An Identity Problem: Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990) in HBO’s Euphoria (2019)

The purpose of this project is to analyse different gender formulations and their manifestation within the fictional narrative of HBO TV show Euphoria (2019). This analysis will be done following the constructivist perspective offered by Judith Butler upon the performativity of gender configuration in her 1990 work Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Butler’s claims with regards to the outer and performative existence of gender, rather than it being part of the individual’s interior nature, will be central to the development of this paper, along with her statement as to how gender identity is consolidated according to society’s unilateral imposition of a strict patriarchal model that can and must be followed or otherwise subverted. Taking as a point of reference these two possibilities, characters of Euphoria such as Nate Jacobs and Cal Jacobs will serve as examples of the ways in which individuals in society may accept the patriarchal imposition and suffer from it, specially taking into account the analysis that Butler provides upon previous feminist writers such as Beauvoir, Wittig and Irigaray, and psychoanalysts like Lacan and Freud. As a counterpoint to this, her discussion of Foucault’s Herculine upon the subversion of gender identity within society will be considered so as to explain Jules Vaughn’ troubling entrance in western binarism and her willingly failing into conforming to the patriarchal law in terms of attitude, behaviour and physical appearance.