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Notes -
Woke Trappings versus Woke Story
I thought Stranger Things wrapped up nicely and the finale was great. The pre-final episode received the lowest ratings and reception in the entire series, with a lot of commentators claiming the entire series was ruined, but the finale was great television. It's true the pre-final episode was not great due to the fact it was dedicated to setting up the 2 hour finale, but the overreaction to that episode is mostly driven by one of the characters named Will coming out as gay, and making that central to his personal story and character growth needed to win the entire conflict. The surface-level criticisms are true, the scene was terrible, it was LGBT propaganda, sure. And my woke radar is as fine-tuned as anyone, but I find anti-woke observers become too hung up on woke trappings rather than critically analyzing the story itself.
The Stranger Things story itself is not necessarily woke, it's 1980s nostalgia blended with fish-out-of-water, heroes journey, coming-of-age, revenge, fantasy, and all the elements that audiences tend to like and that is carried through the end. I would contrast that with IT: Welcome to Derry in which the story itself is Woke and it ruins the series.
But I think those complaining about Woke elements in Stranger Things - this never would have happened in the 1980s!, the multiple LGBT characters and their acceptance by everyone in the story, the feminism, etc. They miss the point that 1980s culture did lead to these things. Sure, the transition was slower than is symbolically represented in the show; in the show the transition happens rapidly, without resistance, and faster among the characters in the story than it did in American culture. But the fact is American culture did follow the cultural trajectory depicted in Stranger Things which warps up 1989. So the show depicts an accelerated cultural trajectory going out of the 80s into the 90s and 2000s, which are cultural changes that actually happened.
Although I do like a lot of parts of 1980s American culture, the vapidness in that culture which triggers our nostalgia reaction did lead to these things the anti-woke commentators are complaining about being featured in the show. 1980s culture led to 90s culture, and so on until we are right here. The lesson isn't "Great Hollywood will just wokify everything" the lesson is that 1980s nostalgia is not a good source of inspiration for those who oppose the cultural forces that came out of the 80s and further developed since then. Of course that insight can be backpropagated, is a 1960s muscle car a symbol of a pre-woke culture we must retvrn to, or is it a symbol of cultural decay representing vapid status games, siphoning masculine energy into meaningless pursuits, and materialistic national identity that led exactly where we are?
I feel like this show should have ended after season 2. Lots of people say season 1, and I get it, but I liked season 2. Sure they delayed the reunion until the end so L could go on a side quest with a bunch of spinoff characters nobody liked, but whatever. They wanted to show that L could make it out in the world on her own and wasn't obliged to go home unless she really wanted to. Then we got a cute happy ending where L got her forged birth certificate so Hopper could be her dad and she went to the big dance with Mike.
What a nice cute story. Maybe lagged a little in the second since everyone hated the spinoff kids, but whatever.
All this other business though, I just don't know. I don't see why I need it.
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