Revealing Cassie Howard's Electra Complex in Euphoria Film (2022)

Abstract

This study aims to identify Cassie Howard’s father issues throughout the Euphoria movie. The goal was to examine how Cassie’s personality reflected Freud’s Electra Complex theory. Sigmund Freud defined the Electra complex as how the relationship between parents and female child in childhood development will eventually shape the child’s behavior in their teen to adult phase. In order to assemble the data, the author chose to watch the season, read the season’s transcription, analyze the cinematographic elements, select the quotes, identify the data based on the study’s theme, and classify the issues related to Freud’s Electra complex. The research method applied to this study is the Freudian psychoanalytic approach and Sigmund Freud’s theory of the Electra complex. The result found that Cassie’s behavior and mental growth happened to be rooted in her childhood development, where she had non-secure parents, as well as the absence of a father figure. In her childhood development, she admired and longed for his father, and the father suddenly left. The absence of her father had a big impact on her as an adult. Thus, she seeks happiness in male validation instead of facing reality and making peace with herself. These patterns of looking for male validation are the results of the unfulfilled psychosexual growth of women. The unfulfilled result of this crucial phase in female children is labeled the Electra complex.
Keywords: electra complex, Freudian psychoanalytic theory, movie, behavior, cassie howard, euphoria