I'm seeing people on twitter saying the duffers edited out the scene where Jonathan is taking pics of Steve and Nancy. I haven't watched S1 in quite a while so I don't remember enough about the scene to say whether they have or not. What do you think? Have they or do some people not remember the scene, think it was worse than that and are making stuff up to drag Jonathan? They are saying it's been done to make Jonathan look better and Steve to look bad.
No ST didn’t edit it; this tweet is completely wrong and look how many likes it has:
It would be helpful if people actually watched the show—however, there is something about that scene that could confuse someone if they didn’t watch it carefully. As someone who loves Jonathan but does not like this moment and has answered so many asks about him taking the pictures, I know that scene and the aftermath v well. P much all the replies on that tweet believe it and are like ‘omg they’re trying to fake redeem Jonathan by editing the scene’—uh no, the scene has always been bad for Jonathan and also the pic in question makes no narrative sense. It’s also bad enough for him without embellishing details about the scene, whether bc fans misremember or want to vilify Jonathan and make Steve a saint in s1--or both.
To remind everyone of what happened in order (I’m borrowing my own gifs from old posts):
Jonathan goes out into the woods to look for clues of Will’s disappearance and take photos of the scene to see if the police missed anything:
He hears a girl scream and runs towards the scream thinking it could be related to Will or is someone in danger (it’s not; it’s just Steve, Nancy, Tommy, Carol, and Barb in the pool in Steve’s backyard). He should turn around there, but Jonathan is effectively thrown under the bus for an important plot point (that he ends up getting the demogorgon on film).
He takes pics of all of them in the pool enjoying life. That’s already a violation of privacy enough that he’s in the bushes taking their pictures, even if that wasn’t his original intent. The show makes it into that he isn’t used to interacting with people and uses photography both to hide and as a way to observe people as they really are. You get the sense when you’re watching it, though, that he feels like a total outsider, is going through it what with his brother missing, and sees this glimpse of normal teenage life he perhaps wishes he has (even if he says he doesn’t).
Honestly, Steve could have broken his camera just for him taking the pool pics. Instead, the show goes a step further; he takes this picture of Nancy in a contemplative moment in the striped shirt that he later explains he thought captured the real her (hmm):
People seem to forget, the scene then stays in Steve’s room with Stancy and does not cut to Jonathan for a bit. It shows Nancy taking her top off and Steve looking at her and having a moment. We don’t see Jonathan take a picture here (however, we find out later that he did).
It then shows Stancy beginning to kiss. At this point, as soon as they start to kiss, the scene cuts back to Jonathan finally putting his camera down (he never took pictures of them “hooking up” as that tweet says):
He then turns his camera and gaze away from Stancy and focuses on Barb; this is where he gets a critical pic and plot point (he inadvertently captures the demogorgon before it attacks Barb—Nancy will later notice this in the torn up pic, etc)
It’s only AFTER all of this, when he’s developing the pictures, that we find out that in addition to the ones we saw him take (the woods by where Will was taken, the pool, the pic of Nancy looking out the window, pics of Barb):
That he also actually did take an even worse pic of Nancy—one of her taking off her shirt in the scene that had stayed on stancy in Steve’s room:
So, yeah, you can still drag Jonathan for this. Only when you do so, don’t add he went to the woods to stalk Nancy (he didn’t), he took naked pics of them hooking up (he didn’t), or the Duffers have edited the scene to make him look better (they didn’t and he doesn’t look better!)
Also don’t say he didn’t apologize and it was never addressed. He apologizes here:
And the show again raises the scene in question when they’re fighting in the woods. He gets “redemption” by apologizing to her, having his camera taken away and learning how to interact with people not hidden behind a camera, he respects and is super careful with Nancy’s boundaries, and only then is he given the camera back—once he no longer would use it like this. In terms of if you forgive him or not, you can also ask why did the Duffers even think to put that extra photo in when it wasn’t necessary to the plot (again Steve could have broken his camera based on the pool pics alone or the shot of Nancy looking out the window). But don’t try to forget that both guys severely screwed up in s1 and the Duffers exhibited sexist writing towards Nancy. In a different violation of privacy, Steve climbs to her window, looks in without her knowing, and observes Jonathan and Nancy together:
He then essentially helps Tommy and Carol write “Nancy the slut Wheeler” on a movie marquee for the whole town to see. Like Jonathan apologizes, he realizes that was terrible and helps clean off the marquee. So, yeah, they both did something awful to Nancy in s1, but with Jonathan, there def was an apology and a long development of their relationship in s1 in which they learned how to trust and be there for each other. You also get scenes of Jonathan that continually invoke consent (like “is this okay?”), when he’s in her room in s1, etc. The trust that develops between them is deep and grows over multiple episodes of the show.
Tl; dr: no they didn’t edit the scene, it’s still up there on Netflix rn exactly like this. I am still curious if we can catch what they did edit in previous seasons, but it wasn’t this scene lol.