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Revisiting Euphoria’s Cassie Howard: Analyzing Why Male Fragility Is Rewarded But Female Is Hated

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Why did we hate Cassie Howard so much? While Euphoria Season 2 turned Cassie into the ultimate "Pick-Me" villain and a viral meme, there is a much darker psychological and sociological tragedy beneath the surface. In this video, I go beyond the “Cassie cheated” discourse to analyse her. From her upbringing and inherited trauma to the soft boy illusion of Nate Jacobs, In this deep dive, I explore why female fragility is mocked while male fragility is romanticised.

You can watch EUPHORIA on HBO MAX - https://www.hbomax.com/br/pt/shows/eu...

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro
03:29 Psychological Breakdown of Dysfunction
11:02 Cassie’s Slow Unravelling
17:46 Mythologising Male Vulnerability
23:56 The Hysteria Tax
33:42 The Voyeuristic Trap
42:09 Final Thoughts
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20 Comments

@tremendouslygoose 6 months ago (edited)

“Because she lacks the Cool Girl stoicism we demand from women, her pain isn’t romanticized. We don’t feel the need to fix her - we just want her gone.”

“When men tie their identity to status or control, we interpret that as systemic pressure. But when women tie their identity to desirability, we individualize it and call it weakness.”

damn good video essay

@louheyman2441 7 months ago

This deep dive is everything. Sam Levinson doesn’t reach this level of curiosity about his own characters, and it shows so much in Cassie’s case. When you want to write about women, if you can’t empathize with their struggles and needs as you do with your male characters, you end up looking quite empty minded. Thank you for taking the time and work to make Cassie’s character more compelling and nuanced than her creator ever could. So engaging !

@shackaboum 6 months ago

watching cassie was tragic but i never hated her. she seemed so broken from the beginning. I wanted her to choose better for herself but tbh, her spiraling was also pretty realistic.

@doveskiss8 6 months ago

you said something so so true that nobody talks about: as women we are told our worth is measured by how loved we are by men, but if we dare to WANT to be desired or even feel like we NEED the validation - we are treated like criminals. it's so sad really. you're supposed to be emotional but being needy is the one emotion we should never show...

@1212x_O 6 months ago

I never hated Cassie because she reminds me of my teen self suffering with BPD. The desperation for love that we don’t get at home. Feeling like platonic love isn’t strong enough to fill that hole. Doing sexual acts even when we’re uncomfortable or know it’s wrong so that someone would stay by my side for once. Know that being so available and tumultuous drives them away, but they can’t help repeating the same mistakes. “It’s me, I’m crazy.” “Everyone leaves me because I’m worthless.” “I’m too much.” The suicidal ideation is more to do with guilt and shame rather than having a hard life because knowing we’ve chosen the wrong path over and over, is more heartbreaking than anything anyone else could do to us.

I’ve decided to stay single and many of these feelings have lessened.

@slouchyvintagebag 5 months ago

the real villian is sam levinson for taking this kind of character and punishing her and sexualizing her in the narrative the same way that all the people in her life do

@cosmicdust2668 6 months ago

the way you talk about how differently the narrative treats cassie and nate is so so so good. it's not just misogyny from the viewers, it's also the language of the show devaluing her depth.

@eatplastic9133 6 months ago

Finally someone talking about how society rejects women's vulnerability too, not only men's

@sallijunttila3006 6 months ago (edited)

I always found lexis methodical way of hurting her sister so out of left field, the play was just, such so extreme way to hurt someone, and it really made me see her so differently.

@moonlighttlit4866 6 months ago

I was that girl, in my teenage years. I did all to get some semblance of love because love was missing from home. Even though I was the one cheated on, I hung on to my abuser because he was an illusion of safety. I was Cassie. So watching Euphoria, I didn't hate her character. I saw myself in her.

@oregon_rose 6 months ago (edited)

I am also glad you brought up the abortion Cassie had in Euphoria. Often times we don't see the emotional toll and aftermath some of them have on women. Granted some women feel nothing after it but there are also those who really grieve the loss.

@nenetube 6 months ago

I've always been very sympathetic towards Cassie but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was about S2 that made her so flat until after listening to your analysis. Particularly about the way she was framed by the camera whenever she was having a breakdown. We hardly got to engage with her outside of her just spiralling, they made her pain look cartoonish.

@I_ateChad 6 months ago (edited)

She always seemed to me like a bipolar person slowly unravelling. Her desperation is almost manic. Her failure is a depressive spiral. Nate is completely unsympathetic for me. He is the monster under the bed and man in the alleyway every little girl is warned about. It was like watching a psychological horror movie.

@crystalnova4897 6 months ago

THANK YOU for finally doing Cassie justice! I've seen countless videos demonizing and hating on her and it drives me crazy. Obviously her actions were not ok and she did betray Maddie BUT its not out of malice. She is a broken character and tbh, we've all known Cassies in real life. I don't understand how people can be so calloused towards her, a tale as old as time. It was killing me that she didn't have much growth and just kept spiraling and making mistakes. I really wanted anyone to reach out to her with kindness and a little bit of grace and try to talk some sense into her.

@druibdsgkkdsxg 6 months ago

Cassie was extremely human, tbh. Just a mentally ill person dealing with the shit of the world and doing shit herself sometimes.

I HATED HOW MUCH EVERYONE HATED CASSIE BUT NEVER TALKED ABOUT NATE, OTHER THAN IN THE CONTEXT THAT HE LIKES MADDIE MORE. WHICH IS INSANE. WHY DO WE EVEN WANT AN ABUSER TO LIKE MADDIE?

@user-mt2co8ip4u 6 months ago (edited)

We don't talk enough about what villains Suze and Cassie's dad are

@annaniskanen2557 5 months ago

The thing is that we hate weakness. Men unraveling and behaving badly is usually not seen as weakness because it manifests as outward aggression whereas a woman unraveling is often about allowing others treat you badly. We do hate some male characters but those are the ones we see as weak, as snitches, traiters. Like Pettigrew in Harry Potter.

@shrutikaanand7587 6 months ago

The mere fact you had to put the disclaimer that you are not defending her actions three times says everything.

@MrYzzy2012 6 months ago

Lexi and Cassie are just two expressions of cptsd (hyper competent for Lexi vs hyper dependent for Cassie) and they are equally maladaptive, our reaction to them is just our social reaction to mentally ill people that do and don’t serve capitalism. In this essay, I will…

But actually I had inklings of this thought ever since I first saw Cassie’s meltdown episode but couldn’t coalesce them into a full thought until I saw this. Well done!

@LUDELKRI 6 months ago

I found Nate insufferable and didn't understand why people were especially hard on Cassie. The show kept framing her as an airhead, so I couldn't understand why people were appalled when she'd make bad choices because it seemed like they were holding her to a moral standard that she clearly didn't have the capacity for.