Columnists

Why film and TV are taking too straight an approach to their characters

Audiences want to see more queer (and uncomplicated) relationships on screen, and it’s time that programme-makers took these demands seriously

Robin Buckley, played by Maya Hawke and Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) in Stranger Things: Robin came out as a lesbian in one of the best and most empathetic of such scenes in modern television. Picture: Netflix

I loved the latest series of Stranger Things; the costumes, the music, the haunted house aesthetics, the comedy, the drama, the running up hills. The other day I watched a YouTube video entitled ‘The Stranger Things Cast: Then and Now’ and cried because the kids are growing up so fast.

Though set in the 1980s, Stranger Things is a thoroughly modern show. There are now two canonically gay characters; in season three, Robin (played wonderfully ...