#i was debating deleting this draft because my friend told me that its not worth the energy to respond to these asks

[pinkeoni]

do u realize that st is anti-communist lol

I bet you also think Animal Farm is an anti-communist novel.

Okay, maybe I am giving the show too much credit. This is the same show that just announced their new board game and has already been merchandised to hell and back already. The Duffers are no George Orwell.

But still, there is a difference between what is in the text of the show and how their network chooses to market it.

I can understand where an audience member may see ST as anti-communist, considering that the characters themselves, the heroes of the story that we are meant to root for, are anti-communist. Which makes sense! These are characters living in America during the Cold War with the Soviets. The entirety of the Scoops Troop and Jopper plotlines in season 3 are about bringing down the “evil commies” and Hopper spends most of his time in season 4 being tortured in a Russian prison.

But here’s the thing that most anons seem to be doing, which is conflating the Soviet Union with communism. Saying that Will Byers would be a communist =/= saying that Will Byers would support the Soviet Union. And okay, I may have made that edit of Will in an ushanka, which I did only because editing fictional characters in ushankas is funny. Here it is again:

Let's bring it back to what I mentioned in the very beginning, which is George Orwell's Animal Farm, but specifically the last scene of that novel. The farm animals have successfully led the revolt against the humans, and yet the state of the farm is as bad as it was before, and the pigs are sitting at the table indistinguishable from the humans that they rebelled against in the first place.

Because Orwell's novel isn't saying "communism bad," but rather, the political leaders of the Soviet Union had gone against the original principles they were fighting for.

So the show is definitely anti-soviet, which doesn't equate to anti-communist. To be fair, there isn't much in the show that is expressly pro-communist, but the show isn't really pro-capitalist either. In fact, the show isn't even really that pro-American.

I feel like the ideology of the Cold War was very us versus them, or you're either with us or your against. You are either a red blooded American who is a proud capitalist and uphold the beliefs of your country, or you are a soviet communist pig. But as Papa would say—

The best season to express this is season 3. Season 3 introduces Starcourt Mall— the pinnacle of American consumerism. We learn that the mall has actually been actively hurting the town, causing many local businesses to go belly-up because they just can't compete.

But we also learn that Larry Kline, the mayor of Hawkins, was actually colluding with the Russians the whole time and the mall was a big front for the Russians to conduct their experiments. The point that the show was trying to make is that the same patriotic "All American" man who held a Fourth of July celebration for the town is on the same side as the "Evil Communist Russians."

Let us not forget that this is the same show that said that American government agents were "bad men," and actively used the Reagan/Bush campaign as a symbol of danger. Maybe ST is not the flagship communist show, but it isn't the flagship pro-American capitalist show either.

tagging @aemiron-main since you expressed interest on my poll

Side bar! Did you know that during the Second Red Scare, queer people were labeled as communists and prosecuted, because their lifestyles were considered inherently anti-American, and a security risk to the country? True story!