I’m rewatching stranger things and I’m only now realizing Eleven could also be queer. 😯 (At least there’s a hint in the first season.)
[Just for context, I want to mention that I was late to join the Byler train. 😅 Literally only got into it a month before the final season aired, so i’ve been catching up on all the lore these past two months.
And I am finally (thankfully) convinced Mike Wheeler is queer. I was also aware of people who thought El was as well, and I still haven’t looked into why yet. But I will soon!]
All I know is I watched the first season with a new perspective on Mike and El’s relationship/friendship and there’s a moment where El looks at a picture of Nancy and calls her pretty.
Obviously on my first watch, I assumed (as I think most people did) that she was envious of Nancy’s normal girlhood and childhood. The ability to be a normal kid and look like a girl. (This interpretation is also reinforced later when El has her makeover and also when she looks around Nancy’s room, at all the pictures of her when she was a younger, free to be a kid and free to look feminine.)
But the intial time it happens, where she points out Nancy is pretty, it made me think of myself when I was young. Before I understood my feelings were romantic attraction towards women, I just assumed my feelings toward these pretty girls, were feelings of wanting to look like them, dress like them, be as pretty as them.
As I got older, I retroactively understood that’s not what it was. I remember watching a video of a girl band singing covers on youtube, my friend was there and they said they liked one girl’s hair (bc it was really long) and I pointed out how I liked this other girl’s face. Because I genuinely thought she was so pretty, but it wasn’t until I said it that I realized how gay it sounded lmao. 🤦
And I was 12/13 then, so around El’s age and I’m thinking that since she was raised in a lab, she obviously wouldn’t have any idea about relationships, attraction or even homophobia. She doesn’t even fully understand romantic relationships when Mike proposes the idea to her at the end of S1. (I also don’t think she even knew what kissing was when Mike kissed her.) So there’s no way for her to distinguish these feelings, or have any reason to label them since she’s just existing.
Another quick lore drop to explain it further, I used to think to myself, as an 11 yo, that dating girls seemed easier (mostly bc I felt like it was always easier to become friends with them other than with boys lol,) but I would always back track and remind myself that “I’m not a lesbian.” because I was aware of the stigma. And how these things I was thinking or saying out loud would be interpreted.
El doesn’t have a censor or a filter to tell her what she’s thinking or saying is wrong. And sure, it’s a really small moment in the first season, but it could be seen as something. And also, if you look at how she acts when Mike tries to show her his toys and things that he likes, she’s so uninterested XD. I feel like that’s another indicator of her being disinterested in Mike, or boys in general, not until she’s shown and told what is supposedly “normal” does she lean into being with Mike, and depend on him.
