Season three of the Duffer brothers’ mega-hit Stranger Things has the fizzy pop feel of a high school rom-com seasoned with heavy dashes of cold war paranoia and splatter-gore grossness of 80s era films. Bowl cuts, bi-levels, and rainbow bright attire are set amidst a sinister Russian operation housed beneath Hawkins’ flashy new Starcourt mall. Extending the series’ admixture of horror and sci-fi elements, the new season regales viewers with exploding rats, human bodies turned into melted piles of blood-tinged gloop, and a gigantic excrement-hued monster.
The season, like the previous two, nods extensively towards iconic horror and sci-fi films. This intertextual aspect of the series, which includes enough Easter Eggs to make even the most avid egg-hunter happy, is most extensively informed by works from Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, and James Cameron. Yes, that’s right, all dudes.
Check out the trailer for season 3 of Netflix’s Stranger Things:
But, don’t despair. The show is not nearly as female unfriendly as you may have heard. Sure, most of the primary interetextual references are male-centric, and sure, only one out of umpteen 80s films referenced was directed by a woman, but the series has a monstrously queer super-girl savoir at its helm and several primary female enacters of badassery, Nancy, Joyce, Max, Erica, and Robin among them.
This time around, not-so-girl-Friday Nancy is fiercer than ever. She rails against her sexist all white, all male coworkers and is key in defeating the Mind Flayer monster. Wielding a baseball-bat as she prepared to take on the Demogorgan in season one (akin to Donna’s bat-as- weapon in Cujo) and standing firm as Billy hurtles towards her in his Christine-like car, Nancy shares characteristics with indefatigable journalist Gale and gun-savvy Sidney from the Scream franchise. She is part detective, part final-girl, part monster-slayer cocooned in teengirl 80s attire.
Nancy (Natalie Dyer)
Eleven, though sadly no longer a skinhead (as in season one) or a punk goth girl (as in season two), is as headstrong as ever. She rebels against Hop’s ‘not my little girl’ parenting and boyfriend Mike’s over-protectiveness – something new-as-of-season-two Max aids her with. Encouraging Eleven to be who she wants to be, not who Mike and Hop want her to be, Max introduces Eleven to Wonder Woman (nice reference to a key feminist icon Duffer Brothers!) and to the joys of shopping (significantly doing so in a way that is more about trying on different identities than buying stuff). When the two are leaving Starcourt Mall after finding Eleven some bright, non-feminized apparel, they run into Mike and company. When he figuratively pounds his ‘but you’re my girlfriend’ chest, Max steps in with “What is she, your pet?” Eleven follows up with “I dump your ass.”
Intertextually, their newfound friendship harkens back to that between Linda (Phoebe Cates) and Stacy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, an aspect critics seemed surprisingly to have missed given their focus on the mall setting and the Scoops Ahoy uniforms – each of which echo aspects of Amy Heckerling’s film.
Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Max (Sadie Sink) from Stranger Things and Linda (Phoebe Cates) and Stacy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) from Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Later in the season, Max provides wound-tending advise gleaned from her many skateboard injuries after Eleven has been attacked by the Mind Flayer. Despite efforts by Nancy and Max to fix-up Eleven (while the boys ineptly try to locate needed medical supplies), Eleven’s leg remains infected with Mind Flayer goo – goo that eventually grows into a pulsating mass in Eleven’s lower leg. When her calf begins to pulse with foreign life, a snakelike tentacle stretching its skin grotesquely, Eleven pulls the undulating bit of monster flesh out with a banshee-esque battle cry. Using her telekinetic powers to do so, she reads as part badass Ripley and part telekinetic Charlene (Drew Barrymore Firestarter) with a side helping of Furiosa from Fury Road. (Side note: Millie Bobbie Brown was convinced shaving her head wouldn’t be so bad when the Duffer Brothers showed her a picture of Theron as Furiosa.)
As for the quirky power momma of the series Joyce, she continues her tenacious pursuit to rid Hawkins of its monsters. Hopping portals into other dimensions like Diane of Poltergeist and battling monsters like a maternal Buffy, her character provides a crucial corrective to the likes of freakishly-over-bearing Margaret White (Carrie) as well as to the my-career-is-more-important-than-your-demon-possession-mom from The Exorcist. As with the character she played in Edward Scissorhands, Joyce embraces the strange. And, as with many a female horror hero before her, she is not adverse to wielding an ax when needed.
Winona Ryder as Joyce
Two other female characters – Erica, Lucas’s little sister, and Robin, new to the strange gang, are also instrumental in battling what plagues Hawkins. Erica joins with Dustin, Steve, and Robin to bring down yet another nefarious scientific project – this one helmed by Russians rather than Dr. Brenner (aka Papa). A fearless math whiz, she is a bit like a female version of the wise, baddie defying Fool from The People Under the Stairs. She adds some much needed ‘Black Girl Magic’ to a show that leans far too far towards the white and extends an important trend in horror of late – the casting of young black actors in key leads (as with vampire slayer Amy in Fox’s adaptation of The Passage and Melanie, the zombie girl savoir in the film adaptation The Girl With all the Gifts).
Erica (Priah Ferguson)
Robin, an out LGBTQ character, supplies an important element to a show that – up until season three – never formally identified any of its characters as queer. Refreshingly, her sexuality does not define her character in the stereotypical ways so often witnessed in media – she is not a ‘tragic gay’ or a ‘angry lesbian’ but a Russian code-cracking smarty not shy about ridiculing co-worker Steve’s self-importance (even going to far as to chart his ‘you suck’ moments).
Robin (Maya Hawke)
As for male characters, the show veers away from lone male savior figures, echoing a trend of the current horror renaissance. And, in its more humorous guises, Stranger Things has as much fun skewering norms of masculinity as it does slaying beasties. While Billy’s mullet-muscled bravado, violent ways, and shameless flirting with Mrs. Wheeler are condemned (as are Hopper’s hard drinking, nihilistic ways), Steve’s poufy hair (made possible with Farah Fawcett hairspray), Dustin’s toothless purr and “Suzie poo” nicknames, and Lucas’s attempts to be a child Mr. T are all lovingly mocked.
Rather than celebrating normative codes of gender and sexuality, Stranger Things celebrates the nerdy, the queer, and the outcast. It does not slut-shame its females nor expect anyone to ‘man-up.’ It suggests friendship and (chosen) family are more important than power or winning, that the U.S. might, in fact, not have been as “great” as some suggest, even in the “glory days” of Reaganomics. Housing these components in iconic horror and sci-fi film moments has won over viewers in droves – proving yet again how entertaining, important, and culturally relevant the oft maligned horror and sci-fi genres are – indeed, far more relevant and far less horrifying than the current orange monster in chief.
Stranger Things is streaming on Netflix.
Check out our reviews of Stranger Things season 1 and season 2 — as well as a post on 80s nostalgia in both seasons.
Natalie Wilson teaches Literature and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at
California State University San Marcos. Her book, Willful Monstrosity: Gender and Race in 21st Century Horror forthcoming from McFarland in fall 2019, provides an intersectional analysis of contemporary horror and its monsters.
