Young Stranger Things fans are getting “dehumanising” tattoos of numbers on their wrists which the internet is now linking to those of the prisoners of concentration camps in the Holocaust. Is it fair to make this link or are these fans just following a naïve trend?
The website netflixjunkie.com explains that “the tattoos seen in Stranger Things were supposed to be blatant references to the dehumanization of Jews during the Holocaust.” The article goes on to say, “the program is well aware of this.”
The popular Netflix show Stranger Things, is centred around Hawkin’s lab, who took children in as babies without consent from parents and performed experiments on them. The lab stripped the children of their names, issued them buzz cuts and gave them numbers tattooed on their wrist, not unlike the victims of the Holocaust. The main character of the show is known as Eleven because she has 011 tattooed on her wrist. It is the 011 tattoo that many Stranger Things fans are replicating.
ABC News in Australia quotes Peter Werthweim from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry who called the use of Nazi-style motifs and locations “obscene”.
Peter Werthweim explains “whether they [Netflix] are conscious of it or not, their work has trivialised the enormity of the holocaust.”
Further to this, the internet has blown up with people bombarding comment sections saying that it is offensive and expressing their distaste.
We interviewed Jim Laplain, 84 who was an evacuee and has a close relative who fought in WW2 about how he feels about this issue he told us: “the holocaust was quite something, the rest of the world couldn’t really understand what was going on until after the war because it was kept quiet. Whole families were just decimated, and Jewish people went to all manner of extremes, to get out of Germany. So, they have an experience there which they’ll never forget and probably still have nightmares about. The ones that actually went through the camps, well they were really subjected to horrors that we don’t know about. So, it’s not fake news, its reality, and unless you’ve been through it or unless you were around at the time, it’s very difficult to comprehend. Anybody that’s actually been through it, for them it’s a delicate subject they don’t want to bring it up, because it brings up all the horrors of the past.”
This complex and emotive argument has two clear sides, both of which are very passionate about what they believe. This controversy has divided the internet in two, with young Stranger Things fans getting a tattoo replicating their favourite character, and the people who were affected by or have family who were affected by the holocaust who believe that the tattoos are dehumanising and insensitive.
Stranger Things producers are aware that aspects of their show could be compared with the Holocaust and maybe young fans need to keep these opinions fresh in their mind before getting this possibly offensive tattoo.
By Sophie Yr9
Boston High School Newsroom
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Really interesting article. I am a big fan of Stranger things but hadn’t realised fans were doing this. I can see how these tattoos could be considered to be both offensive and upsetting.