Strangest Things . . .
Jun. 23rd, 2022 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evening_tsarSo we’ve got another season of Stranger Things out, and I gotta say, based on the single episode I’ve seen so far, so far so good. It has – thus far- gotten the two things right which the previous series, in my own not so humble opinion, got so wrong. Tone and theme.
Tone is easy: the whole show has had a strong humourous element. But season 3 cranked up the comedy to the point that the horror didn’t work. It just never worked up a sense of menace. That doesn’t seem to be a problem here. The occasional joke aside, this is pretty scary stuff. Something very sinister is afoot, and I can’t wait to see it unfold (though I’m not sure how much is left to do).
The second part runs deeper. It seems to be picking up the big theme of season 3, and doing it – to my mind (again so far) much more effectively. That is, growing up¸ and more specifically, change.
Adolescence is often a scary time, not just because of the otherworldly monsters threatening to bit your head off. It’s a time when familiar things become unfamiliar, the world ceases to be recognizable, the reliable becomes unreliable. We all cope differently. Some embrace the change. Some resist it. Some can strike a balance, and grow up to be infuriatingly well-balanced (you know the type).
This sort of change was a big part of the underlying drama of season 3 (when it could bring itself to be dramatic in between cheap jokes). Lucas (Caleb McGlaughlin) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard), having discovered girls, and malls, and such things, decide they were too old for Dungeons and Dragons role-playing. Will on the other hand (Noah Schnapp) , sees no reason not to keep going, and presses the issue. The confrontation comes to a head in what for me has to be one of the saddest and most infuriating scenes in television. It leads to this exchange:
“Do you think we wouldn’t get girlfriends? Do you think we’d sit in your basement playing all our lives?”
”Yeah. I guess I did.
That’s not the infuriating part. That’s the sad part. And it’s kind of brilliant in its own way. It perfectly encapsulates the conflict of that stage of life. A big part of childhood’s end is that moment of realization, often horrifying, of the impermanence of things. Realizing suddenly, that the ostensibly monolithic present has become an irretrievable past, and the future does not look like one thought it would. The moment comes at different times for different people; some folks experience it very smoothly, some folks barely notice, and others feel shoved into it, unexpectedly and unwillingly.
That’s certainly grist for the dramatic mill. Trouble is, season 3 doesn’t handle with anything like the sensitivity it needs. Instead, it is very obviously constructed to make poor Will look ridiculous. Decked out in a pointy hat and wizard’s robe, prodding his groggy mates up with a staff (rake handle) from a pre-teen hangover (no booze, just sitting up all night scarfing doritos and soda pop), exhorting them to liberate a village from goblin occupation, even as they seem groggy and preoccupied with the mine field of early romances, Will goes from sympathetic character to this social circle’s embarrassing dork. There’s no question where the audience’s sympathies are supposed to lie (as opposed to where mine actually did) – we are clearly intended to see this grade-8 in seven year old’s Halloween costume and think “grow up kid”.
It seems odd. Nerd culture is such a thing now. At a time when superheroes and jedi knights and hobbits have taken over Hollywood, adults are proudly holding up their comic books, and role-players are unabashedly rolling their 20-sideds, it seems really fucking odd to bring back that retrograde notion that it’s all juvenilia – especially when it was this frickin’ crowd that made Stranger Things a hit! A stab in the back, a kick in the face it feels The audience could be forgiven for telling the writers to go fuck themselves.
Season 4 goes some way to redemption. The boys are back into D&D in a big way. They’ve found a D&D club in high school, run by the irrepressible Munson (more on him later). It’s intense, unabashedly nerdy and defiantly anti-cool. There’s no question of growing out of it.
But all is not kosher in the state of Denmark. Lucas has joined the basketball team. And it turns out he’s pretty good at it, giving him a shot at (*gasp!) popularity for the first time in his life. He should be on top of the world, no?
Well, turns out basketball practice and tournaments conflict with D&D nights, and his mates aren’t amused. How could he ask them to miss this important session? How could they ask him to miss his tournament? The tension is very real. And it’s heartbreaking. (It doesn’t help that Max (Sadie Sink), kinda traumatized by watching her step-brother get impaled – has broken up with him. Sad, but a part of life. I don’t trust anyone who married their high school sweetheart. . .)
Lucas is clearly going to have to make some tough decisions. How important is his past? How much does he want this future? Which one is the Real Him? It’s a real dilemna for young folks at a cross-roads. Being popular is not as superficial as it sounds - social acceptance is important to a lot of young people, and can be really tempting to those who’ve never had it. It’s not a question of “selling out”. We all know (or we all ought to know) – ditching things that are important to you to impress other people is not a good thing. But is it any better to cling to things that no longer work for you to impress other people?
Lucas must wonder. Having proven himself on the court, the accolades of his teamates is interrupted by the cheering of his old companions emerging triumphantly from the D&D Hall – with his little sister no-less! See, even as he was taking his crucial shots, she was making her crucial rolls, and the camera switching back and forth between them makes her victory no-less thrilling than his. There’s the crucial difference between 3 and 4. 4 establishes D&D as the equal of sport (“playing with balls” as Munson puts it). It is no less worthy. A good session, with good people, a good DM, good stories and good characters, can be at least as gripping, heart-rending, and glorious as any sporting victory. What a better message to send!
As for poor Lucas. . .well, he may choose basketball. Why shouldn’t he if that’s where his heart lies now? But it’s no longer implied to be his only natural and correct decision. There’s a part of him that clearly wishes he’d been the one to throw that die. And another part that wonders what good all his newfound glory will be without his friends.
Not even sure I want to watch the rest. At the moment, it's a bit of a Schrodinger's box - it can be anything I imagine it to be. Once watched, the possibilities melt away and I might be disappointed.
Tone is easy: the whole show has had a strong humourous element. But season 3 cranked up the comedy to the point that the horror didn’t work. It just never worked up a sense of menace. That doesn’t seem to be a problem here. The occasional joke aside, this is pretty scary stuff. Something very sinister is afoot, and I can’t wait to see it unfold (though I’m not sure how much is left to do).
The second part runs deeper. It seems to be picking up the big theme of season 3, and doing it – to my mind (again so far) much more effectively. That is, growing up¸ and more specifically, change.
Adolescence is often a scary time, not just because of the otherworldly monsters threatening to bit your head off. It’s a time when familiar things become unfamiliar, the world ceases to be recognizable, the reliable becomes unreliable. We all cope differently. Some embrace the change. Some resist it. Some can strike a balance, and grow up to be infuriatingly well-balanced (you know the type).
This sort of change was a big part of the underlying drama of season 3 (when it could bring itself to be dramatic in between cheap jokes). Lucas (Caleb McGlaughlin) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard), having discovered girls, and malls, and such things, decide they were too old for Dungeons and Dragons role-playing. Will on the other hand (Noah Schnapp) , sees no reason not to keep going, and presses the issue. The confrontation comes to a head in what for me has to be one of the saddest and most infuriating scenes in television. It leads to this exchange:
“Do you think we wouldn’t get girlfriends? Do you think we’d sit in your basement playing all our lives?”
”Yeah. I guess I did.
That’s not the infuriating part. That’s the sad part. And it’s kind of brilliant in its own way. It perfectly encapsulates the conflict of that stage of life. A big part of childhood’s end is that moment of realization, often horrifying, of the impermanence of things. Realizing suddenly, that the ostensibly monolithic present has become an irretrievable past, and the future does not look like one thought it would. The moment comes at different times for different people; some folks experience it very smoothly, some folks barely notice, and others feel shoved into it, unexpectedly and unwillingly.
That’s certainly grist for the dramatic mill. Trouble is, season 3 doesn’t handle with anything like the sensitivity it needs. Instead, it is very obviously constructed to make poor Will look ridiculous. Decked out in a pointy hat and wizard’s robe, prodding his groggy mates up with a staff (rake handle) from a pre-teen hangover (no booze, just sitting up all night scarfing doritos and soda pop), exhorting them to liberate a village from goblin occupation, even as they seem groggy and preoccupied with the mine field of early romances, Will goes from sympathetic character to this social circle’s embarrassing dork. There’s no question where the audience’s sympathies are supposed to lie (as opposed to where mine actually did) – we are clearly intended to see this grade-8 in seven year old’s Halloween costume and think “grow up kid”.
It seems odd. Nerd culture is such a thing now. At a time when superheroes and jedi knights and hobbits have taken over Hollywood, adults are proudly holding up their comic books, and role-players are unabashedly rolling their 20-sideds, it seems really fucking odd to bring back that retrograde notion that it’s all juvenilia – especially when it was this frickin’ crowd that made Stranger Things a hit! A stab in the back, a kick in the face it feels The audience could be forgiven for telling the writers to go fuck themselves.
Season 4 goes some way to redemption. The boys are back into D&D in a big way. They’ve found a D&D club in high school, run by the irrepressible Munson (more on him later). It’s intense, unabashedly nerdy and defiantly anti-cool. There’s no question of growing out of it.
But all is not kosher in the state of Denmark. Lucas has joined the basketball team. And it turns out he’s pretty good at it, giving him a shot at (*gasp!) popularity for the first time in his life. He should be on top of the world, no?
Well, turns out basketball practice and tournaments conflict with D&D nights, and his mates aren’t amused. How could he ask them to miss this important session? How could they ask him to miss his tournament? The tension is very real. And it’s heartbreaking. (It doesn’t help that Max (Sadie Sink), kinda traumatized by watching her step-brother get impaled – has broken up with him. Sad, but a part of life. I don’t trust anyone who married their high school sweetheart. . .)
Lucas is clearly going to have to make some tough decisions. How important is his past? How much does he want this future? Which one is the Real Him? It’s a real dilemna for young folks at a cross-roads. Being popular is not as superficial as it sounds - social acceptance is important to a lot of young people, and can be really tempting to those who’ve never had it. It’s not a question of “selling out”. We all know (or we all ought to know) – ditching things that are important to you to impress other people is not a good thing. But is it any better to cling to things that no longer work for you to impress other people?
Lucas must wonder. Having proven himself on the court, the accolades of his teamates is interrupted by the cheering of his old companions emerging triumphantly from the D&D Hall – with his little sister no-less! See, even as he was taking his crucial shots, she was making her crucial rolls, and the camera switching back and forth between them makes her victory no-less thrilling than his. There’s the crucial difference between 3 and 4. 4 establishes D&D as the equal of sport (“playing with balls” as Munson puts it). It is no less worthy. A good session, with good people, a good DM, good stories and good characters, can be at least as gripping, heart-rending, and glorious as any sporting victory. What a better message to send!
As for poor Lucas. . .well, he may choose basketball. Why shouldn’t he if that’s where his heart lies now? But it’s no longer implied to be his only natural and correct decision. There’s a part of him that clearly wishes he’d been the one to throw that die. And another part that wonders what good all his newfound glory will be without his friends.
Not even sure I want to watch the rest. At the moment, it's a bit of a Schrodinger's box - it can be anything I imagine it to be. Once watched, the possibilities melt away and I might be disappointed.
