A.J. Francis on ‘Stranger Things’ Controversy: Just Accept You’re a Bigot
Netflix viewers have been living in the Upside Down for a month, ever since the first volume of the show’s fifth season was released over Thanksgiving weekend.
Volume 2 of Stranger Things came out on Christmas Day and reviews of the most recent three episodes of Netflix’s biggest hit have been mostly positive. However, there are some “fans” of the show who took issue with a storyline development that was years in the making.
According to Variety, the penultimate episode of Stranger Things season five, entitled “The Bridge,” has been review bombed by viewers who were angered by the fact that main character Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) came out as gay to his friends.
It’s a revelation that has been teased since the show’s very first season, but some viewers believe the plot development “came out of nowhere,” or “didn’t matter to the story.”
Mostly, people are just homophobic and they don’t like that a beloved television character came out as gay.
Elon Musk, for instance, wrote on Twitter/X that it was “completely unnecessary and forced on audiences who just want to enjoy some basic sci-fi.”
“Review bombing from so-called ‘toxic fandom’ is nothing new,” Variety wrote. “Actors in big franchises — from ‘Star Wars’ to ‘Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ to ‘Bridgerton’ — have long had to battle torrents of racism, sexism and homophobia on social media. Hollywood studios have even launched specialized focus group testing and begun training their actors in a social media boot camp to get ahead of it.”
The review bombing of Stranger Things was not wholly unanticipated. It was borderline predictable. Still, actual fans of the show were disappointed by the review bombing and they’ve worked hard to “balance” out the bad reviews with some good.
TNA star A.J. Francis weighed in on the situation on Monday, tweeting about the show and calling a homophobic spade a spade.
Francis notoriously speaks his mind about any and all topics, which is why it wasn’t surprising that he would make his thoughts known about the Stranger Things “controversy.”
Did you like Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2? Let us know in the comments (unless you, too, are a bigot. In which case, we don’t give a shit what you have to say).
Follow Nick on Twitter/X at @WesternRebel
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