"Either he’s homophobic or just oblivious as f***," An angry fan tweets.

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2 October 2019 by Fonticha Tran

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Finn Wolfhard at the 2019 CinemaCon - Warner Bros. Pictures 'The Big Picture' Presentation held at the

Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, USA on April 2, 2019. — Photo by PopularImages

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Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard is being slammed by certain fans who are accusing Finn of being homophobic.

 

Let's rewind.

 

First of all, it all started with an interview with Hollywood Reporter. During the interview, Finn talks about his character's Richie Tozier's relationship with Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer) in It Chapter Two (2019).

 

He also added his thoughts on the relationship between Boris Pavlikovsky (Finn's character) and Theo Decker.

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For those who don’t know, here are some scenes from each movie that hints about each character's sexuality.

 

In an arcade scene in It Chapter Two (2019), Young Richie appears to have a crush on a boy, who he tries to ask to play video games with. It quickly turns ugly after the boy's cousin, a bully, arrives and throws homophobic slurs towards him. Back in the present day, Pennywise threatens to reveal his 'dirty little secret'.

 

Then in one of the final scenes in the movie, Richie scratches his and Eddie's initials together onto the Kissing Bridge, which fans took to mean that Richie was secretly in love with Eddie.

 

In a scene in The Goldfinch (2019), Finn's character, Boris, kisses Theo. Even the source material - the book - showed that they had a sexual relationship.

 

Many fans took these hints and believed that Richie was gay and that Boris was at least bisexual. (Boris had a girlfriend at one point in the book. However, the movie skipped this bit.)

 

So what’s the problem?

 

When Finn talked about the characters, he described their sexuality as being “ambiguous”.

 

Specifically, about Boris and Theo’s relationship, Finn says:

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I “He was ambiguous. It’s a deep brotherly love; he’s never connected with someone like this before, and neither has Theo. I do think it’s totally up in the air and ambiguous, which makes it interesting.”

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I “Also, the videos that I would watch for research showed Russian politicians kissing each other, and that’s kind of how I saw the end [kiss] [...] [as] a formal thing.”

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And then for Richie's sexuality:

 

I “Again, it’s ambiguous. You don’t really know for sure.”

 

These statements didn't go down well with the fans. Fans believed that Finn was refusing to acknowledge the characters' sexuality by this interpretation.

 

However, because every movie is up for interpretation, there are many different viewpoints towards these characters' sexuality. In some cases, there were fans who believed that Richie carving in Eddie's initial only meant to represent their deep friendship.

 

Despite this, some fans had a strong viewpoint, and one angry fan even tweeted "Either he's homophobic or just oblivious as f***".

 

However, Finn did also say in the interview that the arcade scene "totally made sense". So it doesn't seem as if Finn was completely rejecting the idea of Richie being gay.

 

Once this controversy blew up, Finn's fans rushed to his defence.

 

One fan account named Finn Wolfhard Updates tweeted this out:

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I "Finn Wolfhard's new interview with [Hollywood Reporter] is HIS interpretation of Boris, but it doesn't have to be yours. Richie IS gay. Finn is on record saying it is beautiful."

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I "The homophobic jokes were maybe funny for like a hot second but the anger directed at him now is not."

 

Fans also pointed out that just because Finn interpreted the characters in a certain way doesn't mean that he's homophobic. And they're calling for others to stop calling Finn homophobic as this could be damaging to his career if potential casting directors see it and believe it.

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Read More: Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard To Voice An Animation For ADULTS ONLY? (With Nick Wolfhard)

 

Read More: Fans DEFEND Finn Wolfhard’s 'Bad' Accent in The Goldfinch 

 

Read More: Fans POINT OUT Finn Wolfhard's Roles Are 'Bisexual' And In Love With His 'Best Friend'

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