not really my personal taste.
As a fan of teen comedies, I do think about this. If everyone’s going to look 25 and talk in this mature way, why is it even set in a high-school? The two factors I see are:
Once upon a time : by setting a story in a non-realistic / mythic setting, it’s easier to enter into the fiction of it. For adults, it has a nostalgia for a time before responsibilities when everything was possible, but that would be ruined if you had to face up to how akward and useless most teens really are. And for kids these ‘teens’ who look perfect and always know what to say are wish fulfillment. Everyone knows it’s not really like high-school, but peasants and the aristocracy knew that knights were nothing like those dipicted in chavalric ballads, but they both like to imagine that they were for different reasons.
Bottle episode : High school is a super convient writing drvixe, because you have these characters who have freedom and independence enough to move the story forward, but it’s also super easy to restrict any option that makes things difficult. There’s no need to worry about too many social circles, or why the characters don’t just do x or y. If you want a group of friends, who basically only interact with each other, it’s plausible enough. Even in college that’s harder to do, unless it’s a very small, exclusive group (like The Secret History) and even then it feels intentionally insular and incestuous in a way that a high-school clique doesn’t.
I otherwise agree, but “young adults or adults” seems to imply young adults are not adults, which they are
“young adults or adults” seems to imply young adults are not adults, which they are
I know I’m saying younger adults or maybe slightly older adults, like the youngest being 21 and the oldest being 25 or something. If you want the characters to be in close proximity with each other and still have this school dynamic, then college is perfect; there are people in their late 20s or early 30s getting their PhDs in these teen dramas. The writers never actually show the awkwardness of high school; they only want to show them talking, acting and doing adult things but never really show the consequences or have teens realise maybe they are too young for this. If you want a show where the characters look, act, and do things 21-year-olds do with little to no consequences and no adults even asking the slightest of questions, then just make them 21 and in college.
In my experience, “young adult” refers to a specific stage in life, and takes place directly after teenage, but before your 30s (i.e. 20-30). In fact, the fact that the word adult is in “young adult” does imply that they are adults, just more to their larval stage.
Young Adult, as a literary genre, is aimed at the middle teenage years.
Yep, it’s just more convenient for lots of folks to pretend that teenagers are children.
They’re played by adults, doing adult things—clubbing, drinking, hooking up
A lot of people do that in high-school …
I didn’t say kids didn’t do these things. I said Hollywood shouldn’t romanticise it or glorify it.
Do you think it’s okay for minors to do drugs, drink and have sex with adults? Do you think? Parents are “villains” for justifiably saying “your a minor this isn’t ok”?
doing adult things like clubbing, drinking and hooking up
If you didn’t do these things in high school, that’s a skill issue. There are under 18 clubs. Teens also notoriously like to sneak alcohol and get drunk at parties and also have sex.
If you didn’t do these things in high school, that’s a skill issue
I didn’t say kids didn’t do these things. I said Hollywood shouldn’t romanticise it or glorify it.
Do you think it’s okay for minors to do drugs, drink and have sex with adults? Do you think? Parents are “villains” for justifribaly saying “your a minor this isn’t ok”?
The incredulouness expressed in the main topic seems more like you’re taking issue with the realism than glorification.
Showing these things is a reflection of reality. I don’t think it is okay; but it happens in the real world. If you’re trying to paint a realistic picture eith your story, you are going to include this kind of stuff.
There are under 18 clubs
Yeah, but these are lame.
A lot of clubs allowed entry at 16 if you left your ID at the entrance. You’d get it back if left before midnight. Or … or you could just stay and leave your ID.
Then next week you just say “I fogot my ID last time” and they’d let you in again, keeping your ID.
I eventually got my ID back when I turned 18.
Yeah, but these are lame.
So they have that in common with adult clubs.
Haha, true.
But at least at that age adult clubs seemed cool
Weird.
