Warning: This article contains spoilers for Season 5 of the Netflix TV Show “Stranger Things”
Six minutes and fifty-eight seconds of screentime for a coming out that was canon, woven implicitly throughout the entire show, and long overdue, still seemed like too much for some people. If there was ever any doubt about whether people were overreacting, it was put to rest when the episode was rated the lowest of all 50 episodes in this popular show’s run.
As is so often the case, the criticism didn’t come only from homophobes, but equally from members of the LGBT+ community who felt Will’s coming out wasn’t handled right. While it’s reasonable to hold critical expectations for such a delicate moment; particularly given how little mainstream media shows queer individuals exploring their identities, most of the arguments against the scene weren’t very substantial.
Here’s something most people fail to grasp: there is no right way to come out.
That’s the whole point. It’s up to the individual to decide whether they want to share their identity privately with friends and family, more publicly and openly, or not to share it at all.
My take, drawn partly from my own coming out journey, is that a large part of coming out is self-acceptance. While acceptance from others matters and shapes the experience, for almost three of the five years since I came out, my “coming out” has mostly happened in front of strangers, students in schools or small corporate crowds I spoke to while volunteering with my charity.
For me, coming out was less about other people and more about moving the dialogue from inside my head to the world outside, reassuring my younger self that it’s okay to be who we are, and treating that as an act of courage and self-defiance.
That’s exactly what it seemed to be for Will. He talked about wanting to take power back from Vecna, but more importantly, he was telling us that this was one of his biggest fears, one he’d never confronted. That was also the essence of Robin’s speech. And really, is there a better way to overcome a fear than to say it out loud, proudly, with emotion, in front of a room full of people?
It matters little whether everyone in that room “actually cared” or had a “close enough relationship” with him to understand what he was going through. The show is set in the ‘80s. For Will to say to a room full of people, “I don’t like girls” without needing to reach for a label, was, in itself, a beautiful and complete act.
A lot of people made the same complaint: that he didn’t get his happy ending, that the epilogue should have shown a clearer “after.” But this was his story, his completion, his after. Accepting himself. Realizing that life doesn’t begin and end with Mike, that there’s so much more ahead for him. Him accepting himself is enough. Him believing that is enough.
There are far more plot holes and legitimate criticisms of this show to focus on than this deeply personal, barely-debatable scene. Will came out, and we are so very proud of him.