I was a drug addict, and I’d take anything and everything until I couldn’t hear or breathe or feel.” At the 2019 premiere, Levinson told reporters, “I spent the majority of my teenage years in hospitals, rehabs, and halfway houses. It is also an opportunity to address how abuse has been normalized in our communities as a coping mechanism.įor many Black people struggling with substance misuse, Rue’s story is still authentic, even though she is based on the “deeply, deeply personal” experience of Levinson - a white man - dealing with addiction in his teen and young adult years. Instead of thinking that compassion and refraining from hitting a sick child is “not Black,” this is an opportunity to explore how we have grown accustomed to the demonization of Black people with addiction in the media, and why those narratives can and must change. The response to a sick person who is harming others is not to perpetuate that harm through hyper-surveillance and physical abuse. After episode five, one Twitter user wrote, “i need y’all to stop associating patience and understanding towards ur child as whiteness.”įor Sam Levinson’s many writing missteps, lack of abuse and strict supervision does not render a story about a Black family dealing with addiction inauthentic. There have also been comments pushing back on the idea that Rue’s story is not “Black” enough because of the lack of physical abuse. Not every family deals with issues through physical abuse, and we should demand more from ourselves and the people in our communities. this girl is pushing her mom, cussing at her mom, kicking doors !!!!!!! I would be dead- BoujieB February 7, 2022Īs a Black woman who experienced and witnessed parental abuse in all its forms - my mom used to take my door off its hinges if I closed it for privacy, she once kicked me in my skull for having sex at 19 years old, and she allowed the police to take me away after a suicide attempt - I admit that Rue’s relationship with her mother doesn’t match a lot of the relationships I grew up associating with “Blackness.” But associating abuse with Blackness is erroneous, even if our own experiences tell us differently. Rue doesn’t act like she has a black mom but a white one. I breathe in a wrong way and it’s over,” going on to explain that if she behaved in the same way, “I would be dead.” One Twitter user wrote, “Rue mom is so weak, any real black mom would’ve beat the breaks off her ass.” Some of the tweets seem to suggest past pain, like this user who tweeted, “Rue doesn’t act like she has a black mom but a white one. The minimal violence in this intense episode left many viewers incredulous. Rue then broke down in tears, at which point Leslie became loving and desperately attempted to take her daughter to rehab. After Rue shoved her sister, Leslie slapped Rue. Faced with withdrawal symptoms and the likelihood of horrific danger, Rue broke doors, threatened her sister, Gia (Storm Reid), hit her mother, emotionally abused her girlfriend, Jules (Hunter Schafer), and cursed at them all. Leslie had discovered and disposed of Rue’s suitcase of pills, not knowing that without them, Rue might be sex trafficked by drug dealer Laurie (Martha Kelly). For many, it is the lack of strict supervision and physical abuse from Rue’s Black mother, Leslie (Nika King), that makes Euphoria an inauthentic portrayal of Black families dealing with adolescent addiction.Īfter watching season two, episode five - which Zendaya described in an Instagram post as part of Rue’s “rock bottom” - some were shocked that Leslie didn’t resort to more intense violence as her panicked and distressed daughter rampaged throughout the house. Exacerbated by the death of her father, Rue’s addiction threatens everything that’s important to her, including her relationships and her life. Rue, a 17-year-old biracial girl living in an almost completely white world, has been struggling with substance misuse since she was 13. Since creator Sam Levinson’s show about a group of teenagers dealing with heavy issues like grief, addiction, and intimate partner violence premiered, people on social media have remarked on the lack of realism. One of the most salient but also complicated complaints is that the main character, Rue (Zendaya), isn’t having an authentically Black experience. Euphoria is nothing if not controversial.
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