Watching One Of Your Own Get Humiliated, Tortured, Objectified And Dehumanized Is Abuse And A Threat.

My gripe with Euphoria. Part 2:

The Lifestyle of Lexi

I may do some of these characters separately as opposed to in pairs. I may pair character who share similar plot elements or affect each other's storylines in a major way. In some cases, I might even give them a seperate page for further analysis if necessary. While Lexi connects to both Cassie and Rue's characters, I feel like specifically addressing how she was written.

Unfortunately, I might show my favoritism here because Lexi is one of the more humanely drawn character that I found myself relating to. She is the younger sister of Cassie and is comparitively more introverted. She has a contrasting choice of attire as well, dressing more conservatively in a prim, bookish style that.

Lexi Howard, played by Maude Apatow

Character outfits notably play a large role in this show, specifically in its eye-catching presentation as well as a reflection of the characters. Maddy, Kat, Cassie, and even Jules are shown to be more chic in their style and very willing to show some skin. These characters are presented as the hyper-feminine and hyper-sexua) characters of the show. They've been presented naked and sometimes afraid when facing certain sexual encounters. Lexi is one of the few characters who gets to keep her top on and not have sex, lust or really any other risky obstacles define her character, but that comes at a cost in this show. That cost was, of course, her screen time. She did not make up overarching storylines like Rue's love for Jules and her addiciton to drugs. She was also not anyone's main attraction until season 2 when Fezco (the local drug dealer) started taking interest in her. My concern was also that this male lead is indeed a drug dealer. That is not me rejecting any of his good intentions toward her. Funny enough, despite his job, he is probably as nice as the male characters get in this show. Still, he has a dangerous occupation that has been shown to lead to trouble. This is the bad boy-good girl plot that seems to flourish in the media. Like most good girls, her story is only seen as interesting to work with when she becomes a troubled male character's point of interest. Her additonal screen time ultimately amounts to a rushed plot. I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy her theater production in which she presents a detailed rendition of her life alongside the other characters. In the 2nd season's finale episodes, Lexi also appears to be facing an evolution in her clothing style that reflects these speedy changes. Her outfits become bold, taking on darker colors and more exuberant flourish.

Her outfits were still just a minor thing about her. The psychology of the character was given in brief flashes and short quips, but I had something to work with. Her relationship with Cassie was far more my concern. It took me a minute and even stumped me when I found out later in the series that Cassie was the eldest. She embodies all of the aspects of a stereotypical younger sibling, which we often see presented as bratty, self-centered, spoiled, etc. It is a part of the controversial "birth order theory", which takes a look at how birth order determines a child's capabilities. These qualities tend to stem from the youngest children not having room to be resourceful, probably having an older sibling to fall back on. There was plenty going on in the Howard household for the girls to develop that kind of reliance on one another, although Levinson did not attempt to give them that much screen time. Still, we get a glimpse that a younger Lexi is the more resourceful one to whom Cassie often released her woes. We see their realtionship reach a breaking point in the seadon 2 finale when Lexi's play very much shine's a light on Cassie as a person. In theory, this goes back to the the turbulent lifestyle both girls had to live. Their father had a drug addiction, which we learn later how that impacts their reactions to themselves as well as to characters like Rue. Cassie seems to take the fore-front, or more active approach in their father's slow decent into addiction. She is ready to love him regardless, openly supporting him even though is not specifically sure of what has occurred to him. Lexi is more reserved and noticeably more analytical of her father. We don't get to hear much of how she feels about this, specifically in the aftermath. It seems to have affected Cassie quite blatantly as we see her break down in the last episode, and in front of a live audience nonetheless. It was heartbreaking to watch their cold views of eachother be brought to light. Lexi saw Cassie as broken, but she also saw her sister as someone she hardly knew. This decision of her sister's ditziness and sexual nature sheds some light on Lexi's thought process, but we hardly see her reflect on this in moments that span longer than a minute. We also see Cassie's feelings emerge as well, where she states that Lexi is so "uninteresting" that she has to chronicle everyone's life just to add some spice to her own. Here, the narrative presents some interesting conflict between the two, but they don't get that time together. We are instead shown Lexi running away as Cassie is left to be chased and beaten by Maddie Perez. We are later shown that Lexi does rise again, ready to finish her pretty successful (and expensive looking show). Still, it did not feel like an enjoyable conclusion for either of these characters. Although the show is setting itself up for a third season, I doubt that any more time needs to be waisted as Sam Levinson continues to not flesh out the supposedly less interesting characters. It's clear why Rue remains front and center, but why are other characters given such shallow archs (and possibly unnecessary falls)?

Fezco (Angus Cloud) and Lexi (Maude Apatow) sitting together

Returning to the dynamic between Lexi and Fez is made even more odd when her father's story lingers in the background. Sure, Gez has the laid-back nature that matches her own, but he sells drugs. Plain and simple. Her father used them. This does not seem to give much in terms of morality for her characts. She may question his actions here or there, but it does not seem to affect her as directly as it should. Her attraction to him should be more of a struggle. Honestly l, we could even factor in Rue as an addition to this struggle. Rue and her were close for a long time, and she had to sit and watch as her friend fell into the same path as her father. She has been seen even helping Rue cheat her away out of a positive drug test, marking how strongly she feels about Rue as a friend. We see how this conflicts her to a certain point, but not enough time is given for this reflection to be effective. It is fairly obvious that Fez is the one selling Rue more drugs to fuel this addiction, but Lexi is not allowed to think about that. This would get in the way of the artificial plot that the writers constructed for her in order to push her into the limelight. Her need to start this play and simultaneously run it is also a leap in her character that leaves me with more questions than answers. We see her play review the lives of the show's main characters in an almost sympathetic way, but her narration hardly explains away her conflicting actions alongside her hasty development in confidence. This development presents itself, consequently, as force to drive the plot rather than a natural progression.

If you want to give someone a big lesson, love them unconditionally. You cannot do this if you do not love yourself. Unconditional love toward the other is properly expressed when you have an abundance of love energy inside of you. That energy is overflowing, the waters of your heart are full so you're able to pour into another lake. You cannot give that which you do not have. Practice unconditional love on yourself first and see how you'll naturally be inclined to spread this energy to others too.

it's actually really weird to me that a lot of adults don't seem to remember the worst bits of being a child. were you not horribly aware of when adults were talking down to you as a child? don't you remember how little autonomy you were allowed, even when it came to things that seemed pretty harmless? don't you remember the times when adults would seemingly be assholes to you for no reason? even if you had nice and reasonable parents, didn't you ever have teachers or other adults in power who treated you disrespectfully? didn't it sting no matter how people justified it?

especially when I was a teenager, it seemed obvious to me & to most of my peers when an adult wasn't treating us with respect. you could almost smell it, in certain classrooms. there would be this palpable, shifting undercurrent of teenage dissatisfaction whenever some teachers started talking. and it made a lot of the kids act out! which of course made the teachers try to exert their power, which never worked because nobody respected them, which made them get more draconian, etc.

as a teen, I didn't really get why my peers and I seemingly had a superhuman sense for when an adult was on a power trip. but now I think I get it. kids are systematically denied autonomy, respect, and consistently have the validity of their experiences denied. like, flat-out. they're a vulnerable class of people made even more vulnerable by their lack of societal rights. being disrespected as a kid is so frequent that I would say it's a defining experience for most children. is it any wonder they tend to pick up on when an adult doesn't see them as worth listening to?

so yeah, of course a ton of kids want to be treated "like an adult." to them, that's synonymous with being treated like a human being worth listening to. it's up to you, as an adult, to understand that wish for what it is, and behave accordingly. you don't gotta be a child psychologist. you don't gotta be perfect at it. all you have to do is remember how painful adult disrespect could be when you were a kid & do your best to act with some compassion.

You cannot find meaningful solidarity with people based on a label. Women aren't showing any commitment to wanting less violence, oppression and destruction, even the ones who say they do, but that's okay they're not ready yet. There needs to be a mental purge before the average person can create a shift. This doesn't mean I need to involve myself in what they're having trouble learning.

Whether she claims to want something or not, her actions show her true desires. It's your choice to react how you want: If you want to spend years asking people with a chosen label to change and treat you better, fine. If you want to find people who will accept you regardless of your label, fine. But to find the latter, you must start discussing ideas to start learning about yourself instead of attempting to maintain the criteria of a cultic label.

Although misogyny necessarily plays its part into the whole JKR debacle, I think the 'vitriol' as you said is mostly caused by the fact that a large portion of the haters grew up with the Harry Potter books whilst they haven't, for example, ever seen a Polanski film in their life. And JKR in a way could be a sort of parental figure to them. You know, as ~problematic~ as Freud may be, he was onto something when he spoke of one's need to symbolically kill the father; and the same people who practically worshipped the HP novels growing up had already begun dismissing them as child's play when the Rowling vs. Transactivists affair started. To quote another writer here, the issue crystallised at that point.

@helshades

It's so funny that you're bringing that up because I had this exact conversation with my man around a week ago. As I said in the tags of the post that prompted those couple of rants of mine, he's currently reading them for the first time at the rip old age of 35. A result of him giving Philosopher Stone to his pupils this year (HP so bad, primary schools use them to get kids to read, apparently) and making a point of doing everything he asks of them and that include learning all the poetry by heart, and therefore reading all the books as well. After finishing PS, he asked for the rest since he was surprised at how much funnier it was than the movie.

Anyway, I don't exactly remember how we ended up talking about JKR and the discourse currently surrounding her, but he made the exact same point as you, he mentioned how interesting it was that Freud might actually have had some interesting ideas hidden in his work somewhere in there, and that some people do need to "kill the mother / father" in order to grow up and leave childhood behind. I pointed out to him that it was rather obvious and blatantly observable all around us, but that, as per usual, people took that point way too literally, imagining that it meant killing your actual mother/father and marrying the other one so to speak; when a father or mother figure doesnt even have to be someone close to you nor someone you know at all - just a person or even a concept that shaped you enough when you were younger, that you are now feeling the need to "rebel" against in order to mature.

Which really goes back full circle to the point I constantly make when it comes to HP and how people are unable to read (just because you can decipher doesn't mean you can read, I will stand by that, always), and how really, most discourses and analysis surrounding it are people fancying themselves smart by what they believe is "deconstructing" something they loved in childhood, when in reality it's 8 grade level analysis (if I'm generous) and honestly just look like they're going through their teenage phase of explaining to mum why she actually sucks.

Still though, I'll keep believing that if Joanne Rowling had been Jonathan Rowling, there wouldn't be quite the same level of vitriol directed at her and that her being a woman plays a role in how confortable and justified people feel in robbing her of her achievement and devaluing her work.

The reason the world is the way it is is because of heterosexual men and women.

Men whine about misandry (or women) and women whine about misogyny (or men) yet they still seek out heterosexual relationships. They can try to justify it all they want but it won't change the discomfort of having extreme cognitive dissonance.

Man hates woman and woman hates man , he wants to devour her because he's incomplete and she helps him in that quest , they're both just as corrupt. Do not feel bad for the heterosexuals because they have brought this on themselves. The best you can do is be aware and distance yourself, human society currently operates on the heterosexual paradox of loving who you hate and vice versa.

An in-person conversation I had with my sister after mentioning Harry Potter (she’s in quotes):

“Fuck jk Rowling”

Random. Why?

“She’s a TERF”

How?

“She wrote all that shit about trans people”

What did she write?

“Like, a whole essay.”

Okay, so what did she say exactly?

“She basically said-“

No. I mean ‘exactly’. What’s a direct quote from her essay that’s 100%, indisputably, transphobic.

“I mean. She’s said a lot.”

yeah, I’m asking you to tell me, though. I’m genuinely curious.

“Idk. I don’t feel like reading it.”



My gripe with this perceived "God" stated eloquently.

I always thought about how the goddesses and gods of greek myths did not shy away from their almost human nature, despite being divine. There wasn't any justification in their actions. There was only influences like love, defeat, death, etc. These stories even showed these gods being unjust to the people below them, and I don't feel like I'm being told that they are right. Also, notice how the stories of every other culture are considered "myths", but the more religious doctrines that center a male god are considered factual? How would they know when these words have been altered and misinterpreted purposefully for centuries?