From hinting at a massive rat infestation to the new monster being someone we know, Stranger Things has been drip feeding information while leaving us completely in the dark.
As the marketing train ramps up, we’ve just been inundated with a new season three clip and, well, it’s another one of those teasing clips that tell us nothing as it’s just 100 seconds of a bunch of suburban mums (including Karen Wheeler) frothing over a shirtless Billy at the town pool.
While this seems amusing as it is a callback the little season two gag where Billy charms Karen into revealing Mike and co’s location, it’s also problematic on a bunch of levels.
Billy is a teenager on the show and having middle-aged mums lust over him isn’t that much different than having middle-aged men frothing over young girls. Given the recent climate surrounding inappropriate behaviour, it just seems wrong that we’re getting this sort of gag that’s been lifted from a lowbrow 80’s comedy.
I get the whole 80’s nostalgia schtick that Stranger Things likes to tap into and this sort of stuff was running rampant back then but films of that era haven’t exactly dated well. I mean, have you watched Porky’s lately? Sex pests aren’t any more hilarious than the casual racism and gay panic rhetoric that used to get trotted out.
Hilarious.
And secondly, having middle-aged women put all this weird energy into a teenager and making them the butt of the joke is just unsavoury and lazy, especially given how much time has gone between season two and season three. Surely the writers could’ve came up with literally any other gag.
Season three of Stranger Things is still shaping up to be a hell of a ride but I expected something a more sophisticated than a lame horny cougar mum gag as the show is leaps and bounds better than that.
We won’t have long to find out just good season three is as it’ll be here on July 4. Hopefully this is just a little one-off and not something that’s recurring.