Stranger Things fans have been warned against getting Eleven tattoos because of the dark history they represent.
In the Duffer Brothers’ Netflix smash-hit, Eleven - who is played by Millie Bobby Brown - has a tattoo that reads ‘011’ on her wrist. The marking was inked onto her by Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) who gives identical tattoos to all the child patients he experiments on at the Hawkins National Laboratory.
By branding his patients in such a way, Dr. Brenner is essentially dehumanising them by stripping them of their identities and reducing them to their patient numbers. However, it hasn’t stopped people getting similar wrist inkings, photos of which have even been shared on Stranger Things’ official Instagram.
In response to the show’s post, a Twitter user named Emily highlighted the tattoos’ negative connotations, with The Mary Sue writer Kimberly Terasaki elaborating on Emily’s points in a recent article.
Emily pointed out that the tattoos given to the test subjects at Hawkins National Laboratory are reminiscent of tattoos given - often forcefully - to concentration camp prisoners during the holocaust.
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Sharing photos of the tattoos given to Auschwitz prisoners, Emily wrote: “In the holocaust, upon arriving at a concentration/death/work camp, you would get a tattoo like this.
“It was a process not only so that the nazi could keep track and records of people, but also to dehumanise people.”
Emily added: “They no longer had a name because they weren't deemed significant enough TO have one. They were instead referred to as a number only.”
Echoing Emily’s point, Terasaki wrote that Eleven’s tattoo is ‘meant to be directly linked to the dehumanisation experienced by Jewish people during the Holocaust’.
In tattooing Eleven, Dr. Brenner ‘strips Eleven of the name her mother gave her in the same way she was stripped of her hair and freedom’.
While some fans agreed with Emily’s point - with one person tweeting in response: “The message is very true” - others weren’t so sure.
A second social media user replied: “Tattoos from labour camps were on hands and those with Stranger Things are on the wrist,” while another said: “Thanks for showing that the ST tattoos are nothing like the Auschwitz ones. Comparing them is ludicrous.”
Sharing a recent photo of the wrists of Stranger Things fans bearing number tattoos, the show’s official Instagram page called the inkings ‘bitchin’.
LADbible has approached a Netflix representative for comment.
Topics: Stranger Things
Aisha Nozari