BEHIND THE SCREEN
When we as individuals watch a television series, we often fail to understand the deeper meaning behind them. The Duffer Brothers, Matt and Ross, strived to make their show, Stranger Things, stand out from the rest by adding an allegory for mental health. Vecna, the newly introduced antagonist in the hit show, Stranger Things, provides an uncommon presence that quickly becomes recognized as the mental health allegory the Duffer Brothers included in their Netflix series. From Max Mayfield to Will Byers, many characters in Stranger Things suffer from some type of mental illness and go through many obstacles throughout the series that they have to overcome or deal with, especially in the latest season. It is widely known that there is a serious mental health problem in the world, especially in teenagers and adolescents, and by portraying it through television, more viewers can relate and even learn how to deal with the global struggle themselves.
Matt Duffer 1
Ross Duffer
VECNA’S PURPOSE
In order for the Duffer Brothers to portray mental health in their television series, they need a character to act as it. There have been several monster-like characters introduced in Stranger Things but none of them have been as impactful as Vecna. Vecna, also known as Henry Creel, provides a characteristic that the other antagonists don’t. When pursuing his prey, the terrifying beast engages in psychological warfare. The fact that each of his victims has had a catastrophic incident or mental illness unites them all so when picking his victims, Vecna makes use of this to his advantage. Vecna begins targeting the
traumatized characters by causing them to have headaches and nosebleeds. He then forces them to have hallucinations on the tragic event they have gone through before eventually brutally killing them. After all of this torture, he repeats everything all over again on the next victim. Almost all Vecna’s victims were already psychologically vulnerable to his influence before he started targeting them. Henry Creel had been doing this for many years but no one ever knew it was him. Therefore, Vecna is a representation of several mental disorders. depression, PTSD, eating disorders, and more.
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In Season 4 of Stranger Things, one character is highlighted as Vecna’s centerpiece of targets. Max Mayfield, one of the main characters in the television series, experiences major trauma after witnessing the brutal and gruesome death of her step-brother, Billy. This causes her to go into extreme depression and not talk to anyone, not even her closest friends. She also has survivor’s guilt, which is a symptom of PTSD. A study of undergraduate students who have experienced a traumatic event was conducted to see whether depression and PTSD co-occur after the trauma. The study showed that they both occur but at widely different levels. Stronger depression symptoms were linked to trauma memories that were more likely to be in the past, whereas greater PTSD symptoms predicted more vivid, more emotionally intense, and negative memories that were characterized by greater sensory detail. Reporting that the recollections were more distant was similarly linked to depressive symptoms. After Max realizes she may be one of Vecna’s next victims, she starts writing letters for her loved ones. That shows her ability to deal with her mental issues and is surprising because she usually does not open up emotionally to her peers. As a way of therapy, Max decides to visit Billy’s grave to explain how she is feeling and express her apologies for not doing more for him.
MAX
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MAYFIELD
MAYFIELD MAYFIELDMAX
While she is sitting at the graveyard, her body and mind start to be seized by Vecna. As Max tries to escape the Upside Down, the alternate dimension in Stranger Things, her friends frantically place headphones on her and play her favorite song, “Running Up That Hill.” This breaks Vecna’s hold and Max is released back to the real world and with her friends. The significance of playing Max’s favorite song is to show how music is a way of therapy when dealing with mental health. Max is the only character targeted by Vecna that escapes so it can be said that “Music therapy is a proven beneficial intervention for people with enduring mental illness which may bring about improvements in social functioning, global state and mental state”. From that moment on, Max listens to her favorite song non-stop and stays safe. That is until her walkman is shattered and the song stops. This helps Vecna as he is able to blind her and almost kill her. Furthermore, Max goes through many mental health issues but is able to deal with most of it through the help of friends and music therapy.
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BYERS BYERSWILLBYERS
Will Byers, the main victim of the series, is dealt with fighting a new monster every season but finds out that it has been Vecna the whole time controlling these monsters. Will is known to have gone through the most trauma and therefore, has the most mental health problems. He is a quiet kid though so it is pretty hard to tell. Will can be seen dealing with many different mental health disorders including PTSD and depression, but one that is not always mentioned is Dissociative identity disorder (DID). DID is a mental health condition in which someone has two or more separate identities. It is a pretty rare condition but is the closest real world example of what Will went through. His struggle with this disorder was seen mostly in the first couple of seasons. The disorder is widely believed to be triggered by a traumatic event.
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In the first season, Will is abducted by a monster named the Mind Flayer. He is never the same after this. It can be said that after a tramautic event, a person can be permanantly damaged whether it be by having PTSD or depression. Will does some things that he normally would not do like forgetting certain events that have happened in his life and even putting loved ones in harm’s way. Dissociative identity disorder causes significant distress and social dysfunctioning and that is believed to be what Will was struggling with. Throughout the seasons of Stranger Things, Will is comforted by his mom and many of his friends. This helps him a lot deal with the mental disorders he is going through. Will never causes any trouble even when suffering from his mental health struggles which is a good sign. In season 5, he has severe signs of depression and is vastly quiet throughout the season. Though he still experiences trouble with his disorders from time to time, Will is eventually able to deal with them thanks to the help of his family and friends.
WILL
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