For the first four seasons, Will's sexuality was a matter of speculation among fans of the show; based on a series of hints throughout the run of the show, many thought he was gay, but in interviews the show's actors and producers always avoided answering this directly. This obfuscation continued until after the release of the fourth season, when the actor who plays Will, Noah Schnapp, confirmed in a July 2022 Variety interview that Will is gay and in love with his friend Mike: "Obviously, it was hinted at in Season 1: It was always kind of there, but you never really knew, is it just him growing up slower than his friends? Now that he's gotten older, they made it a very real, obvious thing. Now it's 100% clear that he is gay and he does love Mike. But before, it was a slow arc. I think it is done so beautifully, because it's so easy to make a character just like all of a sudden be gay. People have come up to me - I was just in Paris and this, like, 40-year-old man came up to me and he was like, 'Wow, this Will character made me feel so good. And I related to it so much. That is exactly who I was when I was a kid.' That just made me so happy to hear. They are writing this real character and this real journey and real struggle and they're doing it so well." Some viewers and critics--mostly younger ones--criticized the show's writers for their indirect approach to representing Will's sexual identity, often noting that the show's heterosexual characters were always identified as such (through outright depictions of crushes and relationships). In a July 2022 piece in The (London) Independent, Eleanor Noyce wrote, "Implicit hints regarding a character's identity aren't just disappointing, they're cowardly. Of course, coming out scenes aren't the only way to signal this - the same impact of being out can be achieved through casual remarks or comments inserted, naturally, into conversation. . . . Whilst coming out scenes aren't everything and they're arguably overdone, these stories provide crucial, life-saving representation. LGBT+ people really want to be working towards a world where no one needs to come out - but we're not there yet." However, this interpretation was rejected by many LGBTQ viewers who were old enough to remember what the 1980s were really like for gay kids and who pointed out that the widespread homophobia of the '80s makes it quite realistic that Will might be very hesitant to come out to anyone.
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05-03-2025 alle ore 08:38
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