The controversy surrounded HBO's shocking new series The Idol has us reliving the other most controversial television shows ever produced. Keep reading to find out what made shows like Euphoria, Gossip Girl, and Skins so controversial. We're focusing on shows that were controversial for their sexual content, and we're including a sexy clip from each series to help you fast forward to the good parts.
Why is The Idol Nudity So Controversial?
The Idol is about a pop singer struggling with mental illness (Lily-Rose Depp) who falls for an enigmatic cult leader (The Weeknd). What follows is a succession of kinky sex scenes and masturbation scenes.
Salacious enough, but it's the behind the scenes drama that makes The Idol so touchy. The show was originally a satire back when it was under the creative direction of Amy Seimetz. However The Weeknd, who has the majority of the creative control over the series, wanted a serious male perspective and reportedly fired Amy. HBO ran with the drama and began marketing The Idol as the "sleaziest love story." The New York Times is calling The Idol the first major backlash against the #MeToo movement.
Euphoria Is Too Explicit For A Teen Series
Euphoria kicked up the teens-gone-wild premise to a ten. There was a time when the CW was producing the most controversial teen content (see Gossip Girl below) but Euphoria blew all of its predecessors out of the water. Euphoria teens face drug addiction and sexual violence and have wild sexual fantasies and encounters that rival those seen in porn. Basically showrunner Sam Levinson did everything within his power to push buttons, and it worked.
Gossip Girl Was Every Parent's Nightmare
Before there was Euphoria, there was Gossip Girl. Another unabashed attempt to rile up parents, Gossip Girl famously released posters with quotes from reviewers that include "Every Parent's Nightmare" and "A Nasty Piece Of Work." Those seem like such simpler times.
13 Reasons Why Included Dark Teen Themes
The first season of 13 Reasons Why was deemed too triggering for a Netflix series. School bullying takes center stage as the show's narrator Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford) takes her own life after enduring not just bullying but also assault. The show's graphic imagery proved to be too much for many, with parents and students alike - on both ends of the political spectrum - accusing 13 Reasons Why of glorifying self harm.
Game Of Thrones Was Too Focused On Female Nudity
People sensed a pattern with the original Game Of Thrones - women were often nude while men stayed clothed or were able to maintain their position of power during sex. Whether the nude actresses were being humiliated and tortured or having all out consensual orgies, the show became the poster child for the "male gaze" in television. We won't even get into the specific scenes that caused a stir. You know which ones they are.
Lena Dunham Was Nude A Lot In Girls. A Lot.
Speaking of female nudity. No one can accuse Girls showrunner Lena Dunham of being shy. She made it a point to showcase her more to love body as frequently as possible in Girls. Dunham's all out rejection of typical female beauty standards proved to be too much for many viewers. How many scenes featured Lena Dunham nude? 35. She went nude 35 times in Girls! We love to see it.
House Of The Dragon Childbirth Scene(s) Went Too Far
HBO took critical responses to Game Of Thrones into account for this second go-around with the Game Of Thrones franchise. More women were brought on as creatives for House Of The Dragon, and their rejection of the gratuitous sexualization of women in the original Game Of Thrones is evident in the show's most controversial scene: An unflinching look at the horrors of childbirth in medieval times. One of the House Of The Dragons showrunners declared "We felt that was an interesting way to explore the fact that for a woman in medieval times, giving birth was violence." Not everyone was excited for the brutality of it all, as one can imagine.
Lexx Kept Things Dirty On SyFy
This is a sci-fi series that initially fully enjoyed the liberties afforded by its home on Showtime, with plenty of porny nude scenes. However when Lexx made the jump to the SyFy channel, it maintained its porny side that fans had become accustomed to. This caused an uproar in the prudish aughts.
Skins Was The Original Teens Gone Wild Series
Before there was Euphoria, and the same year that Gossip Girl was released (2007), there was Skins. It wasn't the first teen television series to depict the aspects of teen live that parents prefer to not think about, but it was the first to include realistic sex scenes and full frontal nudity. Gotta love the Brits.
Riverdale Reinvented The CW Teen Show
Archie no! Not quite a Euphoria but no longer a Gossip Girl, Riverdale got creative within the confines of its home on network television. The series, based on the Archie comics, is as controversial for its depictions of teen sexuality as it is its bizarre storylines. An example is teenage Betty (Lili Reinhart) doing a stripping routine in front of her mom at a bar. High school amirite.
One Shameless Storyline Kept Things Relative
Showtime's long-running series Shameless is unabashedly, well, shameless, but even the show's biggest fans rejected some of the storylines. the most famous example of Shameless going to far is a storyline in which Veronica Fisher (actress Shanola Hampton) convinces her mother to sleep with her boyfriend after she finds out that she cannot conceive a baby.
Californication Wasn't Good Enough To Not Be Misogynistic
David Duchovny's The X Files followup, Californication, was met with a lukewarm critical response, which hindered the show's goal of elevating its hypersexual content to the level of prestige TV. Instead Hank Moody's sexcapades came off to many as simply sleazy and uncomfortable. Californication attempted to expose misogyny, but for many it just ended up being a flesh fest.
