Mike Wheeler: S4 Outfits & Identity Crisis Analysis
One of aspects of s4 I find the most interesting is Mike's costuming. We see him in 4 distinct outfits in this season (not counting the white t-shirt look since it's not a separate outfit), and they are all interesting in their own right. But ultimately, they all contrast each other and represent different aspects of Mike's internal conflict and identity crisis.
s4 is the season where Mike's internal conflict is externalized via his costume design. He’s trying to figure out who he is and – like for so many queer teens – it starts with his hair and his clothes.
Shout-out to @glisten-inthedark because it was during a fantastic discussion that I drafted out a much shorter, much rougher version of this analysis!
*Disclaimer: While a lot of my analysis is formatted as statements – more out of habit from years of writing academic essays than anything – much of this is still speculation and subjective opinion. If you have a different perspective or disagree with my analysis, that's perfectly fine! This is just my interpretation.
1.
First up, my second favorite outfit: The Hellfire outfit.
If you put this Mike beside any of his s3 outfits, the difference is incredibly stark. s3 Mike has bright colors, neons spread throughout the palette, nearly all of them collared shirts. Yet the first outfit we see Mike wear in s3 is edgier: nearly all-black, featuring the word HELLFIRE loud and proud, the face of a tiefling or daemon, and weapons. This is also the first time we've seen Mike wear a graphic tee, which is more up Dustin's alley.
Not only this, but his hair is long enough to brush his shoulders, the longest we've ever seen it. Finn Wolfhard calls it "kind of the most metal Mike's hair has ever been."
So why is this so important? Let's talk about modeling for a second.
Dustin models himself after Steve in parts of s2. He listens to Steve's romantic advice and styles his hair like Steve's for the Snow Ball. For Dustin, Steve represents the masculine, heternormative ideal: the kind of guy who girls want to date, a "ladies man." When Dustin does find a girlfriend who loves him for him, he stops modeling after Steve in terms of outward appearance and returns to his own personal sense of style in s3. In fact, it's Dustin who ends up giving Steve romantic advice in s3, because their roles have flipped: Dustin is comfortable in who he is and his romantic prospects, whereas Steve is struggling. ("Instead of dating somebody because you think it's gonna make you cooler, why not date somebody you actually enjoy being around?"
Lucas wears a Karate Kid shirt in s3 bc Max thinks Ralph Macchio is attractive, so he wears clothes that reference him to appeal to her, his girlfriend, but he mixes it with his classic camo bandana because Lucas has a very strong sense of self that was only rocked in s4, when he tries to model after the basketball team, who are also representative of (1980's) socially acceptable masculinity and heteronormativity, for popularity's sake. But he ends up rejecting their blind conformity and regains his sense of self by the middle of the season.
And Mike…..models after Eddie. Eddie “forced conformity is what’s killin’ the kids” Munson. Not just in clothes, but in his more "metal" hairstyle. Eddie even makes a note about Mike’s wardrobe change during the cafeteria scene, saying he’s no longer wearing whatever his mom buys him at the GAP, which highlight this change for the audience.
This is significant because even though Dustin and Lucas are his fellow nerds, even though both Dustin and Lucas end up being chased down by Jason & Friends for their status as members of the Hellfire Club, even though they're labeled as outcasts and reject conformity in their own way –
– they still model themselves after classic heteronormative and socially acceptable representations of masculinity, while Mike is the only one who actively models himself after the school “freak" and vocal non-conformist.
Sure, Dustin wears the Hellfire shirt too, but Dustin is the graphic tee king of the show and he still wears an iconic baseball cap and overlays his graphic tee with a fun and funky button-up in s4. How he dresses in s4 is wholly consistent with his identity throughout the rest of the show. Whereas Mike's first outfit of the show contrasts heavily with all of his outfits from the previous seasons particularly s3.
And this is intentional. This is what Amy Parris, costume designer for Stranger Things says in this GQ interview about it:
Mike's Hellfire Outfit represents his growing internal resistance to and rejection of conformity and societal expectation.
2.
....which is exactly why the airport outfit gives the viewer such insane whiplash.
It is bright, gaudy, dorky, cartoonish and a completely different person than we were just shown. It's no version of Mike we've ever seen. Sure, we've seen him in shorts, and that surfer shirt is technically a button-up, but that hat? Those glasses? Flip-flops? It's so clearly an act that it's laughable.
Amy Parris, in the same GQ interview as before, goes as far to say, "We knew we'd wanted something that felt like an outfit maybe he would've bought at the airport before he got there."
This isn't Mike. This is Mike's attempt at conformity, post-meeting and modeling after Eddie. This is Mike feeling like who he is in Hawkins – the edgier Mike who models after the school "freak" – isn't the "right" version of himself to immediately present to El after months and months apart. Almost like he feels the need to wear something more similar to what he wore in s3, the shorts and the bright colors, to "ease into" the rest of his wardrobe, because when he's with El, he strives to present as "normal."
Finn Wolfhard says this about Mike in s4: "I think Mike's just trying to be as normal as possible and trying to keep on a normal path." Yet Mike says this in s4: "Have you ever considered that we don't want to be popular?"
If Mike isn't trying to be "normal" in Hawkins and is sitting at lunch with the school "freak," then in what ways he is trying to be "normal"? It's when he's with El in California, particularly their first day before everything goes to hell. Yet we see that "normal" = not himself.
Amy Parris notes in the GQ interview that they picked an orange (a rather yellow orange) button-up because it's the opposite of what Mike normally wears (blue tones).
The purple shirt is also an attempt for him to appeal toward El because purple, according to Mike, is one of her favorite colors. He is trying to appeal to El's taste/likes while wearing the literal opposite of what he normally does.
Mike's Airport Outfit represents his attempts to conform to heteronormativity and society's expectation of what a "good straight boyfriend" does, is, and looks like – and how unnatural and unlike himself this attempt is.
3.
This plaid look is my personal favorite Mike look in s5. This is one of the very few times we see Mike with an untucked shirt – possibly the first time we see him wearing a button-up/collared shirt and it's not tucked in. Untucked makes him look less preppy, taller, and more mature. It's a very flattering look and especially refreshing after the airport look.
But, I also have a lot to say about this symbolism of this particular outfit.
The rich blue is a standard Mike color, so it's the first outfit he wears in s4 that feels familiar to us. Additionally, the hint of yellow is commonly speckled throughout Mike's wardrobe. However, look at the pattern. It's plaid.
We all know by now that Mike is the king of stripes. Stripes and the color blue are the most consistent aspect of his wardrobe other than his calculator watch. But plaid?
There are only two instances in the entire show where Mike wears plaid. (I've triple-checked this, but if I still somehow overlooked anything, please let me know!) Here, in s4, and in his final scene in s1:
(top row is unedited, bottom row is brightened – no I couldn't get a flattering screenshot of the second image lol)
A blue plaid with (faint) yellow accents. Hm. How intriguingly familiar!
In s1, we see Mike experiencing conflicting emotions in his final scene. He is very happy that Will is back and that Will is having fun with his DND game. But he is also sad that Eleven is gone and experiencing survivor's guilt. His emotions are split between Will and El. This emotional turmoil is illustrated with the use of much busier pattern than Mike normally wears, but because that pattern is plaid, a pattern Will often wears, it aligns him with Will.
Why does plaid connect Mike to Will yet not El, even though El has worn plaid before? Because El has only worn plaid because of her circumstances, not her own personal style.
El first wears plaid when Hopper gives her his flannel in s1. This continues into s2 when she begins living with him. She's receiving either hand-me-downs from him or boy's clothes because he's having to hide the fact that he's sheltering a girl wanted by the government. If Hop were to start buying girl's clothing/more feminine clothing, that would be suspicious. When El goes on her shopping spree with Max in s3, after Max tells her to focus on what feels like her – "not Hopper, not Mike, you" – she picks bold, bright colors and abstract patterns, completely avoiding plaid. Then, in s4, El is living with the Byers and receiving their hand-me-downs and borrowing from their closets.
Amy Parris confirms this in the GQ interview, that what El wears in s2 is meant to feel mismatched, borrowed, and hand-me-down because she is trying to figure out who she is in Lenora.
She also says this:
It was intentional that when El wore plaid in s4, it was meant to remind the audience of Will and look as though she was wearing his clothes.
Which means Plaid = Will, not El.
So let's put this all together: Mike has worn plaid once before, when he was experiencing conflicting emotions torn between Will and El. Plaid is Will's pattern, not El's. Blue is Mike's color, and it's commonly known that yellow is Will's, which means that not only is Mike wearing Will's pattern, he's wearing a hint of Will's color. On a more minor note, the return of the black jeans and converse from his Hawkins/Hellfire outfit means that the facade had dropped and he's slipping back into what he's more comfortable in.
It's also notable that Mike wears a blue plaid shirt the very next day after Will wears a blue plaid shirt. (Also, Will's blue plaid shirt has more white, which suits his wardrobe more than black, whereas Mike's blue plaid shirt has more black, which suits Mike's.)
And this is the shirt Mike wears during his fight with Eleven, where she calls him out on never saying, "I love you," accuses him of thinking she's a monster, and he calls her ridiculous and tries to place the burden of their relationship issues on other people ("You can't let those mouthbreathers ruin you! Ruin us!")
Visually, the plaid tells us what's going on in Mike's head and heart.
Mike's Plaid Outfit represents his internal conflict between Will and El while simultaneously betraying where his true feelings lie: with Will.
4.
Last outfit! The outfit he spends nearly a full week wearing, the teal outfit.
Right off the bat, this color is one we've seen him wearing before in s3. However, as @hawkinsschoolcounselor points out in this brilliant post, the teal polo he wears in s3 looks nearly identical to one his father wears in the same season.
This has a few nuanced implications.
Firstly, in s3, it carries the visual implication that s3 Mike is currently on a path that could cause him to turn out like Ted. What does s3 Mike do? He neglects his friendships to spend time making out with his girlfriend, tries to reject his childhood hobbies and passions as childish (Ted disdainfully calls toys "hunks of plastic," in s2) and something he needs to grow out of, and, like Ted, makes a comment that could be interpreted as a homophobic slight – ("It's not my fault you don't like girls!" – a comment that I believe is a moment of projection for Mike due to internalized homophobia, not legitimate homophobia toward Will. In s3, Mike is trying to be "normal," "grown-up," socially acceptable and heteronormative.
Remember how I talked about modeling earlier? Yeah, s3 Mike models after Ted in mild aspects.
Yet the very next season, it's revealed that his rejection of his hobbies, passions, and games like DND was a complete farce. He returns to wholly embracing DND and, other than this teal color, stops dressing like Ted. He stops modeling after his father, much to Ted's disappointment: "Might as well call [Hellfire] the high school dropout club."
Secondly, because this teal color ties Mike to Ted, it's notable that this is the color that Mike wears when he tells Eleven he loves her.
(Now if you've read this far, my guess is you're a Byler fan and you've read 50 million analyses of the I love you speech, but if you haven't, the gist of the conclusion of those analyses is this: Mike felt pressured to say he loved El in order to save her and because he believed she commissioned the painting, but he tells provable lies during it that will be dismantled in s5.)
If teal is a color Mike wore during a season where he's modeling after Ted, a husband who the show makes very clear is lacking in passion to the point of his wife feeling unsatsified, a father emotionally distant from his two eldest children, and a man who is the epitome of heteronormativity and the typical mundane nuclear family man – this does not bode well for the success of Mike's romantic relationship with El, nor does it frame his romantic relationship with El in a healthy light.
Thirdly, there are several key differences between s4's teal shirt and s3's teal shirt.
Mike's s3 teal shirt is buttoned-up to the top button (in most of his scenes wearing this shirt) and is tucked into higher-waisted black shorts. It's solid-colored, neat, and preppy, and gives two hilariously contrasting impressions: the outfit of a little boy, and the outfit of a tween trying to dress like an adult.
In s4, however, Mike's outfit is partially unbuttoned, revealing a white tshirt beneath, with gives it a more sporty or even outdoorsy vibe. It's also not a solid color and has angular grey accents – particularly, triangular and diamond shaped accents.
This is what Amy Parris has to say about those grey accents, + what she says about how they purposefully added triangles to Robin's outfit as LGBTQ+ symbolism:
Because of this, it is not a stretch to speculate that the angular accents and, in particular, triangle design on Mike's breast pocket is a nod to his queercoding.
It's no coincidence that this is the shirt Mike wears during his bedroom talks with Will, the van scene with Will, his interrupted pizza parlor talk with El (that reads more like an impending apology and amicable breakup, not a confession – just mute the music look at his face during that scene, and El's), and his speech to El.
Most notably, it's the shirt he's wearing during this moment:
Look at Mike's face. Look at how conflicted he is. How guilty. This is the first time since Mike put on this teal shirt, the first time since he had his two separate bedroom talks with Will, the first time since "as a team," and "best friends," and the van scene & painting, that Mike has to deal with Will and Eleven at the same time.
Mike's Teal Outfit represents the tug-of-war between two contrasting concepts: his internal struggle with practicing comphet and heteronormativity (pursuing a romantic relationship with El and pretending to be straight), and his growing internal resistance to comphet/hetnorm and desire to embrace a truer, more alternative/noncomforming identity (his true romantic feelings for Will and accepting his queer identity).
Conclusion
I could honestly continue this post with analysis of the s5 outfits we've seen from Mike and what that means for his characterization/arc in the final season, but this post is long enough already. Perhaps when we get more content/trailers for s5, I might put out a speculative post in anticipation for it.
If you have a different perspective and want to share it, feel absolutely free! I'd love to hear other people's thoughts.
“it took three betrayals for me to finally understand:
the world is just an elaborate tapestry of lies.
my fury will never be quelled.
the first to betray me was a god, my creator… my mother.
valuing strength above all, she saw no worth in me, and i was discarded.
the second was a human, my family… my friend.
consumed by fear, he saw me as an abomination.
the third was one exactly like me. a hope for the future… a fledgling barely out of the nest.
powerless before his mortality, he broke his promise to me.
humans… they can’t be trusted, and the gods fill me with pure loathing; so i said ‘good riddance!’
i denounce the world and laugh in its face. my chest will never again be defiled by worldly filth. i will scrub away every last trace of human emotion. then it will be empty, a blank slate; and ready to receive a supreme gnosis, brimming with pure divinity.
hehehe… ahahahaha! there is no need to fear. the pain will be brief… your era…
"kill them with kindness" WRONG. three waterfalls attack 🌊🌊🌊🏔️💧💧⛰️🌊🌊⛰️🌊🏔️🏔️💧🌊🌊💧💧🏞🏞💧💧💧💦💦🗻💨💨💦💧💧⛰️💧🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🏔️💧💧⛰️🌊🌊⛰️🌊🏔️🏔️💧🌊⛰️🌊💧💧🏞🏞💧💧💧💦💦🗻💨💨💦💧⛰️💧💧🌊🌊🌊⛰️🌊 🌊🌊🌊🏔️💧💧⛰️🌊🌊⛰️🌊🏔️🏔️💧🌊⛰️🌊💧💧🏞🏞💧💧💧💦💦🗻💨💨💦💧⛰️⛰️💧💧🌊🌊🌊🌊
"It´s ok, I´m not gonna hurt you" HE SAYS TO AN EVIL CREATURE THAT CAME FROM THE PLACE HE HAS BEEN TORTURED AND TRAUMATIZED, HE WANTS TO MAKE SURE THAT EVIL THING FEELS SAFE AROUND HIM!!!😿😿😿💖💗💞AHHHH
The difference between Mike being all hesitant and walking slowly into El's room and then him just busting down Will's door and throwing himself on Will's bed and scattering his bags all over Will's floor LMFAOO
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