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Original poster

The main problem I had with Stranger Things S3

64 replies

ImFineThankYouSusan · 17/09/2019 04:54

Is succinctly put in Pop Culture Detective's latest video

Hopper was one of my favourite characters in the first 2 seasons but in season 3 the red flags were flying all over the place. Thankfully my nearly 14yo saw them too while watching it. My random rants have obviously been noticed 😉

If you haven't watched any Pop Culture Detective vids before I thoroughly recommend them.

OP posts:
ShootsFruitAndLeaves · 17/09/2019 08:49

Succinct? that's a 25 minute video! perhaps you could summarise?

Original poster
ImFineThankYouSusan · 17/09/2019 09:23

25mins isn't that long...

OP posts:
TheAlternativeTentacle · 17/09/2019 09:24

What is your main issue with STS3?

Original poster
ImFineThankYouSusan · 17/09/2019 09:30

Sigh...

What is mentioned in the video I posted.

Hopper being a overly aggressive, jealous, entitled, abusive asshole. Treated Joyce like shit. Yet is seen as a hero.

But as stated, PCD presents it better than I can.

OP posts:
OrchidInTheSun · 17/09/2019 09:37

Was he e er a hero? He's always been a total mess

BeMoreMagdalen · 17/09/2019 09:39

Essentially, the argument is that series 3 Hopper jettisoned all the character development of the first two series so that the writers can shoehorn in an 80's movie/TV reference to bullish banter romances and yippeekiyay cowboy cop heroes. Which means that the character has regressed, and it's raised some serious questions about why the confrontational banter romance, so popular in entertainment culture, isn't seen as the enormous red flag for abuse that it would be in real life.

CaptainKirksSpikeyGhost · 17/09/2019 09:41

He's supposed to be an unstable arsehole.

Sarahjconnor · 17/09/2019 09:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CaptainKirksSpikeyGhost · 17/09/2019 09:44

it's raised some serious questions about why the confrontational banter romance, so popular in entertainment culture, isn't seen as the enormous red flag for abuse that it would be in real life.
Stranger Things isn't real life, it's a bunch of 80's character cliches woven into a new plot.

BeMoreMagdalen · 17/09/2019 09:44

I believe you. I've never seen Stranger Things, I'm just condensing the video argument. I do think it's a reasonable point, tbh, and I'm a little challenged by it as I grew up with the confrontational banter romance idea and I still often enjoy it and have even used it in my writing, uncritically.

Original poster
ImFineThankYouSusan · 17/09/2019 09:47

Thank you BeMoreMagdelen

It's the regression of his character that pissed me off also.

Plenty of fans dismissed the misogyny of his character.

It's something that jarred with me with S3 and this vid popped up in my feed today which explained it really well. Which is why I shared it.

OP posts:
BeMoreMagdalen · 17/09/2019 09:52

I do think it's something I'm going to ponder today. I guess it's related to the 'if a boy pulls your pigtails it means he likes you' trope, too. I have hokey soft spot for movies where the two leads have a massive verbal sparring match and it escalates to a kiss. It works dramatically and is fun to watch, but it does raise questions that I really should have noticed before, so thank you for posting.

Kit19 · 17/09/2019 09:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Hopesorfears · 17/09/2019 10:01

I managed ten minutes. Some very selective choices of scenes - some were Hopper is violent when it was really quite important that he was, as a lot of bad guys in the series! And the idea that a grieving father flung into the role of adoptive parent would not have any issues with seeing the girl (who had no kind of childhood so less opportunity to develop any street wise social skills) having her first boyfriend seems unrealistic to me - especially given the decade it was set.
There were no gratuitous sex scenes with Hopper and Joyce for which I was grateful, women had good roles to play, and Hopper could have been developed differently but really, such a lot of angst over it. There are a million worse examples of toxic masculinity to choose from.

BeMoreMagdalen · 17/09/2019 10:23

Kit19, I got a notification that you had tagged me but you've had the post removed?

Hopes, yeah, I'm not going to disagree that there are umpteen thousand other examples, obviously. Like I say, I'm not a Stranger Things watcher, I just watched most of the video and I thought it raised some interesting questions about that model of entertainment romance relationship which I hadn't really recognized before. I condensed the argument on the video because some were saying they didn't have time to watch it and I had.

Original poster
ImFineThankYouSusan · 17/09/2019 10:59

BeMoreMagdelen If you are interested in more about that romance trope, have a look at their vid about Harrison Ford.

OP posts:
Original poster
ImFineThankYouSusan · 17/09/2019 11:36

Hopesorfears No angst just disappointment I guess.
I get what you are saying about Hopper being protective with Eleven but he went overboard imo. Didn't take Joyce's sound advice and threatened a 13/14yo boy.

OP posts:
Hopesorfears · 17/09/2019 11:43

Oh I know, I think we were meant to see that as way ott though, it wasn't a good response and led to lots of grief for them all!
I didn't mean you with the angst comment, but the video maker.
I loved the programme so am probably sensitive about it. I also loved all the male leads in the 80s films in the clips - not sure what this says about me!

Katex888 · 17/09/2019 11:54

I can’t believe he’s dating Lilly Allen

deydododatdodontdeydo · 17/09/2019 12:03

Hopper's over protection of Eleven did seem both over the top and out of character from previous seasons.
Previously he was supposed to be a bit of a loser (partly because he lost his daughter which changed him a lot), but no suggestions he was unreasonable I don't think.

BeMoreMagdalen · 17/09/2019 12:36

ImFine, I think I should say thank you, but I've just watched 17 minutes of my childhood heroes being thoroughly dismantled. I wanted desperately to be Han Solo and Indy when I grew up. It never even occurred to me there was any other than charm in their roguishness and that girls would respond to that kind of stuff. Admittedly, that also added to the crushing of my sexuality for a long time too. Deckard was always a complicated anti-hero as far as I can see, so his behaviour analysis didn't tilt my world so much, but blimey, those first three scenes were textbook 'No doesn't mean no' stuff.

I feel retrospectively violated by it all!!!Shock

Fraggling · 17/09/2019 12:56

Not watched the video

I had a lot of real issues with this season it was such a shame

Can't post much more but
Yes to that whole thing with hopper
Also girls bonding over shopping, boys saying they are difeerent species etc
I didn't like a lot of it and ranted a lot
Spoiled it for me.

Goosefoot · 17/09/2019 13:32

Meh. I am not onboard with the all tv characters that we are meant to like should be woke, at least by the end of the series, or else they are BAD.

If nothing else, it would make for a lot of really shitty tv and films.

I liked Hopper. I liked that he was difficult and a bit of a hot mess. It was on occasion ramped up for comic effect, that's because it's not real life, it's the movies.

BeMoreMagdalen · 17/09/2019 14:01

It's not about being woke, it's about the framing of certain things as normal behaviour and thus subtly reinforcing their acceptance as fairly shrug worthy, instead of things which we might reasonably say "Hold on a sec, that's a bit off", which then feeds into the dismissing of those red flag behaviours in real life too. I don't doubt from the context of discussions I've seen and read, that Hopper is not meant to be the pure role model hero, and yes, obviously there is always nuance in good story telling. But this kind of analysis is really useful to examine what we often accept unconsciously.

Goosefoot · 17/09/2019 14:15

The writer or director "framing" the story for us in such a way that we are all taught like nice little viewers that we are supposed to be unhappy about some behaviours is absolutely woke. It's the same smug condescending attitude where viewers are somehow assumed to be morons and incapable of coming to their own conclusions.

You watched the show and thought Hopper's behaviour was off. Do you really think that other people are somehow unable to see this, or that they aren't allowed to come to different conclusions than you if they want to. I would be surprised actually if people didn't already see Hopper as a mess, and so do people within the show's world, it's shown in their reactions and his subsequent actions.

There are films and books that are careful to frame the narrative so it is absolutely clear what the writers want us to think about each person or situation. They are unremittingly bad.

Now, if it's a matter of saying, how does this reflect real actions, what would we think if this happened really, sure, we can do that. But there wouldn't be the same connotation of it being problematic, a problem in the writing, if that is what was going on.