“I think that’s my biggest dream.
To be your girl. To love you more than anything.” We've gotten better, as a society,
at judging women less— but Euphoria’s Cassie Howard
reminds us how far we haven’t come. “What have I done, McKay?” “It's not like it's that big of a
f[BLEEP]ing secret, Cassie.” According to Twitter,
Euphoria is the most tweeted about show of the decade. And a massive chunk of these
tweets are takedowns of Cassie. In season 2, Cassie sleeps with
her best friend Maddy’s ex, falls in love with him,
and goes bananas. “What you don't understand,
Nate, is I am crazier!” And this behavior really
touched a cultural nerve. What felt like one half of Twitter
was mad and also kind of excited for the coming catfight;
the other talked about the cringe of Cassie’s obsession with guys,
especially Nate. In the season 2 finale,
during Lexi’s play, Cassie gets up on stage,
and it feels like she’s attacking us, the audience, for judging her. “I deserve this, right?
Because I've actually lived a life?” Euphoria itself doesn’t have
a puritanical view about sex— and to a degree, the characters
on the show prize being sexually experienced
while making fun of virgins. “She was a virgin.
She'd told Jules that a week into summer school,
and when Kat saw her reaction…” “Bitch, this isn't the '80s.
You need to catch a dick.” But it portrays how Cassie is belittled
for her widely shared nudes and videos, “Cassie’s on the slut pages?” lest we’d be tempted to mistakenly reason
that, in our more “enlightened” era, “slutshaming” is a thing of the past. And in season 2,
the situation gets worse. Cassie acts like a cringeworthy pick-me
and a terrible friend— and it almost feels like Euphoria is
trying to bait fans into judging her. “Well, if that makes me a villain…” “Whoo!” “Then so f[BLEEP]ing be it.” Cassie’s peers focus so much
on judging and making fun of what she does—
but what’s truly revealing is how they (and the audience) treat her, “It made me feel like you
weren’t proud to be my boyfriend.” and the effect this has on her. Here’s our take on Cassie and what
her character arc actually has to say about self-esteem, sexuality, and
the “slut” trope in today’s world. “Cassie's a whore. Fact.” This video was written by friend
of The Take, Anya Formozova. If you liked the ideas here,
you can check out her channel, Cue 22, for more interesting
cultural insights. “You think I'm here because
I'm interested in you? In what you have to say?...
Any guy who says he's interested in you beyond just f[BLEEP]ing you,
is full of shit.” When a character does
questionable things, their backstory helps us understand why. We may not feel we’d ever act the
same way, but at least we empathize. So we see that Rue’s dad dying
is connected to her drug use and Cal is the source of much of
Nate’s rage and violence. “You think hiding it
creates the same thing in him?” With Cassie, we’re told early on
that her dad loved her, but let her down. The transition from discussing
her dad to her love life is seamless, “She also never saw her dad again.
She fell in love with every guy she ever dated.” making it obvious how
her relationships with guys are a continuation of her relationship
with her father. She keeps putting her faith
in boyfriends who disappoint her. But beyond the archetypal
“daddy issues” driving promiscuous behavior, there’s part of Cassie’s dynamic
with guys that has less to do with Cassie herself and more with
the world around her. As we learn from the backstory
and Lexi’s play, Cassie hitting puberty was such a
momentous event, it affected Lexi, too. “The most defining moment
of my adolescence was when my sister
went through puberty.” And there’s a very important
observation Rue makes: “And it wasn't just her body
that changed. But the rest of the world, too.” What Rue means here is that
it’s not that Cassie fundamentally “becomes” anything other than
who she’s always been— it’s that everyone else reacts
to Cassie differently, for no reason other than
her more womanly appearance. “Look at you, all grown up.
Come on, give me a hug. You really filled out.” “I bet you got all the boys
wrapped around your finger.” These lines show how disturbing
it is for young girls when suddenly, everyone starts seeing and
treating them as sexual objects. Ironically, Sam Levinson,
Euphoria’s creator, was actually criticized for sexualizing
Cassie, as she’s the only actress with nude sex scenes in Euphoria,
and she has a lot of them. But arguably, the creative choice
to show us Cassie having sex a lot has merit, because it reflects the way
Cassie both relies on her sexuality and has been perceived
as a sexual object her entire postpubescent life. “Show us your boobs!” The curse of “growing up hot” may
sound like an infuriating phrase, but from a young age,
all anyone talks about when they talk about Cassie
is her appearance. “Holy moly, look at you.”
“What?” “You're gonna be a real
heartbreaker.” “You’re perfect.” At one point, Lexi yells at her: “You look beautiful, Cassie.
You look f[BLEEP]ing amazing. It's literally all anyone's
ever told you your entire life.” The sentence, “it’s literally all
anyone’s ever told you your entire life,” is sad
because it seems to suggest no one ever told Cassie
anything else nice about herself. (Add to that the fact that,
at that point, Cassie is worrying about how her stomach looks
because she’s pregnant, which makes Lexi’s remark
doubly hurtful). When the only thing anyone
sees in you is appearance, you yourself might begin
hyper-focusing on it, and internalizing the idea that beauty
or being pleasing to the male eye is all that gives you value. “Where would Mom be
without her perfect nose? She wouldn't find a man like you.
She'd be nothing.” You learn to rely on it. “You don't know
how much power you have.” That’s why, when McKay is
telling Cassie his worries about his football career,
she starts kissing him. He gets frustrated, “Why you got to make everything
so sexual?” but it seems like she does this
because she has learned that giving sex is the easiest way
for her to make people happy, so that is her automatic reaction
to McKay being upset, an idea which McKay reinforces
when he shortly after asks her, very insistently, for nudes. What’s effective about Cassie’s arc
in Euphoria is that it doesn’t just focus on a character who craves
male validation, or a character who is stereotyped as a slut,
but the way in which these two forces—internal and external—
play off each other. It shows us how Cassie learns first
to relate to men with the same sad patience she has for her dad—
trusting them despite being disappointed by them—
and then how the initial objectification Cassie experiences as soon
as she hits puberty sets off a kind of chain reaction. Relying on guys for self-esteem
leads Cassie to let them push her beyond what she’s comfortable with, “Every guy she ever dated
asked for the same things, and she almost always said yes.” which in turn erodes
her self-esteem further, which makes her all the more
dependent on them. Cassie always has a boyfriend. “When have you ever been single?” At the same time, the guys sense
her need to appeal to them and interpret it as a willingness
to be pushed. “F-[BLEEP] her like the whore
she is and kick her ass to the curb.” “If you don't, we will.” A kind of sped-up version
of this process happens between Cassie and Daniel. She knows he will shower attention
upon her, so she comes to him twice when upset—to be fair, the first time
she does this, she is on Molly— but Daniel, sensing that she is
using him for self-esteem, demands that he gets to use her back,
which culminates in this horrible, incel-like monologue: “You think I'm here
because I'm interested in you? In what you have to say?...
F-[BLEEP], are you dumb.” In the discussion of Cassie’s backstory,
we get a strong sense of how uniform the world’s reaction to her is. Everyone says she’s beautiful,
sometimes in the exact same words. “You are literally the most
beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.” “You’re the most beautiful girl
I’ve ever seen. Has anyone ever told you that?” Every boyfriend asks
if they can film her. “She knew that most guys,
after she broke up with them, would always share
those photos or videos.” So while this repetitiveness
can make it feel frustrating that Cassie doesn’t ever fight back
or change something to snap out of this exploitative pattern,
the show communicates how the world has almost conditioned her,
through constant repetition, to fall into the rut she’s in:
of constantly trying to find love in exchange for her sex appeal,
making the same choices and finding herself hurt. “I keep making mistakes
and not learning from them.” Whether you’re mailing out
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and enter code THETAKE. “Bitch, you’re my soulmate.” In the pilot of season 2,
Cassie sleeps with Maddy’s ex, Nate. Nate and Maddy are broken up
when Cassie comes into the picture, but only for three weeks
and three days. Cassie does not tell Maddy about
the situation, but gets outed. “How long have you been
f[BLEEP]ing Nate Jacobs?” Meanwhile, on Twitter,
an avalanche of fans call for Cassie’s blood and eventually
get what they want. At the same time, there is a shadowy
collective of Cassie supporters out there, called the “Cassie hive.” As a society, we are fascinated by
stories of romantic rivals. Two men competing for a woman
is the classic love triangle, hailing all the way back to medieval
chivalric romances and even older stories featuring men fighting each
other to win the heart of a woman, or sometimes of men discovering
they may have been cuckolded by another. But when the story is about two women
competing over a man (which is less common in older literature),
the tone is different. A man “beats” rivals to “win”
a woman’s heart. But women are said to “steal” men
from other women. “Lexi, is this the part of the play
where I steal Jake from Marta?” This language reflects the way
masculine rivalry in love is more legitimized in our society,
while the taboo against women quote “stealing” men
remains uniquely powerful. “But I'm not the bad guy!”
“Well, you're not the good guy.” “I’m pointing out the principle.”
“What principle?” “The ‘don’t f[BLEEP] your best
friend’s boyfriend’ principle.” Twitter, or at least,
the most vocal parts of it, seem to have taken
the story straight— Cassie is the villain for betraying
Maddy by hooking up with Nate. But if we look closer, this
love triangle actually comments on the way we tend to think about
women fighting over men. Even though Cassie is supposed to be
the “temptress” in this scenario, she isn’t forward and independent
like the women who “steal” men are often portrayed to be. Also, she is a complete romantic. “You deserve someone who's
passionate and loving. Who yearns for you, and,
and can't wait to see you.” This sweetly naive girl is obsessed
with the idea of true love, and believes that to achieve that kind of
love, you need to sacrifice everything. “I ruined my entire life for you.” Meanwhile, the male “prize”
being fought over here, Nate, is a clear villain. The audience knows that really,
neither girl is supposed to be with him. And that’s actually what makes
this version of the “other woman” love triangle so tragic. Maddy may be fierce and
kind of scary when wronged, “She’ll actually kill you.” but she is an excellent friend
to Cassie. “I would have never done this
to you.” So more than the “woman scorned”
who’s concerned with keeping her man,
maybe she’s a woman who is upset because she loves her friend. “This isn’t about Nate. This is about you, and me,
and our friendship.” After Cassie and Nate hook up,
she becomes obsessed with him. This is what set off
the other half of Twitter— the ones that didn’t want Maddy
to bash in Cassie’s skull, but instead found Cassie pitiable
and cringeworthy. “You guys can all judge me if you want,
but I do not care.” Some pointed out that Nate
is abusive and sociopathic, and Cassie must be an idiot
for not seeing this. Others focused on the way
Nate’s treatment of Cassie indicates that he isn’t even that interested
in her. Still others suggested Cassie’s
delusional for ignoring hints that he may be closeted
(though Nate actor Jacob Elordi commented on how this question
is more complicated than a clear-cut matter of orientation,
due to Nate’s issues with his father’s sexual behavior.). But mostly, what bothered people
about season 2 Cassie was her readiness to go to any lengths
to make a guy want her. The beginnings of Cassie’s obsession
are shown in her morning ritual— the camera shakes as Cassie manically
primps, trying to make herself absolutely perfect just in case
Nate notices her. “And for those three hours
she spent getting ready, she only thought about one thing.” She also begins to dress like Maddy
and do her hair and make-up like Maddy, which tells us that
her obsession with Nate has completely replaced
any sense of self that she has. “Wait, why…”
“Oh, my class is this way.” Donni Davy,
the makeup artist for Euphoria, discussed the choices
for Cassie’s look in season two, episode seven—
quote, “The goal was to sort of shift her whole vibe to the
Season 1 era Jules by Maddy by Cassie
hybrid that would appeal to Nate or possibly to his subconscious.” Cassie’s hair is blonder, straighter,
and more motionless, and her skin much paler,
which (according to Davy) “almost suggests that she’s unwell…
Gorgeous but weirdly sterile?...” like a “mannequin,” her
“youthful innocent energy gone.” All she wants from life
is to be Nate’s— to a degree that’s embarrassing
to watch. “I belong to you...so I trust
you know what's best.” Many of the tweets about
season 2 Cassie focus on her embarrassing behaviors—
the crying, the chasing after Nate, the losing it in public. “I have never, ever, been happier!” According to Melissa Dahl,
author of Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness,
vicarious embarrassment, or cringe, comes in two types—
there is contemptuous cringe and compassionate cringe. Compassionate cringe is when you
genuinely feel bad that a person is experiencing humiliation. Contemptuous cringe is when you
instead feel derision and contempt toward the person. More tweets about Cassie
fall into this second category. We often tend to cringe at things
that we recognize, to a degree, in ourselves. Dahl writes, “Embarrassment is
what the research typically classifies as a self-conscious emotion,
which would suggest that you wouldn't feel it unless you had
some kind of personal investment in the thing that is making you cringe.” So it’s possible that the people
making fun of Cassie on Twitter may also, to some degree,
be making fun of themselves. After all, the experience of
crushing on someone so hard that you devote all of your
thoughts and energy to them isn’t unique to Cassie. “Even if Nate pretended
not to notice her… It was her way of telling him
that she was his.” And Cassie's losing
her sense of self and getting obsessed with a guy
after sleeping with him is very common young girl behavior. That feeling of spotting your crush
in the school hallway— and that experience where you know
you’re being treated poorly, but you tell yourself that you can
somehow muscle your way through the bad parts into
an actually good relationship— “You can't f[BLEEP]ing blackmail me
into a relationship with you.” are all instantly recognizable
to most of us, even if we don’t like to admit it
or dwell on the times when we might have acted similarly. At the end of season 2, we watch,
along with all of Euphoria High, a play written by Cassie’s sister, Lexi. It creates a kaleidoscopic effect—
within the world of Euphoria High that we are watching,
there is another, smaller, snowglobe Euphoria, that the
characters themselves are watching. “Wait, is this f[BLEEP]ing play
about us?” Much of the play is focused on Cassie
(or Hallie, as she’s called in the play) and what growing up next to her
was like for Lexi. Lexi expresses a lot of the crueler
things we tend to think about women who put male attention
at the center of their lives— jealousy that they
have all that attention, mixed with an insinuation that
they are vain, vapid, and talentless. “Uck, I look disgusting!” “Hey, Hallie,
I'm in the middle of somethin'.” “It's just, this dress
is so not flattering.” At the same time,
even within the play, Lexi has insight into the fact that
the way people react to Cassie-slash-Hallie is not
altogether in her control, “To be honest, I'm not really
the kind of person who wants to be known for their body. But I also didn't want the troubles
that came along with it.” and that all Cassie really wants
is love. “At that age, we all thought we knew
what love looked like. None of us had any idea
what it actually was.” This desire to find true love
is really at the core of Cassie's quote “sluttiness”—
she acts the way she does, prioritizing guys over friends,
centering her life around male attention—to find love. “Aren't you afraid people are
gonna look down on ya?” “At least I'm loved.” Cassie’s season 1 arc doesn’t really
nudge audiences to have an opinion for or against her. Cassie makes questionable choices,
but also terrible, undeserved things happen to her. It illuminates the low self-esteem
that drives her behavior, while showing how her every sexual act with a guy
is held against her by her peers— “She's a f[BLEEP]ing whore
through and through, bro.” and (far from us having moved past
slut-shaming behaviors) in our age of nudes and everyone
filming everything, the damage to someone’s reputation
can be even fiercer and more concrete. “She figured by the time she was
out of college and looking for a job, 99% of the population would have
leaked nudes, anyway.” But in season 2, we see Cassie do
less and less forgivable things— like be terrible to Maddy,
who truly loves her, and sacrifice everything,
including every shred of identity she has, for the worst person
on the show. “You can control what I wear.” It feels like Euphoria is inviting us
to judge Cassie, almost trying to bait us
into hating her. Within the snowglobe of
Euphoria High, this judgment of Cassie happens
on the stage of Lexi’s play. And even though Cassie snaps
and jumps up on the stage trying to vindicate herself—
yelling at Lexi, and by extension at us— “You never even f[BLEEP]ing lived! That's why you're able to
stand up here and judge all of us!” Euphoria still does not make
Cassie's perspective become the primary one,
because that would lift the responsibility off of us. As Cassie is speaking,
she is interrupted by the play-version of herself. “I just love f[BLEEP]ing everything.” This scene alludes to the infamous
carousel scene from season 1 in which Cassie overdoes it with Molly
and gets extremely horny on a merry-go-round, while being
ogled and filmed by onlookers. Cassie snaps and attacks
her play counterpart. And this vision—a woman seeing a
version of herself being made fun of for public entertainment, snapping,
and being again put on display for snapping—is very recognizable
in our culture. Euphoria knows that culturally,
we are obsessed with watching women go off the rails, especially if
these women are beautiful and popular. "I'm not the one putting on a play
to humiliate and embarrass you." "I didn’t do that." "Oh, really?
Then what is this?" The public and the media were mesmerized
in the aughts by the very public unravelings of women
like Britney Spears, Amanda Bynes, Lindsay Lohan, and Amy Winehouse. The public’s reactions to Cassie’s descent
into madness prove that, perhaps, we’re still just as susceptible to treating
the sight of a popular woman in pain as pure entertainment as we were then. It’s easy enough to empathize
with a girl like Cassie to a degree, for a little while—as long as she
eventually gets her act together and stops making the same
stupid mistakes on repeat while baselessly expecting the outcome
to be different. But can we still maintain
empathy and respect for her if she doesn’t snap out of that cycle? Ultimately, Cassie’s arc in season 2
of Euphoria is a challenge, almost like we were asked:
will you stay with us through the points we’re trying to make,
or will you again get seduced and distracted by the spectacle
of a beautiful girl going nuts, and again forget
to actually feel for her? Judging by reactions online,
both things happened. There’s a spirited debate
going on between those disgusted and embarrassed
by Cassie and those who are feeling for her—and that
in itself is progress. “I don't think there's anything
more beautiful than dedicating your life to loving someone.” This is The Take on your favorite
movies, shows, and pop culture. Thanks for watching,
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