Stranger Things Finale and Byler
None of us are wrong. The Duffer Brothers, Shawn Levy, and Netflix are wrong. This was the most elaborate queerbait in media history (My video). They are ones who embarrassed themselves and should be ashamed.
They fully prepared a queer romance -- more systematically I believe than any other show -- to increase queer viewership, and didn't clarify it wouldn't happen until the very end.
Byler WAS prepared. It is apparent -- and this likely might never be confirmed in a public statement, and it might even be contradicted by the Duffers -- that they were preparing for Byler at the time Season 4 ended. There's just too much evidence for it to have been otherwise. The Duffers literally told Finn Wolfhard that Will's lie about the painting would "pay off." And then at some point they chickened out. It's not clear when the turning point happened: Volume 1 seemed to build up Byler, only for Volume 2 to tear it down. Some internal power struggle occurred (with Netflix? with the Duffers' future employer Paramount?), and the consolation prize is the subtextual Byler ending we got.
So, instead of having Mike's behavior in seasons 3 and 4 be explained by internalized homophobia -- countless "Mikes" in my comment sections said they recognized in him their own struggles portrayed to a tee and found his story so inspiring -- they decided to make Mike be an inconsistent, poorly-written ASSHOLE who was a terrible friend and terrible boyfriend for no reason. And they decided to feature Mileven, an awful model of a "healthy" relationship taped together by Will's love, as the show's "main romance."
They undermined the message they had sent with the Jonathan/Nancy breakup of prioritizing authenticity instead of artificially keeping-up a relationship based only on shared trauma. They have sided with conformity and betrayed what they claimed to be for: uplifting the marginalized and the outcasts.
No, Duffer Brothers: gay inclusion does not mean you didn't QUEERBAIT. And you don't earn gay brownie points for "gay representation" either. I've seen comments by queer people feeling distress and panic watching your coming-out scene, a DISempowering scene compared to the empowering scene in "Sorcerer." When queer people come out in real life, we're asserting who we are and it's up to them to accept that. We're not making a case for why we should be treated equally; we might be emotional and we might cry, but we're demanding it. Will wasn't ready to come out yet.
In a recent interview, the Duffers had the audacity to compare Will's love for Mike to unrequited "crushes" they had growing up. When Will has been deeply in LOVE with him for years (for good reason, given Mike's canon love for him), and Will said he needs Mike and he "always will"! It's confirmed that they originally planned to NOT have Mike and Will's conversation climbing the tower and that Noah had to ask for it. They literally were going to let Will's public coming-out be the last word on this between Mike and Will! IF WILL WERE A GIRL, the Duffers wouldn't have dismissed her love as a mere "crush." They psychologized Will's genuine, real love that DID seem reciprocated as a symptom of gay self-delusion that he should be ashamed of and move on from, and not even try to investigate to see whether it is requited.
The Duffers required "realism" for the long-suffering GAY boy who sadly had said he was "never gonna fall in love." If this show is about "realism," then why did the Duffers have a hetero male self-insert fantasy in Mike, a nerdy boy who finds a superpowered girlfriend who you can satisfy simply by saying "I Love You" despite treating her like shit? El's line saying Mike has always "understood" and "seen" her, when he completely did NOT understand her, gaslit her, and made her feel like a monster in Season 4, was a travesty. He didn't even say "I love you" when she said it before she died!
Why does MAX get to have a boyfriend whose love saves HER from Vecna? Why is there no sign that Robin is dating Vickie -- or any girl for that matter -- in the epilogue? (They even made Robin present as more femme as well! And in her scene, we hear about all the OTHER characters' lives, but not Robin's -- god forbid we hear that it's gay!) And Robin/Vickie didn't threaten a straight relationship and would've been low-risk for them; still, they didn't do that even. Will never even got to fuckin KISS his epilogue date. Duffers: why do only straight people find love in your show? With Will's painting and veiled love confession, they literally let a gay boy's sacrifice and feelings be what repairs your main straight couple's relationship.
And why did you try to present us as "safe" and palatable for straight people? A RESPECTFUL portrayal of a gay coming-out arc would’ve had Will rejected by Mike early enough so that he'd have time to find a romantic relationship in the show like every straight character did. Why did you have Will ultimately assume his love was unrequited in advance, when you DID show hints Mike likes Will back? Why the hell did Mike NOT hug Will at the airport? You even had Will have a look of recognition when Robin talked about shared looks and bumps of the elbow? By simply assuming Mike was straight despite his clear feelings for Will, simply because he was dating a girl, why did you erase the existence of closeted gay people who try to conform by dating the opposite sex, and of bi people? And why, on the radio tower, after Will had made clear he had a crush on Mike, NOT have them hug when Mike said they were best friends, when they had hugged before? Was it because Mike now knows Will is gay and likes him, and so it would be too icky now? Will deserved an emotional hug from Mike like he had gotten from Jonathan. We were even denied PLATONIC intimacy between Mike and Will after his coming-out.
They absolutely built up hope that Byler would happen with how they wrote Mike, El, and Will's relationships, including first and foremost the Cyrano Trope where they had Mike fall in love with WILL'S painting and WILL'S feelings thinking they came from El. And the mountain of other clues and how Mike clearly viewed Will differently -- "It's Hawkins, it's not the same without you." They placed easter eggs even into the last season -- having Ted smash down Mike's closet door, the gay sexual references, the blue and yellow swings -- that they knew Byler fans would find hope in. They had Will talk to Robin about finding signs of interest from Mike WITH HOPE. And all this time, the creators never clarified that Byler wouldn't happen, in order to keep queer people watching. In my last video I asked: "With every choice you made, were you in fact LAUGHING at the LGBT+ people you were giving hope to? And opening up to ridicule?" They apparently DID. This was shameful, cruel, and indefensible.
To our (limited) fortune, Byler lives on in subtext. All the evidence is that Mike has more-than-friend feelings for Will, and is grieving over the loss of his first love. And El's imagined happy ending did not include a romantic future with Mike. (She didn't even send a mental message to Mike!)
And, after seeing comments, I rewatched Mike putting his D&D book next to Will's. Mike stares at Will's D&D book which takes up half the frame, and breaks down when placing his own book next to it, then caresses it next to Will's. It was a nod to Byler, reflecting this sad ending for the gay Reddie ship from It Part 2. The Duffers never explicitly ruled out Mike having romantic feelings for Will in canon, and Will's painting is on his wall. Read this way, we end with the tragic story of an overall-emotionally-repressed boy still in the closet.
It was cowardly by the writers, but Byler still lives on.
BYLER IS REAL. It ABSOLUTELY is there. They just didn't make it canon. But they created a relationship in subtext that makes more sense and is more heroic and beautiful than any other romantic relationship in the show, that has inspired queer and straight people who have left beautiful comments in my comment sections. The hope and fire they lit in US will not burn out. There will be many MORE amazing fanfics that come out of this beautiful relationship that was prepared but not made canon.
The show creators absolutely knew we exist and who we are, when they played David Bowie's "Heroes" during the credits. A song about forbidden love that society looks down on, which the showrunners didn't have the courage to actually portray. They gave lip-service to heroism, but weren't heroic themselves. Money walks and talks, and the Duffers SOLD OUT.
But no network corporate execs or the Duffer Brothers have the right or the ABILITY to dictate to us what WE do. We don't need Daddy Netflix for permission.
We will continue to live the lives we were destined to live, fictional shows be damned. If we can survive the dark ages of the 1980s, we can survive now. And we are fortunate to have shows with better queer representation than our forebears ever had. Besides, if Byler had been canon, it would have been a fictional story at the end of the day. What would have mattered is what we'd have done with it after. BYLER LIVES. Byler lives in what WE DO. We've formed a great community on Tumblr and elsewhere and should still stick together. We don't need Netflix, the Duffer Brothers, or Shawn Levy to enjoy Byler. We'll create fix-it fanfics and art; we'll fight for the millions of Mikes and Wills out there to be themselves and find love. And as far as I'm concerned, Will's moment at the end of Sorcerer is the canon conclusion of his coming-out arc -- not pleading for acceptance, but asserting his RIGHT TO LOVE. THAT is the fierceness of OUR COMMUNITY who has managed to win huge progress in a society where our love was once illegal and criminalized. We didn't need a Stranger Things when we rioted at Stonewall. We don't need a show to raise our fists and live OUR lives the way WE want to and WILL.
Take care of yourselves, everyone! And continue to EXPECT and DEMAND equality and respect! We are RIGHT to be angry!
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