Where are all the female friendships in Stranger Things?

** spoilers for seasons one and two ahead! ** 

Last week I emerged, like the rest of us, from a sort of self-inflicted hibernation that occurred due to Netflix's release of Stranger Things 2. Myself and the Internet both agree that it was a pretty great season, and in many ways was, as promised, even stranger and scarier than season one. But there was one major issue that put a downer on an otherwise brilliant piece of television for me, and I’m not talking about episode seven.

When I first watched Stranger Things I was struck by how accurately the show portrayed childhood friendships. The fear of losing a friend, the difficulties of introducing somebody new to the party, and the trivial concerns of board games and walkie talkies - all mixed in with the utterly terrifying and unimaginable. These were themes that continued long into the second season, but it became all the more evident what the Duffer Brothers were avoiding. It is something that they have systematically failed to address since the very first episode.

Ever since Nancy and Barb (who lets face it died long ago, I'm sorry) there has been no key female friendship in the show. The thing is, there are so many strong, female characters - something the significance of I will elaborate on later - but interactions between them are sparse. Season one barely passed the Bechdel test, if at all, and season two pitted two brilliant and powerful characters against each other in rivalry, when they are just 13 years old, whilst failing to develop relationships between existing characters. Let’s break it down by looking at each character’s traits and their relationships with others, and you’ll start to see what I mean.

Joyce is the typical paranoid mother - a woman who's neurosis is justified by the love she has for her child. Anxious mothers are not a new trope, but it is clear that the Duffer Brothers are aware of this and have utilised the stereotype to fit in with the vibe of their series. Using stereotypes is something the brothers do admit to in Netflix’s Beyond Stranger Things, a show where Shawn Levy discusses this seasons story arcs with the actors. This is problematic because whilst trying to flesh out this stereotype, the writers ultimately fail to give Joyce more than two characteristics. So much emphasis is placed on how much she loves her son, that her relationships with other characters are non existent and we never get to see any other part of her personality. As the other characters’ mothers are mostly absent (Mike), 'kooky’ (Dustin) or completely unexplored (Lucas), is it right that our main ‘mother figure’ is the biggest female stereotype of them all? Ironically however, Joyce’s main redemption is that she is perhaps the most human of Stranger Things’ female characters, with the others unintentionally becoming stereotypes themselves, of women who are probably too strong, too defiant, or too unrelatable. This clear misunderstanding of women - and how men think women WANT to be perceived, is a major issue prominent in Stranger Things. Instead of focusing on relationships between women to show their strength, the Duffer Brothers focus too much on making them physically strong.

As for Joyce's relationships with other female characters, there aren't any. In season one she forms a sort of bond with Eleven quite late on, and when the two reconcile she expresses how good it is to see her. Sometimes Joyce and Nancy sit in the same room together, but don’t talk, despite the fact Nancy is dating her son (though to be fair, it is the son she often forgets). All of this has been in place since the beginning, but now here comes the problem of season two. There could have been redemption. The Duffer Brothers admitted that they added Bob into season two as Joyce’s 'dorky boyfriend’ to essentially cheer her up a bit. Wouldn’t the real life Joyce Byers, paranoid about her son and already heartbroken by so many men, realistically form a bond with another mother, who could perhaps reassure her of their children’s safety (or rejoice in their worries together) and meet her for fucking coffee every so often? I do not regret Bob and shall not speak badly of his name - but give Joyce a friend, for god’s sake.

Nancy has drawn the short straw in that she is the one character inevitably stuck in the middle of a love triangle! Hooray. And of course, that character HAS to be female. Very rarely do you see two women fighting over a man, because that would be completely uncivilised. It's written this way because female viewers love the dilemma of having to choose between two men, it’s almost as if this is such an exciting prospect, not something that would give most women extreme anxiety and lead to feelings of guilt and self-doubt but no worries everyone, it really doesn’t happen half as much in real life as male writers seem to think it does.

I've started with the love triangle as Nancy as a character doesn’t really have a personality aside from this, which is despicable in itself. Her main characteristic is being in love with Jonathan and not in love with Steve. Fair enough, she is a teenage girl, and so it is probable that she would have at least some justifiable interest in boys, alcohol and defying her parents. But why are these the sole things that she talks about with her only friend, Barb? What’s more, isn’t it a little ridiculous to think that Nancy would entirely disregard any of Barb’s advice just to try and look 'cool’ for Steve? Perhaps its even more ridiculous that Nancy would only have one friend, aside from some mentioned in passing to her parents, but who are evidently so unimportant they do not even have screen time. It is moving that Nancy cares so deeply about Barb and their friendship remains a key plot point even after her death, yet this is still used as Nancy’s way of atoning for her death rather than ‘I actively miss my best friend.’ Jonathan also has to be consistently present.

This isn't Mean Girls, a comedy literally focused on the dysfunctional relationships of teenage girls. So why is it this laughable? Not only does the portrayal of Nancy’s personality and her romantic priorities paint a bad view of women, and is damaging to younger viewers, but it is also very unrealistic. Having been a girl at high school I can admit that I did have an interest in relationships, but my female friendships were also one of the most important parts of my life. The show spends so much time focusing on Mike, Will, Dustin and Lucas as a strong group of friends - but fails to explore female friendship groups. The Duffer Brothers do not give Nancy the female support she needs and would realistically wish to seek out. Aside from Barb, she doesn’t even speak to the other female characters, but yet engages readily with everybody else. The Snow Ball is a prime example. The writers include a whole scene where Nancy comforts Dustin about being rejected - not only demonstrating once more that romantic relationships are far more important than friendships, but showing teenage girls in a bad light even though the character in question has been, to put it bluntly, a bit of an arse for the whole season. Why is it ok for him to get sympathy, but not Max for example after her rejection by Eleven? Couldn’t Nancy’s time have been used up better by reassuring some of the girls?

Speaking of Max, if one love triangle wasn't enough, the Duffer Brothers decided to introduce a second. So much more could have been done with this character and this is why I am particularly disappointed. The Duffer Brothers are evidently aware that the love triangle trope is problematic, and to be honest, exhausting, - so they realise that when introducing a new female character specifically for that purpose, they must try to disguise this. Hence, along comes Mad Max. She’s tough, she skateboards, she’s really good at video games, hey wait a minute… she’s almost exactly like a boy? This is another example of the Stranger Things writers thinking that the best way to keep female viewers engaged is to make all of their female characters overtly strong and masculine, a problem most evident in Eleven. The fact that they have to repeat it with Max shows they’re running out of ideas, come on now guys. Making Max so unfeminine reveals not only that the writers are critically misinformed about the ways in which women and girls can be strong, but that they have a deep internal sense of misogyny. A female character can only enter the male-dominated friendship group when she acts like a boy. Let’s face it, it's the high scores at the arcade that really get the boys wanting to befriend Max. Whether this is simple ignorance or a deeply engrained prejudice, we as viewers cannot be sure, but it is concerning as the entire show seems to support the fact that men and boys cannot be friends with the opposite gender, unless they’re dating them. Or, when girls act like them (and even then, they are repeatedly denied information that is crucially important to the show, ie. Will’s trip to the upside down). What a horrific way to boost little Dustin’s ego even more.

And don't even get me STARTED on Max’s relationships with other female characters. As soon as she was introduced I was so excited gearing myself up for when she finally met Eleven and they hung out together. But alas, no. Deliberate parallels between Max and Eleven are set up by the writers from the outset, as if the mere suggestion of their friendship was immediately disregarded in the boardroom. To make matters worse, the boys seem to think that they are only ever allowed to have one female friend (which may or may not happen with thirteen year old boys, I can’t confirm). Whilst Max herself is reasonably adult about the situation and refrains from getting jealous or obsessive about Eleven, instead giving us a rare chance to ridicule Mike and his pathological obsession, her desire to be friends with her and then the rejection of her introduction once Eleven returns from her dark makeover, almost seems like a pathetic way of ridiculing her character. It’s heartbreaking that Max can overcome her abusive brother and make him seem so weak and submissive, but suddenly becomes so weak when pitted against another female character. Why do this, writers? I’ll give you a clue, if there’s two female characters of a similar age, they MUST hate each other.

After watching this scene for the first time I felt a little bump in my stomach, having been on the receiving end of interactions like that many times during my adolescence. Yes, girls are mean, and the Duffer Brothers have got that right at least. It was an awkward moment of viewing but I didn't truthfully see much of a major problem with this as a plot point in the story. What really riled me up though was that it was resolved, left unfinished, when so many other arcs were completed. There was no reconciliation between the two girls, no apology, not even a smile between them. They never utter each others names again, and instead their characters both seem happy with their respective partners without a care in the world. I was a real thirteen year old once, and I’m telling you, a real thirteen year old would cry herself to fucking sleep at night over a girl like that. 

and finally (yes there is literally only 4 main female characters) …

Arguably the focal point, the lynchpin even of the series, Eleven at first comes across as a powerful female role model for young girls. She is strong, she is intelligent, she is unique. She can lift cars, she can close portals… she has short hair and looks like a boy. You can see the theme going on here. Eleven's dominance is inherently tied to her masculinity and her ability to fit into a male dominated friendship group. The Stranger Things writers have deliberately painted her as strong enough to win over the boys, but she can only do this because she does not act like a typical girl, or rather what their perceptions of a typical girl are like. But, I hear you ask, what about at the end of season 2, her glow up at the Snow Ball after her fancy goth makeover? Surely she looks and acts like a girl then? Her femininity is literally used as a tool, the one time she appears feminine and wears a dress, she is objectified and her role as a romantic interest for Mike is sealed with a kiss. It has been tragic watching Eleven’s interactions with the boys disintegrate from best friends to practically dating one of them. Even more so because it would be fine if she was Mike’s girlfriend, as long as she still maintained friendships with the other guys. But there was pretty much no interaction between them this season whatsoever.

We've discussed the Max problem, the brief Joyce interaction, do Nancy and Eleven even speak? Eleven’s relationship with Hopper shows that she is willing to defy even the strongest male characters, but ultimately she would have died without his help and support. The major redemption of this season was Eleven’s interactions with her mother and 'sister’, even though the context of episode 7 was pretty tragic. Stranger Things has focused a lot on parental relationships but never so much on mother and daughter, and even though Eleven, or Jane’s, mother is in an inebriated state and transfixed in her memories, it is so important that the show returned to this relationship as a character development arc for Eleven. It allowed us to see two women talking to each other, about things that were not men, even without exchanging words. Bechdel test ACED. Similarly, when Eleven meets her sister, Eight, we can see for the first time two strong women together teaching and learning from each other, showcasing their strength and forming a special, unbreakable bond. I was very pleased with these interactions even though they could have been a hell of a lot better if the entire episode didn’t feel like the cast of American Horror Story trying to do Black Mirror. It also could have been a hell of a lot better, and more poignant, if Eleven’s interactions were not with female characters who we are not likely to see next season (I bloody hope not anyway). I would really like to watch Eleven and Max team up in the next season against the boys, and develop a best-friendship even better than Nancy and Barb, but that is probably a pipe dream.

So what are my conclusions? That the Duffer Brothers are deeply sexist? Not that they are aware of. This is just a society-wide problem of too much focus always being put upon male characters, their dreams, goals, and relationships - even in a series where so many of the strongest characters are women. Or on romance as being of more importance than friendship, which (I'm sorry boyfriend) it really isn’t. Am I going to boycott the show? No, I think its brilliant and culturally significant. But what I am going to do is make sure that its viewers are aware of the problems that are so endemic in shows with only male writers. The team would really benefit from some female voices who can help to flesh out our characters so they are more relatable and realistic, which seems odd to say when we’re talking about a sci-fi show. Thats just it though - in any series, historical, geographical, scientific - research needs to be done to portray the world as accurately as possible. Perhaps the Duffer Brothers should have done less research on the upside down and more on female relationships, because it seems that the women in this show more often than not simply act as pawns, plot points and precursors to the men that surround them. I really hope that in season three the writers draw their inspiration from something other than stereotypes. They have regularly stated that they want to further explore the human side of the show and I feel this needs to be done. Otherwise demogorgons and shadow monsters will start to feel a little samey, and the human characters, a little strange.