Billy Hargrove, the breakout, wispy-mustached character from Stranger Things 2, is a lot of things. He’s a bully, he’s a terrible brother to Max, he’s a fan of all denim everything, he’s a showboat (did you see his between-the-legs layup?), and he makes lonely moms very happy. But don’t call him a racist.
“When I first started reading the description between Billy and Lucas, I was like, oh, you know, he’s a racist dick,” actor Dacre Montgomery told the Huffington Post. After all, when Billy sees Max hanging out with Lucas, he says, “There are certain type of people in this world that you stay away from, and that kid, Max, that kid is one of them. You stay away from him, you hear me? Stay away.” But Montgomery reads the intimidation differently.
“I think he feels threatened,” he explained. “These male figures in his life, whether it’s Lucas, Steve, his dad, whoever these different characters that embody his world are… if Max is that one constant, he knows he needs to drop off and look after [her]. If any of these characters object with that person and his relationship with that person, it’s a threatened kind of behavior.”
Montgomery continued, “Lucas, unfortunately, [becomes] a target, and I don’t think it’s about race. Just like I don’t think Steve — somebody touched on that the other day. ‘Now is Billy attracted to Steve?’ And I was like, ‘No, I don’t think he is.’ I don’t think it’s like this confused, homoerotic kind of thing. I think it’s literally he’s threatened by all these characters in his life.”
Steve is the one who should feel threatened, though… by these sick moves.
(Via the Huffington Post)