Not so Stranger Things: The evanescence of female narratives in contemporary popular culture

The representation of women in popular culture has improved throughout the decades, especially since the Women’s Liberation Movement during the 70s, as Dutt (2013) observes, and it continues progressing each year. However, it is still necessary to abandon some misogynist stereotypes present in the way society sees females nowadays. The well-known television series Stranger Things can be used as an instance to identify and explain one of this patters: the portrayal of women as supportive characters oriented to complete male’s narratives rather than leading their own.

It is worth-mentioning that popular culture is ideological. Nowadays it is everywhere and it influences the way people think and behave. As Kord and Kimmer (2005) analyse, it has an important role establishing role models, in particular, echoing the alternatives females have in society. For example, Stranger Things, as one of the most acclaimed and profitable Netfix’s series, is followed by millions of spectators and it divulges beliefs about the importance of friendship, the value of sincerity or the nostalgia for the past, but it also spreads gender ideas about the position of women in society.

First, it must be remarked that in popular culture as a hole, there is a limited representation of women. According to a study released by The San Diego State University’s Centre for The study of women in television and film, in 2016, 79% of series had more male characters than females, 5% had a balanced number and 16% had more females than men. Regarding this issue, Stranger Things belongs to the first group, the number of men doubles the number of women.

However, female representation is not only about quantity but also about the role they perform. In this tv series, females will be presented as two types: the care provider and the lover. 

First, the care provider will be the one dealt with. Eleven, a girl with telekinetic powers, is acknowledged as the leader character by many. Nevertheless, in the first season she functions in the story as a tool that allows her friends to find Will, a lost boy, and in the second season helping her friends again to fight a monster becomes her only objective. While her male friends, Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Will, have hobbies, interests and their own personalities, Eleven has trauma and the necessity of looking after her friends in order to be happy. The same occurs with Joyce, Will’s mother, whose only objective will be to assist her son. Popular culture tends to see females as men’s mothers, friends or lovers, but not as humans on their own, their value will only depend on the help they can provide to male characters. 

Another relevant convention that Stranger Things follows is showing women as objects of desire and the romantic interest becomes their central feature. With only thirteen years old and telekinetic powers, Eleven’s major trouble is to be liked by her friend Mike. A similar situation happens with Nancy, whose narrative depends on dating Jonathan, the mysterious boy, or Steve, the popular one. And the same will occur with Max, whose appearance is only an excuse for Dustin and Lucas to dispute about who is going to captivate her. Woolf (1929) explains that popular culture would be really poor if men were not presented as friends, thinkers, dreamers, humans, but as lovers of women. However, this is how females are portrayed the majority of the time. Beguiling women becomes an issue in Stranger Thing’s second season, when Steve teaches Dustin how to delight girls. This is another sign of women portrayed as an object of desire who men, even thirteen year old boys, must possess and not establish a relationship among equals.

Steve and Dustin planning how to ''captivate'' women.

Since the main objective of female characters is their romantic interests, women’s competition for that goal is commonly present. It is important to remark that two male characters as Dustin and Lucas can fight over a girl while they are still friends, but women usually are not able to overcome their feelings of jealousy. The first time Eleven happens to see Max, she thinks Max is flirting with Mike, and, since that moment, she hates her. As Adichie (2014) claims, girls are educated to perceive each other as rivals for men’s attention. This competition is especially significant in Eleven’s case, since she has spent  all her life captured to be studied by the government because of her telekinetic powers, it is nearly impossible that she has learned that. Therefore, Stranger Things portrays rivalry between women as a natural fact and assumes that friendship is not possible between them.

Accordingly, women can neither be friends with other women, nor with men, since for males they are love interests or figures that look after them and not equals. For instance, in the first season, Eleven will be supported by Mike, who is in love with her, and rejected by the rest of the group because of her gender. She will be only welcomed by the others when she risks her life for them. In the case of Max, she will be accepted by the two kids who have a romantic interest in her and not by Mike. This is a powerful idea that places women as not being totally part of the friend’s group. 

In conclusion, in Stranger Things, as it happens constantly in popular culture, female importance always depends on whether they support the male’s narrative, whether they are lovers or helpers, never protagonists, never humans on their own. In fact, they may be strong and challenge some society rules, but they do not debiate from patriarchal representation. Their lives depend on male’s attention and their only significance is whether they achieve it or not. Females will not be treated as equals performing roles as important as male ones. On the contrary, they will be treated as secondary characters, as the other. Therefore, the female narratives disappear of popular culture, since their stories, objectives or personalities are not taken into account in any moment. This pattern is reproduced constantly in popular culture and it is necessary to change it to provide a wealthy and actual representation of women. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adichie, C.N. (2014). We should all be feminists. London: HarperCollins Publishers.

Dutt, R. (2013). Behind the curtain: women’s representations in contemporary Hollywood. London School of Economics and Political Sciences: Media LSE.

Kord, S. & Krimmer, E (2005). Hollywood divas, indie queens, and TV heroines: contemporary screen images of women. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Lauzen, M.M. (2016). Boxed in 2015-16: women on screen and behind the scenes in television. San Diego State University: Centre for the study of women in television and film.

Murphy, J.N. (2015). The role of women in film: supporting the men - an analysis of how culture influences the changing discourse on gender representations in film. University of Arkansas: Journalism Undergraduate Honours Theses.

Woolf, V. (1929). A room for one’s own. London: Penguin Books.