Stranger Things — a Netflix Original Series with Amblin-Styled Scares and Wonder

Gotta say, I hadn't picked up on Billy being racist, though it is very obvious now it's mentioned. Not so much that I didn't notice what he was saying, but that I hadn't made the connection between it and Lucas' skin colour, that kind of thing simply doesn't register with me sometimes (and I know how ridiculous and special-snowflakey that makes me sound)^note I used to have neighbours, a mother and daughter who were white and black respectively, and it wasn't until my mum mentioned it years later, well into my adult life, that I realised there was anything unusual about that at all.

That said, I did notice that (pretty minor spoiler, but better safe than sorry) Lucas and Max are a mixed race couple, for lack of a better term, seems weird to apply it to people so young, just because I, at least, don't seem to see that very often in media, though I think it's becoming more common. Don't ask me how my brain works, I don't understand.

People cheering that is pretty wrong; as much of a dick as Billy is, I felt sorry for him in that scene.

edit -f*ckin pagetopper

edited 6th Nov '17 2:58:04 PM by artfulscruff

I can actually see that. Billy's dad doesn't strike me as necessarily abusive, at least not at the moment. The scene played less like child abuse and more like a father who was just fed up with their son's disrespect. I mean, it's still not good parenting...but I didn't find it particularly far off from the typical less-than-functional household. If the show wants to make Billy a more sympathetic character, they're going to have to do a much better job.

edited 6th Nov '17 5:20:24 PM by deuteragonist

"Not necessarily abusive", and he said to his son he is "staring at himself in the mirror like a faggot", and that the girl he's going out with is a whore. The man is a repugnant piece of shit, that much is obvious. The scene very clearly establishes where Billy's asshole streak comes from - the abuse rained down from the only father figure he's ever known. It is common psychology that abuse births abuse - most abusers have their own abuser.

Honestly given Dacre Montgomery's words on the subject, I'm kind of anticipating something like Neil Hargrove being revealed to have molested Billy or something similarly grotesque.

edited 6th Nov '17 5:43:05 PM by NickTheSwing

Violently pushing your son against the wall and slapping him is abuse by any reasonable definition of abuse, also wanting respect from your son and abuse are not at-all mutually exclusive.

edited 6th Nov '17 5:55:03 PM by Fourthspartan56

& Oh no don't get me wrong, his father is an asshole and a bigot; but he's also a product of his time. And Billy was pretty awful and very repugnant as well. The whole reason he got in a fight with his dad in the first place was because he wasn't watching his stepsister and didn't really care that she was missing. It didn't help that he was smoking in the house and mouthing off about it. My dad would have been pissed off, too.

So yeah, I don't really feel much sympathy for Billy. He's a pretty terrible son and a horrible stepbrother at that. His home life isn't ideal, but it's so underdeveloped that I don't really have much of a reason to care. I've seen waaaaay worse.

edited 6th Nov '17 6:12:40 PM by deuteragonist

Yeah, I didn't cheer at that scene, but I didn't really feel much sympathy either. My mom said it best: Max's father and brother just need to leave forever and her mom can raise her by herself.

Looking at the trope page, it seems like some Tropers may be putting those familiar leather pants on Billy, given the presence and length of the Ambiguously Bi entry there, even using his dad's "faggot" remark as evidence.

Also, he's on the Main Cast page, for some reason.

edited 6th Nov '17 8:02:48 PM by PushoverMediaCritic

He was originally on the secondary characters page, but somebody moved him. Dunno why.

Anyway, Billy is slightly sympathetic due to the way his father treats him, but in my opinion he loses all of that due to the fact that he is blatantly growing into a clone of his father. Most of the things his dad says are variants of lines Billy himself has used on Max. For all that Billy clearly hates his father, he also sees him as the epitome of masculinity and is mimicking him, even if only unconsciously.

Compare to Steve, who was a lesser version of toxic masculinity, but realized he was being a dick and grew out of it—without anyone pointing it out to him. My favorite part of Steve's arc in the first season was where he decided he was wrong to slut-shame Nancy before he found out she wasn't actually cheating on him.

That scene between Billy and Mike's mom was sexy and we all know it.

edited 6th Nov '17 10:33:43 PM by Sabertooth1000000000

Billy is a jerk, yes. But he is an...oddly alluring jerk. I feel drawn in a certain way to that drastic, explosive energy - it seems he explodes or simmers in every scene he's in. I want to share in that energy.

edited 6th Nov '17 10:39:26 PM by NickTheSwing

Really? He just feels like a generic gross 80s bully to me.

I was creeped out by how good he was at hiding his true intentions more than anything. Personally, I really wanted to see the scene where he asked the Sinclairs where his sister is.

edited 7th Nov '17 12:00:26 AM by PushoverMediaCritic

Yeah, I'm the same.

I just got prejudiced bully from him.

I felt some pity for him during the scene with his Dad, but that doesn't change all of the other stuff he did.

Which might be more forgivable if he was younger, but not at his age.

That scene with his dad was very well done, it basically shows you exactly why Billy is the way he is, he’s be taught by example that being an aggressive, violent asshole is the best way to act, so that’s how he acts.

Aside from Billy's daddy issues or alleged bisexuality, how does the interpretation of him being racist hold up? I mean sure, he's a real bastard to Lucas, though of course Billy never makes any overtly racist statements (semi-subtle implications on the other hand...), and he really isn't any kinder to Lucas' white friends. And of course, there's that dispute on the history tab of Characters.Stranger Things.

Just finished it, liked it; fealt on the shorter side. Why is the nicest person dying each season? -_-

Not just the history tab. I opened a discussion in the Discussions tab of this topic and any of you are free to chime in your thoughts on the matter.

Billy's actions certainly had some racist undertones to them - but that's just it, they were undertones. I expected his dad or him to say something more glaringly racist rather than just imply it by singling Lucas out, something similarly specific in its bigotry like the faggot comment. Even in season 1, one of the child bullies straight up calls Lucas "Midnight," so the show has showed a willingness to just be on the nose and up front with racist characters before so it does surprise me that if that's what they were going for with Billy that they didn't make it more obvious or verbal. It's ambiguous only because in the past the show hasn't shied away from having a line that reads as "definitely racist" as opposed to "could be interpreted as just generically douchey were it not addressed specifically to Lucas."

The problem with that logic is that it assumes that all racism must be explicit or it's not real, which is frankly ridiculous. Racism can be implicit and how Billy singled out Lucas I think that's some rather clear case of implicit racism.

That's fair. Things are just telegraphed more obviously in fiction I suppose so we're used to overt as opposed to subtle racism in TV and stuff. The show set a precedent for more overt stuff in the first season and even the ghostbusters convo with Lucas not wanting to be Winston just because he's black so it seems odd when you have a guy like Billy who's pretty straightforward in his dickery kind of beat around it the way he does. So sure, he's racist, but he's still a weird outlier in terms of how he expresses it compared to how the show's done it before (if not an outlier according to reality), doubly so given how openly telegraphed every other negative trait he has is.

That is a good point though, a more subtle racist can easily be overshadowed by the less subtle. Which IMO is a detail I like because it's quite realistic, some racists are much obvious than others.

I saw an interview with Dacre where he said in all likelihood Billy's attitudes toward Max are his warped attempts at showing love. There was also the implication he's unconsciously imitating how his dad treated him, and his mother.

I did learn in my college psychology class that sometimes the abused imitate and emulate their abuser without thinking about it, which is actually pretty unnerving when I think about it.

It doesn't excuse him, but it certainly does explain him perfectly well.

edited 9th Nov '17 10:13:35 PM by NickTheSwing

Certainly, his fathers' behavior very neatly explains Billy's personality and views. Of course explain isn't the same thing as excuse, most abuse victims don't become abusers and Billy could do the same but he does not.

Being understandable doesn't instantly make a character sympathetic.

edited 10th Nov '17 7:48:16 PM by Zeromaeus

I find him sympathetic on account of how similar our fathers are. Mine just never went as far as violence.

He was far more comfortable constantly ridiculing me. I think he might have alleged at one point I was gay for all the working out I do.

That's not unreasonable, after-all it's more than possible to have sympathy for someone regarding one thing and still view them as bad people/assholes.

And? You can empathize with him? Does it make him less disgusting of a person? Everyone has a reason for what they do. It doesn't make it right or make them anything less than wrong.