Season three of Euphoria premiered on HBO Sunday, and the trailer teasing what’s to come has fans and critics alike questioning a plot line involving Sydney Sweeney’s character Cassie.
The Controversy
Sweeney’s character apparently becomes an OnlyFans model this season as a way to earn extra income and a brief snippet of the teaser showed her wearing babydoll-inspired lingerie with her legs spread and sucking on a pacifier while filming content for her account.
And it is not just the baby-like ensemble that is making waves. Sweeney’s character provocatively dressed up as a dog, complete with a leash, in the first episode, which has led many to voice concerns about not just the costuming but the storyline as well.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, showrunner Sam Levinson, 41, seemed to suggest audiences are focusing on the wrong thing. “[She’s] got her dog house and her little dog ears and the nose, and that has its own humor,” he said. “But what makes the scene is the fact that her housekeeper is the one filming it.”
“What we wanted to always find is the other layer of absurdity that we’re able to tie into it so that we’re not too inside of her fantasy or illusion — the gag is to jump out, to break the wall,” Levinson, who told the Beast he wanted to “break the wall” between the show and its viewers with the strange plot point, added.
While Sweeney has not responded to the backlash, she did speak about her character’s new career path at the Euphoria season 3 premiere. “I mean, Cassie’s a crazy character,” she told Entertainment Tonight.
Megyn’s Take
On Tuesday’s show, Megyn reacted to the controversy and explained why she believes it is yet another example of Hollywood being devoid of reality. Below are her remarks, edited for length and clarity:
“Can we talk about Sydney Sweeney for a second? She stars in the show Euphoria, which I’ve never seen, but that’s how, I guess, she kind of became a star… and then she was in a couple of other things… This thing is made by Sam Levinson, who is a filmmaker and actor and the son of director Barry Levinson, who is very famous…
They have just teased the third season with… a little video showing what’s going to be happening with Sydney Sweeney’s character. I guess she is going to become a social media influencer and she is going to be an OnlyFans actress… It’s definitely R-rated…
She’s in a baby’s outfit, she’s sucking on a binky pacifier, and her legs are completely spread… This is sexualizing infancy. That’s what this is. And some of the write ups about this are like, ‘It’s a pretty common kink.’ What, getting turned on by a baby?
This is sick… I can’t believe she agreed to this, frankly… There is also a picture of her dressed as a dog being led around on a leash. And I think this guy, Sam Levinson, is sick because there are reports of him injecting nudity into the Sydney Sweeney scenes so often she went to him and said, ‘Please stop doing this. It’s very gratuitous.’ And now all these other women have come forward saying he injected nudity into their scenes too.
He constantly wants women to take their clothes off for scenes that don’t require them to be nude at all… And all these women want to be stars, so, you know, few say no. But the ones who do, somehow it leaks because they are clearly trying to tell us that this guy is, at a minimum, a jerk and, more than likely, a problem.
I think this is another example of Hollywood not understanding at all where the line is and how most normal people are going to recoil – even Sydney Sweeney fans – in response to what is essentially the sexualization of a child, of a baby. It seems to be wanting to bring down your defenses on the most disgusting crime imaginable on Earth.”
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,295 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.