Stranger Things’ #Justice4Barb Moment Was An Insult
Stranger Things may have a massive fandom, but the Netflix hit’s attempts to address the #Justice4Barb meme missed the mark badly for many fans.
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Stranger Things may have a massive fandom, but the Netflix hit’s attempts to address the #Justice4Barb fan campaign missed the mark. A fusion of gory horror, inventive sci-fi, and coming-of-age dramedy, the Duffer Brothers’ Stranger Things is a truly unique series that understandably became a well-deserved hit for the streaming service. A throwback to nostalgic 1980s genre movies, Stranger Things follows a group of kids, their teen siblings, and well-meaning but clueless grownups as they contend with government conspiracies, inter-dimensional monsters, telekinesis, and puberty.
Stranger Things is a well-loved high concept series, but unfortunately, the show occasionally drops the ball, as epitomized by the handling of Barb’s death in season 1. A minor character, Barb was Nancy Wheeler’s friend who discouraged her from drinking, having sex, and generally acting like anything other than a classic ’80s movie final girl. In a subversion of typical horror tropes from the era, it was the meek friend Barb, rather than the more adventurous Nancy, who was killed by the Demogorgon halfway through Stranger Things season 1.
Barb’s death in Stranger Things season 1 upped the stakes and made for an intense shock, but the series handled the aftermath poorly and their attempts to address fan anger fell even more flat in season 2. Soon after Stranger Things became popular with audiences, a hashtag demanding #Justice4Barb began trending on various social media sites, as annoyed viewers noticed that the supporting characters of Stranger Things never even noticed the teen’s absence. What originally began as a fan campaign to get the series creators to address the lack of in-universe reaction to Barb’s death eventually spawned an entire season 2 subplot wherein Nancy and Jonathan go in search of justice for Barb, but Stranger Things handled this plot poorly and the scenes play more like pandering fan-service than an actual, substantial response to the criticism #Justice4Barb offered.
David Harbour once promised at San Diego Comic-Con that Stranger Things would “deal with some of the Internet’s outrage over Barb’s death,” and season 2 seemed to make good on that promise; one of the more interesting instances was seeing the show incorporate fan feedback by putting the specific criticisms (“No one even noticed Barb’s death! It’s like she never existed!”) into the mouths of the characters. However, despite the scope of Stranger Things growing bigger with each season, the only characters who go in search of justice for Barb are Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan, all of whom were already affected by her death in season 1. Thus viewers still don’t get a sense that the small town is in mourning despite losing such a young resident.
Not only that, but Steve and Nancy’s awkward dinner with Barb’s briefly-seen grieving parents is essentially played for laughs, with the scene treating Barb’s death as an embarrassing inconvenience for the pair’s relationship and doing nothing to illustrate the turmoil faced by Barb’s parents. Jonathan and Nancy may later insist on trying to bring those responsible for Barb’s death to justice, but again, the subplot is used as an excuse to center other teen characters while Barb herself is once more reduced to a bit-player in their lives.
The problem was worsened in Stranger Things season 3, where a now-unhappy Jonathan and Nancy all but forget about avenging Barb’s death and the subsequent cover-up, and a large chunk of Hawkins’ population is assimilated into a Billy-Blob monster without anyone noticing or mourning their death. However, Stranger Things’ flawed season 3 did at least clarify that it wasn’t Barb’s fault she was forgotten so fast, since the people of Hawkins were able to miss a multi-story monster roaming around their 4th of July celebrations.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/stranger-things-justice-barb-bad-fail-explained/