Netflix cops backlash over controversial Stranger Things move

Tens of thousands have signed petitions demanding Netflix reverse a controversial move regarding the hit series Stranger Things.

Netflix is facing backlash over its new project, partnering with Airbnb to turn Stranger Things filming location Lukiškės Prison into a hotel themed after the popular series.

But before it ever served as the backdrop for main character Hopper’s (David Harbour) brutal stint as a political prisoner in Russia, the Lithuanian prison had over a century of its own gruesome history as an operational facility for everyone from criminals, to real-life political prisoners.

Lukiškės Prison is perhaps best known, however, as a Nazi-run holding cell and concentration camp for thousands of Jewish, Polish and Soviet people during World War II.

There, they were viciously tortured and killed, in addition to having to survive each day in horrible conditions. Prisoners were routinely mistreated and abused as they were forced to live in cramped and unclean conditions with minimal food, light or social interaction.

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Stranger Things has been one of Netflix’s biggest success stories. Picture: Netflix

Even after World War II ended, the prison continued to be a facility where inmates experienced regular physical and psychological torture and were killed with public hangings through the 1970s.

Death sentences were also carried out by firing squads, right next to occupied cells where other prisoners could hear their fellow inmates’ suffering, all the way through the late ’90s when death sentences were finally abolished in Lithuania.

From 1904 to 2019, Lukiškės Prison operated in Lithuania’s capital city of Vilnius to its full capacity. After closing, the Vilnius tourism board tried to rebrand the space, hoping to do so by leaning into the success of Stranger Things and Netflix’s desire to turn it into a themed hotel catering to fans of the series.

Thousands have called on Netflix to cancel the planned Stranger Things-themed hotel. Picture: Chris Delmas/AFP

Unsurprisingly, this rebranding effort has been met with pushback from Jewish and mental health advocacy groups who have posted petitions to put a stop to it, in order to prevent the dishonour and erasure of Holocaust victims and survivors, as well as others who were forced to suffer through the horrors of the prison.

As of right now, one of the main petitions led by Jews and Rroma Against Bigotry has accumulated more than 57,000 of its target 75,000 signatures.

Netflix has not yet commented.

This story originally appeared on Decider and is republished here with permission