Friendship is an inherent and necessary aspect of the human experience, so fundamental to our emotional life, that it is completely pervasive in popular culture and literature, manifesting in Mercutio and Romeo to Carrie Bradshaw and her cohorts alike. As consumers of media, we love to see friendships on page and screen, because there is something beautiful about individuals sharing their emotional burdens and supporting one another, reminding us that we don’t need to experience life in solitude. The friendship of prepubescent boys is subset of friendship entirely unique from adult friendship, which media seems to hold a particular fascination with, given the profusion of works featuring boy from Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer to the Losers
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While Howe’s middle-reader novel from ten years earlier presented a balanced and fairly realistic version of boy friendship, Stranger Things paints a highly sentimental version symptomatic of the show’s overall reliance on nostalgia. Instead of exploring the subtleties and limitations of the boys’, as well as the beauty of boy friendship, the show utilizes a pastiche of iconic images from other films (the bikes from Goonies, the railway from Stand By Me, numerous ET references) as a shorthand for the “magic” of boy friendship. Where the show does institute some subtlety, is in that there is a certain urgency in the interactions between the core boys, who are just on the cusp of teenager-hood, that at any time their idealized bond could be severed by puberty, given that the only teenage boys in the show exist not as friends but as romantic rivals. Stranger Things therefore perpetuates the stereotype of boy friendship as passionate but fleeting which has its genesis in the 19th …show more content…
Rotundo’s “Boy Culture” which presents boy friendship in the 19th century as superficial and casual, reflecting not only the overly-simplistic 19th century concept of boys, but also the importance placed on emotional independence and stoicism as “natural” male traits. On the other end of the spectrum Stranger Things romanticizes and glorifies boy friendship while also acknowledging it as temporary. While this concept of boy friendship as fleeting is representative of the real experiences of some men (including Mark Green, who details later in his essay his eventual falling out with his childhood best friend), the show runs the risk of perpetuating the belief that male friendship is only for children, and the highly sentimental, simplistic portrayal of the boys’ interactions may not be relatable to actual boys. James Howe’s Totally Joe surprisingly presents the most realistic and balanced version of boy friendship (of the sources examined) in that it neither trivializes or glorifies deep emotional bonds between boys. The friendship between Joe and his friends is simply a fact intrinsic to Joe’s life. The importance of this type of portrayal cannot be overstated, particularly given the “epidemic of loneliness” among men described by Greene. While more examples of positive,
While Howe’s middle-reader novel from ten years earlier presented a balanced and fairly realistic version of boy friendship, Stranger Things paints a highly sentimental version symptomatic of the show’s overall reliance on nostalgia. Instead of exploring the subtleties and limitations of the boys’, as well as the beauty of boy friendship, the show utilizes a pastiche of iconic images from other films (the bikes from Goonies, the railway from Stand By Me, numerous ET references) as a shorthand for the “magic” of boy friendship. Where the show does institute some subtlety, is in that there is a certain urgency in the interactions between the core boys, who are just on the cusp of teenager-hood, that at any time their idealized bond could be severed by puberty, given that the only teenage boys in the show exist not as friends but as romantic rivals. Stranger Things therefore perpetuates the stereotype of boy friendship as passionate but fleeting which has its genesis in the 19th …show more content…
Rotundo’s “Boy Culture” which presents boy friendship in the 19th century as superficial and casual, reflecting not only the overly-simplistic 19th century concept of boys, but also the importance placed on emotional independence and stoicism as “natural” male traits. On the other end of the spectrum Stranger Things romanticizes and glorifies boy friendship while also acknowledging it as temporary. While this concept of boy friendship as fleeting is representative of the real experiences of some men (including Mark Green, who details later in his essay his eventual falling out with his childhood best friend), the show runs the risk of perpetuating the belief that male friendship is only for children, and the highly sentimental, simplistic portrayal of the boys’ interactions may not be relatable to actual boys. James Howe’s Totally Joe surprisingly presents the most realistic and balanced version of boy friendship (of the sources examined) in that it neither trivializes or glorifies deep emotional bonds between boys. The friendship between Joe and his friends is simply a fact intrinsic to Joe’s life. The importance of this type of portrayal cannot be overstated, particularly given the “epidemic of loneliness” among men described by Greene. While more examples of positive,