At 24 years old, Zendaya has become the youngest to win an Emmy Award and, incredible as it may seem, the second African-American woman (well, she's actually mixed race) to do so —after Viola Davis in 2015 for 'How to defend a murderer'-.
Beyond the wow factor, which it has been, we can't deny that if Zendaya hadn't picked up the award, it would have been quite unfair for one of the best series (and performances) of all of 2019. 'Euphoria' may be the series ignored par excellence of these 2020 Emmy Awards.
Well, it hasn't been that ignored either. She has simply been relegated to a handful of technical awards. And I don't even think her nominations for makeup, costumes, and various musical issues would have been more deserving than other visuals, editing, production design, and even directing (Sam Levinson deserved a mention for 'Shook Ones Pt. II'). ).
An "almost" ignored series
But in the end, including Zendaya's, the tally was three Emmys: Best Makeup (Non-Prosthetic) and Best Original Song and Lyrics for Labrinth's All for Us. Both awards for 'And Salt the Earth Behind You', the last episode of the first season of the series.
This three minute video fully encapsulates how Zendaya is 'Euphoria'. The character of Rue, a drug-addicted girl who tries to survive her addictions and, in general, her life as a teenager in the midst of broken characters, sexual violence and other toxicities, invades us in the first episode and does not leave us.
The entire series, even when it focuses on characters like the fascinating Jules (Hunter Schafer) or Kat (Barbie Ferreira), is about Rue. We see everything through her prism, through her eyes and through her narrative. Even in scenes where you can't even smell the young woman, she is there, helping us to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.
Zendaya is 'Euphoria'
And this is achieved through a superb performance when she is on screen and an immersive voiceover when she is not. Few protagonists in current television are the same essence of the series. Even in series called as the main characters. But here Zendaya is the series. The series is Zendaya.
I'm not going to deny that 'Euphoria' is not for everyone. I think someone said it last night in the Emmy broadcast on Movistar +: either he catches you or he spits on you. I myself had my pluses and minuses at the beginning of the HBO series, with its excessive but consciously unrealistic portrait of generation Z. It is raw and harsh in sexual terms, in the description of the use of drugs, alcohol... of everything .
But it's also wonderful. Through the eyes of the protagonists of it we get drunk with sensations, with sensitivity and despite the fact that what happens in each hour of the chapter is worrying and leaves us with our hearts in a fist, there is beauty.
Sam Levinson is accurate in his script. But Zendaya is an actress from another world and she knows exactly what to show in every second of footage. We can like her character better or worse (it's the typical one that you find unbearable at first), but the actress sells it to us, lives it and makes us live it. An Emmy performance.
