I love the point made about how sometimes lonely, unhappy characters can make us feel less alone. There's an idea that's gained traction online that fiction, or specifically queer fiction, should exist only to uplift and make people feel hopeful, and that stories with unhappy characters is inherently bad as a result. But in truth, whenever I've been at my lowest, I haven't wanted to be uplifted -- I've wanted to feel less alone, and to know that other people have experienced the same pains and fears. Hell, I honestly felt relieved to hear Rantasmo say as much because THAT made me feel less alone, too.
Will broke my freaking heart in the last season. That scene with his brother made me bawl my eyes out. I think it's greatly hinted at throughout the entire show that Will is not only gay, but is in love with Mike. The fact that his brother totally knew and understood and accepted and loved him regardless... ugh, I'm choking up just thinking about it.
I was Will B. when I was in Jr.High and High School. This was 1981-1987. AIDS and massive homophobia reigned. I realized I was gay in '82 and was litterally terrified. It was a demoralizing, lonely secret no other human being knew about for years. Most gay men are living with PTSD from their traumatic adolescence - and aren't even aware of it.
I personally love how Jonathan, his brother, was attuned to Will's struggle and openly supported him without even putting into words or labels what Will is going through. Cause I swear it was 100% obvious, but at the same time some people will only pick up on things if they said outloud. And I love that showrunners didn't do it here.
I always say I "came out to myself" at 19. I always had the feelings and the attractions, even had many many experiences, but I didn't put my finger on it and say, "That's me. I'm bi" until that day.
I've had a similar experience with my transness, I've been thinking about what it'd be like if I was a girl since 2010 but didn't realize that was a realistic option/didn't come out to myself until a couple of months ago.
My lightbulb moment didn't happen until senior year of college. Just a very sudden knowledge that I *did* want to kiss a woman, specifically the one right in front of me. Went back to my car and went 'huh. well fuck.' and then put a pin in it for another 2 years rip
Be on here more often, please. The closet is narrow, dark and it smells. But, I was in it until my mid 40s. After depression and a suicide attempt, I spent six months taking inventory and admitted to myself I was gay. Here it is 20 years later, I am happily living with my age-appropriate boyfriend. It is never too late. I hope Will discovers this before season 42 of Stranger Things.
I appreciate this commentary. I’ve only been able to understand myself as Ace in recent years and Will Byers felt relatable to me because when I was in high school, when my friends getting into all the hetero dating, it felt so wrong for me. Turned out, gay dating was the same. I kept losing my “besties” to a romantic relationship and always was the third wheel. I deeply felt Will’s struggle in that, even though he is written as gay, to me, he could have been written as Ace.
My ace ass tearfully supporting Will's more explicitly gay storyline like Will tearfully supporting Mike and Eleven getting back together. One day our canonical sad ace prince will come. Till then I'll keep playing them in D&D :D
Spot on! I'd say one of my big reasons for feeling out of place in school wasn't being Bi, it was being Ace and not knowing it. Everyone else seemed to fall into relationships so easily and I always felt like I had to force myself to feel that way, I don't think I even realised the full spectrum and meaning of Asexuality (Grey-ace, demi etc.) until my late 20's, but wow did it help putting a pin in how I felt haha!
I agree with you. I like Will having a introspective plotline where he's a introvert trying to deal with self-acceptance. I don't feel like pairing him off with someone would feel like it suits his personality. Like you said his journey would take time and would feel authentic if it was less defined as a modern day show would handle it as accepted and quickly achieved for Will to feel confident and for his friends to be instantly and modern-day-style supportive... yeah, it wouldn't feel authentic to the character or the time period. I feel like the reason people get worried about his portrayal is because we're used to seeing shows of this caliber NEVER outright allow a gay male character to be explicitly canonically gay without it being veiled so that homophobic straight guys can say, "Can't two guys just be friends? Why does everything have to be gay?" etc. to make it sound like it has to be straight feelings cause they hate to watch something from a gay POV. Despite the writers are putting the hints in in such a overt way. People want to know Will is gay and not just have it a be hinted.
Personally I am little torn on Will's development. I definately agree with Rantasmo that it is important to depict characters who are queer, but struggling to articulate it to themselves, let alone others. On the other hand, it kinda feels like the writers have had Will in a holding pattern since season 2, like they had enough storyline for 3 or 4 seasons, but the show is super popular so Will is just awkward and lonely until he can finally come out during the last season. I wish they had given us some explicit confirmation that Will is gay during season 3 or 4, without a big coming out arc. I think that would have alleviated some of the concerns you mentioned in your comment, without undermine the theme of loneliness experienced by a lot of queer teenagers.
@@connorsullivan1855 me too. They ought to have just had Will’s crush on Mike kind of stated out loud cause the homophobic fans still act like it’s just a friend thing when it’s obviously not framed that way.
So happy to see you again. Edit after seeing the episode: very worht the wait. I didn't know anything about My So Called Life. That scene would resonate with me as a teenager. Hell, resonates with me now.
I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family/social atmosphere. I got a double whammy of loneliness and isolation. My entire life until I was 32 was making sure that the "gay" didn't get out, and the constant struggle with never really knowing whether I believed what everyone else around me said they believed in or not. I was deathly afraid to get too close to anybody because I didn't know anyone that I could talk to about my inner struggles who wouldn't go all ballistic on me because of it. I had two "coming outs", essentially. When I was 32, I came out as gay, moved across the country from where I grew up, and life got better. About 10 years later or so, I "came out" again as an atheist. It just hit me one day that I didn't believe in a god because there's simply a lack of empirical evidence to sustain that belief.
Yay more Rantasmo! I definitely think Will's story wouldn't hit as well if not for Robin. I get why people want him to come out and actually say that he's gay, but Will isn't the only queer person in the Stranger Things universe, and it's nice that there's multiple characters having a variety of experiences. Some days I relate to Robin and other days I relate to Will. Heartstopper is nice but I wouldn't be happy if it was the only kind of queer story we were getting. I just want more gays and more gay art!!! That way we'll get the widest breadth of the gay experience.
yes me too being in the closet is a full time job, where you are the stringent boss and the overworked employee, and especially early in your life, it's like a job you're being bad at without noticing why, or even that you're doing it, like in stress dreams where you suddenly find yourself naked in class. It takes away from other things. Some people thrive by coming out the closet early, some thrive because, I guess, they're stronger than me, and can bear long standing torture better, but for many, it takes a toll.
You've changed my mind on Will- great video! (I think the writers hyped up the 'Will is gay' thing a little too much and I reckon a lot of queer people went into the latest season expecting something else)
@@roxaslove23 Okay, I'm able to recognize that Will's story has meaning and value even if I personally am not a fan of gay angst in my stories, but "it was the 80s bro" isn't exactly the best defense because this is obviously *not* the 80s we're familiar with. There are monsters that travel between dimensions, and the only genuinely bigoted characters are presented as cartoonishly evil bullies for the heroic protagonists to overcome, except for maybe Steve, and even then he developed out of it by the end of the episode.
2 года назад
@@ravenfrancis1476 interdimensional beings aside, it still hits some important 80s points like the cold war, and satanic panic.
@ Again, interdimensional monsters. If we can imagine an 80s where the Satanic Panic was partially rooted in reality there can be an 80s without any homophobia.
I think part of the problem is that the timelines of the show is much shorter than the timeline it was made/released. So it seems like it’s been forever for the story to pay off when in canon it’s only been a few years. I also think that there is a focus on will because he’s gay, even though the other characters have similarly slow character development. Like how Mike and eleven are kinda on and off the whole time. That is also how middle/high school felt though, at least for me
Fuck, I didn't even think about it but now that you said I totally agree. Having this long ass fucking series (that in my opinion would've been better as an antology) drag on for so many years and we have characters like Will doing fuck all since season 2 and Mike becoming a dick at the same time just makes me wanna say "GET ON WITH IT!". Feels like the writers just don't know what to do with a lot of the characters they've acumulated over the seasons, but still wanna keep them around for the fanboys/girls.
I think some gay fans found the plotline of Will pining for a straight man and knowing it would be unrequited as frustrating and predictable. And like... I don't think they're *wrong* but considering how much of a tragedy Stranger Things s4 as a whole was, what happened to Jim and the ultimate fate of Max and what that means for Lucas, Will isn't being any more or less traumatized by the plot
In addition to what xepscern said, I also think some people just didn't recognize what was going on and thought Will just felt "left out" or refusing to move on and was being a sadsack for no reason, completely unaware that this teenage character that exists in the 80s has realize he is gay and therefore different than his friends.
For what it's worth I do think there's something to be said about how Stranger Things treats these kind of plotlines, going down the predictable and "tropey" path as both reverence for the shows its taking from and banking off the excuse of "that's just how it was in the 80s." It's worn thin and feels less and less like the showrunners are being faithful and more that they're being unimaginative and contrived.
@@Xepscern ooh if it's people having a problem with the writing, I'm on board, a lot of it tropey, especially the ships, and def deserves some criticism. I don't think hurting Will as a character is a problem for me as much as I felt like they made Will's character struggles his feelings for Will or the friends growing up/moving on, the viewer can almost forget that he was stuck in a hell world and terrorized by a monster for the first season. But I don't think it's bc of Will being gay, they kinda neglected a lot of characters. Dusty's whole.thing was being friends with Eddie and helping Lucas and the others. He never even talked to his girlfriend that whole season. But the upside, Dustin seems to have the healthiest relationships at least.
Tumblr had... a lot of people upset that he didn't have a Robin-esque arc and/or Mike returning his feelings. Even though a lot of the queer ppl I know who grew up in homophobic times/places (especially older ones who lived through the 80s) had the same take as Rantasmo. My bf cheered out loud when Jonathan told his little brother that he loved him for who he was, no matter what. Because that's what you need in that environment, even more than you need someone to make out with.
I think people forget that Will is a 15 year old kid living in a small midwestern town in the 1980s. People should not expect him to run around town saying Hey I’m gay. He is still figuring himself out. Let him come out if he’s gay when he is ready
A bit of outside perspective, from this straight horror/sci-fi genre nerd: Will Byers’ entire character storyline is in fact a big-budget remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2. (Great video of yours on that movie, by the way!) We get to revisit and examine the themes of Nightmare 2, by looking back on it from our current state of social progress decades later. We have an awkward, closeted teenage boy in the mid-‘80s, who is haunted by this evil spirit that wants to use his fears and self-loathing in order to break out into the real world. He is not only terrified that this evil spirit will kill everyone around him, but that even asking anyone else for support and speaking about his problems out loud will only bring them into his circle of danger. (The story is also very much related to the AIDS crisis of the ‘80s.) But wait, which character am I even talking about here? Will Byers and Jesse Walsh line up so neatly alongside each other, this must obviously be one of the Duffers’ deliberate efforts. Keep in mind how the series looks back on both the pop culture of the ‘80s but also the dark underside of living through it if you were any kind of a misfit.
Love your perspective on this character. I haven't seen stranger things yet (maybe never will, since I'm not enjoying horror and it is difficult to tell if it would be too much for me.), but I heard about the queer/gay undertones of Will Byers discussed on tumblr and a lot of people seem to be frustrated. Always wondered what that was about.After watching this I agree with you, especially since Will is so young. Now that I really think about it, I always wished for happy gay stories (because during my teenage-years, there weren't any that I knew of). But I wonder... if there WERE a bunch of happy stories when I was a teenager, but all of them showing gay characters figuring themselves out and finding love intersts during high school... would that have made the feeling of lonelieness worse? It very well might have created the expectation of that happening, when sometimes that's just not how it works out.
I want to see Will get a happy ending (or at least a positive ending), I don't think that would take away from his "lonely gay" aspect as we've already gotten it for four seasons...but yeah
The thing about sad gay stories really hit hard, in combination with the part about there being comfort in seeing characters as lonely as you with the same thoughts that aren’t even necessarily (consciously) gay. Not to jump on that awful ‘centrist’ “Gay people should never say their sexuality out loud! That’s tokenism!” talking point because of course that’s wrong and bad and representation does matter, but at the same time theres comfort in characters that haven’t quite figured themselves out yet. On a totally unrelated note, did anyone else have to read A Separate Peace for high school English?
That scene from My So Called life would have been a real help to me and honestly still resonates. For example, the last time you uploaded I was a guy and now I am...not, and it has introduced new vectors of loneliness I had only dreamed of! In all seriousness, it's always good to see you upload, you always bring something interesting and thought provoking.
I was roughly the same age in the 80s as the kids in Stranger Things. As a cis-het man your video takes me back to that time when us straights were so clueless about gay people that you practically had to be Liberace for us to realize you were gay. What I mean specifically in this case is I didn't realize Will Byers was gay until this video and now that you said it it is completely obvious to me! So I feel more like my clueless old self rather that what I thought was my more enlightened self today!
I like this video, I was a sad gay teen, I used to come home after school and cry at how alone I felt and I couldn't sleep either. I remember I used to stay up in the AM and watch reruns of my so called life and Ricky resonating with me.
as someone who is at the stage in their journey where i don't feel like i'll ever be able to be out, happy, queer and proud, this is 100% how i feel. i love media that shows me this ideal queer happiness, but i don't connect to it as deeply. in reality, i'm 23 and never told a soul that i'm not straight. it doesn't feel like i'll ever be able to. showing will quietly struggling and trying to hide how he feels is so much more personal to me and my own queer experience so far.
Absolutely hits my feelings on Will Byers. My read on season four was it was about surviver's guilt and gay loneliness, both themes which feel like they will be continued in the next season Edit: tho it's also the types of themes that make me wonder at the exclusion of talking about AIDs
For many of us over a certain age, we had no examples to look at , and/or no terminology to express who we are. I didn't realize what was "wrong" with me until the words flew out of my mouth at age 17.
Yayyyy! New rantasmo!! So excited! Edit: Isolation was also a deep adolescent experience personally. If like me, grown up in religious schools, being deviant was repressed. I think I related to artistic women’s emotional struggle since it was the most acceptable. I think I needed what we have now - media that affirms that I am allowed to be this way, especially if it was aimed towards youth.
For me i got to see so many sides of the story for being queer in society. It helped me to see the extremes of tragedy and hopeful happiness. I also loved seeing more opened ended queer stories where it didn’t go how i wanted and that gave me so much perspective. Being gay is not something to be afraid of anymore, those dark days of depression and loneliness felt more validated, and i could see myself more authentically as time went on.
Given how thw show largly takes place in the 80's, a period when it comes to being queer best described as "this is why we have safe spaces," i can see it
I would not wish that kind of pain on my worst enemy. The deep love that you have for a straight man, particularly your best friend. Knowing that it will never be reciprocated in the way that you want. Will just gutted me in the van and in the pizza store scenes. Seeing the guy you love being head over heels in love with someone else. And in your mind, you’re thinking, “But I was here first. I loved him first.” But you have to let it go and in many cases, end the friendship altogether because it hurts too damn much. So, yes, Will was able to capture the anguish. And I believe Mike knows this. 😢
I stopped what I was doing when I got the notification for this video! So happy to see a new video- and especially on Will Byers! I've likewise been frustrated with the lack of storylines for Will, yet I must agree he really does embody the feeling of being isolated on the sidelines as you figure yourself and your identity out.
Given what the writers have invested in less than subtle hints about Will Byers, I think it's inevitable that we'll see a main storyline in an upcoming season.
Honestly I feel like there’s a lot of pressure to be gay and happy as if we’re supposed to be “living proof” of progress. I live in a pretty accepting part of the world but I still haven’t found “my people” or “my person” and sometimes it’s lonely as hell
It's always an absolute joy to see a new upload from you. I first started watching this channel 9 years ago as a confused queer teenager and your videos introduced me to so many important aspects of LGBT media and culture that otherwise might have taken me forever to discover. Your approach to media analysis has always really resonated with me and is actually the thing that introduced me to my passion for film criticism and filmmaking. Thank you so much for all of your work, your youtube videos have honestly greatly influenced the person I am today.
I'm not caught up on Stranger Things, so I'm going skip this video for now, but I am SO happy to see one of your vids, I'm liking it and commenting on it anyway.
Yeah you're back! How sweet. I am very glad. And thank you for confirming Will Byers for me... I mean somehow around my sphere, no one has really touched upon him except for you somehow. Why... ? I really relate to his character, so I really wanna see more of him...
agh i wrote and entire horrible youtube comment essay, I'm sorry, but now I will feel sad if I delete it. sorry for taking up the space. at least I will help the algorithm maybe. Always find your takes very interesting! I have been meaning to get back into Stranger Things because I've heard people say the new season is good (I havent seen past season 1.5/2 or something). I find the conversation around these representations of queerness (or for that matter, any other discriminated community) very interesting, because I feel annoyed when characters are only analyzed as a plot device/political statement, above being representations of real lived experience, for which darker/unproductive/negative/"ugly" emotions are also very common. This is why it's so important to have writers and directors who have had these experiences to write these storylines, also in terms of how you handle the storylines of these characters and the entire project (inciting incidents/conflict/twists/shock endings blabla) Personally I've felt quite annoyed by the whole movement of people (especially women, honestly) against what people call the "messy woman" type made popular by Fleabag, saying it's "dissociative feminism" and therefore reductive. Fleabag and the "depressed woman" characters are personally important to me because I'm a woman with a background of mental illness (and dissociation), and finding media that both accurately represents this experience (is relatable so I can feel vindicated hahaha) and doesn't just use it as a plot device or shock twist ending blabla was just sad (i find it SO offensive when depression/mental illness is used as a shock twist or ending, ESPECIALLY when it is "unaliving"), until I guess the past 5 years or so with a lot more interesting and complex women characters coming through, with Fleabag and I May Destroy You at the forefront I think. I find this type of talk so belittling of the stories behind these types of characters that are not necessarily "positive and utopian". Clearly they ring true to many people (and therefore these characters have a very real base in actual experiences and are relatable). Of course this for example "messy woman" has become a "type" these last years, and when "types" are used by ingenuine people it becomes a terrible cliche (see a truly inauthentic stereotypical version of this in the crappy netflix take on persuasion). There's so much more that contributes to these imperfect or even frustrating characters that are just plain crappy sometimes, like intergenerational) trauma, loneliness, mental issues in self destructiveness, discrimination, society and power structures and ways to survive in them, and so much more. To see art/stories "just" as a plot/political device instead of a representation of real lived experiences is insensitive to me. Of course I do agree that characters should be analyzed (and criticized) from a plot/political perspective, and this is an important conversation always. But I guess I really do feel the emphasis should be on real people instead of a 'larger picture'. The personal is political of course! Not to say positive or happy or healthy people aren't real and don't need the representation, and of course it's healthy to have healthy people as role models, but I feel like imperfect, unhealthy, struggling, sensitive people kind are looked down upon. (LOOKING AT YOU NETFLIX, I love all the actors in the new persuasion but oh my god, they just thought "ah she's sad, that's pathetic, let's make her a funny wine aunt that noone has to take seriously because sadness and dark emotions are disgusting")
I relate to this/have been watching ur channel since 2005 and I’m just starting my freshman year of collage feeling more comfortable in myself then ever as a trans gay man but also lonelier then ever…sigh so this was pretty important
I can’t tell you how stoked I am to see a new Rantasmo episode in my feed! And as always, you handled this subject matter with aplomb. (Not to get off in the weeds, but what happened to the usual Rantasmo theme music? I low-key missed hearing that.)
Not gay but I'm an ace gray and greyromantic but but I can kind of relate to this too for me I didn't really even have the vocabulary to describe myself when I was younger you just feel isolated and you know you're not like the other kids you know you don't like what they like and you don't get why. What's more confusing is after a while I did begin to feel some sexual feelings that were new to me but along where it's 'normal'. All I knew was I wasn't gay but I wasn't straight I thought I was bi but I also wasn't sure that bi even existed back then. And I remember when I had my first crush in high school I was sort of relieved that I was "straight" but never felt anything sexual. Thought it was sort of a conspiracy like do people force themselves in romantic relationships? Believe me I did think some romantic and sexual relationships were real" but I also thought people really fall in love so easily and fall again and again. When later in highschool just before junior year I develop anxieties over relationships, and s e x was a concern no longer about just romance. I hated societies obsession with it. When I got out of highschool learned the term asexual but it took me until was early mid twenties accept. But even when you finally find the terms it's always like people are invalidating you *some exes cough cough and then you begin to question it again. I think this is why I've always liked being single I never had to put up an act. But do still hide because I'm afraid from now. But I just don't want to have to hear the invalidations. For people trying to change me. I'm more like Robin and how I'm careful who I say it too. Of course I never cried about loniness, I just couldn't feel it. I was isolated and still am if being honest tho absolutely not the only reason. I'm very introverted. I am truly do enjoy my alone time. And there were a lot of things about my own self I was always afraid to be open about. For me it was just another drop in a bucket it wasn't much different than all the other things I hide.
I feel like Will Byers' characterization is an accidental byproduct of the Duffer Brothers being . . . not very good at writing. They strike me a the kind of writers who get really excited when they come up with a new character, but get bored very quickly and move on to the next shiny new thing. They also strike me as being fairly uncomfortable with writing textual gay love as opposed to gay characters who exist largely in isolation from each other. But that in itself lead them to trip and fall into writing Will as a character gay people identify with. Magic!
ok, but there is a third option.. . i mean that's fine to have a gay character who isn't developing romantic relationships or even out, but they also don't need to just mope and sit on the sidelines for seven years until that happens either.. something we never see, which pretty much all shows can't seem to grasp is there's a vast unexplored area between hokey unrealistic coming out speeches/relationships and being closeted and sad. a gay character can be interesting and dynamic for a million reasons that have NOTHING to do with being gay, so yea, i don't accept that it's an either/or situation where those are the only two options.
