Stranger Things: Noah Schnapp addresses rumors about Will's orientation

Noah Schnapp has broken his silence on persistent rumors regarding the sexual orientation of his Stranger Things character, Will Byers.

The child actor, who recurred on the first season of the Netflix thriller, posted a lengthy response to ongoing social media dialogue pertaining to Will’s sexuality, as many fans have speculated that the missing boy at the center of Stranger Things‘ mystery is gay.

“I’ve been reading stuff for a while. I think everyone here is missing the point,” Schnapp posted to Instagram on Sunday afternoon, sharing a photo of a Twitter user commenting on Will’s identity. “An author called Gary Schmidt came to speak at our school this week and he said that good stories aren’t supposed to leave you with answers because then you never question yourself and you forget about it. A good book, or a good show leaves a lot of unanswered questions but makes you think. Which is what you are all doing.”

In July, amid several popular threads discussing the topic on message boards and websites like Reddit, Daniel Reynolds, a writer for The Advocate, previously published a lengthy essay in which he examined the show as a meditation on homophobia in American culture, citing the treatment of both Will and Barb as examples of queer characters treated as “outsiders” who are dragged to the Upside Down and left to die, which he argues is a “potent metaphor for the closet.”

Schnapp’s post continued: “For me, Will being gay or not is besides the point. Stranger Things is a show about a bunch of kids who are outsiders and find each other because they have been bullied in some way or are different. Does being sensitive, or a loner, or a teenager who likes photography, or a girl with red hair and big glasses, make you gay? I’m only 12 but I do know we all relate to being different. And that’s why I think the Duffers wrote the show the way they did. So you can ask all these questions. I hope the real answer never comes out!”

A second season of Stranger Things will air in 2017 on Netflix.