Be Kind

I guess we can blame Stranger Things for this—well, what I’m talking about below plus a hundred thousand memes about Barb.

Back in July, I wrote here about how much I liked Stranger Things because it re-created a lot of the entertainment I liked so much when I was a kid, save for one key thing. The show’s reconstituted Spielbergian wonder looked too good. It was missing the TV static and VHS distortion that came with all that culture, at least for me way back when. See, I grew up beyond city limits, beyond where the cable TV cable could reach, and as a result, most of what I watched came to me hissing and fuzzy, but not in the cat way. As an experiment, I tried to add these elements back in, and for reasons I can’t explain, I kept doing it—for most of the summer, in fact. You might have noticed clips popping up here and there on my social media.

The result is what you see below, a project I’m just calling “Rewind.” It’s kind of a music mix, kind of a montage, kind of a string of music video-like things but punctuated with vintage commercials. I think I was trying to create a little pocket universe of culture from the ’80s and thereabouts. It never all quite existed this way, but it’s fun to pretend it did.

Or at least I thought so. Maybe you will think so too.

Yeah, I realize it’s two hours long. That was kind of the point, to make something that you could just lose yourself in—maybe keep on in the background and listen to and periodically check into and see something colorful and weirdly familiar, even if you’d ever actually seen it before. Or you could just pick a random point on the timeline and click and not know what nostalgic thing you’d end up seeing.

Again, I don't know why I felt compelled to make it, but I hope at the very least that you walk away with a song you like or some weird bit of pop culture that had somehow bypassed you before—maybe even see how some of the pairings of video chunks and old songs weren’t entirely random.

If nothing else, I hope the image of Grace Jones, eyes glowing with a demonic energy as she tries to sell you wine coolers, is forever burned into your memory. You’re welcome in advance!

Hit the jump to see a list of video and audio sources, plus most of the music video-like clips posted solo.

In order:

1. Vintage distribution company logos (original)
2. Friday Night Videos intro, 1985 (original)
3. Video for “I Want It To Be Real” by John Rocca, 1984 (original)
4. Commercial for Super Mario Bros. 2, 1988 (original)
5. “Living on Video” by Trans X, 1983 (original) + playthrough of Outrun (original)
6. Commercial for Shasta, 1983 (original)
7. “Pretty Face” by Styloo (original) + Sym-Bionic Titan episode “Tashy 497,” 2010 (original)
8. Commercial for Mentos, 1994 (original)
9. “You Are Young,” by C.C. Catch, 1986 (original)
10. Commercial for Ironsword: Wizards and Warriors II and Double Dragon II, 1990 (original)
11. “Cara Mia,” by Annie, 2015 (original) + the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe episodes “Fisto’s Forest,”  “To Save Skeletor,”  and “The Rarest Gift of All”
12. Commercial for Commerce Union Bank, 1973 (original — and please click this, because it’s from a pre-KCET Huell Howser show which is a spectacle in its own right)
13. Instrumental version of “Be My Lover Now,” by Giorgio Moroder and Philip Oakey (original) + vintage footage of Los Angeles in the 1980s (original)
14. Commercial for Magnavox Odyssey, undated but maybe from 1978 (original)
15. Opening animation from Daicon IV, 1983 (original — the song is “Twilight” by Electric Light Orchestra, but that was original to the clip)
16. Commercial for Levi’s 501 jeans, 1985? (original)
17. “Happy Station,” by Fun Fun, 1984 (original) + playthrough of Ai Cho Aniki (original)
18. Commercial for Fruitopia, 1994 (original)
19. “Tonight! Crazy Night,” by Dorine Hollier, 1984 (original)
20. Commercial for Pure Agree shampoo, 1980-something (not the original, still trying to find that file, but you get the point)
21. “Disco Band,” by Scotch (original) + underwater scene from Dario Argento’s Inferno (original)
22. Commercial for The Terminator, 1984 (original)
23. Intro to Chopping Mall, 1986 (original)
24. Commercial for Whatchamacallit candy bar, 1990-something (original)
25. “Exit,” by Tangerine Dream (original) + the video for “Ooh Shooby Doo Doo Lang,” by Aneka, 1982 (original)
26. Commercial for Vanderbilt perfume, 1989 (original)
27. Video for “Madam Butterfly,” by Malcolm McLaren, 1984 (original)
28. Commercial for Sea Breeze with Elle McPherson, 1986 (original)
29. “Eyes” by Clio (original) + the intro to Beverly Hills Teens (original) + episodes from the show that you can watch here, here, here, here and here
30. Commercial for Arrid Extra Dry with Brooke Shields, 1985 (original)
31. “Numbers” by Kraftwerk, 1981 (original) as seen on The New Dance Show, 1981? (original)
32. Commercial for Jill doll with Jenny Lewis, 1987 (original)
33. “Boy” by Book of Love, 1986 (original) + clips from playthroughs of Fatal Fury 2 (original), Art of Fighting 2 (original), Samurai Shodown (original), World Heroes 2 (original and another original), Samurai Shodown II (original and another original), King of Fighters ’96 (original), Real Bout Fatal Fury (original) and Aggressors of Dark Kombat (original)
34. Commercial for Sun Valley wine coolers with Grace Jones, 1987 (original)
35. “Diamond” by Via Verdi, 1986 (original) + the fashion show segment from ABC’s Night of 100 Stars, 1982 (original)
36. Commercial for Chunky candy bar, 1980-something (original)
37. Music video for “Love Resurrection” by Alison Moyet, 1984 (original)
38. Commercial for Dubonnet with Pia Zadora, 1980-something (original)
39. “My Little Japanese Boy” by Baby’s Gang, 1986 (original) + clips from Saint Seiya / Knights of the Zodiac that you can see here, here, here, here and here
40. Commercial for the TV movie The Nightman, 1992 (original)
41. “Follow Me” by Giusy Dej, 1980-something (original) + the disco sequence from the Bollywood Nightmare on Elm Street remake Mahakaal, 1993 (original but also do please see the rest of this bizarre gem here)
42. Commercial for Fruitopia featuring music by Kate Bush, 1994 (original)
43. “Dance It Down” by The Pool, 1983 (original) + a playthrough of Final Fight (original)
44. “A.H.B.” by Survive, 2016 (original) + the disco sequence from Prom Night, 1980 (original)
45. “Puppet Strings” P.S.A. by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, 1995 (original)
46. “I Want to Fly Away” by Blue Russell, 1984 (original) + clips from The Nutcracker Fantasy, 1979 (non-destroyed version of this clip and also an extended look at the Ragman, should you be interested)
47. “Stickerbush Symphony” from Donkey Kong Country 2, 1995 (original) + the closing credits to Soapdish, 1991 (original)

And in case you’re too TL;DR for the whole thing, here are most of the individual videos:

Outrun + Trans X

Fisto + “Cara Mia”

Cho Aniki + “Happy Station”

Inferno + “Disco Band”

“Tonight! Crazy Night” by Dorine Hollier

The opening credits to Chopping Mall

Aneka + Tangerine Dream

“Madam Butterfly” by Malcolm McLaren

Kraftwerk on The New Dance Show

Beverly Hills Teens + Clio

Neo Geo fighters + Book of Love

Night of 100 Stars + Via Verdi

Mahakaal + Giusy Dej

Final Fight + “Dance It Down”

Saint Seiya + Baby’s Gang

Prom Night + Survive

The Nutcracker Suite + Blue Russell

And finally here are all the commercials, in case that’s your thing

Why So Many Gay Guys Like Barb From Stranger Things

Heads up: This will spoil the first season of Stranger Things. If you haven’t finished it and don’t want it spoiled, don’t read this yet. Also, what are you waiting for? It’s only eight episodes. Call in sick today and finish it.

I’d been stoked for Stranger Things, and I felt gratified once it went live on Netflix that other people seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. However, all the social media posts about the show seemed to be echoing back to me one observation in particular that I didn’t expect: that Barb was awesome. I liked her a lot, despite her scant screen time, but I’m a weirdo who always roots for the underdog girl. In this instance, I was not alone in pulling for Barb. It also happens that most of the people posting about Stranger Things in my various feeds happened to be gay nerds of one stripe or another. So what is it about this mom-jeaned wonder that made gay dudes dig her? (You know, aside from her on-point-for-the-era fashion sense.)

After all, Barb (Shannon Purser) vanishes before the opening credits of episode three, when the shambling horror that is the show’s big bad pulls her into the swimming pool of doom, never to be seen again… save for a particularly nasty shot of her in the penultimate episode, when the viewer learns that yes, she’s completely dunzo—a corpse in the Upside-Down with a hell leech squiggling around in her mouth. It’s brutal to learn, especially if you, like me, had been hoping that she’d be rescued.

We gay nerds like our genre heroines, but Stranger Things actually offers four other female characters who get to do a lot more than Barb does. There’s Joyce (Winona Ryder), a small-time Sarah Connor who’s just the latest in a long line of fearless, strong moms in sci-fi works. There’s Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), the telekinetic marvel who actually takes down the bad guys. There’s Nancy (Natalie Dyer), the Lisa Simpson-level goody two-shoes who finds an inner courage to become a hero in her own right. And there’s even Nancy’s mom (Cara Buono, a.k.a. Dr. Faye from Mad Men) who gets more to do than Barb does just by virtue of the fact that she survives through all eight episodes.

So why the hell would we like Barb so much? My theory is that for gay guys—and maybe also non-gay guys who had similarly difficult high school experiences—Barb reminds us of the selves we left behind back in the day, the not-yet-fully-realized versions that we want to go back and help or save or maybe just hug.

Based on the little we get to know about Barb in the first two episodes, we get that she’s Nancy’s smart and loyal best friend. She has a flair for fashion, but that doesn’t really put her on the radar of any of the popular kids, and she’s literally out of focus in the background of some of the shots in which Nancy is interacting with them. (If there’s a he-Barb lurking around somewhere, who can see her for the radiant, ruffled flower she is, we never get to see him.) She only gets invited to the party at the home of BMOC Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) because she is Nancy’s plus-one, and again, the boys don’t seem interested in her to the point that no one even reacts with much concern when she cuts her hand—and even then, she only cuts her hand in a vain attempt to shotgun a beer, just to prove to these cretins that yes, she’s like everyone else and can party like a normal kid. That felt familiar.

To paraphrase that great poet of our generation, Katy Perry, she’s a plastic bag who has yet to realize her status as a firework. Watching the second episode in particular, I wanted to tell Barb that it would be okay—that she’d get in to a good college where a bunch of art fags would celebrate her prim but daring style, and that everything would be okay in the end.

Only that doesn’t happen. It doesn’t get better for Barb. She dies without anyone aside from Nancy realizing how great she is, and even then, Nancy’s last interaction with her is shooing her away while she goes to make penis-vagina with Steve. Yes, even that is telling of the kind of relationships a lot of closeted gay guys had with their ladyfriends of choice back in the age of raging hormones. We’d be there, steadfast and protective, until the prospect of a more deeply realized male-female relationship presented itself, at which point we’d be left to wait downstairs while some people’s virginities were lost and others remained intact.

I’m projecting, sure, but I feel like for this gay guy in particular, the horror of Barb’s death wasn’t just that it seemed like if anyone should have been safe, it would have been her. No, it’s the weird “what if?” of never moving on from the Upside-Down of high school life and never having people finally appreciate you for the things that make you special. She has glam hausfrau style down, for sure, but I’m certain that’s not the only reason we gay nerds are rooting for her in a fashion way out of proportion to how much we see her onscreen.

I love you, Barb. I wish it had been different for you.

Miscellaneous notes:

• I keep accidentally referring to the Upside-Down as the Underwhere, which I think should be the name of something.
• I can’t stop listening to the previous compositions by Survive, the band that did the show’s soundtrack. Survive is the Disasterpeace of 2016.
• Variety had a good interview with the Duffer Brothers that offers, among other things, some rationale about why Barb and Barb alone should have been the one character to get offed in the show’s first season, as well as the tidbit that Shannon Purser had never professionally acted before this series.
• If you haven’t yet, check out my fucking up of the Stranger Things trailer in the style of footage from a decayed VHS cassette.
• Cole Escola did a less-than-one-minute bit about Barb’s mom learning about what the fuck happened to her daughter, and it’s gold.
• I was born in 1982, but that doesn’t mean I understand how women dressed in the first decade of my life. Consequently, it’s hard to tell if Barb’s style would have read as avant-garde in 1983 or just plain dowdy. I have similar issues with Jane Fonda’s wardrobe in 9 to 5.
• Just in case you wanted a closer look at our last image of Barb, you can see it here. It’s awful. Barb deserved better.
• I maintain that Barb is equal parts Martha Plimpton’s character from The Goonies and Lucca from Chrono Trigger.

Homo culture, previously:

• How my friend’s stepdad gave Princess Peach to gay nerds nationwide
• How Madonna debuted Dick Tracy with an all-male kickline
• Why Saint Seiya is gayer than you remember
• How a gay guy probably invited the high-five
• Why Mr. Belvedere is gayer than you might think