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every character in euphoria has nuance and every character gets slack because of it. rue is intentionally manipulative to the people she loves and we forgive her because she's an addict who only intends to hurt herself. cal is a cheater, a pedo, and an abuser. but some people forgive him because he had a sad gay backstory that they can fetishize. nate is an abuser who quite literally choked out his girlfriend and held a gun to her head and there are still a few people who forgive him because they think lexi's play outed him or they think him having the decency to send his dad to prison and giving jules the tape back redeems him for some reason.
But ive noticed a pattern of people hating jules with a passion and its because she's trans.
"But i hate jules and i love trans people"
if you really did you wouldnt feel the need to defend yourself. you'd read the rest of my post and try to understand what i'm saying.
"but i hate jules and i dont even care that she's trans"
that is exactly my point.
you have all these characters with backstories that lead them to where they are and to the decisions they make and you understand that this might cause the characters morals and motivations to stray.
except when it comes to jules.
when you ignore her transness you ignore her desperate need to be seen as feminine enough by society. you ignore her using men as a way of conquering femininity. you ignore the fact that she even feels the need to conquer femininity. you ignore that connection to her sexuality, how she uses male attention and sex to confirm her femininity. you ignore how much rue's (completely valid) sexual rejection affected her. you ignore that when elliot confirmed her insecurities (that jules wasnt sexually desirable to rue) and immediately complimented her, he was manipulating her. you ignore that when rue faked her orgasm elliot was already in her head and building her insecurities. you ignore the scene in s2e4 at the end, where elliot runs his fingers against jules' fresh self harm scars, that its symbolism for male validation and sex being self harm for jules.
when you see rue indulging in self harm, its "she's an addict, she needs help"
when you see jules indulging, its "I hate that cheating whore."
yes, cheating is bad. im not asking anyone to excuse that. but people who like rue and people who like cassie and nate dont excuse their actions, they just take time to understand their motivations.
and you can't understand jules' motivations whilst ignoring her transness.
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lani :3
i kind of disagree.
though its all valid and you are right that its part of jules's inner conflict of "conquering femininity" to be transgender, i feel like character flaws can just be character flaws sometimes.
major sp
it wasnt the fact that jules cheated on rue; if you watched the specials in the first season they were never officially together so its a bit of a moral grey area. it was the audacity to get upset with rue for possibly having feelings for elliot knowing she had known rue liked her s1 and still messed around with other people, including "tyler".
rue rejecting her was definitely a blow, but its still valid to dislike jules for getting together with elliot, knowing that elliot and rue were good friends. its one thing to cheat on someone and its even worse to cheat on them with their only real friend. not only was jules so suspicious of elliot to begin with and made it obvious it upset her, but jules then cheated with elliot. its shitty on both their parts. plus the whole alcohol thing is so weird. why talk about drinking around someone who you dont want to be drinking, and then get confused and angry on why theyre drinking it and that they should stop. it was weird.
i dont think thats conquering femininity and i think if people saw those actions as conquering femininity, we as a society have so much work to do in changing that view on how women act.
i hold jules to the same standard as anyone else in the show, and although i, at first, hated jules for snitching, i hope that its instead part of a redemption and can be a hugely positive thing. jules did save rues life but that doesnt mean what she did wasnt generally fucked up.
also, i really disagree that cal is a pedophile, its weird but jules did lie about her age multiple times. id say using that word to describe him is taming it, in a way. making it seem less serious than it actually is.
i didnt like jules cuz shes snitched and massively fucked over her gf/bff/ gf's bff. then again i dont like most of the characters in the show anyways.
i wanted to clarify; you HAVE to recognize the reasoning behind jules' motivations. you HAVE to recognize how being trans has affected jules and brought her to these decisions. however, i just wanted to explain how people can still dislike jules, just as all the characters are.. not very likeable.
hes like the only character i absolutely cannot stand in the slightest.
i do think calling jules names and being incredibly mean about her decisions isnt necessary, since what jules did was only morally wrong. it was emotionally impactful and really bad but its nothing compared to nate jacobs.
im excited to see where the character goes from here and although some people want it, i REALLY hope nate doesnt get a redemption arc
by lani :3; ; Report
i don't think everyone has to love Jules. i think there's a double standard for her. you can hate Jules all you want but its a red flag if you don't also hold the other characters to the standards you hold her to.
by sunnyratto; ; Report
Also I’d like to mention, cal was actively seeking 18 y/o and younger adults. Psychologically, morally what’s the difference between a girl a couple months away from 18 and a girl who just turned? Nothing. Just because the age gap was legal doesn’t make him any less of a pedo…
by sunnyratto; ; Report
the thing is he wasnt seeking underage girls specifically, jules told him she was 22. the thing that makes it weird is how young jules looks but otherwise jules is in the wrong for lying about her age. when cal is talking to fez about everything he says he didnt know she was underage and he just wants to erase the entire thing. cal is still super weird and a creep since he recorded it without jules' consent and was looking for significantly younger partners, but it does elaborate by showing another hookup that cal had arranged, that person being an adult. cal is honestly so shitty but i dont think his character is one of the worst, definitely super messed up though
also i totally agree with the double standard thing. do you think its a subconscious thing that a lot of people hold jules to a different standard? or do you think its more of a phobia and almost "justified distrust" just because jules is trans? (i mean like in the way where some people are scared of allowing trans people into certain bathrooms just bcuz their trans,, do you think some people just wanted to see jules mess up in a sexual way to justify their underlying transphobia?)
by lani :3; ; Report
i just realized i typed the wrong "theyre"
kms
by lani :3; ; Report
Oh, i definitely think it's subconscious. the main problem with euphoria being so mainstream is that the deeply nuanced LGBT rep is so outwardly normalized in the show that people forget to look deeper into the characters and their identities. with Jules, the show, for the most part, treats her like they do any other girl. there's her special episode and her episode from season one that briefly goes into how her transness affects her but other than that, the show really tries to avoid the "in your face" type of rep a show this mainstream needs to have. When it's easy to ignore, people arent going to try to look in-depth into her character unless they are actively interested in the LGBT portions of the show. It's easy to hate Jules when her transness isn't in the picture. and a lot of people subconsciously shy away from trans and other LGBT rep.
by sunnyratto; ; Report