‘Godzilla prn in Euphoria’: Viewers are not impressed by Sydney Sweeney's humiliating portrayal of sex work | Web Series

As fans are blessed (or cursed) with a new episode of the third instalment of Euphoria every Sunday, the show’s content, particularly Cassie Howard’s character arc, seems to be taking an increasingly unhinged turn and unlocking a whole new level of bizarre each week. So if you visibly cringed at Sam Levinson’s reimagining of Sydney Sweeney as Lana Del Rey in the Doin’ Time music video – except draped in barely-there Neanderthal-style animal skin clothing – you are certainly not alone. The internet, unsurprisingly, has a lot of thoughts.Cassie in Euphoria Season 3 Episode 5The fifth episode, titled “This Little Piggy,” opens with Cassie fully committing to her OnlyFans career, as Rue Bennett matter-of-factly explains that Nate’s mounting debt has finally given his wife the free pass to pursue her long-awaited sex worker pipe dream (remember when Nate didn’t like the idea of her filming explicit videos to pay for wedding flowers? That’s history I guess).The “piggy” in question apparently dreams of making foot fetish videos with bows tied around her toes, filming ASMR content with her chest, roleplaying as a little girl complete with pigtails and a pacifier in her mouth, and advocating for white male rights on podcast shows – all under the marketing genius of her former best friend, Maddy Perez. Just when it seems like things cannot get any more absurd, the episode descends into a full-blown circus. Cassie suddenly appears to take a sip of some twisted Alice in Wonderland potion as her clothes begin ripping apart and she grows larger and larger by the second. What follows feels like a bizarre, fever-dream spectacle.Giant Cassie wreaks havoc across the city, trampling over people and cars, before flinging a helicopter away with her hair and sending it flying across the sky. In another surreal moment, she spots a man pleasuring himself while watching her videos and seemingly “blesses” him by pressing her bare top half against the building’s glass – only to shatter it completely moments later.Viewers are not impressedAs expected, the episode sparked sharply divided reactions from viewers online. Many criticised the show’s creator for overtly sexualising Sydney Sweeney, particularly as the storyline appears to sideline everything else in favour of focusing almost entirely on her character’s adult-content-creator arc.One user wrote on X, “I’m actually asking for the 1 millionth time, what is the plot of Euphoria? Because from what I’m seeing, it’s just Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and random unhinged fever dreams. Can someone explain?”Another said, “I haven’t seen a single episode of Euphoria this season, yet from all the clips I see on X it seems the director just said, ‘f*ck it, put Sydney Sweeney out there in some ridiculous, overtly-sexual scene and let the g*oners g*on’.”Some viewers compared Sydney’s giant scene to Godzilla, saying. “They got Sydney Sweeney doing Godzilla p*rn on Euphoria. wrap this sh*t up man.” Another commented, “This has got to be a humiliation ritual for Sydney Sweeney. They had to pay her good for that Godzilla reenactment.”A humiliating portrayal of sex workAccording to a report by Variety, Sam Levinson’s over-the-top portrayal of sex work through Cassie’s storyline in Euphoria has angered many real-life OnlyFans creators, some of whom said the show has subjected them to even more mockery and humiliation than the stigma they already routinely face. One interviewee described the depiction as “ridiculous and cartoonish,” pointing out that much of the content Cassie creates in the series is wildly inaccurate, particularly in terms of what platforms like OnlyFans actually allow.They said, “There’s so much that they have her doing that is not even allowed on OnlyFans, and that alone is infuriating: the age-play stuff where she’s dressed as a baby in a diaper, for example. Credit card processors have very strict rules that you have to abide by, and the rules are getting stricter all the time.”In fact, any content involving age-play, whether real or simulated, is expressly prohibited on the platform. The issue feels especially significant in the current climate surrounding violence against women, particularly as controversies tied to the Epstein files – including allegations of child pornography, abuse, and other disturbing claims – continue to dominate public discourse.Another creator told Variety, “In the climate we’re in, that they dressed her up as a baby to make pornographic OnlyFans content was beyond troubling and again serves to perpetuate stereotypes that sex workers have no moral compass and that they will do anything for money. And there’s always this untrue stigma that somehow sex work is synonymous with sex trafficking and abuse. And they just said, let’s make a joke of it. That is so funny. I’m not laughing.”When Levinson was asked about Cassie’s OnlyFans storyline, he told The Hollywood Reporter, “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.” However, his explanation did little to distract from the very obvious target of the joke: adult content creators, who often find themselves repeatedly mocked and humiliated through portrayals like these.