The Socialist Themes in Stranger Things
Okay, so I have just finished carefully watching “Stranger Things,” and I enjoyed it all: plot twists, imaginary creatures, nerdy jokes, romantic sparks, all of it. The plot usually has so far developed as all of the parallel stories go on together and then merge with the others at the very end, becoming one strong puzzle that needs efforts from all engaging particles (including you, watching and following the story) to be solved, just like the parable of the blind men and an elephant. Stranger Things surely has a style, but not necessarily a unique one. I’ve read countless articles on the series, pointing out references to the pop culture of the 80s and classic horrors and Sci-Fi, but that’s not all about it. There is more to this series, and I aim to unravel part of it below.
Vecna/ One/ Mindflayer and Lord Voldemort
Well, I don’t know about you, but any good against evil plot immediately throws me back to my amazing memories of watching LOTR (lord of the rings) and the Harry Potter film series. Stranger Things is not an exception when it comes to the good vs. evil pattern. Eleven and the nerd fellowship are good, and anything that comes from the dark, spooky upside down is bad. The line is quite fine. It is light against dark. Eleven and Henry are both truly gifted, while one chooses the good side and the other chooses destruction. As beloved Dumbledore once said, “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
Stranger Things owes many of its strong twists to the Harry Potter series, specifically Lord Voldemort. You may be a Potterhead and already know the stories of Horcruxes, but I’ll just try to summarize it: To make himself immortal, Voldemort, the evil villain of the Harry Potter series, extended his soul into eight pieces by making Horcruxes, each time through killing souls. This should appear familiar after watching and finishing Stranger Things last season, as Vecna had also reassured his strength by making multiple gates between the worlds. Just like Voldemort, with every murder, Vecna would open a new gate at the site of the victim’s death.
The similarities do not stop there. Vecna and Voldemort also resemble each other in the case of appearances, as they both have “hard to look at” faces and bodies (For me, Voldemort is much more pleasant).
They both are very good with mind games and know well how to mess with traumas and take control of their victim’s minds. They both then make armies with the same purpose of taking over, as they both believe to be superior, the better one.
Voldemort was threatened by a kid, Harry Potter, and Vecna is also frightened by Eleven. Both big villains are also defeated by their supernaturally gifted young opponents. Moreover, both villains have had stories to tell about their past, and how they became the monsters they are now, stories that make them appear less like monsters and more relatable. The series shows young Henry (Vecna) as smart, kind, and caring (at least towards Eleven and definitely not towards his parents). He also appears attractive and attentive. He is not a monster; even when we see him as a nihilist rebel who manipulates others for his aims, he is still a long suffered human with a name and origin who has been trapped by “father.” The same father who trapped Eleven for years. It is quite interesting that Eleven and Henry were raised in the same place, at least for a long period, and had many strong similarities, yet became each other’s worst enemies.
The same thread goes for Voldemort, who was once Tom Riddle, the young, gifted boy with so much power and talent. Like Stranger Things, Tom is also supervised and controlled by Dumbledore, grew up in the same school as Harry, and became his worst enemy as the two of them also happened to be very much alike.
The war over Capitalism
There is this astonishing element that enemies become much alike, especially in the case that they are both very “different” from all others, and then it is up to them to use this difference to “help” and serve the order or choose to “destroy” and revolve for change. Those who choose to serve for good have fame and appreciative friends around them, while the chaotic ones are the outcast of society, lonely and isolated. This is the case in many good vs. Evil plots, from LOTR to the Marvel wars, such as Batman vs. Joker. I find so many problematic patterns to touch when I confront this either in cinema, in stories, or even in myths and ancient archetypes. This element of darkness, wrongness, and sinfulness is commonly associated with the notions of change. Those in favor of “Maintaining the current order” are usually portrayed as protective heroes, and those on the side of chaos and distorting the order are usually ruthless villains.
This might touch on deep fears in societies to maintain and reproduce the current order and prevent the change of any kind, such as the deeply rooted American horror of socialism. The demonization of Socialism, swiping any discussions about it under the carpet, has gone as far as denying it at academic schools for 50 years. However, with Stranger Things, overall, it is interesting to see how the taboo is finally broken, and a Sci-Fi nerdy series actually has some embodied criticism against capitalism inside it and manifests many elements of socialist ideas in it.
Capitalism has many faces
The way that the hive-minded monster, the mind flayer, is coming back to life under the grounds of the newly opened shopping mall (season 3) is a perfect symbol of such criticism. Like the mind flayer’s army, everyone in the mall is driven away by entertainment and blind consumerism, while deep down, a disaster is building up in the layers below the surface.
Tell me if this reminds you of anything other than Herbert Marcuse’s work on “false needs,” where he mentions how the creation of new needs, and the uncritical acceptance of such false needs by individuals, gives them a feeling of fulfillment, a happy conscious. This process makes us one-dimensional humans, living in a one-dimensional society with no critical thinking, no feelings of discontent, as long as you can purchase the answers to your needs. As Marcuse writes, “the one-dimensional condition [of consumption] is not the end of ideology as some labeled it, but the total victory of ideology — its seepage into every area of life to the point that it can never be recognized.”
This makes it very hard (even for our friends in the series) to actually decode and understand that the shopping mall itself is part of the evil we see in the series. It makes everyone happy, as they celebrate independence day together (also notions of nationalism and imperialism) in the shopping mall, while the fuels to unleash the evil are being archived under the same ground.
In Season 4, through the divided groups and missions, we catch a glimpse of truth, and then towards the end, we come to the whole understanding: the evil is connected. That is it, Vecna, one, mind flayer, the portals, and the demodogs are all connected. This is where it becomes the priority mission for all groups to fight it in anyways that they can. Eleven is fighting Vecna (one) as Max sacrifices herself. Steve, Nancy, and Robin aim to fight Henry’s body at his home. Dustin and Eddie fight the bats, while Hopper, Joyce, and Murray fight the demodogs in Russia.
It is now relevant to recall Ghassan Kanafani (1936–1972), the Palestinian activist and novelist who wrote, “Imperialism has laid its body over the world, the head in Eastern Asia, the heart in the Middle East, its arteries reaching Africa and Latin America. Wherever you strike it, you damage it, and you serve the World Revolution.”
He meant that capitalism is not only happening in one part of the world, in a known, familiar way. It is everywhere, deeply rooted. You can fight it at home, at school, and by resisting the new shopping mall recently opened in your neighborhood to raise the market competition for all the already existing branch stores, just as Stranger Things characters could only fight their Evil by fighting all the mind-hived pieces of it.
We do not know what awaits us in next season, which is said to be the final one. Yet so far, we know there are socialist manifestations and associations in this popular sci-fi series. The series has been more than entertaining TV, reproducing some worn-out drama pattern. It has ideas to offer, and not in a screaming way, but smoothly blended with a very engaging story. Maybe borrowing the pessimist glasses of Herbert Marcuse to look deeper and better at the disguised forms of capitalism, such as the creation of false needs, to find the underlying layers of it. Or by offering Ghassan Kanafani’s advice of seeing the patterns of interconnectedness, not by necessarily looking above and beyond, but just by fighting our local exploiter lords and resisting their tempting offers. Looking forward to season 5!
Resources:
- Marcuse, Herbert, 1898–1979. One Dimensional Man; Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston :Beacon Press, 1964.
