Images from @blim7's post, credit to them for creating this juxtaposition.
Notice how these two instances are handled differently. Both involve tubes inserting something, but one looks more phallic—and is fully inserted. You see this when Hop and Joyce pull out a long tube at the end of S1, long enough that it can no longer be compared to a breathing tube (feeding tubes are also much smaller). Later revealed in S2 during Will’s flashback of Dart, this turns out to be a breeding tube. The viscous funnel in the first image comes from a sack, while the second photo on the right looks more like a respirator (jutting out of the Mind Flayer’s leg).
I can’t bring myself to post the straight-on angle since it’s too disturbing, but the camera lens barrels down on Will from the tube or Vecna’s POV—a provocative angle that clearly uses the male gaze, sexualizing the imagery further. Meanwhile, when the adults are flayed, the angles aren’t evocative of oral penetration. Will’s facial expression (I don’t even want to use an adjective) and the choking/gagging noises make this even more overt, even more twisted.
It’s disturbing that the young gay character gets the more phallic imagery, while the adult, heteronormative characters are spared. The scene preys on our fears about what the bullies said: “Killed by some other queer,” “Will’s in fairyland now, right? Flying around with all the other little fairies, all happy and gay.” When Joyce says her boy is queer in the police report, explaining why he’s bullied, she asks, “Does that matter?” Hopper replies, “Maybe.”
This speaks to the insidious fear that equates (homo)sexuality with perversion and sadism—how being queer is viewed as inherently provocative, as if asking for unwanted attention. It reflects why queer people have historically had a harder time reporting sexual assault to the police and why they’ve stayed silent, especially during the conservative Reagan era (where the Mind Flayer parallels the AIDS epidemic). Taboo topics like this are often silenced by fear and judgment, and by the worry that acknowledging darker realities could harm the queer community’s image or fight for equality.
Silence is why these cases persist—for boys and men, too. Victims of toxic masculinity are taught to tough it out or be labeled weak and bullied. Yet being so overt in a mainstream show forces audiences to confront these issues.
This assault takes place in Stranger Things’ version of hell (in a library with a steeple easily mistaken for a church), a setting that mirrors the imagined hellscape instilled by evangelists in the mind of a young gay kid who believes he “deserved” this assault. Recall Will’s S4E4 dialogue: “I deserved it” to Mike—his subconscious opinion of himself. Compare that to Max’s distorted vision of her mother when Vecna tells her she “deserves” punishment in the same episode. Perhaps Vecna said the same thing to Will. The hellish imagery manifests the misconception of queerness as a sin deserving of punishment.
Using religious imagery to depict this assault recalls the church’s duplicitous history of allowing abuse to occur while using words like “sin” and “hell” to groom and silence victims. The hellscape communicates that religious censorship fosters abuse, unlike the queer community’s openness and acceptance. This, along with the show’s dialogue and themes, exposes religious zealotry’s hypocrisy.
This overt, false realization of Will’s fears reveals the truth behind his arc: openness and healing. The imagery of penetration, breeding, and dehumanization becomes the motivation for his repression and self-blame. This warping of reality is what he must overcome throughout the season. Based on Stranger Things’ use of classical narrative structure, starting with assault suggests the story will logically build toward healing.
Such evocative imagery forces audiences to confront Will’s suffering and abuse. Any detractors who claim this scene affirms homophobic beliefs must also reckon with the show’s other queer representations—Will and Mike’s relationship, portrayed as healing and protective, and characters like Robin and Vickie. Will’s history of sexual abuse doesn’t define the entire queer community; it illuminates a specific struggle within it.
To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about the camera’s provocative placement or if it was truly necessary. Compared to the shots in S1, which are less direct, both scenes still communicate the same idea.
As I argue, the overtness is necessary to encourage open discussion about sexual assault within the queer community—a topic that remains taboo and widely misunderstood. The composition walks a fine line between sexualization and commentary, a gray area for a gray-area subject. Regardless, the visuals make the theme unmistakably clear, which is the ultimate goal.
I’m using content labels for these discussions because of the graphic imagery and language, which may be too disturbing for younger audiences, and to respect the show’s TV-MA rating.
