Conformitygate is perfectly aligning with everything said during the press tour and here is why:
Ok, I am like 95% sure that conformitygate is happening atp because all the collected evidence leads to it. When finishing the finale I was feeling like I was losing my mind because I DIDN'T RECOGNISE MY BELOVED SHOW ANYMORE. Stranger Things is a show with flaws and obviously not perfect, but the finale felt so soulless and didn't align with anything the cast and crew has shared about it until date. A lot of us have been utterly disappointed because so many statements that were made by the cast didn't turn out to be true.
But if you look at these statements from the conformitygate-angle (yes, I know how I sound), they all make perfect sense:
- Noah saying that he filmed most of his scenes with Finn.
- Shawn Levy saying that Finn and Noah carried a lot of emotional weight.
- The Duffers saying that no-one predicted the ending when rn it is literally the most predictable ending ever.
- The emphasis on tiying up all the loose ends and giving the characters a satisfying ending, a process that was closely discussed with the actors: Well, rn there are tons of plotholes and you can't convince me that the actors would be happy with their endings. Especially Noah saying that his ending was "perfect" is really suspicious to me: As a gay man who openly shipped Byler during the past few years I don't think he would be satisfied with his storyline.
- It is also strange how quit the cast hast been on Byler and how often they clash Mileven. If Mike and El are meant to be together in the end, why not give them more buildup.
- The whole cast saying that the ending was perfect and the finale their favourite: They could obviously be lying for PR-reasons, but I have a hard time believing that Finn and Gaten, who are big nerds (and in Finn's case) filmmakers themselves would love the ending. The whole cast is frankly too intelligent to eat that shit up.
Let's bring me to my second point that is more of a reach, but would be mind-blowing if proven right:
Conformitygate is about an ending within an ending, a play within a play. But what if the presstour is too?
@j-aquarian made an amazing post about how the series parallels the film "The Truman Show", and the amount of parallels is uncanny. I strongly recommend you all to go and read this post:
"The Truman Show" is the story of Truman Burbank who is living unknowingly in a reality show, where all the people around him are actors, until he discovers an exit by the end of the movie. As I said, the amount of parallels to this film is not coincidental, to the point where the ending of e8 parallels directly the ending of "The Truman Show". I still don't know exactly what significance these parallels have for the Stranger Things universe, but there are several things to be said about the press tour:
1. Tying up character arcs
The actors have said several times that they all cried a lot during the final table read, with Noah going as far as to say that "it felt like the Duffers wrote the end of our lives for real". In "The Truman Show" the whole world is watching Truman grow up, anticipating every event of his life and feeling emotionally attached to him. I find it interesting that this paralles heavily the experience of all the kid actors on the show. They have talked many times about how challenging it was to grow up in front of the world, and how weird it is when people still act surprised how grown up they are.
What if the ending reflects this phenomenon, essentially "liberating" the actors from their roles and releasing them into the "real world" outside of the show? That would certainly explain why they were so emotional and personally attached to the final script.
2. The TIME's cover / interview
The core "kids" were on the cover of TIME magazine in October and the shooting draws very direct visual parallels to the ending of "The Truman Show":
I also find it interesting that they are all dressed in grey during the interview when the show is essentially about the colourful eighties, but will come back to that point later.
3. Interviews
I don't remember what interview this was from exactly, but when asked where they think their characters would be in the future, Sadie replied with "She would be a mom" and Caleb said "He would be a soldier". Looking back, I find those answers a little strange, especially for a show that always wants to go against conformity. Max is always presented as a really independent woman, and while that doesn't contradict being a mother, the answer seems a little out of character to me. The whole show is also pretty anti-military, which makes me wonder why Lucas would like to be a soldier.
Are the actors also playing a role during the interviews, feeding certain narratives to the audience? This would be such a cool twist, as they would be essentially being the ones playing the audience, an audience that feels very entitled to them with how big the show has gotten. Might be too meta but I like the idea.
4. The cast's styling
I think it's interesting how a lot of the main cast's outfits is pretty formal attire, kind of similar to how they are dressed in the epilogue. This could be to underline that they are adults now, but I like the idea of it hinting at the twist of the forced conformity trope.
These are obviously just observations that can be purely coincidental, but I'm personally getting a feeling that we are being played by the cast, the Duffers, and even some narratives about them. It almost seems like they have taken certain roles to misguide us about stuff (Noah being the one to easily spoiler stuff, Millie acting disappointed about her ending in that one interview etc. etc.).
It would be an amazing twist to see that all this has been directly connected to the narrative of the show and its final big reveal. Let's see where this whole thing leads us, I can't wait for them to talk about it soon.
