#stranger things references

Dear Stranger Things fans,

as there is still some time left before Vol. 1 of season 5 drops, I’ve decided to share with you one more fun theory I have. In contrast with the previous text, where I used storytelling tools to dissect what lies in the subtext of this TV show and although I probably interpreted some things wrongly I believe in the overall correctness of my conclusions, this little theory of mine is highly hypothetical and is based only on external knowledge and factors (things I never use to form my opinion of the core topic of any subtext, but are interesting to look into as a supportive material). So, this theory is basically only ‘what if’, OK?

I have a question: Have you ever wondered why Dustin blurted out in S1 E4 that El’s from Sweden?

You know, in that scene where the kids tried to sneak into the AV Club’s room with the radio antenna. And were caught by Mr. Clark. Why the hell sacrifice so much precious screen time for something absolutely unnecessary for the plot. And, there are almost 200 states in the world, so why Sweden?

Honestly, I almost choked when I heard it. During my rewatch, of course. Watching it for the first time I didn’t know enough about El to notice it. But during the rewatch my brain instantly asked me ‘did he really say what he said?’

We know that the writers of ST (like basically everyone who ever tried to write a script) love to reference other movies, a lot of them from the 1980s. But this easter egg is a little bit more sophisticated. If it is an easter egg at all! If some of the fans find the gay subtext of Stranger Things controversial, then they will say I'm completely crazy with the movie I have in mind.

For various reasons the writers/directors rarely admit a gay subtext in their films or series, mostly it remains hidden and left for speculation. Any subtext is rarely revealed, to be fair, which we can take as their artistic right. It also leaves their work open for anyone to enjoy and lets the viewers take away from it whatever makes them happy. It also creates a space for discussions and analyses, which is always good for any filmed entertainment.

Sometimes, a movie gets a sequel/reboot (or two) filmed decades later when the society is in a state of better acceptance and queer community is starting to get a correct representation on TV which they always deserved. But even then the authors only smile and grin when the viewers point out the obvious and complain about all those queer-coded characters not being openly queer characters.

I’m looking at you, Ghostbusters!

Although not canonically gay, a lot of fans and critics point out that Ghostbusters might have gay subtext already from the first movie. In the first two original movies, which deal a lot with suppressed sexuality, I can see how Egon’s portrayal as highly intelligent and socially awkward resembles Will (not to mention, in the animated series he has wizard ancestors) and how Venkman’s sarcastic, cynical and womanizing charm can impress Mike (and Lucas). Interestingly, despite Venkman's questionable character traits, over the time we see a character development and emotional growth and he becomes loyal and caring towards the members of his team. Moreover, Egon believed in the paranormal from the start, on the contrary Venkman who was skeptical about the existence of ghosts and only after he personally witnessed a ghost he started to change his mind and believe in the supernatural.

Can we assume that the writers of Stranger Things knew about the ongoing debate regarding the pre-2016 era franchise and therefore they decided to include the Ghostbusters reference with the aforementioned similarities among the characters?

There’s another movie which raises even more questions as, on the contrary to Ghostbusters, it’s not widely discussed having a queer subtext among fans. And I find it extremely weird and surprising given the fact that without ‘queerness’ this movie would never have come to exist!

Let me write some bits from the movie plot first.

In this movie a supernatural creature comes to our world and is half naked and only dressed up in a T-shirt

when she meets a man (fun fact, the role for this character was first offered to Bill Murray from the aforementioned Ghost Busters, but he declined) whom she saved from drowning twice.

This creature disguised as a woman with blonde hair can’t speak our language at first.

And the most important part, at some point in the movie, this supernatural woman is kept in a water tank and doctors and scientists perform experiments on her!

The man she met and they obviously fell in love with each other, rushes to save her in the lab where she is kept. And to get inside, he and his companions pretend to be from SWEDEN!!!

I am talking about the 1984 rom-com movie Splash.

Aren’t those similarities with Stranger Things… Interesting? Remarkable?

The reason why I find the fact that fans don’t talk about Splash having a queer subtext, the same context as they talk about a later 1989 animated Disney movie The Little Mermaid, surprising is because in truth both of these movies are a variation of the same story, a tale first written by Hans Christen Andersen, The Little Mermaid. 

Everyone who ever searched something about Andersen and his The Little Mermaid tale had to come across the information that the scholars, based on Andersen’s preserved letters addressed to his friend Edvard Collin in which he expresses his love to him, believe that Andersen was queer (bi or gay, or even ace) and that the tale has autobiographical elements serving as an allegory for unrequited and tragic queer love.

Now, you might ask that if the writers wanted to reference a story about a mermaid why would they choose Splash over the animated version which more resembles the original story. Why would they choose Splash over a movie which is widely discussed for its queer subtext (not to mention that the co-producer Howard Ashman was known to be a gay man and he tragically died from AIDS)?

Well, because Splash fits the narrative of Stranger Things better. In The Little Mermaid it’s Ariel who needs to transform and marry the prince to become who she really is and live a happy life. In Splash, on the other hand, it’s Allen, the main character, who needs to decide if he wants to stay as he is now or follow his love Maddison, the mermaid, to the sea even though this means that he will never be able to return. Same as Maddison, Will knows who he is and who he loves. He doesn’t want or can change it. It’s Mike who needs to decide/realize whom he really loves and what he wants to do with that. Moreover, similar to Allen, who although dates women all leave him because he doesn’t love them, the subtext in Stranger Things suggests that Mike is going out with El just because she is a girl and ‘boys should date girls’ but he doesn’t love her romantically.

As Splash is a rom-com, Allen’s struggle is portrayed in a comedic way and the most iconic dialogue happens between him and his brother:

Freddie: So how is she

Allen: How is she? She's... she's a ‘mermaid’! I don't understand. All my life, I've been waiting for someone, and when I find her, she's a fish.

Freddie: Nobody said love's perfect.

Allen: Oh Freddie! I don't expect it to be perfect, but for God's sake it's usually ‘human’!

I have two remarks to this conversation:

1# ‘Nobody said love's perfect.’ is probably a loose reference to a quote ‘Well, nobody's perfect.’ from the 1959 movie Some Like It Hot. At the end of the movie a character named Jerry disguised as a woman named Daphne rips off his wig and says ‘I'm a man!’, after another character Osgood who is in love with him/her expresses the wish of his mother that Jerry/Daphne should wear her wedding dress when they get married, to which Osgood, still smiling, replies "Well, nobody's perfect!"

2# You know what all the fishes have? A tail! Madison has a ‘tail’, just sayin’...

Anyway, I know, this whole theory is crazy and maybe even absurd, but we do indeed get a little mention of Splash in S4 E2 when Dusting et al. are trying to find out Reefer Rick’s address. 

As it turned out, one of the other ‘Ricks’ on the list of the video store in the town borrowed Splash and The Blue Lagoon, a movie which is also not canonically gay-coded but resonates within the queer community for its topic of exploring sexuality.

Taken together, even though from one word it is hard to determine if the movie reference is valid or not, all the similarities and background of this little funny rom-com (which you definitely should see if you haven’t already as it is a cute and lovely movie) deserve at least a few raised eyebrows. 

But if we consider it valid at least for a second, then it can also serve as a foreshadowing that the love between Will and Mike might receive a happy ending. And that happy ending was planned from the beginning of the show.

I will leave the decision up to you.

ST3 uses the same music and graphics from the opening of Kill Bill Vol.1, starring Uma Thurman, who is Maya Hawke's (Robin) mom, in the movie theater scene:

(Please consider reading my initial ST analysis where I address the basic metaphors and the roles of the characters in the storytelling of ST as this little pondering below builds on those premises.)

Dear Stranger Things fans,

I didn't mean to write anything before S5 ends, although I have at least one big thing I want to write about (I can tell you that Holly is an awesome writing choice I can’t stop being happy about), but I have a question! When you saw this scene/shot:

was your reaction also: “What? Is that a reference to the Titanic door?” You know, that infamous door a lot of viewers make fun of because it was big enough to fit both Rose and Jack? Titanic wouldn't be the first 1990s movie reference in ST, but why did they choose it?

So here’s my humble little theory…

Similarly to ST, Titanic is a coming of age story as well. Rose is a young lady struggling to fit in the Edwardian society where women are expected to get married, have children and serve their husbands in every aspect of their life. The vision of life like that is suffocating for Rose (to that extent that she almost commits suicide). In ST, Nancy experiences similar struggles. As a daughter from a small city middle class family the society also expects from her to get married, have children and live a quiet suburban life. And stuck on that Titanic door, I mean, on that table with Jonathan, she expresses her struggles once again. She doesn't want to have 6 little nuggets, actually, she still doesn’t even know what she wants from life, but it’s definitely not what society expects from her. She’s intelligent, ambitious and confident in her capabilities. During those 5 seasons she grew into an independent strong woman. Whatever life brings her she deals with it, but it has to be her own decision. This nicely aligns with the journey Rose went through.

As I previously theoretized, Nancy is the main mirror character for Mike. This means that everything she says are Mike’s thoughts and all her problems are the problems Mike struggles with. So Mike feels the pressure of society but he now knows that he doesn’t want to comply. He doesn’t know what the future brings but he knows he has all the capabilities to deal with it.

Jonathan also feels the pressure of society, but his struggles are a little bit different. He has trust issues and has a problem opening up to anybody as this would put him in a vulnerable state which could be used against him and cause disappointment and isolation (considering his family history it’s no wonder). Nevertheless he wants to belong somewhere, belong to somebody. Society gives him only one solution - marrying the woman he loves and starting a family. However, pretending to be happy having a nuclear family will not solve his core problems - he wants to be accepted the way he is with all his struggles and trauma.

Similarly to Nancy mirroring Mike, the other part of the couple, Jonathan, is the main mirror for Will. In the 1980s being gay in a small city was still extremely problematic. A lot of them succumbed to the pressure from society and family and married a woman. Then, what happened behind the walls nobody cared. Will know that this path wouldn't work for him. He would suffocate and die from it. To live a happy life he needs to be accepted and loved for who he is. He doesn’t want to pretend to be someone who he isn’t. I think this also can be applied to Rose.

Oh, wait a minute, we have two Roses now and no Jack? Now someone could sarcastically say that in a queer story Jack is not needed, but Jack is very important in the story of Titanic. He’s intrinsically important for Rose because Jack is a liquid firestarter! Jack is the fuel she needed to start a fire, a revolution within herself. Thanks to him Rose transforms and finds her strength to change her life, to break through societal norms. But there’s one problem with firestarters - when the fire is on they are not needed anymore. They did what was needed and that's it. Jack taught Rose to be an independent woman, he fulfilled his task. Even though he would fit on that infamous door, Rose didn’t need him anymore in her journey to become the woman she always meant to be. He had to leave her (i.e. die) to let her flourish. In a sense, Jack is Rose’s ‘Tammy’.

Will indicated that Mike is his ‘Tammy’ (twice actually) and it probably caused a fuss and outrage among the fans. But hold your horses, OK? So if Mike is Will’s ‘Tammy’, based on the story developments and subtext, vice versa we can assume that Will is Mike’s ‘Tammy’. Or if we go with the Titanic analogy, Mike is Will’s ‘Jack’ and Will is Mike’s ‘Jack’. But in contrast to Titanic in this scene with Nancy and Jonathan no one dies! They are both on that damned door, I mean table. Alive.

This, IMO, reinforces not just that Will and Mike are important to their respective journeys of self acceptance and independence, but that they are an integral part of their respective future as well.

(They are Jack, Tammy and Vickie combined to each other or something like that.)

This whole theory has only one little possible hole. The break up of Nancy and Jonathan. If there is a couple being the main mirror for the main characters in a movie or TV show, usually through them we can foreshadow what happens with the main characters. If they start to date, it can mean that in the future the main characters will start to date as well, if they break up, it can mean that the main characters relationship will not happen.

This got me thinking. Was the break up of Nancy and Jonathan really a break up? Like really really a break up? I mean, textually it may seem so, we will see in the end if they continue dating or not. But subtextually?

So what’s this whole ‘un-proposal’ about? They agreed that sticking to societal norms is not working for them. Then Jonathan basically proposed to Nancy a life where they can live on their own terms freely, happily and without external pressure and expectations. Nancy accepted it. And after that they expressed their love for each other. Now mirror it onto Will and Mike, because this is what is going on in here. Mirroring. Only after Will and Mike break through what they struggle with, after they internally accept who they are and who they are to each other, can they be happy together. And this ‘un-proposal’ scene is what I think mirrors that. Now this seems to be a little bit more rainbow-y future.