Will Byers’ Ambiguous Sexuality is Not Queerbaiting
Spoiler warnings for the fourth season
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It’s been a couple of weeks now since Netflix dropped Volume Two of Stranger Things’ fourth season and left us all dissecting every scene and concocting fan theories. Will the gang be able to revive Max from her coma? What’s going on with the Nancy-Jonathan-Steve love triangle? Will Eddie Munson come back from the dead as a vampire (please let this one be true)?
But one scene that has really captured mine and others’ attention is Will’s emotional conversation with Mike in the penultimate episode of the season. Many viewers (including myself) saw this speech as a love confession to his best friend. Will’s sexuality has been hotly debated since the first season, but it seems we’ve finally gotten a confirmation thanks to an interview actor Noah Schnapp had with Variety: Will Byers is gay.
However, despite Schnapp’s assertions, the show itself has never actually confirmed Will’s sexuality. There have been hints: being called anti-LGTBQ+ slurs by his father and school bullies, Mike’s declaration that, “It’s not [his] fault [Will] doesn’t like girls,” and his poignant conversation with his older brother, Jonathan, who told him that he would love him no matter what. Despite all this, nothing explicit has ever been said, leading some viewers to accuse the show of queerbaiting.
Queerbaiting, for those who aren’t familiar with the term, is when directors or showrunners hint at LGBTQ+ representation, but then don’t actually depict it (think Dean and Castiel in Supernatural, or LeFou in the 2017 adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. . .hell, even Bert and Ernie might qualify).
Queerbaiting is nothing more than lazy writing, a cheap ploy to get diversity points without doing any actual work, and it hurts an already marginalized group that just wants to see themselves represented in media.
But it’s not what’s happening in Stranger Things.
What people need to remember is that this show takes place in the 1980s and we can’t judge Will’s storyline by 2022 standards. Simply put, this was a dangerous and scary time to be a gay man (not that it’s all roses now, but we’ve made some progress).
Will Byers would have watched as Harvey Milk, a trailblazer for gay rights, was gunned down in his office.
He watched the AIDs epidemic rampage through the country, killing mostly gay and bisexual men. He watched the Reagan administration turn its back on the LGBTQ+ community, leaving them to die. He listened as they referred to AIDs as “nature’s revenge on gay men.”
If he survives the final season of the show, he will see the brutal murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. in 1998. Then he will have to wait another decade before a law is passed in their name that defines their murders as what they were: hate crimes.
The truth is, if Will were to come out of the closet, he would likely be in serious danger. Demogorgons and Vecna aren’t the only evils that exist in the world; there are human villains out there, too.
Coming out stories can be beautiful when they’re well done. Just look to Robin and Steve’s bathroom conversation at the end of season three if you want to feel all warm and fuzzy. But they’re not the only positive stories that exist for LGBTQ+ characters. Sometimes, for whatever reason, they’re not ready to come out, but it’s just as important that their stories be told. It’s not queerbaiting to depict an LGBTQ+ character on screen who’s still discovering their sexuality and isn’t comfortable discussing it publicly.
What’s abundantly clear in Will’s interactions with his friends and family, especially in his heart-to-heart with Jonathan, is that he is loved. When and if he chooses to come out, he will have a strong support system behind him that will help him as he navigates a judgmental world. But he’s not ready yet.
And that’s fine.
