El, cyborg stories, and 'identity'
I do now think the key to understanding what they’re doing with El is reconsidering the kind of sci-fi story they’re actually telling with her. Stranger Things isn’t just drawing from Ste(ph/v)en King/Spielberg, it’s also playing in the sandbox of more esoteric ‘70s- ‘00s cyberpunk/technosurrealist literature and film. and the core of a lot of those stories is exploring what it means to be human in an increasingly nonhuman (technological) world.
that’s taken on most potently in characters who exist between the boundaries of those two conditions: robots/cyborgs. In ST, instead of the nonhuman half of that equation being the machine, it’s the supernatural. and unsurprisingly, the carriers of most of that quasi-cyber(/supernatural)punk imagery are our core trio at the center of ST’s supernatural plot: El, Will, and Vecna.
ST x akira (1998), the matrix (1999), and ghost in the shell (1995)
of those three, El is really our true cyborg character, because she was “made.” I promise that isn’t me othering her (existential/philosophical sci fi is basically my favorite genre of media lol. I love robots), it is, I think, correctly placing her within a sci-fi lineage they are drawing on with her story.
with their artificial origins, cyborg characters heighten the fundamental questions of human existence and identity: what am I here for? what makes me “me”? how much of that comes from within, versus being programmed into (projected onto) me by other people? how much of my life do I create and control, and how much is pre-determined?
it’s not an accident that El’s look has switched up so much each season. she is the farthest from anyone in the cast at having these answers.
when she first invokes the idea of being "pretty" in s1 and s2, it's looking at the photo of Nancy (ST’s prototypical 'normal' girl, born under 'normal' circumstances, who had a 'normal' childhood) and then being confronted with her never used nursery (the ghost of El’s own normal/human origin). girls who began their lives and developed ‘normally’, aka have a developing but increasingly fixed sense of self or identity, are “pretty.”
in s2, the point when she first really has the time to ponder a version of her existence where there isn’t an active supernatural threat, El’s journey ends with her deciding where “home” is, but it begins with her wondering if she has a mother (again, the cyborg story is all about being made and not born)
s2 El doesn’t express a desire to go to school or be ‘normal,' really. mostly, she wants to be able to leave the cabin and see Mike. self-determination and connection (with the closest thing to a peer she remembers having).
ghost in the machine/shell/cabin
El's ill-advised stint as a high school student and her "I do not belong" in s4 I think are a red herring. she was once again trying on a totally new identity, and it did not fit at all. And not fitting into that ‘normal’ environment pushed her back to a place where she couldn't see herself as anything except within a purely instrumental binary: am I a monster or a superhero? again, who/what is she? and, why was she made/what was she made for? especially when, without powers, being a superhero isn’t even available to her anymore?
and now she's been stuck in Hawkins honing herself like a weapon for 18 months, back to wearing loose and androgynous clothing and living in a room more bare than any kid/teen's room we've seen on this show since the lab. encountering the next evolution of the show’s scientist antagonists who somehow views her as more of an object than anyone ever has before means it’s time to finally face the existential music.
this is not a great sign that you're recognizing your daughter as her young adult self
a lot of cyborg characters whose stories are all about these questions of identity do, indeed, look at the binary being presented to them and choose a door number three. not robot, not human, but creating something new.
that would indeed be a different trajectory than the rest of our cast with their kids on bikes Spielbergian/Kingian pull back to ‘normal’ at the end by letting go of the supernatural experiences and the ‘magic’ that represent the childhood they need to leave behind.
I won't deny that the ST pastiche of it all does trouble El choosing a road that is 'apart' from the rest our Party. but considering the load-bearing relationships that connect El to that context are the two men in her life who still perceive her as the blank, traumatized version of herself who brought them hope or redemption when they needed it the most, I’m not convinced that’s really a tragic ending for her in the least. especially if she isn't going off alone.
I was going to do a whole thing framing this around Donna Haraway's A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century and it felt way too pretentious and dense but that essay has had such a profound impact on my thinking in this way I feel like I can't not throw it a citation lol. one of you are still in undergrad please write this paper for your critical identity studies in sff lit 101 class or whatever I promise you will get an A
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