Ok, so let me get this out of the way: I agree with everyone else on the internet criticizing the behavior of Jim Hopper pretty much the entire season. He's abusive towards everyone with which we see him interact- male, female, adult, child, whatever. And this is especially egregious on the part of the writers because it's almost always played for laughs. I'm not saying this analysis isn't true, nor that it isn't important- trivializing that kind of behavior contributes to the discourses that perpetuate it, and having lived with someone who treated me that way in particular, it was pretty hard to watch (calmly*) at times.**
But.
I think a different male character's behavior deserves some critique. And that's Billy.
You see, Billy is a complete monster that does absolutely nothing in the show, in either season in which he's present, to earn any sort of empathy or concern. Rather, the writers simply slipped in a Freudian excuse for his being so awful, but because they never included a moment where he earns redemption (up until the very end- I'll get to that), it just comes across as a cheap appeal to pity and has, at best, no effect. And if you're anything like me, that sad attempt at garnering sympathy only made you hate him more- so, you know, it had the opposite effect from what they were going for.
Watch this supercut of all of Billy and Max's scenes from season 2; keep in mind, these are all of his establishing moments, if we think about season 2 as the setup for 3.
Since this is just the scenes between him and Max, this doesn't show the one where the dad is a dick towards him. But... Does it matter? Things he does here, in no particular order:
1) Is just generally a dick to Max at all times.
2) Is demonstrably racist.
3) Nearly kills a bunch of kids on their bikes.
4) Uses physical intimidation and implied threats of violence in attempts to control Max.
5) Assaults Lucas.
6) We also see the very last bits of his fight with Steve, one that happened as a result of 5.
All of this, and especially just how these scenes are filmed, with ominous music and lingering camera angles, sets him up as a secondary villain, of sorts.
And then, by season 2, even though Max does get him to leave her alone in:re Lucas, she seems genuinely afraid of Billy, more so than in the first season, where she stands up to him on more than one occasion. I don't know if this is just shitty writing or direction, or if it's more like a deeper look at her underlying emotions about him- after all, much of season two could be viewed as a "brave face," so to speak.
Aside from that, he also deliberately tries to incite a married woman into having an affair with him. And it's not because he cares about her- he doesn't give a shit about her as a person. It's framed entirely as an example, so to speak, of his reprehensible behavior. We're meant to be kind of disgusted by the whole thing- by the grown-ass ladies who while purportedly watching their kids spend the whole time at the pool trying to flash dem tiddies at a teenager; by his absolutely shameless innuendo; by his super-accomplished, machismo-infused swagger once he thinks he's nailed it (or at least is about to, 'natch).*** Again, you can tell by how it's shot and the sound/music production around it all. When he's driving to meet her, it's filmed more like a villain on their way to kill the hero as opposed to a protagonist about to get a little ass.
All of this demonstrates, then, that every action, every single thing he does, is morally and/or ethically bad, and that he's, thus, a Bad Person. So much so that when he gets attacked at the end of the first episode of season 3, I actually cheered and fist-pumped.
And while sure, not everybody was as glad as I was to see Billy get what was coming to him, I find it hard to believe anybody was as sad for him as they'd have been if it was, say, Nancy.
And here's the thing. They could have included more scenes with the dad being abusive toward him. They wouldn't have mattered.
Because up until the moment he gets snatched by the Mind Flayer, he does absolutely nothing to actually earn any positive feelings. And I really do want to emphasize that the cinematography, sound design, and score all feed into the idea that he's a Bad Dude we aren't supposed to have positive feelings for to begin with, all through season two and during episode one of season three.
Then, in the sixth episode of season 3, El taps into his memories.
Part 2: A Shitty Appeal to Pity
El actually sees a few things from Billy's memories: It starts with a memory of him on the beach, surfing, while his mom watches and cheers him on- so happy! Then, she sees his dad abusing him (notably, calling him a "pussy") (uuuuuugh), then his dad beating his mom (accusing her of cheating and calling her a "whore") (uuuuuugh), and then young Billy calling another kid a "pussy" as he beats this other kid up. She also sees him pleading over the phone with his mom to come back and the later introductions he had with Max.
So as if him parroting what his dad yelled wasn't enough to say, "SEE?!!? HE'S DOING WHAT HE WAS TAUGHT!!!" we're supposed to feel sorry for him because his mom left, and the fact that he'd had a happy moment with her is supposed to humanize him in a positive way.
This latter part is especially crucial because it's the basis for his "redemption."
Because when El describes the memory to him, while he's actively trying to kill her (granted, while under Mind Flayer control), that somehow makes him decide to do the right thing for a change, and he protects her at the very last second and dies.
You know what that reminded me of, though? At least the "lemme bring up your mom to give you a change of heart" part?
And so I just... didn't care. It was at the very end, and it was too little, too late for me. Maybe that makes me heartless, but I have personal reasons for feeling that way, which I'll get to. But I didn't care. If anything, I was kind of annoyed. Like, really? Y'all went there?
I will say, I liked the choice to focus on Max's reaction to his death more than anyone else's. Her face got the majority of screen time during that scene, at least among the living/not dying, and that worked for me. Sadie Sink did a damn good job with that, and she deserves WAY more props than she gets, people. Seriously.
Part 3: Analytically Speaking, It's Bad
So okay, from a storytelling, screenwriting perspective, it's bad. I know there are pro-Billy people out there, but my feeling is the writers picked a lazy, overdone method to explain his behavior and try to garner some sympathy. TVTropes by no means has an exhaustive list of all of the times where the Freudian excuse has been used, but if you try to read through all of them... Look at how damned long it's taking you! It's overdone! It's old hat!
And just like they talk about with their appeal to pity entry, theMartha mom stuff falls flat. Or, at least it did for me. Because it's an exaggerated example of even bad men love their Mamas. Look, he was happy with her! And look, he was sad when she left!!
But they're memories- they aren't reflections of his actions in the present narrative. I guess we're to assume the dad beat all of that joy out of him, but again, Freudian excuse, dude. I don't care. It's so overdone. So many movies, particularly horror movies, have super asshole-ee bullies, always male, that are just absolutely horrible. The main character(s) are scared of them, not just annoyed by them, and these kids to absolutely awful things. Then at some point, there's a scene that follows said bully home/ takes place at their home, and we see the dad slapping them around/ beating them up/ questioning their masculinity. Now, it's a crapshoot, but I feel like usually the bully ends up getting offed by the killer/monster/whatever after this "reveal," and it's supposed to not only explain the bully's cruelty, but also garner sympathy/make us feel sad for him when he dies.
A pretty current example I think a lot of people should be familiar with is Henry Bowers from It (2017). And it's also a really good comparison, because I suspect Billy is modeled very deliberately on Henry. This video goes through the entire history of Henry, based on the book (and using clips from both the 1990 miniseries and 2017 movie, as well as direct excerpts from the book); and while the whole video isn't necessary to understand the parallels, the first four minutes or so give you an idea: Henry's dad is abusive, so much so that his biological mother left when he was little but without taking her son, and it's clear that he projects his anger/pain onto the people he bullies, but also that he's pretty unhinged, even before whatever evil influences start affecting him; and I think most importantly, it's blurry as to how much of what he does after the evil entity starts influencing him is a result of that or his own desires, or if the evil entity is simply exacerbating those desires and pushing him to act on them more. Much like how Max has to divert Billy's car from hitting the boys in Stranger Things, Victor in this scene thinks Henry is taking it too far when Henry wants to carve his name into Ben's stomach in this scene:
Henry dies as a kid in the 2017 film, but as an adult in the book and miniseries, and it's that 2017 interpretation I think is closer to the more common trope. Admittedly, I've never read the book, but from the sound of it (from what I've seen in research, like that video explaining the character's history), Stephen King's original vision for the character, that we see him as broken and washed out, is a richer, fuller examination of The Bully than we seem to frequently get.
My guess, with respect to Stranger Things, is that the Duffer Brothers wanted to "subvert" the idea of a bully via the memories El taps into, as well as his last-second sacrifice. But they had done such a good job of making us fear and loathe him that by the time that moment came, it didn't matter to me. Like I said in comparing Henry to Billy, it was unclear to me how much of Billy's actions after S2E1 were purely a result of the Mind Flayer's psychic direction. He tells Heather not to be afraid just before the Mind Flayer does its thing, "it'll all be over soon, just stay very still," but why would the Mind Flayer care whether its victims were afraid? And the last shot of episode 3, for example, is Billy smirking as Heather knocks her dad out with chloroform- does the Mind Flayer experience pleasure at its ends being achieved? I just find those sorts of things hard to grasp. Billy says he "tried," but how much of what the Mind Flayer was getting him to do did he not want to? Given his sadistic nature before, it's hard to tell, and that almost makes the choice of having Billy be the Mind Flayer's conduit worse- because the line between Mind Flayer's direction and Billy's inherent desires is too blurry.
I'm not saying it would have been impossible to do, either- but again, given how awful he'd been before, it's hard to tell what's Billy and what's Mind Flayer. So then his "humanizing" and "redemption" fall flat.
Part 4: My Own Hangups
Now I do want to admit I've experienced abuse, in multiple contexts before. And I know for a fact that this is influencing my feelings on the matter. After all, I'm not an asshole or a bully- I'm the opposite. And while the prevailing theory in the cultural zeitgeist says that abusers beget abusers, there's actually not much research to back that up. If you look at that report closely, basically they figure that results are often somewhat cherry-picked, samples aren't great, and variables aren't isolated enough to really say abused kids end up abusing their own offspring. Some of the language is kind of jargony, but the overall conclusions are important to note because they underscore the weakness of the trope of the abused bully.
And I guess you could say I'm a case study in a kid becoming the opposite of what they grew up around, as well as the opposite of a partner perpetuating what a previous partner did- and this is entirely deliberate on my part. I choose not to drink regularly, I actively seek to be understanding and keep my temper in check, and while I don't have kids of my own now, I certainly wasn't a bully as a kid- quite the opposite, actually, since I was often the kid getting bullied.
So there's a part of me that doesn't have sympathy for a character like Billy because, well, I didn't bully people, so fuck that guy, so to speak. I acknowledge this fully.
I feel especially disgusted with his treatment of Max. As a kid, I put myself out there in the line of fire and took the brunt of the negativity in my household in order to shield my siblings from it. I've come to terms with all of it and stuff by now, as much as I can, anyway, but similarly to the "I didn't become a bully!" bit, part of me feels like he should have been protecting her, not scaring her and intimidating and controlling her. Instead of trying to prevent what had been happening to him from happening to her, he does it to her himself, to a degree, and that just... God, it makes me so angry, on a personal level.
It's kind of stupid- it's just a TV show, after all. And yet, it drags up memories and feelings and yeah, I judge Billy as a "person" and compare his actions and choices to my own, finding he comes out wanting. I don't think I'm a saint, by any means, but in making the comparison, I end up putting Billy in the bottom dregs of humanity.
That still doesn't mean the memories El uncovers were really enough for earning Billy the redemption the writers clearly wanted him to get.
Part Five: Is it Necessary?
One could also argue that the memories and abuse he experiences simply serve to make Billy more complex. I'll buy this a bit more than the fact that they're supposed to make me actively feel sorry for him (at least in season two- the way the memories are portrayed in season three, they're obviously meant to make us feel sorry for him, so I'm not sure if this was a change in direction or what). But I think TheMarySue did a good write-up about whether redemption for complex characters is really necessary via Catra in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. And it's kind of great because I was going to basically say some of the same things.
Why does Billy need a redemptive moment?
I think it's scarier to consider a dude that's just irredeemably awful, even to his family, for one thing. Like the guy in the video about Henry Bowler says at the beginning, when it's not just the Big Bad that has to be contended with, the tension and fear are heightened. There's no safe space, or at least far fewer, for our hereo(es), and this raises the stakes.
Like Catra, Billy has a right to be angry at the world- his dad is abusive and his mom abandoned him, leaving him with that abuser, at a young age. But it's what he does with it that makes him irredeemable, and that's okay, from a writing perspective. Or at least, it should be.
And don't get me wrong- I do think there's something to be said for demonstrating a Bad character's humanity without turning it into an attempt at earning them redemption for their Bad Behavior. In the real world, actual abusers are still people, after all. I've forgiven anyone that's ever hurt me, and I wish them no ill will; I still grieve the loss of my dad, and I still hope my ex will someday get to see his son again, despite the custody battle he was dealing with when we were together. But I can still acknowledge that my dad never did anything to atone for his treatment of me and my mom, and that my ex remains a narcissist and will probably never be capable of a healthy relationship, as far as I'm aware.
Like I said before, aside from that moment when he sacrifices himself, he does nothing to earn redemption. And the trouble is, I can't really think of anything he could do that would earn it for him, while not seeming like a cheap Pet the Dog move or, worse, come across as patronizing. Because while I mentioned that he perpetuates the household abuse by being so awful to Max, at the same time, it would have been really hard for the writers to show him protecting her from their dad without it coming across as super sexist.
Part Six: Masculinity and Gender and the Abused Bully
I mentioned before that the abused bully is pretty much always a male. And again, in some rather on-the-nose, Hammer of Subtlety slamming, Billy's dad calls him a "pussy" as he beats him in one memory, and then in pretty much the next one, Billy calls a kid he's beating up one. Plus, there's the whole sexuality aspect, his enjoying the attention from the moms at the pool and talking Nancy and Mike's mom into meeting him at a motel, as well as how he saw his dad call his mom a "whore" when he was a kid.
And while The Bully is often a storytelling device- in It, the way the adults look away when the Bowler Gang is torturing the Losers signifies the denial said adults are in on the general level, and it helps increase the danger of the atmosphere in which the story takes place, since it means the Losers have no one to turn to for help, for example- I think the fact that they're almost always males at least inadvertently is making a statement about masculinity. I don't know what this trope is supposed to be saying about masculinity, but a pretty generic analysis reads that hypermasculinity is bad, and that oft' used term "toxic masculinity" leads to all sorts of problems- emphasized in the back-to-back uses of "pussy" in Billy's memories, and the "whore" line from the dad.
But I think a more nuanced look really comes down to the struggle within contemporary men over, well, what to do. And that without a proper, positive model, men who have been abused and told by their father(s) and society that they're bad and "toxic" have little to no recourse. They don't really know how they're "supposed" to behave, only that everything they do do is "bad."
Natalie Wynn talks about this kind of stuff in her most recent video:
And I think this actually garners more sympathy than having El tap into a memory of Billy laughing on the beach.
The problem with this, naturally, is that it's pretty difficult to incorporate a male character's perceptions of the hegemonic discourses surrounding men and masculinity into a TV show or movie without it getting dry and/or feeling like it's derailing the plot- and in a TV show or movie, the plot needs to keep moving forward.
Part Seven: I Dunno
I'll admit, I don't really know what to do about it. Like I said, The Bully often serves as a storytelling device- an easy, convenient one. I think my best notion is that we don't always need the bully's backstory. Why does it matter that they're being an asshole to the main character? I usually feel less frustration with bullies in movies and TV when they're just tertiary obstacles the protagonist deals with, when they're outside the main conflict and are presented more as another inconvenience the main character deals with regularly.
To bring it back to Stranger Things, the group of kids that go to school with and pick on the main characters bothers me a lot less than Billy does. Because I don't need to know "why" they're bullies- it's middle school, there are going to be assholes like that. I don't need to hear about how one of them lost his dad in a car accident or armed robbery or something, I don't care whether one of them has an older sibling that beats them up or not. They exist as a realistic obstacle middle schoolers would deal with, but that's it. Middle school bullies as a Thing don't need an explanation, and the show doesn't bother giving one- and I'm fine with that.
Another thing I can say is I accept the times when the person that used to pick on the main character(s) ends up being chased alongside the latter by the Big Bad and they end up teaming up/allying themselves to take Big Bad down a lot more easily than the appeal to pity approach. I'll take a pragmatic partnership over a generic sob story any day.
What may be interesting is if the "cycle" gets directly confronted. I can't say I've really seen this before, but if someone finds out and uses that as a way to get through to the bully- if they express their sadness for the bully and desire to help them, and this gets the bully to stop bullying, that could potentially work, if done right. It could very easily just end up super fucking cheesy, but a "don't be like your dad" speech has at least some potential.
But overall, I'm just not sure. I'm not a screenwriter, and like I said before, I'm somewhat personally invested in the trope itself, so I'm probably too "close" to the issue to come up with a decent solution.
Still, I think it's something that has the potential to be really interesting, but usually falls flat. And as much as the rest of the internet seems to think Billy's arc was "great," I didn't, and this comes from both just a general pop culture consumer perspective, as well as that of an abuse survivor. I just hope I'm not alone in it. If I am, that's fine, but if you, reader, thought it was good before, I hope this longass rant of mine helps you understand why I felt the way I did when watching it unfold, and maybe even helps you reconsider your position. Either way, thanks for reading.
*There was a lot of vocal "WHAT THE FUCK" and "fucking ASSHOLE"ing whenever he was being a shit.
**And while I didn't bother reading all of the above-linked critiques of his behavior, just in case none of them mentioned it, the fact that he's 1) police chief, and 2) beats multiple dudes up- in front of Joyce, nonetheless- only adds to the terribleness. Having witnessed what he's capable of, a woman not in a TV show written by men would have been absolutely terrified about what he'd do if she crossed him/pissed him off/etc. "If I don't do what he says, he could kill me and get away with it because he's the chief of police." Hell, any reasonable person would think that.
***There is some interesting film symmetry in how during both of his first scenes in the two seasons, females are oggling him. In the first season, as you can see in that supercut, it's highschoolers; in the second, it's the moms.
1) Is just generally a dick to Max at all times.
2) Is demonstrably racist.
3) Nearly kills a bunch of kids on their bikes.
4) Uses physical intimidation and implied threats of violence in attempts to control Max.
5) Assaults Lucas.
6) We also see the very last bits of his fight with Steve, one that happened as a result of 5.
All of this, and especially just how these scenes are filmed, with ominous music and lingering camera angles, sets him up as a secondary villain, of sorts.
And then, by season 2, even though Max does get him to leave her alone in:re Lucas, she seems genuinely afraid of Billy, more so than in the first season, where she stands up to him on more than one occasion. I don't know if this is just shitty writing or direction, or if it's more like a deeper look at her underlying emotions about him- after all, much of season two could be viewed as a "brave face," so to speak.
Aside from that, he also deliberately tries to incite a married woman into having an affair with him. And it's not because he cares about her- he doesn't give a shit about her as a person. It's framed entirely as an example, so to speak, of his reprehensible behavior. We're meant to be kind of disgusted by the whole thing- by the grown-ass ladies who while purportedly watching their kids spend the whole time at the pool trying to flash dem tiddies at a teenager; by his absolutely shameless innuendo; by his super-accomplished, machismo-infused swagger once he thinks he's nailed it (or at least is about to, 'natch).*** Again, you can tell by how it's shot and the sound/music production around it all. When he's driving to meet her, it's filmed more like a villain on their way to kill the hero as opposed to a protagonist about to get a little ass.
All of this demonstrates, then, that every action, every single thing he does, is morally and/or ethically bad, and that he's, thus, a Bad Person. So much so that when he gets attacked at the end of the first episode of season 3, I actually cheered and fist-pumped.
 |
| This made me so damned happy |
And while sure, not everybody was as glad as I was to see Billy get what was coming to him, I find it hard to believe anybody was as sad for him as they'd have been if it was, say, Nancy.
And here's the thing. They could have included more scenes with the dad being abusive toward him. They wouldn't have mattered.
Because up until the moment he gets snatched by the Mind Flayer, he does absolutely nothing to actually earn any positive feelings. And I really do want to emphasize that the cinematography, sound design, and score all feed into the idea that he's a Bad Dude we aren't supposed to have positive feelings for to begin with, all through season two and during episode one of season three.
Then, in the sixth episode of season 3, El taps into his memories.
Part 2: A Shitty Appeal to Pity
El actually sees a few things from Billy's memories: It starts with a memory of him on the beach, surfing, while his mom watches and cheers him on- so happy! Then, she sees his dad abusing him (notably, calling him a "pussy") (uuuuuugh), then his dad beating his mom (accusing her of cheating and calling her a "whore") (uuuuuugh), and then young Billy calling another kid a "pussy" as he beats this other kid up. She also sees him pleading over the phone with his mom to come back and the later introductions he had with Max.
So as if him parroting what his dad yelled wasn't enough to say, "SEE?!!? HE'S DOING WHAT HE WAS TAUGHT!!!" we're supposed to feel sorry for him because his mom left, and the fact that he'd had a happy moment with her is supposed to humanize him in a positive way.
This latter part is especially crucial because it's the basis for his "redemption."
Because when El describes the memory to him, while he's actively trying to kill her (granted, while under Mind Flayer control), that somehow makes him decide to do the right thing for a change, and he protects her at the very last second and dies.
You know what that reminded me of, though? At least the "lemme bring up your mom to give you a change of heart" part?
 |
| MARTHAAAAA! |
I will say, I liked the choice to focus on Max's reaction to his death more than anyone else's. Her face got the majority of screen time during that scene, at least among the living/not dying, and that worked for me. Sadie Sink did a damn good job with that, and she deserves WAY more props than she gets, people. Seriously.
Part 3: Analytically Speaking, It's Bad
So okay, from a storytelling, screenwriting perspective, it's bad. I know there are pro-Billy people out there, but my feeling is the writers picked a lazy, overdone method to explain his behavior and try to garner some sympathy. TVTropes by no means has an exhaustive list of all of the times where the Freudian excuse has been used, but if you try to read through all of them... Look at how damned long it's taking you! It's overdone! It's old hat!
And just like they talk about with their appeal to pity entry, the
But they're memories- they aren't reflections of his actions in the present narrative. I guess we're to assume the dad beat all of that joy out of him, but again, Freudian excuse, dude. I don't care. It's so overdone. So many movies, particularly horror movies, have super asshole-ee bullies, always male, that are just absolutely horrible. The main character(s) are scared of them, not just annoyed by them, and these kids to absolutely awful things. Then at some point, there's a scene that follows said bully home/ takes place at their home, and we see the dad slapping them around/ beating them up/ questioning their masculinity. Now, it's a crapshoot, but I feel like usually the bully ends up getting offed by the killer/monster/whatever after this "reveal," and it's supposed to not only explain the bully's cruelty, but also garner sympathy/make us feel sad for him when he dies.
A pretty current example I think a lot of people should be familiar with is Henry Bowers from It (2017). And it's also a really good comparison, because I suspect Billy is modeled very deliberately on Henry. This video goes through the entire history of Henry, based on the book (and using clips from both the 1990 miniseries and 2017 movie, as well as direct excerpts from the book); and while the whole video isn't necessary to understand the parallels, the first four minutes or so give you an idea: Henry's dad is abusive, so much so that his biological mother left when he was little but without taking her son, and it's clear that he projects his anger/pain onto the people he bullies, but also that he's pretty unhinged, even before whatever evil influences start affecting him; and I think most importantly, it's blurry as to how much of what he does after the evil entity starts influencing him is a result of that or his own desires, or if the evil entity is simply exacerbating those desires and pushing him to act on them more. Much like how Max has to divert Billy's car from hitting the boys in Stranger Things, Victor in this scene thinks Henry is taking it too far when Henry wants to carve his name into Ben's stomach in this scene:
Henry dies as a kid in the 2017 film, but as an adult in the book and miniseries, and it's that 2017 interpretation I think is closer to the more common trope. Admittedly, I've never read the book, but from the sound of it (from what I've seen in research, like that video explaining the character's history), Stephen King's original vision for the character, that we see him as broken and washed out, is a richer, fuller examination of The Bully than we seem to frequently get.
My guess, with respect to Stranger Things, is that the Duffer Brothers wanted to "subvert" the idea of a bully via the memories El taps into, as well as his last-second sacrifice. But they had done such a good job of making us fear and loathe him that by the time that moment came, it didn't matter to me. Like I said in comparing Henry to Billy, it was unclear to me how much of Billy's actions after S2E1 were purely a result of the Mind Flayer's psychic direction. He tells Heather not to be afraid just before the Mind Flayer does its thing, "it'll all be over soon, just stay very still," but why would the Mind Flayer care whether its victims were afraid? And the last shot of episode 3, for example, is Billy smirking as Heather knocks her dad out with chloroform- does the Mind Flayer experience pleasure at its ends being achieved? I just find those sorts of things hard to grasp. Billy says he "tried," but how much of what the Mind Flayer was getting him to do did he not want to? Given his sadistic nature before, it's hard to tell, and that almost makes the choice of having Billy be the Mind Flayer's conduit worse- because the line between Mind Flayer's direction and Billy's inherent desires is too blurry.
I'm not saying it would have been impossible to do, either- but again, given how awful he'd been before, it's hard to tell what's Billy and what's Mind Flayer. So then his "humanizing" and "redemption" fall flat.
Part 4: My Own Hangups
Now I do want to admit I've experienced abuse, in multiple contexts before. And I know for a fact that this is influencing my feelings on the matter. After all, I'm not an asshole or a bully- I'm the opposite. And while the prevailing theory in the cultural zeitgeist says that abusers beget abusers, there's actually not much research to back that up. If you look at that report closely, basically they figure that results are often somewhat cherry-picked, samples aren't great, and variables aren't isolated enough to really say abused kids end up abusing their own offspring. Some of the language is kind of jargony, but the overall conclusions are important to note because they underscore the weakness of the trope of the abused bully.
And I guess you could say I'm a case study in a kid becoming the opposite of what they grew up around, as well as the opposite of a partner perpetuating what a previous partner did- and this is entirely deliberate on my part. I choose not to drink regularly, I actively seek to be understanding and keep my temper in check, and while I don't have kids of my own now, I certainly wasn't a bully as a kid- quite the opposite, actually, since I was often the kid getting bullied.
So there's a part of me that doesn't have sympathy for a character like Billy because, well, I didn't bully people, so fuck that guy, so to speak. I acknowledge this fully.
I feel especially disgusted with his treatment of Max. As a kid, I put myself out there in the line of fire and took the brunt of the negativity in my household in order to shield my siblings from it. I've come to terms with all of it and stuff by now, as much as I can, anyway, but similarly to the "I didn't become a bully!" bit, part of me feels like he should have been protecting her, not scaring her and intimidating and controlling her. Instead of trying to prevent what had been happening to him from happening to her, he does it to her himself, to a degree, and that just... God, it makes me so angry, on a personal level.
It's kind of stupid- it's just a TV show, after all. And yet, it drags up memories and feelings and yeah, I judge Billy as a "person" and compare his actions and choices to my own, finding he comes out wanting. I don't think I'm a saint, by any means, but in making the comparison, I end up putting Billy in the bottom dregs of humanity.
That still doesn't mean the memories El uncovers were really enough for earning Billy the redemption the writers clearly wanted him to get.
Part Five: Is it Necessary?
One could also argue that the memories and abuse he experiences simply serve to make Billy more complex. I'll buy this a bit more than the fact that they're supposed to make me actively feel sorry for him (at least in season two- the way the memories are portrayed in season three, they're obviously meant to make us feel sorry for him, so I'm not sure if this was a change in direction or what). But I think TheMarySue did a good write-up about whether redemption for complex characters is really necessary via Catra in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. And it's kind of great because I was going to basically say some of the same things.
Why does Billy need a redemptive moment?
I think it's scarier to consider a dude that's just irredeemably awful, even to his family, for one thing. Like the guy in the video about Henry Bowler says at the beginning, when it's not just the Big Bad that has to be contended with, the tension and fear are heightened. There's no safe space, or at least far fewer, for our hereo(es), and this raises the stakes.
Like Catra, Billy has a right to be angry at the world- his dad is abusive and his mom abandoned him, leaving him with that abuser, at a young age. But it's what he does with it that makes him irredeemable, and that's okay, from a writing perspective. Or at least, it should be.
And don't get me wrong- I do think there's something to be said for demonstrating a Bad character's humanity without turning it into an attempt at earning them redemption for their Bad Behavior. In the real world, actual abusers are still people, after all. I've forgiven anyone that's ever hurt me, and I wish them no ill will; I still grieve the loss of my dad, and I still hope my ex will someday get to see his son again, despite the custody battle he was dealing with when we were together. But I can still acknowledge that my dad never did anything to atone for his treatment of me and my mom, and that my ex remains a narcissist and will probably never be capable of a healthy relationship, as far as I'm aware.
Like I said before, aside from that moment when he sacrifices himself, he does nothing to earn redemption. And the trouble is, I can't really think of anything he could do that would earn it for him, while not seeming like a cheap Pet the Dog move or, worse, come across as patronizing. Because while I mentioned that he perpetuates the household abuse by being so awful to Max, at the same time, it would have been really hard for the writers to show him protecting her from their dad without it coming across as super sexist.
Part Six: Masculinity and Gender and the Abused Bully
I mentioned before that the abused bully is pretty much always a male. And again, in some rather on-the-nose, Hammer of Subtlety slamming, Billy's dad calls him a "pussy" as he beats him in one memory, and then in pretty much the next one, Billy calls a kid he's beating up one. Plus, there's the whole sexuality aspect, his enjoying the attention from the moms at the pool and talking Nancy and Mike's mom into meeting him at a motel, as well as how he saw his dad call his mom a "whore" when he was a kid.
And while The Bully is often a storytelling device- in It, the way the adults look away when the Bowler Gang is torturing the Losers signifies the denial said adults are in on the general level, and it helps increase the danger of the atmosphere in which the story takes place, since it means the Losers have no one to turn to for help, for example- I think the fact that they're almost always males at least inadvertently is making a statement about masculinity. I don't know what this trope is supposed to be saying about masculinity, but a pretty generic analysis reads that hypermasculinity is bad, and that oft' used term "toxic masculinity" leads to all sorts of problems- emphasized in the back-to-back uses of "pussy" in Billy's memories, and the "whore" line from the dad.
But I think a more nuanced look really comes down to the struggle within contemporary men over, well, what to do. And that without a proper, positive model, men who have been abused and told by their father(s) and society that they're bad and "toxic" have little to no recourse. They don't really know how they're "supposed" to behave, only that everything they do do is "bad."
Natalie Wynn talks about this kind of stuff in her most recent video:
And I think this actually garners more sympathy than having El tap into a memory of Billy laughing on the beach.
The problem with this, naturally, is that it's pretty difficult to incorporate a male character's perceptions of the hegemonic discourses surrounding men and masculinity into a TV show or movie without it getting dry and/or feeling like it's derailing the plot- and in a TV show or movie, the plot needs to keep moving forward.
Part Seven: I Dunno
I'll admit, I don't really know what to do about it. Like I said, The Bully often serves as a storytelling device- an easy, convenient one. I think my best notion is that we don't always need the bully's backstory. Why does it matter that they're being an asshole to the main character? I usually feel less frustration with bullies in movies and TV when they're just tertiary obstacles the protagonist deals with, when they're outside the main conflict and are presented more as another inconvenience the main character deals with regularly.
To bring it back to Stranger Things, the group of kids that go to school with and pick on the main characters bothers me a lot less than Billy does. Because I don't need to know "why" they're bullies- it's middle school, there are going to be assholes like that. I don't need to hear about how one of them lost his dad in a car accident or armed robbery or something, I don't care whether one of them has an older sibling that beats them up or not. They exist as a realistic obstacle middle schoolers would deal with, but that's it. Middle school bullies as a Thing don't need an explanation, and the show doesn't bother giving one- and I'm fine with that.
Another thing I can say is I accept the times when the person that used to pick on the main character(s) ends up being chased alongside the latter by the Big Bad and they end up teaming up/allying themselves to take Big Bad down a lot more easily than the appeal to pity approach. I'll take a pragmatic partnership over a generic sob story any day.
What may be interesting is if the "cycle" gets directly confronted. I can't say I've really seen this before, but if someone finds out and uses that as a way to get through to the bully- if they express their sadness for the bully and desire to help them, and this gets the bully to stop bullying, that could potentially work, if done right. It could very easily just end up super fucking cheesy, but a "don't be like your dad" speech has at least some potential.
But overall, I'm just not sure. I'm not a screenwriter, and like I said before, I'm somewhat personally invested in the trope itself, so I'm probably too "close" to the issue to come up with a decent solution.
Still, I think it's something that has the potential to be really interesting, but usually falls flat. And as much as the rest of the internet seems to think Billy's arc was "great," I didn't, and this comes from both just a general pop culture consumer perspective, as well as that of an abuse survivor. I just hope I'm not alone in it. If I am, that's fine, but if you, reader, thought it was good before, I hope this longass rant of mine helps you understand why I felt the way I did when watching it unfold, and maybe even helps you reconsider your position. Either way, thanks for reading.
*There was a lot of vocal "WHAT THE FUCK" and "fucking ASSHOLE"ing whenever he was being a shit.
**And while I didn't bother reading all of the above-linked critiques of his behavior, just in case none of them mentioned it, the fact that he's 1) police chief, and 2) beats multiple dudes up- in front of Joyce, nonetheless- only adds to the terribleness. Having witnessed what he's capable of, a woman not in a TV show written by men would have been absolutely terrified about what he'd do if she crossed him/pissed him off/etc. "If I don't do what he says, he could kill me and get away with it because he's the chief of police." Hell, any reasonable person would think that.
***There is some interesting film symmetry in how during both of his first scenes in the two seasons, females are oggling him. In the first season, as you can see in that supercut, it's highschoolers; in the second, it's the moms.
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