One of the scariest contemporary television characters happens to be a teenager on HBO’s Euphoria, Nate Jacobs. His own demons influence many of his decisions. As the season closes, it finally clicked why he is in fact the scariest villain. Our fears of Nate Jacobs are triggered because he embodies white privilege patriarchy.
What is white privilege patriarchy?
Well, it is having the ability to really do whatever you want based off of your race, sex, and class.
Nate is the typical jock. He is a football star at the local high school and has the most popular girl as his girlfriend, Maddie. Their relationship is clearly unhealthy for teens their age. Nate could not handle the public humiliation he faced after Maddie hooked up with another guy at a party. Instead, he attempted an attack on Jules, the new student in town who also happens to be transgender.
At a young age, Nate was exposed to his father’s sexual secrets. It is unclear if it created resentment towards homosexuals or if it piqued his interest in exploring his sexuality. However, this is our first glimpse in seeing Nate exercise his believed right as a heterosexual male. He feels as though he can control the bodies of women. His ego is so tattered following the public humiliation. He plots against the man that Maddie hooked up with. Nate plans a rather vicious attack on Tyler, the man Maddie had sex with. He gets him to agree to never mess with Maddie again or he will file statutory rape charge, being that he is an adult and Maddie is a minor.
Nate then puts his sights on Jules. He essentially catfished her into thinking that he is someone else using the name Tyler. They talk for weeks which creates an emotional attachment on Jules’ part. She discovers that he is not who he presented himself to be when they meet face-to-face. Instead, he threatens her with child pornography charges for the videos she sent while sexting. Nate utilizes his hetero-masculine behaviors to bully Jules into agreeing to remain quiet about his father’s sexual secret. Clarkisha Kent also acknowledges that Nate navigates throughout the show from a place of privilege. She compares him to Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.
The final straw for me with Nate was when he messed with Fezco. Fez is my favorite character on the entire show. Fez made it very clear to Nate that he needs to stop messing with Rue and Jules. In return, Nate calls the police and has Fez’s home raided being that he is an underage drug dealer. It finally clicked when watching Nate report the crime that he is just a white man/boy in America that feels entitled. If things do not go his way, he goes to very extreme actions to make sure they in fact do.
We countlessly see Nate rise from situations that would have completely different outcomes if he were not White. However, in the season finale, we see Nate finally break. It was almost as if the show was trying to reveal to us the internal conflict that comes from carrying the burden of being an asshole.
I only had a glimpse of sympathy for Nate. It’s clear, he internalized his father’s demons and they are tearing him alive. On the other hand, no one told him to act on it. This is a clear display of white male privilege patriarchy. It was very scary to watch this young white male get away with everything close to murder with no consequence or repercussion. I am not afforded any of those white male privileges. It is even scarier to think about how these young boys/men grow up to be even worse adult men. Simply causing havoc because they can. I am unsure of where Nate can go from here. In season 2, I hope that he acknowledges his privilege(s) and possibly mend many broken relationships.
