Businessman and former Senior Advisor to the President of the United States, Elon Musk, doesn’t seem to be a fan of a pivotal scene from Volume 2, Season 5 of Netflix’s Stranger Things. The scene shows Noah Schnapp’s character, Will Byers, finally coming out to his loved ones as gay in the Duffer Brothers show, but Elon thinks it was ‘unnecessary’ to the plot.
Elon Musk reacts to Will’s coming out scene
An X (formerly Twitter) user posted the pivotal scene of Will coming out to his friends and family, writing, “Stranger Things fans are criticizing a character for coming out as homosexual in the season finale, calling it was completely unnecessary for the plot. The culture is changing.” Elon seemed to agree with the X user, criticising the plot point and writing, “It’s completely unnecessary and forced on audiences who just want to enjoy some basic sci-fi.” This comes after Elon claimed to have cancelled his Netflix subscription in October.
Fans of the show, however, were not having it. Especially, given that Will’s closeted sexuality has been a major plot point of Stranger Things for many seasons now, apart from his abduction by Vecna. “Did you even watch the series? It was a big plot throughout the entire series, not something forced into the last season,” wrote a fan of the series, while another joked, “elon musk is deadass trying to criticize stranger things??? who invited him???”
Another X user wrote, “The coming out scene was necessary, and yeah, it could’ve been handled better, but the second homophobes start trashing it, I’m defending it like it’s the greatest thing ever put on screen.” A fan even commented, “Elon Musk is mad that a storyline was “forced on” the Stranger Things audience. All storylines are forced onto audiences. What was the problem with this storyline? A character coming out as gay. Bro is losing it. Being mad about fictional characters coming out.”
Noah Schnapp on Will Byers’ coming out scene
Despite the mixed response to the scene, Noah Schnapp, who plays Will on Stranger Things, told THR that he cried after reading the scene, as it was perfect. “They sent out the scripts mid-summer, and I read it alone and just cried and, oh my god, I was like, It’s perfect,” he said.
He also spoke of his own experience of coming out, adding, “I reread a lot of coming-out texts that I had sent when I was going through it myself, and scrolled in my camera roll, looking through pictures at that time of my life when I was coming to terms with that. But trying to stay in it was hard, and it was the middle of the night too, so it was exhausting.”
The final episode of Stranger Things will be available to stream on Netflix on December 31 in the US and on January 1 in India.