But it does so without reducing the rich complexity that is Jules to her transgender status and-so far-without trotting out the same tired transgender tropes that have plagued Hollywood since the days of The Crying Game. It’s not that Euphoria refuses to acknowledge Jules’s gender identity or to use it as a plot point. She melts under attention, even when it’s coming from people who could prove dangerous. She spends way too much time on her phone. She likes to ride her bike through the orange groves, even at night. She is silly and has a strong sense of style. Indeed, Jules-like transgender people more generally-is so many things besides simply transgender.
Whereas the (still-groundbreaking) Orange is the New Black seemed to go out of its way to announce that Laverne Cox’s character Sophia was transgender in every single scene, Euphoria trusts its audience to pick up on the hints and follow along. The context clues are all there: a few oblique references in the dialogue, a handful of visual cues.
The fact that Jules is transgender isn’t exactly a secret in the episodes that HBO has aired thus far. A character like her is hard to dream up, harder to portray, and harder still for a creator to handle with care. But years from now, long after the hot takes have cooled and the show itself has been reduced to a blur of sex scenes in our collective cultural consciousness, we will still remember Jules.
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Jules is brought to life by transgender model Hunter Schafer, acting the hell out of her debut role opposite Zendaya, who plays Jules’s best friend Rue.Įuphoria is a series that clearly wants a reaction, regularly touching hot buttons like 9/11, the opioid crisis, and sexting-and a reaction Euphoria will get. The show is Euphoria, HBO’s controversy-courting teen drama, and the character is Jules, a charismatic young transgender girl with Rapinoe-pink hair and a heart that looks for love in all the wrong places. The most interesting transgender character on television doesn’t utter the words “I’m trans” until three episodes into her show.