Being Queer in the 80s: A Stranger Thing Than the Paranormal
Existing in a state of abnormalcy in a small town or even acting in any way that can be perceived as out of the ordinary comes with its own set of struggles. The negative connotations associated with being queer in the 1980s were overwhelming and could often elicit derogatory speech and violent actions. This is one of the many reasons associated with why characters such as Will Byers and Mike Wheeler are incapable of being their authentic selves in regards to their sexuality. This is where the audience begins to see the Duffer brothers, the writers of Stranger Things, play around with the concept of queer theory. Furthermore, although not unheard of, queerness during this time was still a novel concept for close-minded people, which only boosted the mentality that it is “easier to hide” for these queer characters. Attempting to conceal himself under the veil of being a straight male may have been one of the reasons why Mike pursued a relationship with Eleven, a girl with psionic abilities who sought out shelter in his home after escaping a lab. In this way, the conceptualization of gender is introduced alongside its conformist ideals. Stranger Things may be a show surrounded by sci-fi and horror elements, yet it still depicts soul-crushingly realistic situations for teens who are queer during this particular time. Will and Mike’s constant pining for one another over their years spent together in childhood and transitioning into their teenage adolescence is exhibited through a mixture of both gender essentialism alongside performativity and queer theory.
Will and Mike’s Relationship
Hawkins, Indiana, not only serves as the location for a multitude of supernatural occurrences to fester but also functions as a place where platonic and romantic bonds form. In their kindergarten age, Mike and Will became friends. Will was simply swinging on a swing set when Mike approached him and, with as much straightforwardness as a kindergartener can muster, asked Will to be his friend, to which Will joyfully accepted.
After spending years of boyhood together, passing the time by playing Dungeons & Dragons in Mike’s basement and hiding out at Castle Byers, Will goes missing. Around the same time he disappears, a girl with the number eleven tattooed on her arm escapes the Hawkins Lab and assists Mike, Dustin, and Lucas in the search for their missing friend. Even when Will is presumed to be dead, Mike does not give up, holding out hope against all odds that he will find his best friend alive. Later on, Will is eventually found and pulled out of a place called The Upside Down, an alternate universe parallel to that of their world, which can be accessed through “gates,” which are tears in the fabrications of reality, blurring the lines between these two places. As unfortunate as it is, once Will returned, things never were quite the same.
Laying Down the Foundation of Queer Theory and Gender Ideals
The type of love and affection that Mike and Will hold for each other is deeply rooted in queer theory. According to Shmoop’s article on queer theory, queer theory analyzes all of the potential layers and varying shades within relationships and raises the question of if same-sex friendships can be rooted in romance or if they can be merely brushed aside as a “bromance.”
As a means to further understand this concept, it is crucial to grasp Judith Butler’s ideas on the subject. Kaye Mitchell, Writing Professor at the University of Manchester, elucidates that Judith Butler, credited as one of the “founders” of queer theory, brings attention to the fact that putting one’s own sexuality or gender identity into a boxed-off definition comes with the dangers of conformity put into place by “regulatory regimes.” These regimes compartmentalize and often belittle what it means to be queer. What it is to be seen as something outside of heteronormative views. Professor Koonyong Kim for the English department at the University of San Diego explicates that it was Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, a distinguished professor and critical figure in queer theory, who drew attention to the fact that due to notions surrounding defining sexuality, one is incapable of theorizing or explaining what it means to encapsulate “far more complex articulations and arrangements of sexual orientations and other possible future sexuality formations.”
These concepts fall under the umbrella of gender studies. Gender, as defined by Mary Klage in Key Terms in Literary Theory, is far more than XX and XY chromosomes. Chris Barker’s descriptions of performativity bring light to how gender can be a performative art in which there are no set rules for what can be considered inherently “feminine” or “masculine” ways in which people are obligated to perform their gender. As with coins, there are two sides to how gender is perceived. The flip side of this would be the theory of essentialism, also defined by Klage, where the innate traits someone is born with are considered invariable. The more “progressive” concepts have yet to fully register for the majority of Stranger Things characters, even if these concepts are applicable to some of them.
Will’s Queer Coding
Will Byers is a focal point in this discussion of queer theory, and his character acts as a catalyst for the topic of queer coding characters. Ever since the first season, Will has been hinted at as not being the poster-child-all-American-boy of the 80s. His father, Lonnie Byers, referred to his son as not only queer in a derogatory sense but would use the f-slur to describe Will.
In season two, when the Mind Flayer overtakes Will’s mind, he loses recognition of his friends and family, but when he is faced with Mike in the hospital, he instantly recognizes him. This is because Vecna, via the Mind Flayer, has access to all of Will’s deepest, darkest secrets and, therefore, sees Mike as a weakness to Will, which is exploited in later seasons.
In season three, Will and Mike get into a fight, which on the surface seems childlike; Will is trying to leave Mike’s house after Lucas and Mike showed apparent disinterest and made somewhat snide remarks when Will had set up a D&D campaign. The seemingly innocent interaction is anything but when Mike yells at Will in the heat of the argument, saying, “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!” Will’s mask slips, a hint of fear in his eyes of being viewed as outside of the norm or, furthermore, the scope of heteronormativity, marking this as another instance of potential queerness.
In season four, Will tries to reassure Mike that Eleven will always need him, but rather than speaking in El’s place, Will uses her name as a guise to express his true feelings under the concealment of supporting a heterosexual couple as a means of safety. Will delivers an entire monologue about how “she” always feels accepted by Mike:
“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.
And that gives her the courage to fight on.”
— Will Byers
This ties into Judith Butler’s philosophy of how “heterosexuality is constructed as ‘normal’ and ‘natural,’” therefore making Will anything but. As for Mike, this interaction satisfies his more rudimentary emotions and his intention to reach a heteronormative normal lifestyle with El.
Mike’s Internal Conflict
Mike Wheeler and his continuous struggle of wanting nothing more than to submit to his incessant desire to love and be loved by Will, coupled with his disgust with himself for feeling this way, sculpts the epitome of the essentialist as well as performative views on gender. When Troy, a well-known school bully, makes a mockery of Will’s disappearance, saying, “Will’s in fairyland now, right? Flying around with all the other little fairies, all happy and gay,” Mike wastes no time acting in Will’s defense, shoving Troy to the ground. It is in this scenario where his intrinsic instinct to protect Will seeps through the cracks of the well-structured heteronormative persona he puts up as a front. This interaction is a blatant display of masculine essentialist ideals in which one has to be physically domineering to get what they want.
He is so far in the back of Sedgwick’s concept of “the closet,” which renders him useless in fully accepting his feelings towards Will as anything beyond the scope of being purely platonic in nature. In direct relation to this, he battles with the two sides of expressing gender, whether that be through essentialist norms or performative ideals. Mike Wheeler is the boy who comes from an upper-middle-class family, raised on a nice cul-de-sac in a big house, the middle child between two sisters who has a mother who dotes on her children and a father who does little else than provide financial security for them. This is the cookie-cutter lifestyle that he has grown accustomed to, so naturally it is the format of what he expects his life to look like. A life with Will as his partner would destabilize gender constructs, and taking on this performative side would push Mike too far out of this hetero-sanctuary.
It is because of this that Will, unfortunately, does not fit into this unrealistically constructed fantasy, which is why stumbling upon Eleven was practically a godsend for Mike. He saw the potential of her filling out his childlike expectations, and with her naivety to the world thanks to an overall lack of human interaction, she knew no better than to go along with it. It is in this side of Mike where the audience sees his need to simply fit into the essentialist’s side of gender institutionalization.
El’s Obliviousness to Her Options
Much like Mike, El has a rather limited understanding of what she can and cannot do. Coming straight from a lab and being exposed to the real world for the first time at about twelve years old, her perspective on how things should work is narrow. Upon her escape from Hawkins Lab, she is first sheltered in Mike’s basement. Venturing up to Nancy Wheeler’s room in an effort to assimilate a girl with a shaved head into the public, the group of middle school boys give her a makeover. They apply makeup and a blonde wig accompanied by a pink dress; now dressed by the male gaze, she is the spitting image of all a girl should be according to essentialist gender ideals.
After spending a few years in a confusing jumble of other people’s clothes and homes, she is in her teenage years with no solidified sense of self. While at Starcourt Mall with Max Mayfield, she takes in all the stores have to offer, with a sense of wonder at being exposed to so many options simultaneously. When Max asks her if she likes something, Eleven responds with a timid “How do I know what I like?” Since she has trouble deciding what she wants to wear and how she wishes to present herself, she cannot possibly be held accountable for making reliable decisions regarding a romantic relationship with Mike. Having every decision made for her for such a prolonged period of time is bound to warp her sense of identity.
Social acceptance and queer expression were clearly not cohesive concepts during the Stranger Things timeline of Will and Mike’s relationship, romantic or otherwise. For those who root for a flourishing relationship in season five, one can only hope the Duffers give these characters the ending they deserve. Nonetheless, with the glaringly obvious intolerance of the 80s, a large portion of today’s population mimics this with a resounding roar of disapproval for anything considered “unusual.” Grotesque displays of apathy regarding this issue or otherwise blind, unjustified hatred targeted at these individuals puts innocent queer people in life-threatening situations where they never reach a full sense of security.
Nobody deserves to be persecuted and sacrificed on the altar of dignity just because of the way they perform their gender or otherwise share their affections with a kindred spirit. Inciting fear into the hearts of fellow members of the human race because of who they are at their core over something they cannot control is the antithesis of what humankind should look like, especially considering that there are certainly stranger things.
Additional Sources Used in this Article
Chris Barker. “Performativity.” The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies. 2004. Found on Credo Reference.
Kaye Mitchell. “Butler, Judith.” The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory. 2011. Found on Credo Reference.
Koonyong Kim. “Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky.” The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory. 2011. Found on Credo Reference.
Mary Klage. “Essentialism.” Key Terms in Literary Theory. 2012. Found on Credo Reference.
Mary Klage. “Gender.” Key Terms in Literary Theory. 2012. Found on Credo Reference.
