In honor of Pride I'm spending this month looking at writing techniques in queer stories. This week I'm focusing on two great queer shows, GENTLEMAN JACK and EUPHORIA.
During the pandemic I finally got the chance to catch the first season of EUPHORIA, which to me felt a lot like what if THE LEFTOVERS was just about the teenagers (and also their struggles were built not from some external-Rapture event but just the horrors of living today).
One of the most striking elements of the show is creator Sam Levinson's use of narration. In the pilot, main
character Rue tells us the story of her life and reality, teaches us random things like how to fake a urine sample, and all the way through she's endlessly charming, funny and also pretty wise. She’s
written in the voice of your best friend from high school, or maybe your big
sister, someone who cares and that you instinctively love.
But she's also in a way the voice of God; in a unusual move, she's a first person narrator given omniscience. So in the start of 102 she tells us Nate’s story -- and once again with humor and the quiet compassion of understanding. Each subsequent episode she does the same with a different character.
What’s fascinating to watch is how making her both the big
sister and benevolent god-figure of the show ends up giving Levinson a
hiding place for so much drama to come. We know from the start that Rue is an addict, that she’s been to rehab and is back at it. And yet, in the pilot
we see very little of the negative consequences of her choices.
In 102 we get more – we see her shouting at her mother and shaking a piece of broken glass (although it's in a flashback without audio). We also see a lot more of the pain that she caused her little sister Gia, who found her when she'd OD’d. And we see her treat her friend Lexi like absolute shit.
But having spent the first episode falling in love with this character, I found I took in all of this new information much differently. I judged Rue far less and didn't consider what the broader implications of those moments might be. Her voice and benevolence in effect hides her awfulness, even as she’s showing and telling us that she is an addict.
In effect Levinson is giving us the same experience everyone else in Rue's life goes through. She is playing us, distracting us, hiding lots of terrible and painful things right in front of us. It's a brilliant technique.
Also one that highlights a really valuable writing truth: You can present really terrible/worrisome things in plain sight without the audience really noticing them if your character is winning enough. Charm the hell out of us with funny stories and insight and we will be completely stunned when six or seven episodes later the troubled addict who has been in front of us the whole time completely loses her mind.
TOMORROW: GENTLEMAN JACK TAKES DELIGHT IN DISORIENTATION
