Amy S. Li
Abstract:
Abstract: Stranger Things capitalizes on a recent revival of 80s pop culture, recycling aesthetics and cultural references of this bygone era. Looking backwards, however, provides opportunities for critical reflection, which Stranger Things demonstrates in its interrogation of traditional gender ideals. Netflix’s hit show revises the hard-headed, hard-bodied 80s man embodied by cultural icons like the Terminator and Rambo. It instead champions the father figure and the nerd, as represented by Chief Jim Hopper and the young boys Mike, Dustin, and Lucas, who reject macho individualism and instead celebrate collaboration with females, paving pathways for feminist heroes.
In contradistinction to reactionary politics of the Reagan era, Stranger Things thus applies a nostalgic approach to masculinity, hybridizing past masculine archetypes with contemporary feminist values. This “nostalgic masculinity” allows men with decidedly non-athletic “dad-bods” and young, unpopular nerds to become protagonists. Their admiration of women like Joyce Byers and Eleven delineate the heroes from the villains. In the case of the show’s gender representation, where conformity fails, stranger things prevail.
Introduction
“That’s what I love about you. You punch back” (2.03). In this quiet moment of dialogue from Stranger Things (Netflix 2016-present), Bob “the Brain” Newby (Sean Astin) tells Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) that he has always admired her fighting spirit. He confesses that he doesn’t quite know what to do around Joyce, because he likes her so much—and not only her, but her family too, the wonderful sons she has raised. Bob admits that he “was never really one to put up a fight,” unlike Joyce. Like Joyce’s youngest son, Will (Noah Schnapp), Bob struggled with bullies as a kid, possessing neither the physical nor mental strength to resist their intimidating tactics. His past has not limited his happiness, however, nor his success in life. After confiding in Joyce, his face brightens as he proclaims, “But hey. Look at me now: I get to date Joyce Byers. Ha!” (2.03). Both Joyce and Bob are heartened by this exchange, and the moment becomes an origin point in Bob’s evolution into a heroic figure.
This scene exemplifies an important dynamic in Stranger Things: heroism that is predicated not only on the male characters’ own actions, but also on their recognition of the strong women that help them achieve protagonist status. In contradistinction to reactionary politics of the Reagan era, Stranger Things takes a revisionist (or nostalgic) approach to the 1980s. The show takes inspiration from cultural icons of past cinema but demonstrates that modern masculinity need not be threatened by women, because a proper appreciation for feminine strengths allows men with decidedly non-athletic “dad-bods” like Hopper (David Harbour) and young, non-jock, unpopular nerds like Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) to be protagonists. In fact, Stranger Things delineates its heroes from the villains in part by presenting male protagonists’ willingness to revise their opinions about women, and their admiration contributes to their own character development.
This subversion of the 1980s “man” rehabilitates the father figure and the nerd, who both reject macho individualism and instead celebrate collaboration with females, valuing feminine traits such as sensitivity and vulnerability. Because of the show’s “badass” women, as actor David Harbour (Chief Hopper) comments, the male characters are allowed to explore more complex masculinities than the narrow-minded 1980s archetype. By unlinking heroism from the hypermasculine “hard body” that permeated action films and political rhetoric of the era, the show constructs a more feminist approach to gender representation. Stranger Things concludes that masculine strength stems not from separating males from females, but from building productive coalitions between the two. Consequently, the expansion of gender roles for female characters like Joyce and Eleven accommodates and even benefits male character growth in Stranger Things: Hopper becomes a positive father figure and the boys partner up with their “crazy” superpowered friend to fulfill their Dungeons & Dragons dream of defeating the monster and getting the girl. Stranger Things thus constructs models of what I call “nostalgic masculinity,” which hybridize past masculine ideals with more contemporary approaches to gender representation, revising the wrongs of past gender ideals and builds pathways for feminist heroes.
Leading Men: Embodying Nostalgic Masculinity
Nostalgia is a longing for the past—a bygone feeling, time, or place—that often entails romanticization; looking backwards also provides opportunities for critical reflection, however, which Stranger Things demonstrates with regard to 1980s gender ideals. Although some scholars lament nostalgia as a “retreat into a private, apolitical space,” others like Jilly Boyce Kay, Cat Mahoney, and Caitlin Shaw suggest that nostalgia might also hold progressive potential (Becker 242). While Stranger Things capitalizes on the aesthetics and cultural references of the 1980s, the show indicates changing opinions of feminism through its portrayals of masculinity. This nostalgic masculinity rejects an anti-woman stance and instead encourages male admiration of strong women.
The male character who most embodies Stranger Things’ nostalgic masculinity is Police Chief Jim Hopper, who offers a revision of the cold, individualistic, militaristic, and macho leading men of the 1980s. As Harbour commented at a panel during the Phoenix Comicon Fanfest, strong female characters allow for more complex male characters, who simultaneously recall but resist the masculine “leading man of the seventies and eighties” like Indiana Jones and Han Solo. Hopper indeed possesses some of the gruff, individualistic mannerisms of such action heroes, but he significantly differs from the masculine ideal of the 1980s. Susan Jeffords calls this archetype the hard-bodied, hard-headed male, a mythical figure that bolstered Reagan’s public image and harsh foreign policies (13). Stranger Things invokes yet revises this prototype of the militant and macho male protagonist, thus decoupling masculinity from the anti-feminist men’s movement and instead nostalgically constructing a feminist leading man for contemporary times.
Robert Bly’s book, Iron John: A Book About Men, provides the basis for Jeffords’ cultural history of masculine ideals that culminated in the 1980s hard body. Bly was a leader of the mythopoetic men’s movement, which sought to take back masculine strength from a society that had recently undergone effects of second-wave feminism. Believers of this men’s movement argued that too much interaction with women prohibited males from realizing their true masculinity. Bly traced the so-called decline of man, writing that the “fifties male” was a model of work efficiency and responsibility, a family man who valued discipline and aggressiveness. The “sixties male” was, however, a product of the women’s movement and the Vietnam War, who advocated for nonviolence and sought to “learn about the ‘feminine side’ within him and to treat women differently” (Jeffords 6). Bly admits that this man was more thoughtful and less isolated than the fifties male but he criticizes the sixties male for wasting energy in pleasing the women in his life, thus leading to the “soft” seventies male, who was nurturing but lacked vigor in both domestic and foreign affairs. Men had become divorced from one another in the workplace and at home, forced to separate themselves from fathers in favor of their mothers.
The Reagan Revolution (1980-1988), during which Stranger Things is set, offered a model of masculinity that was defined against the “soft” feminine seventies man, represented by the former president Jimmy Carter, who solicited advice from women like his wife, Rosalyn Carter. The 80s hard-bodied ideal was promoted by male Hollywood archetypes like the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Rambo (Sylvester Stallone). These men embodied hypermasculinity—visually signaled by muscular, bodybuilder physiques—and often resorted to violent means to fend off foreign attacks. These actions were presented as heroic acts of individualism and machismo. While the hard body was only one model of masculine comportment, this archetype soon became the hegemonic ideal, especially in mainstream science-fiction cinema.
Stranger Things’ construction of Hopper recalls but does not reproduce these archetypes. Like the hard bodied-male, Hopper’s character initially seems unemotional, and he occasionally uses violent force to get the results he needs. Although he attempts to first talk his way out of situations, he punches the corrupt state official who faked Will’s death report, and also knocks out the men when he breaks into Hawkins Laboratory. Hopper’s first scene shows him as a lone figure, and as per masculine standards for leading men of the era, he remains stoically silent as he performs basic tasks and dons his police uniform. Before he departs for work, he grabs his hat, which throughout the series becomes a sign that connects him to the seventies masculine figure, Indiana Jones. Preferring to work alone in the first half of Season One, Hopper summons comparisons to the aforementioned action hero (roguishly portrayed by Harrison Ford) as well as the iconic vigilante cop of the era, Dirty Harry (played by Clint Eastwood). As Hopper’s characterization attests, these models of individualistic heroism left legacies that lingered into the 1980s and later decades of cinema.
On the other hand, Chief Hopper’s body—and thereby personality—literally exceeds the bounds of the 1980s hard-bodied model and other masculine archetypes that defined previous eras. Hopper is seen shirtless in the same introductory scene, but the body he displays is decidedly un-Schwarzenegger-like. A beer belly extends over the waistband of his white underwear, revealed by unbuttoned jeans. His predilection for smoking makes him appear not as invincible, like the suave leading men of film noir, but anxious: another sign of the unhealthy habits he has developed over time. This introduction to Hopper thus shows that the police chief embodies some but not all aspects of the decades’ archetypes. Through his characterization, Stranger Things suggests that masculinity lies somewhere beyond the narrow and binaristic definitions that led to the construction of the 1980s man.
It is in fact by virtue of his failure to embody the hard-bodied ideal that Hopper develops into a fully-fledged protagonist. David Harbour has commented that one aspect he loves most about Hopper is that he’s more “beat up” than Indiana Jones and Han Solo (Phoenix Comicon Fanfest). He references the fact that Hopper must “take medication for depression” and struggles with parenthood. Harbour concludes that Hopper is “very masculine in a certain way, but […] deeply sensitive as well” (Phoenix Comicon Fanfest). To him, what makes the police chief a compelling leading man is not hard-headedness, but instead his emotional vulnerability. These very qualities, which make Hopper’s characterization antithetical to the masculine hard-body ideal, form an essential part of Stranger Things’ nostalgic masculinity.
Hopper thus ushers in a uniquely contemporary ideal of the leading man who is a nurturing father figure, as represented by his “dad-bod.” In , the dictionary presents the recently-coined term “dad-bod” alongside a GIF of Hopper as visual example of this body type. “Dad-bod” refers to a male body type that lies somewhere between muscular and slightly overweight, thus a cross between the supposed “hard bodies” and “soft bodies” of the eighties and seventies respectively. The dad-bod speaks to changing expectations of the patriarchal figure and suggests that the less-muscular man cares more about others’ wellbeing than his own physical appearance. Where the man with a dad-bod lacks in athletic physique, he makes up for in compassion, and this sensitive side becomes a masculine strength. In Stranger Things, dad-bodded Hopper rises to the occasion where other male characters have callously fallen short.
Hopper’s example of a paternal, but not paternalistic, masculinity starkly contrasts failed father figures such as Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine). In contrast to Hopper’s sensitivity, Brenner’s actions fit the hard-headed model of the Reagan Revolution, taking a hard line against foreign threat and invasion. The experiments at Hawkins Laboratory—a continuation of Project MKUltra—are justified as measures against the shadowy Russian menace during the Cold War-era. In taking up austere measures against this perceived danger, however, Dr. Brenner fails his parental responsibilities. Instead of being a proud and protective father figure to Eleven, who calls him Papa, he is instead a prideful and manipulative patriarch who exploits the young female’s abilities for his own needs. Brenner’s relationship to Eleven is devoid of empathy or affection. She is instead perceived of as property, a tool to be used against foreign invasion. His lack of emotional intelligence comes to be his ironic downfall, as he pushes Eleven past a breaking point, and he dies at the hands of the monster he has unwittingly unleashed through such unfeeling ignorance.
Hopper contrastingly becomes a heroic figure because he embraces the type sensitivity that men like Brenner lack; moreover, Hopper aligns himself with the show’s powerful matriarch, Joyce, whose supernaturally-strong emotional awareness drives his own character development. In contrast to Lonnie Byers (Ross Partridge), another failed father figure who attempts to convince Joyce of her insanity, Hopper admits that he was wrong to have dismissed Joyce’s concerns on the basis of perceived hysteria.[1]In the fourth episode of Season One, “The Body,” Hopper discovers that Will’s body in the morgue is in fact a fake, as Joyce had passionately proclaimed. After this investigation causes his home to be bugged by the government operatives of Hawkins Laboratory, Hopper tells Joyce: “You were right. This whole time, you were right” (1.05). Joyce’s persistence once seemed a sign of insanity in a woman gone mad with grief. Now though, Hopper realizes the positive nature of Joyce’s toughness. When he begins to properly accept her insights, her maternal sensibilities become a valuable source of help.
For Hopper to admit his mistake in judgment constitutes not a fall from grace, but rather an important moment of character growth. His example of masculinity thus refutes male anxieties that seeking help from women would make men less courageous. In fact, teaming up with Joyce allows Hopper to uncover the truth of Hawkins Laboratory and ultimately save Will from the Upside Down. Hopper’s willingness to listen to Joyce subverts normative gender roles, and juxtaposing this behavior against those of Brenner and Lonnie further proves that the failed father figure results not from women rising to power, but is instead due to a lack of compassion in men. The form of masculinity promoted by Hopper and Stranger Things is subsequently nostalgic in nature, because it borrows from past cultural images of masculine heroism but significantly revises them to reflect the lessons learned from contemporary culture, media, and politics. Hopper’s character is not an invincible patriarch like the popular image of Ronald Reagan or other hard-headed and hard bodied-men. The man of action is therefore not synonymous with an authoritarian, militaristic man who dominates his woman and country.
The masculine model that Hopper embodies recognizes the value of emotions, even though emotionality is traditionally associated with femininity.[2]A masculinity that embraces sensitivity or emotional vulnerability makes gender subversion possible, because it suggests that such character traits are not innate nor exclusive to any one gender. Harbour says that he loves playing “guys [like Hopper] that are very broken men on the surface,” and he explicitly connects this positive vulnerability to the show’s strong female characters: “What’s really interesting about this show, I have to say…is that I think that the women characters on the show are so badass” (Phoenix Comicon Fanfest). He explains that because the women are action heroines in their own right, it allows like characters like Hopper “to be as masculine as we want” (Phoenix Comicon Fanfest). A key component of Hopper’s masculinity is thus his acceptance of female strength, an acknowledgment that allows him to be unthreatened by these women. When the males are no longer required to act on their own, the show opens up space for masculinity to incorporate vulnerability—or “softness”—without making the male characters seem weak. As Joyce tells Jonathan: “This is not yours to fix alone. You act like you’re all alone out there in the world, but you’re not: you’re not alone” (1.07). Stranger Things proves the possibility of having both leading men and leading ladies, who work together to perform heroic deeds.
Revenge of the Nerds: Nerd Heroism and Science Fiction Legacy
Nowhere is this sense of comradery more apparent than in the bond between Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Eleven. The nostalgia of Stranger Things allows for a revisionist portrayal of not only the father figure, but also celebrates other misfits who fall outside the male “hard body” paradigm. Firstly, the show’s rejection of 1980s hypermasculine ideals allows nerds to become viable male protagonists, incorporating this once-belittled identity into its portrayal of nostalgic masculinity. The boys attain leading male-status by virtue of their admiration for extraordinary heroines like Eleven, who is reminiscent of cult science fiction icons like Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver). Although Eleven recalls Ripley’s androgynous appearance, her interactions with the boys also illuminate the difficulties of attaining heroine status as a young girl. “El” is forced to learn traditional gender comportment in order to fit in, before she can finally come into her own powers. Her ability to alter the performance of material objects, like compasses, initially causes apprehension in some of the boys; but, as they learn to accept Eleven, their superhero fantasies come to life in their quest to save Will and defeat the monster. Mike and El even fall in love, a plot decision that validates both nerdy males and unconventional females.
Although traditional male ideals would typically relegate the Stranger Things boys to the margins, the show rehabilitates their misfit status in its reformation of masculinity. In the first episode of Season One— “The Vanishing of Will Byers”—we witness the three boys being bullied at the schoolyard. Their antagonists call them a “freakshow” and individually name them “Frogface” (Mike), “Midnight,” (Lucas, in reference to his skin color), and “Toothless” (Dustin, due to his cleidocranial dysplasia). The boys are treated by their classmates as outcasts, and thus become victims of abuse because of their apparent weakness in contrast to their male peers.
The show quickly establishes the boys’ strong friendship as a strength, however, and their compassion for each other and passion for comic book superheroes set them apart from their antagonists. Though they are low on the middle school hierarchy, Mike reassures Dustin that he is like Mister Fantastic: that his malleable body makes him special in a good way. His non-normative embodiment fails to match the hypermasculine model of a “hard” body, but the boys do not subscribe to this narrow depiction of male heroes. Their idols are instead intelligent mutants like Mister Fantastic, who not only possess non-normative embodiment but also extraordinary intelligence. Stranger Things validates his nerdy personality and his insatiable curiosity for highly specific interests like X-Men comics and A.V. Club: interests that consequently bond the group together.
This aspect of the boys’ masculinity initially seems to actualize a tenet of the mythopoetic men’s movement, which was a glorification of masculinity through male bonding. On the other hand, this men’s movement, argued that celebrating masculinity was only possible in all-male spaces; Stranger Things rejects this hypothesis, demonstrating that the boys are stronger for having accepted Eleven into their group. Although they—especially the rational-minded Lucas—initially blame Eleven for using her powers against them, they realize that she only does so for their protection. When she returns to save Mike and Dustin from school bullies, Dustin gleefully shouts that she’s their friend, “and she’s crazy!” (1.06). Eleven protects the boys from other, more toxic, males.
Lucas assumes that her presence in the party makes them weak; it is when he is forced to reconsider his position, however, that the group full solidifies. His eventual acceptance of Eleven’s position in the group drives his character development in Season One. Lucas apologizes to Eleven and accepts Mike’s apology in turn, allowing the group to work in harmony to rescue Will. Rather than attempting to exploit Eleven’s abilities like Brenner did, the boys gain access to her powers through accepting her as a true friend. This approach proves more sustainable than the authoritarian method.
Where the show revises masculinity, Stranger Things also reboots and updates the female heroine, building on an existing legacy of feminist characters. Ultimately, the boys are primed to accept Eleven because of their appreciation for characters like the Fantastic Four and the X-Men—directly referenced in the show—and other countercultural figures in 1980s science fiction like Ellen Ripley, who challenge normative assumptions about identity and embodiment. As a Ripley-like figure, Eleven contributes to the show’s subversion of gender ideals.[3]
Amid science fiction’s simultaneous prescription of “hard bodies” for male characters of 1980s cinema, Stranger Things’ veiled allusions to Alien [4] (Scott, 1979) guide the show’s interventions into traditional representations of gender. Ripley inaugurated a female archetype known as the action heroine, a “transgressive character” who opens up discussions “about the fluidity of gendered identities and changing popular cinematic representations of women” (Hills 38). Such heroines “confound binaristic logic in a number of ways, for they access a range of emotions, skills, and abilities which have traditionally been defined as either ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’” (38). Ripley’s androgyny challenged the dominance of male heroism at the same time that it destabilized limiting representations of femininity. Like Hopper, she defies dichotomous archetypes prescribed on the basis of gender.
Ripley’s lean body is an ironic take on the “hard body,” because while she is muscular, she does not typify the macho mentality that the 80s male archetype endorses. On the one hand, she resists the emotional hysterics represented by the Nostromo ’s other female member, Joan Lambert (Veronica Cartwright). Then again, her situational awareness exceeds that of the macho men who work alongside her, as demonstrated in Aliens (Cameron, 1986), where Ripley’s maternal qualities and emotional awareness become tools that allow her to save Rebecca “Newt” Jordan (Carrie Henn). Her determination to save the orphaned girl from the Xenomorph queen— “Get away from her, you bitch!”—proves that courage is not exclusive to male heroes, and that emotional investment in other humans’ wellbeing trumps macho individualism.
While Joyce Byers inherits Ripley’s maternal fierceness, Eleven is Stranger Things’ action heroine par excellence. Like Ripley, she is not “simpering,” and her androgynous appearance defies normative assumptions of feminine presentation (Bell-Metereau 210).[5]One of the boys’ bullies calls Eleven a “freak” who “doesn’t even look like a girl,” but she proves that her lack of traditional femininity proves no hindrance to heroism (1.07). Although society around her prescribes narrow criteria for girlhood, Eleven eventually exerts agency over her gender performance, helping the people around her to also achieve heroic deeds.
Unlike Alien, Stranger Things’ multiple episodes and Eleven’s youth allow the show to explore her process of developing into a subversive action heroine; specifically, her adventures with the boys help illuminate that gender is a performance of norms. Part of Eleven’s female bildungsroman entails learning the trappings of gender before she can consciously reject them, her growth into her powers coinciding with her passage through girlhood. The boys are shocked when Eleven fails to understand “proper” gender conduct, as she attempts to strip off her tee-shirt in full view of them. She is divested of her naivete, forced to realize that she is different from the boys by virtue of her sex. The boys, already aware of such gender standards, at first call her “mental” (1.02). They later teach her how to look like a girl, dressing Eleven up in Nancy’s ruffled pink dress and blonde wig to sneak her into Hawkins Middle School. These clothes fail to define her, however, as both the boys and the television audience see through this outward appearance for what it is: a mere performance of normative gender.
The boys learn to see past her sex and appreciate her all the more for her strangeness: in fact, Eleven’s androgynous look soon becomes synonymous with her heroism. Mike first calls her “pretty” when she puts on the pink dress and blonde wig. When, in the process of saving Mike, she returns without the wig, Mike nevertheless remains enchanted by her. He and the other boys come to realize that, even though Eleven continues to wear the dress throughout Season One, she is not defined by her clothing: she is instead marked by the extraordinary skills that she possesses, and her willingness to use those powers to help their friends and family. In the end, the bullies get their comeuppance, and the party vanquishes the alien threat. Where conformity fails, stranger things prevail.
Critiques and Concluding Thoughts
Stranger Things provides a reinterpretation of masculinity by rejecting the 1980s “hard body” and instead establishing a nostalgic masculinity that embraces tough female characters and male sensitivity. The show does not entirely revolutionize gender relations, however, especially with regard to the relationships between female characters in Stranger Things. Championing nostalgic masculinity and exploring the young boys’ homosocial bonds often comes at the expense of femininity and female friendships, causing Stranger Things to mostly fail the Bechdel Test.[6]The female characters rarely have moments alone with each other, and all of the women’s character arcs involve being a male character’s romantic interest. Scenes like those between Joyce and Eleven in the Season One finale are far and few between, despite being among the most emotionally moving and compelling moments. Other interactions end all too soon: for example, recall the quick “fridging” of Barb, who is the only female friend of Nancy’s that the show features. Stranger Things requires Barb to be a sacrificial lamb to the story’s advancement. The show’s lack of emphasis on female bonding even pits females against each other, as is the case of Maxine “MADMAX” Mayfield (Sadie Sink) versus Eleven in Season Two. Despite their possible similarities,[7]Eleven sees Max as a romantic rival. Mike further excludes Max because Eleven seems to be the only exception he is willing to make, in terms of new party members (especially ones who are girls). Subsequently, Eleven’s dislike of Max demonstrates that despite being an action heroine, her characterization still falls within heteronormative narratives that divide females against one other because of a male character.
Although the show fails to offer up a significant female friendship between Eleven and Max, Eleven’s newly-discovered sister Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) provides a unique opportunity to further interrogate gender norms in future seasons. While many critics and audience members cite the seventh episode as Season Two’s weak point, I find Kali interesting for the show’s development in several ways. Where Eleven only taps into her rage in desperate occasions, Kali presents a female figure still coping with the aftermath of her trauma, and her anger lends complexity to Kali’s character arc. Highlighting such complex female characters—who at times fail and learn from their mistakes, like the men of the show—could yield radical feminist potential.
In its second season, the show has continued to challenge gender norms with regard to masculinity. Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) represents a transformation from toxic masculinity to another type altogether, unique from the masculine archetypes that I have discussed in the scope of this essay. Although he diverges from Hopper’s dad-bod image and the boys’ nostalgic nerd masculinity, Steve proves that even a popular jock can reject the rigidity of traditional gender roles. Steve’s development into babysitter-extraordinaire challenges normative gender roles in which women are the primary caretakers. Steve is not presented as feminine for having taken on this responsibility; rather, his protectiveness over the kids and ensuing actions make him a hero. In combination with Hopper’s budding relationship with Eleven and Jonathan’s protectiveness over Will, Steve’s adventures in babysitting demonstrate the importance of dismantling traditional gender roles for the betterment of both genders. Sharing in the task of kinship benefits everyone involved, and the relationships that ensue provide intriguing avenues for the show to explore.
As Hopper tells Eleven in Season Two, “Nothing is gonna go back to the way that it was” (2.02). Although part of nostalgia’s appeal lies in escaping to bygone days, Stranger Things proves that successful stories can revisit the past to revise their shortcomings. This logic applies not only to the fictional characters of Hawkins, who readily admit when they’ve been wrong, but also to cultural formations and critiques of existing power systems. To paraphrase Jonathan Byers: “You shouldn’t follow traditions just because people tell you you’re supposed to.” Looking ahead, I hope that Stranger Things’ future seasons continue to provide new and interesting—or perhaps strange and subversive—approaches to gender.
Works Cited
Aliens. Directed by James Cameron, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 1986.
Becker, Tobias. “The Meanings of Nostalgia: Genealogy and Critique.” History and Theory, vol. 57, no. 2, 2018, pp. 234–250.
Bell-Metereau, Rebecca. Hollywood Androgyny. Columbia University Press, 1985.
Hills, Elizabeth. “From ‘Figurative Males’ to Action Heroines: Further Thoughts on Active Women in the Cinema.” Screen, vol. 40, no. 1, 1999, pp. 38–50.
“In ‘Dad Bod,’ the Word ‘Dad’ Is Technically Still a Noun. ‘Daddest Bod,’ However, Would Make It an Adjective. https://t.co/m7CyzRLgnHpic.twitter.com/2LnmL1SBnT.” Twitter, Merriam-Webster, 8 December 2017, .
Irigaray, Luce.The Sex Which Is Not One. Translated by Catherine Porter and Carolyn Burke, Cornell University Press, 1985.
Jeffords, Susan. Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era. Rutgers University Press, 1994.
—. “‘The Battle of the Big Mamas’: Feminism and the Alienation of Women.” The Journal of American Culture, vol. 10, no. 3, 1987, pp. 73–84.
Lutz, Catherine. “Emotions and Feminist Theories.” Querelles: Jahrbuch für Frauenforschung, edited by Ingrid Kasten, Gesa Stedman, & Margarete Zimmermann, J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart, 2002, pp. 104-121.
“Stranger Things Millie Bobby Brown & David Harbour Panel Phoenix Comicon Fanfest.” Filmed by Nai Wang, YouTube, YouTube, 22 Oct. 2016, .
Stranger Things. Created by Matt and Ross Duffer, Netflix, 2016-present.
Biographical Note:
Amy S. Li is currently a doctoral candidate in English at Emory University. She holds an M.A. from Emory University in English, as well as a B.A. in English and a B.A. in Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies from Cornell University. Her research focuses on representations of embodiment in science fiction literature and media, including specific emphases on gender, disability, and race/ethnicity. Her dissertation project analyzes the connections between science, monstrosity, feminism, and disability studies in such works as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, William Gibson’s cyberpunk short stories, and science fiction media such as Orphan Black, Ex Machina and Black Mirror.
[1]Ancient Greeks believed “hysteria” to be the result of a wandering womb, and therefore classed hysteria as an inherently female condition. Feminist theorist Luce Irigaray writes that in the psychoanalytic tradition, hysteria was often located in women’s bodies, even though Freud did not diagnose it as a pathology exclusive to females. Nevertheless, Irigaray argues that hysterical symptoms communicate that which cannot be spoken. Ineffability was the situation of females under conditions of patriarchy: to be female was to be unable to speak, because patriarchal society refused to listen to women properly. Therefore, hysterical symptoms might be a way of “speaking (as) woman” (137). Hopper initially mistakes Joyce’s emotionally-driven search for Will’s real body as a hysterical reaction. Subsequently, both when he and Jonathan agree that Joyce is “tough,” their admiration for the Byers matriarch is undercut by their perception of her as crazy.
[2]As Catherine Lutz writes in “Emotions and Feminist Theories,” women have long been assumed to be the “emotional gender” and emotion has “generally been pathologized” (107). She notes, however, that feminist scholars like Alison Jaggar have described emotion instead as an “epistemic resource,” a tool that allows its possessors to develop more critical perspectives on the world (110).
[3]Although the show unquestioningly celebrates Eleven’s extraordinary abilities, her status as a strong female character does become slightly problematic when we consider the source of those powers: Dr. Brenner. Eleven’s superhuman abilities result from experiments over which she could not express consent and which caused her considerable pain. Each use of her abilities causes her to bleed from the nose and grow physically weak, susceptible to the “bad men” like Brenner. Furthermore, to access the Upside-Down she must recreate the circumstances of her captivity, deprived of her ordinary senses in a water tank. Although Stranger Things focuses on Eleven’s strength, the show’s plot seems to simultaneously demand Eleven’s periodical return to a place of trauma. Despite the problematic origin of her abilities, however, Eleven nevertheless refuses to let victimhood define her or prevent her from performing great deeds.
[4]The dark and eerily blue-lit Upside Down carries strong resonances of the Xenomorphs’ cavernous lair explored by the crew of the Nostromo. This reference to Alien is even more obvious in the finale of Season 1 when Hopper and Joyce enter the Upside Down. They look remarkably like the spacesuit-clad Nostromo team, as the duo walks in Hazmat suits with faces lit beneath their helmets. Hopper sees a large egg, already hatched and adhered to the ground of the Upside Down, like the colony of eggs in Alien.
[5]Rebecca Bell-Metereau champions Ripley as “a prototype for a new female lead…because she is not stunning, stunned, or simpering” (210).
[6]Also known as the Bechdel-Wallace test (credited by Alison Bechdel to her friend Liz Wallace), this criteria for fictional representations of women asks whether or not a work includes more than one female character, and if so, whether or not those women speak to each other about a subject other than men. Stranger Things also fails a similar media test known as the Mako Mori test, which requires a work to include at least one female character, who has her own narrative arc that is not about supporting a male character’s story.
[7]Like Eleven, Max is tomboy-ish and possesses skills that the boys find extraordinary (her proficiency at Dig Dug). A further point of similarity between the two girls are the abusive father figures in their lives: Dr. Brenner and Neil Hargrove.