PARENTAL WARNING: HBO's 'Euphoria' Targets Teens with Graphic Sex and Nudity
HBO's smash hit "Game of Thrones" (GOT) may be over, but the cable network is continuing to produce material with the extreme sex scenes and violence that pervaded that show.
Now HBO is targeting teenagers and pre-teens with its new program "Euphoria" which premiered on June 16, introducing them to content that may be even more pornographic and obscene than GOT.
The Hollywood Reporter describes it this way: "Thirty penises in one episode? Zendaya's new series, filled with graphic nudity, violence and drug use among young people, is so extreme that one star quit mid-shoot..." That's just the beginning since the series also reportedly includes graphic transgender sex and sexual violence that involves choking.
Even though a paid subscription is required to access HBO, the cable network's GOT material went global, pushing sexual violence and perversion into the mainstream of pop culture.
The Parents Television Council (PTC) is warning parents to beware, pointing out the ongoing trend of targeting young people with explicit material on multiple media outlets.
"Just as MTV did with 'Skins' and as Netflix is doing with '13 Reasons Why,' HBO, with its new high school centered show 'Euphoria,' appears to be overtly, intentionally, marketing extremely graphic adult content – sex, violence, profanity and drug use – to teens and preteens," says PTC President Tim Winter.
"HBO might attach a content rating suggesting that it is intended for mature audiences, but let's be real here: who watches a show about high school children, except high school and junior high school-aged children?" he continues.
Game of Thrones may have had a mature rating too, but it became so popular that it permeated the culture. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) says that wasn't a good thing.
"HBO's Game of Thrones is brimming with pornographic sex scenes, awash in misogynistic dialogue, and bloated with depictions of sexual violence and torture so savage as to be unrivaled in television history. In GOT, HBO has given a stage to an amalgam of pornography, rape, prostitution, child abuse, sexual violence, sexual paraphilias, and wholesale carnage that succeeds in bringing the ambiance of torture pornography to the American living room," NCOSE stated on a website it created to specifically warn people about all the disturbing content in GOT.
Parents Television Council says parents shouldn't just idly by and expect their kids won't be exposed to HBO's "Euphoria".
"While HBO is a premium cable network, parents who are HBO subscribers may be blindsided by HBO's new attempt to market such explicit content directly to minors. And the parental blindside is greatly exacerbated by ubiquitous streaming apps that deliver such explicit content directly to a teen's phone or computer screen. Parents urgently need to be aware of HBO's grossly irresponsible programming decision," Winters says.