I happened upon a Stranger Things book (!!) at my uni’s cinema library today—an academic essay collection—and I think everyone should read this amazing part of the second chapter which discusses queerness in the show in the context of AIDS and specifically analyzes Will’s sexuality, Robin, and Mike and Will’s relationship. It’s really excellent and mirrors a lot of what we’ve been arguing on here for years! I particularly squealed at the mention of Bowie being a way of Will being queer-coded. The author gets me!
For reference, the book was published in 2021, post-ST3.
Citation: Mollet, Tracey. “‘There’s More to Life Than Stupid Boys’: the (Re)Gendering of Cult Teen Drama in Stranger Things 3.” In Investigating Stranger Things: Upside Down in the World of Mainstream Entertainment. Edited by Tracey Mollet and Lindsey Scott. Palgrave MacMillan, 2021.
Celebrating wiping the floor with Chronos by redoing my megthanzag keepsake drawing from 4 years ago! Still really wish Zag could gift Meg and Than some laurel keepsakes <3
me holding a gun to a mushroom: tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit
mushroom: can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters
me cocking the gun, tears streaming down my face: I’M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU
I'm already seeing guys complain about the Barbie movie end, how they wanted Kens to be equal in Barbieland but were only given a small part on the Cabinet.
That's the point.
You're meant to feel bad for the Kens. Believe me, women aren't partying over the 'Returns to Matriarch' ending. Some will be, but the ones who also clocked the meaning behind it won't. Most women will also feel bad for Kens. Because it's an exact parallel to how women are treated in reality.
Men, you're meant to be upset. You're meant to question it. Because you're meant to feel it, and feel what that is like, so you can finally understand women. You're upset at seeing it in a movie, now imagine living it in reality. That's being a woman.
Kens were shit on so you could feel what it was like for women this entire time. Kens were being used as a placement so you could see yourself in a woman's shoes. A world dominated by the opposite sex. When Ken leaves, and sees male presidents (All men) for the first time, men being doctors and lawyers, etc, realising he is more than just a prop for Barbie, that was on purpose. Because that is the feeling that Barbie gave to women. It's why you cheer for him at first before he goes a little overboard.
It's exactly why the real world was an exaggerated Partriarchy and Barbieland an exaggerated Matriarchy. Neither wins. Neither is equal. None of them change for the better. It's why you should want women in the real world to be respected, and Kens in Barbieland to be respected.
The thing is, women also didn't win. Not in the real world. In Barbieland, yes, but not anywhere else. The real world didn't change. But you didn't notice, did you? That Gloria (The mother that helped Barbie) also didn't get a position on the Mattel board? It was still all men? Her idea was ignored until it made a profit, and the men will likely get the credit? She'll still just be the receptionist? The women representing the real world didn't get anymore opportunities, neither did the men in Barbieland.
I was hoping that Gloria would be offered a position on the board, and that the Barbie Cabinet would introduce another entire Cabinet to represent the Kens, but neither happened. They're complete mirrors.
But which one did you actually notice? Which did you actually care about? Now tell me again the ending was unfair. Because it was. For both parties. That's the point.
The difference is, Barbieland is fictional. You will walk out of the theatre with the reassurance that at least it's not real. Women won't. Women can't. Companies not giving women equal opportunities or voices isn't fictional, and that was just one example. There are no women presidents (USA at least) for us to go look at in the real world. We don't have somewhere to go to realise it could be different for us like Ken did. Barbie and make believe is all we had when we were kids, or even now.
El’s letter is VERY significant. It establishes for the sake of the entire season that there is unreliable narration at play. Just about everything she says turns out to be false:
1. She has friends
2. Will likes a girl
3. Jonathan is acting stranger “because he is nervous for college”
4. Jonathan’s college letter hasn’t arrived yet
5. Jonathan plans on attending college with Nancy
6. Joyce is enjoying her new job
7. Their Spring Break will be good
Three of these (friends, Jonathan’s weed, Joyce’s job) are juxtaposed onscreen by her being bullied, Jonathan clearly drafting smoke out the window as the cause for his “weirdness”, and Joyce hanging up the phone. These are things we can fact check as untrue against her words immediately, teaching us to fact check.
Having friends we know to be a conscious lie from El. Will’s crush is partially accurate. Spring Break is something she is wishful for and/or assumes. Jonathan’s letter is something she has been misinformed about. Right off the bat, this introduces the different types of unreliable a narrator can be: untruthful, misconceiving, biased, or misinformed.
This is the FIRST thing we see in 1986. We are being told immediately not to believe everything at face value.
"You can't be a lurker on tumblr." Yes, you absolutely can. I've been quietly reblogging things since 2014 and I haven't interacted with anyone in years.
"cost of living crisis" give me a FUCKING break it's called "unprecedented corporate greed and income inequality" fucking cost of living crisis like it's just a natural or unexplainable phenomenon Christ
