Stranger Things’s Robin Buckley is the queer-and autistic-representation we all need

Warning: this post contains light spoilers for season four of Stranger Things! I highly recommend NOT reading this until you’ve finished season four.

If you love the Netflix series Stranger Things as much as I do, you’ll know that you truly can never guess what’s going to come with the next season-regardless of how many Easter eggs, secret messages, and hints the Duffer brothers and crew leave scattered on their Twitter and Instagram pages. And all surprises, regardless of how many you’re able to correctly predict, always seem to find a way to shock, thrill, delight, and floor-and that’s certainly the case for Robin, being both a surprise but also the more subtle, wait-was-that-intentional-or-maybe-just-a-weird-coincidence surprise.

Let’s set the scene, for those of you who might not quite remember the third season: it’s the summer of 1985, also known as the Reagan era-a time of economic prosperity, consequently resulting in the boom of shopping malls. Hawkins, where Stranger Things takes place, recognizes this, and immediately follows suit, building the Starcourt Mall, the first shopping mall of its kind in the small, supposedly idyllic Indiana town. However, the mall provides even more trouble than one might think: it immediately puts nearly all small businesses in Hawkins out of business, where Joyce Byers, Johnathan’s and Will’s mother, struggles to make ends meet even more due to how so few people are buying from the store. The mall is also a front for the secret Russian base who were building a gate in an attempt to open the Upside Down-aka the parallel world where the Demogorgon and Mind Flayer come from, resulting in even more trouble for our heroes. Regardless, the mall becomes the main hangout for the now-teens, Will, Dustin, Mike, Lucas, El, and Max, as they learn to navigate all the ups and downs that come with being a typical teen in the 1980’s, the events of season two still weighing heavily on them. The mall also brings in new jobs-Steve Harrington, former “king of Hawkins High”, former jerk, is (thankfully!) a reformed hero, proving he’s more than capable of holding his own with the Demogorgon, and even shares a brotherly bond with Dustin, but with no girlfriend, no intention of going to college, he’s resigned to working at Scoops Ahoy, the mall’s ice cream parlor, complete with a ridiculous uniform to match.

Thankfully, he’s not entirely alone-Robin Buckley, his new co-worker, despite being regarded as something of an annoyance in Steve’s eyes at first-due to how she lightly teases him over his inability to charm the female customers, quickly becomes fire-forged friends with him, assisting him and Dustin in cracking the Russian code that ultimately leads them to the secret Russian base, and even bond over being perceived as “losers” after a narrow escape from the Russian scientists-leading to that tender coming out scene with Robin, after Steve admits his romantic feelings for her. And the best part? Steve immediately judges Robin for her taste in girls-rather than judging and ultimately rejecting Robin for being into girls. Remember, Reagan was President, so anti-gay attitudes unfortunately weren’t uncommon back then. Even better, her lesbian identity is given further exploration in season four, where she discusses her newfound crush on her fellow marching band mate Vickie with Steve, and admits how nervous she is to admit her feelings to her, even (almost) coming out to Vickie during an assembly.

However, there’s another huge part of her identity that I hope the Duffer brothers give as much justice and attention to as they have her lesbian identity-and that’s Robin being autistic. There was something of an early indicator of this in season three-she’s able to easily crack the code, which can potentially be attributed to her ability to hyper-focus and how she knows multiple languages, implying that might be a special interest of hers. In the following season, she complains about the clothes that Nancy has her wear when they go to the institution to visit Victor Creel, indicating she has sensory issues, admits that it took her 6 months longer to walk than the other kids; physical and verbal delays are also a common indicator one might be autistic, and even explicitly states to Nancy that she doesn’t have much of a filter and has issues reading social cues-sounds like a pretty classic case of autism to me!

And the most refreshing part is that just like her lesbian identity, Robin’s traits that make her autistic don’t stereotype, isolate, or antagonize her from the rest of the group-she’s lesbian, but she’s not an obnoxious, man hating, self-righteous “feminist”, she’s not interested in hooking up with Nancy or any of the other main and more minor female characters, and has a total disinterest in traditionally “masculine” interests. She’s autistic, but she’s still able to enjoy and maintain a close friendship with Steve, is independent enough to obtain two jobs, and though she claims she doesn’t have the strongest grasp on social cues, she proves to be extremely persuasive when encouraging the Family Video store to hire Steve when he’s initially rejected, promising the interviewer that Steve’s presence will lure in plenty of girls, and delivers an impromptu, passionate monologue that ultimately allows her and Nancy to visit Victor Creel without having to fill out applications. She's even able to understand sarcasm-though it may be a result of her masking, autistic people are often portrayed as taking everything literally and having problems with understanding when someone’s being facetious, ignorance typically used as a cheap punch line. Best of all, she clearly shows romantic interest in Tammy Thompson, her former classmate and Vickie, her bandmate-further defying the stereotype that autistic people are incapable of harboring or understanding romantic feelings, or that all autistics are aromantic/asexual, when in reality, many autistic people demonstrate a desire for romantic relationships as much as their neurotypical counterparts, not to mention, a large part of the LGBTQIA+ community also happens to be autistic as well! And keep in mind-Robin is female. Positive depictions of autistic women and girls in media are often far and few between (and sorry, Potterheads, Luna Lovegood doesn't really count here)-one of the main reasons being that, as aforementioned, most of the criteria for an autism diagnosis is heavily based off of what has been observed in white males, despite it being 2022. Unfortunately, this is also because of the long-held sexist notion that girls are supposed to behave in a more socially "acceptable" or "mature" way, and because we unfortunately still condition girls to mimic these behaviors, symptoms in women and girls tend to be less "obvious"-which is why so many autistic women and girls aren't diagnosed until much later in life! Consequently, this impacts media as well; almost every autistic character in more mainstream media is male, with little regard to the female end of the spectrum. What's worse is when we do get representation, we’re depicted in a deeply inaccurate and offensive way that feels more like a parody rather than a depiction (albeit still very ableist)-just take a look at the dumpster fire that is Sia’s Music or the character of Sugar Motta from Glee. In short, we rarely see female autistic characters with storylines that acknowledge their autistic identity but don’t depict it as an annoyance or inconvenience to the rest of the characters and the main plot, or as gross inspiration porn.

Also, though our male counterparts also struggle with finding autistic representation in the media that they can identify with, I would also like to point out that there's been some progression on the male end of things-such a Abed from Community and Rick from Rick and Morty. I am in no way trying to invalidate the male experience, but keep in mind, these are instances where autism is depicted in a more realistic and nuanced light, because these characters are written from the perspective of someone who is autistic as well-Dan Harmon is one of the co-creators for Rick and Morty and created Community. Sia isn't autistic, and neither is Ryan Murphy, the creator of Glee. Though the Duffer brothers aren't either, it's refreshing to know that these brothers, with one of the largest streaming platforms in the palm of their hand, are one of the main catalysts in paving the way for better, more accurate autism representation in mainstream media, especially with how for far too long, anytime someone mentions that they're autistic, chances are people automatically think of Raymond from Rain Man, or Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, which are regarded as very limited, inaccurate perspectives and examples of autism by the autistic community and our allies. So, going by that, we can only be a total savant, constantly annoying our neurotypical peers and family members with our savant skills, or socially awkward nerds with a total disregard for others feelings and perspectives-and that mindset needs to stop. We aren't either/or a Raymond or a Sheldon; we're a mosiac of both good and bad traits, quirks and habits, all stemming from our autism or other factors-be it the environment we were raised in, our life experiences, etc-all presented in a multitude of appearances and backgrounds, whether that's female, Asian, fat, skinny, tall, short, straight, gay-just like Abed or Robin.

Rock on, my fellow autistics/Robins and Abeds of the world. Happy pride month! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Alt text: Robin in her Scoops Ahoy uniform in season three.