Uh, maybe you guys should, you know, stand back. no.
+ bonus
#Operation Child Endangerment
#ICONIC DUOS
cosmictuesdays asked:
Your comment about Steve being good at triage and having a tendency to speak aloud, coupled with his ability to take care of people, makes me want to see him grow up to be a nurse or teacher.
Aw, yeah, schoolteacher Mr. Harrington is an adorable concept. But also, man…with Jonathan going full field medic in that Starcourt plaza…y’know maybe there is a world somewhere, the Kitty Corner to the Upside Down, where Enemies-to-Friends Steve and Jonathan are like, a pair of scrappy healers out at the battlefront in humanity’s fight against the Demigorgons and whatnot.
Actually, I find this “male softness: feature not a bug” trend a pretty great outcome in Stranger Things’ depiction of male characters. I mean, once you take it as fact that this show is a more interested in male characters than female characters—(I don’t know if I agree with claims that the female characters are necessarily any less developed than the male characters, because I think you will find that many of the boys aren’t that developed either, but in a strictly numbers game the girls are just outmanned, pun intended)—given that, what does this show then say about its male characters?
And you know, I wager it’s saying: ‘BE GENTLE’. That a male tendency toward empathy and caregiving is greater in younger generations, and that this is good, and to be cherished and encouraged. And that this is also the surest way to be a Hero.
Sure I’ll back myself up: The boys, the Party, are almost immediately defined by taking in and providing care to a weird half feral kid they find in the woods, and since these are arguably our central characters, this behavior is modeled as that of Good Male Protagonists. If you are a kid watching this show and you want to be like these brave Stranger Things boys, you need to take care of the vulnerable, give them blankets and Eggos. And if you want to be like the most fiercely brave of them, Will and Mike, you also need to love just as fiercely, wear your heart right on your little windbreaker sleeve. And in the next age group up, the valorization of male tenderness continues. Jonathan was depicted as a natural caregiver toward his brother from the start, another sweet Byers boy always making breakfast for his family, but Steve is where it gets interesting. He started revealing the compassionate heart and protective instincts hidden under that hair at the end of the first season, but it wasn’t until he became Babysitter Steve in the second season that he became not only a breakout fave, but a breakout hero, and once again: through exhibiting empathy and caregiving. Even domesticity—in Stranger Things, heroes do not wear capes, they wear dishtowels slung over their shoulder.
I think you know what’s coming up next, and if not you’re probably who needs this Season 3 Spoiler Warner for who we’re turning to now: Hopper, our exception that proves the rule. The next age group up, and the furthest away from the gentle heroic male ideal. If we thought early days Steve was so…like a man, hoo boy, have you met Hopper? Although I’ve always thought it was notable how Chief Hopper consistently throws his gruff, dismissive, Big Male power around on behalf of women and children, against other aggro men, he remains distinctly less caring and open with his feelings than the other male characters. Listen, I still love Hopper despite it all, but he can be a real asshole. He steamrolls over people, and his protection has an unfortunate tendency to lean toward controlling instead. All this makes him less reliably good, even sometimes shifting him into an ANtagonist role—our anti-hero. The third season in particular really saw this slide, but by the end it seemed like a shape had come together: this was Hopper’s last hurrah, the most blustering and inconsiderate he’s been this series, coupled with the most purely heroic thing he could do. Ultimately, Hopper sacrifices himself for the others, taking his brand of hard heroism with him, and leaving the stage to Stranger Things’ new generation of boy: the Soft Hero.
theglintoftherail asked:
So my roommate and I are about halfway through watching The Americans for the first time, which added a delightfully surreal note to my watch of Stranger Things S3. IMAGINE THE CROSSOVER.
Tragically, I have never watched The Americans, one of those shows I’m sure I will love but the time just hasn’t been right yet, but I do know that it is about secret Russians in America and Stranger Things 3 is also about secret Russians in America, much like how our real life also sometimes feels like it is about secret Russians in America. #the theme
Stranger Things 3 spoilers below! I’m tagging revealing posts with about everything you could think of, but just in case
thenameofthegameisfizbin replied to your post “STRANGER THINGS 3”
STRANGER THINGS 3
I love so much the Stranger Things. All of ‘em, wholeheartedly. I loved spooky throwback genre piece Stranger Things 1, I loved fright night family flick Stranger Things 2, and now I love Stranger Things 3, a retro sci-fi action movie which largely takes place in and under a 1985 mall and made me think the phrase “vaporware horror”, which I now want to put into your heads too.
I laughed, I yelped, I cried out “my babies!”, and I sobbed so much in three successive storms of tears during the finale that my nose blocked up and I had to stumble hiccuping to go get tissues. Honestly, all I really ask of art is that it make feel something. STRANGER THINGS: GOOD FOR THAT.
Anyway, my plan was to just watch this, like a normal person, but I couldn’t darn help myself; I did jot down some notes each episode. Here they are.
Pre-show
WELL even just the recap of Stranger Things 2 brought tears to my eyes! god I love this show so stupid much. also realized that the unhinged conspiracy theory journalist is Martin from Fleabag, holy Fucking shit my good sirs.
SEASON THREE
‘Chapter One: Suzie, Do You Copy?’
