No way. In the 80’s being gay was the WORST thing you could be. Gay was used for things we thought were stupid or corny, and faggot or fag was the most potent insult you could hurl at someone. I graduated in 89 and it had not changed at all by then. When I was in junior high my circle of friends ended up having a gay guy in it (although we didn’t know at first) and he was gay for another guy in our group, and actually made an aggressive move. We were horrified, it was an absolute taboo we were totally unequipped to deal with. Rumors tore through the school and that guy ended up transferring.

Stranger Things is handling this character reasonably well. She is keeping her faggotry a secret because she knows how people would respond if they knew. Steve can deal with it because she’s not a guy. If it was a guy, Steve would be avoiding the character for fear of being labeled a faggot himself. That’s how it was in the 80’s.

She is hard to look at, reminds me of a chipmunk.

The other kid I cannot stand is Lucas's little sister.

Nancy looked a lot better in the first season with normal looking hair.

The Afro and 80’s makeup this season is wretched.

Like the season so far, a little disappoint with the soundtrack though. Besides Kate Bush's, Running up that Hill
it doesn't pop like season 3. Also me and Nancy are the same age, go class of '86!!!

just started ep 1, will see

Sums it up for me. Very little character development.

It starts slow but gets pretty good.

My girlfriend wanted to finish it went a head and trudged through it.

They backed off the faggotry after episode 3 and went full speed into the bullying lol.

All those kids just walk around “oppressed” lol

I thought it was great; the twist in ep.7 is outstanding.

I like it.  Gay stuff so far isn't overdone. I really liked the back and forth juxtaposition between the final D&D game and the championship basketball game. I thought that sequence rather well done.

Yeah, what's up with that?

We need to really capture the '80s zeitgeist with a "very special" episode where the gang confronts her about her anorexia.

Through Episode 2.  Graduated in 87.  They are hitting the vibe fairly well.  Love the spirit of the times - vintage cars etc...  Music is good for me.  We knew there were gay people in school, but they were fairly well in the closet - so they are getting that right.  It was definitely the era of don't ask, don't tell.  Really strong Freddie Kruger vibes - so period correct.

I could complain about the Hopper story so far, or El's issues - but she went through a lot of shit and I kind of recall her losing her power, her identity - so I can not complain that much.

You can laugh at me, but when I binge books - I know they can effect my dreams.  I am pretty sure I had at least 1 Stranger Things dreams before - I turned it off tonight because I am almost willing to bet it will invade my dreams tonight.  I don't want a Freddie Kruger dream tonight-but I have a bad feeling bad dreams are coming.
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I grew up in a small town, hard to guess what percentage of the people were gay - but 5% would be my guess.  About 1 in every class of 20 seemed gay, about 1 teacher in 20 (or more honestly) seemed probably gay.  Plus this story is about the nerds, the outcasts - so the percentages would be higher in those groups.  I did not have any overly gay friends - ok that is damn wrong.  Just recalled one of my friends came out in college-which really only supports my 1 in 20 guess (1 in 20 is probably wrong, it was higher just did not realize it at the time) Anyway, he fucked more woman than most in HS, in Grad school he came out bi, then he became a Gay Marriage lobbyist in DC.  Pretty sure I tried to ask one of the gay girls to the prom - that did not go over well.   My great grandmother duplexed her home - the daughter of the renter was the first televised gay marriage in the US (late 70's or early 80's).  By the 90's, one of our neighbors in town was a gay couple.  My wife worked for a early video conferencing company that marketed to gays - she told me I would be amazed at the number of their clients who lived in and around our sleepy Texas town.  That said, while we still have a good number who live here - they come here to be gray, right now I don't know any who are visible.  They just want to live their lives and not cause drama.

Sorry, but I don't see a huge gay agenda in this - it is hitting my memory of the 80's pretty well.

Enjoyed the episodes so far

It's well done
Maybe slightly more overwrought at times, but I think that can happen the deeper you get into writing any story  
I'm glad netflix can produce something that isn't dogshit

Was the skinny HS newspaper dweeb supposed to be an attempt at a tranny character? Literally thought he was a lesbian girl for the first two episodes.

Only 3 episodes in and I feel like the bad guy is Freddy Kruger on steroids with his own upside down world version of Prof X’s Cerebro machine.

This is why Hollywood uses 20-somethings to play teenagers.

Use a real teenager, and they're "dweebs."

Everyone in GD was captain of the football team or a cool "rebel without a cause" kid the women couldn't keep their hands off of, pretty much from the time they were 13.

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I thought the Max in the graveyard stuff turned out pretty good. The day to night lighting gag looked pretty good too. That was in Stone Mountain Cemetary for any GA viewers.

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I feel fairly certain Will will come out and they’ll play on his crush on Mike in part 2

So...
Click To View Spoiler

Where did you get that from?

Which will do nothing but make everything awkward, as Mike is clearly not gay. If anything it’ll tear apart the group.

If that does happen though, good riddance because Will is a boring character.

My gut. Pure speculation.

Should have used a blue gel or filter to give it that 80s vibe.  

The stuff they've done with Max is probably my favorite part of this whole season.  I'm blanking on remembering when there were night scenes in the graveyard, what episode was that?    

Good shooting by the way, the show looks great.

Episode 4 when she basically levitates above Billy's grave and she goes into Vecna's lair.

I tend to be a bit shallow on these types of things so I'm easily entertained.  My only requirement is that they get to whatever point they're trying to make.  That's been my complaint so far this season.  Watching the ins and outs of the Nina project has been like watching paint dry.  I like where it finally ended up but DAMN, did it really need to take that long to get there???

My "got bored watching Top Gun: Maverick" short attention span wife stayed riveted to the screen during every episode.

I guess there's always Michael Bay.

I finished the last episode last night.
I was a little annoyed at the completely different story lines. But then pleasantly surprised at the end when all of the story lines intersected with Alf , Bill Cosby and Sledge Hammer coming on at the end. Who know eating cats and using a .44 would solve it.
That was my way of not spoiling the end.

"Dear Billy" was probably the best episode of the First half. The ending was intense.

I enjoyed the season and look forward to the remaining episodes.

I find the warning at the beginning of each episode kinda funny. Smoking? We have to warn people that there is smoking? Good lord...

Vecna’s Lair sucked too. Fake blood on everything. Pools of fake blood you wouldn’t notice and step into. People slipping and falling from all the blood
And then they would cover the ground in fog so you couldnt see and you’d trip off the set.
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Neat

I wanna see the footage of you tripping LOL

Very cool!

... yet as a viewer I couldn't appreciate that due to the color saturation effect. Had no idea. Funny, all that work.

Agreed

It got to the point I’d just be swearing under my breath carefully walking around that set

FWIW, really appreciate the linguistic attention to detail so far. The only somewhat goofy part was Murray pulling off being native with his accent. But, it's good enough it really still might have worked, but in a "where the heck are your from kind of way.

But, the extras are all native speakers and it really shows.

We always had a russian dialect coach on set for Murray and he took it very seriously as far as saying/sounding right.

I wish I were half as good.

I used to record myself and no matter how good I thought it was, I would cringe hearing it back. And, most of the time it sounds bad to me even as I say it. And all of that is assuming I can even get the grammar and word choice right (that's a perk of a script, there).

Just finished episode 7. I was curious how they would do the official reveal.

Liking it so far, but I'm biased.

Just finished ep4.

Special Agent Donut ended up being pretty badass. Glad they didn't follow through on the "Kids ditch the buffoonish adults" trope.

What is it with bad guys droning on with shitty monologues that explain everything?

Just finished what's available of season 4.  Fun stuff!

Yea, being gay was why they stayed in the closet. You were considered a mental illness with legs.

Yup.. he had to get it on. He gave those guys run for their money

I was surprised he made it as long as he did. He didn’t go easy.

I'm digging Murray...he's awesome

I enjoyed this season and await the July episodes...

Oh, and Obi-wan stinks. Stopped partway into episode 2.