Hanky Codes and Bathroom Floors: Queer Subtext in ‘Stranger Things’
Veronica Phillips reflects on her struggle with the way 'Stranger Things' opts to talk about the queer experience, and its blurred lines between nostalgia and realism.
Image credit: Netflix
In Stranger Things, coming out happens in the third person. Our first official coming out is near the end of season three, when Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke) — a later season addition and new coworker, friend, and potential future object of affection for resident himbo and good-man-in-training Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) — begins talking about “this girl” that Steve knows.
“This girl” is concerned that, if she tells Steve the truth, “if he did know her… Like, really know her, [she doesn’t] think he’d even wanna be her friend.” Robin opens her coming out with an emphasis on the inherent difference of it all, telling Steve that she stands out from every other girl he’s ever known or wanted in a distinct way. She doesn’t ever outright say she’s gay — instead, her sexuality is framed by an admittance of envy and obsession toward Steve in high school. Specifically, she used to “scream into her pillow” over his easy ability to attract Robin’s crush, Tammy, seemingly just by existing, despite being an obnoxious, messy douchebag.
In season four, Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) listens to his friend (and, if one is to read the many cues throughout the series, longstanding childhood crush) Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) fret that his girlfriend, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), might leave him. Will uses the conversation as a launching point to skirt around his own feelings and experience, talking “about Eleven” but really pointing to his own sense of feeling different, feeling othered. He offers Mike a painstakingly crafted painting as a gift while tearfully trying to explain how Eleven (and, by extension, his own queer self) feels:
“When you’re different, sometimes you feel like a mistake. But you make her feel like she’s not a mistake at all. Like she’s better for being different [...] El needs you, Mike, and she always will.”
This coded speech launches itself over Mike’s unaware head, leaving Will to turn away, misunderstood, and sob out of the car window. Will’s brother, Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), picks up on this, though, and quietly lets Will know later on, in his own little coded speech, that he can come and talk to him and that he’ll be there no matter what.
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