Why Rue’s Character is so Terrifying
Zendaya as Rue on HBO’s Euphoria
Rue’s story is one no one wants to hear and yet you can’t look away. Zendaya plays Rue on HBO’s Euphoria and on the show she is a teenage drug addict with one known overdose under her belt and everyone in her small town knows about it. She struggles to find her footing after she comes back from rehab and has little intention of getting or staying sober. All while she is still in high school. The show follows her and some of her classmates as they live through intense hardships that define their current lives. All of these stories can happen and they are probably happening to more teenagers than you think.
Big Pharma
Zendaya’s role in Euphoria is so scary because her addiction is thrust upon her by the world around her, which is how so many Millennials and Gen Z’ers feel. Climate change is here largely because of the older generations neglect, our government wants to put us in cages because of who the older generation voted for, everything is expensive because of an economy the older generation created, and on top of it all, our lives could spiral out of control because I tried to treat an illness I was born with. Or Rue was born with.
Rue was diagnosed with a plethora of different possible mental illnesses (OCD, ADD, and general anxiety, and possibly bipolar disorder) that often meant she had to be medicated in order to live “normally.” Which means between the ages of 8 and 12 she lived her life in a fog. Rue doesn’t remember much of her childhood because of the drugs she was taking for her illnesses. But when a severe panic attack got her sent to the hospital a doctor gave her a dose of liquid valium to calm her down. Which made her feel really good, better than she had ever felt in her short life. As a young woman who has been struggling to feel good, feel happy, feel normal, her whole life, the tease of the possibility of euphoria was too great to ignore. She explains all this while sitting on an outdoor couch in a high school party with her current drug dealer next to her. Rue’s drug addiction didn’t spiral out of control over one wrong choice she made. This sh*t happened on accident.
It's not just a “White Thing”
People in marginalized communities tend to brush off the possibility of getting addicted to hardcore drugs like valium or cocaine. It’s just not in the cards for us. We don’t need the threat of hardcore drugs to simulate adventure in our boring lives. We’re marginalized, we’re not safe by definition so there’s no need to seek out more danger. It’s exactly that kind of thinking that allows people to ignore the red flags their loved ones are showing them. Defaulting to a stereotype is the same thing as ignoring the problem as it stares you in the face. Anyone can get addicted to drugs. Anyone can get it. Anyone.
That being said, Zendaya looks wayyyy too much like me and her sister, Gia looks WAYYYYYYY too much like my sister. This is a brown skinned black family living in the suburbs. My family is a brown skinned family living in the suburbs. While my family, thank God, has never had a serious problem with drugs, the fact that the Bennetts look like me and mine in the same environment we grew up in makes their story all the more plausible and all the more likely to happen to me. To us.
She could be f**king dead, bro
This article right here officer: Has Euphoria’s Lead Character Been Dead the Whole Time?
If you click on the link the article you’ll see that Entertainment Weekly has compiled the recent twitter discussion that questions if Rue is even alive at all. Everything she says is in the past tense and watching how hard she is struggling through this addiction episode after episode makes it very clear she could have another overdose at any time. She was just force fed Fentanyl at her drug dealers house from an even worse drug dealer. If we saw Rue being born, maybe we will see her die, too.
This show makes it very clear that the stories we’ve started with are far from their happy endings, if these characters are lucky enough to make it that far. Euphoria is funny and terrifying and it has me glued to my seat every Sunday evening. I truly hope Rue makes it out of this ok but I guess I’m going to have to watch and find out. Tune in to HBO next Sunday at 10 pm EST to keep up with Euphoria and make sure to make your way back here to read what I’ve got to say about it.
* If you or a loved one needs help you can text EUPHORIA to 714714 or click this link to find more resources. *