Branded Cigarette Depictions in Season 1 of Stranger Things
Set in the early-mid 1980s, Stranger Things depicts the adventures of four teenage boys, Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Will (Noah Schnapp), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo). They befriend Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), a girl with telekinetic abilities who has just recently escaped from a secret laboratory run by the United States government. The kids, with the help of Will's mother and the police chief, Jim Hopper reveal the existence of a hidden portal in the laboratory's basement that opens to the "Upside Down," a dangerous, monster-infested dimension of their Indiana hometown. The main creative force behind the series are Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer, aka the Duffer Brothers.
Season 1, Episode 1
Character development. This is the sequence that introduces the adult male protagonist of the series, the town's police chief, Jim Hopper (David Harbour). He wakes up in his dilapidated trailer after an all-night bender--the first thing he does is he lights up. He also smokes in the bathroom while getting ready for work. In his next scene, he walks into the police station with a cigarette dangling from his lips--his motherly secretary finally puts an end to the smoking spree by taking the cigarette away. Soon, the audience will find out that his choice of brand is regular, aka unfiltered, Camel.
Character development. The female adult protagonist, Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder), whose son Will has gone missing, waits for Hopper in his office at the sheriff station. To illustrate her state of mind, the Duffer Brothers make her smoke nervously. She smokes Camel Lights, the feminized version of Camel Filter. There is a small discrepancy here as Camel Lights had a cork tip in the mid 1980s. In tobacco industry symbolism, cork tip usually meant strong flavor, and white tip mildness. Camel Lights was an exception--a mild cigarette with a cork tip. By giving Joyce Camel Lights with a white filter, the Duffer Brothers may have wanted to soften Joyce's tomboy image. Or, they simply made a mistake, which would be strange considering the creators' penchant for historical accuracy.
Season 1, Episode 2
Acting aid. The next morning, Will is still missing. Joyce smokes nervously at the breakfast table as his older son Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) tries to placate her.
Character development. During a conversation with Jonathan in front of the Byers home, Hopper lights up a regular Camel. The brand was presumably chosen by the creators to underline Hopper's important character traits: 1) Masculinity: he is a battle-hardened veteran of the Vietnam War who can handle all types of weapons and excels in hand-to-hand combat. Unfiltered Camel was at that point the strongest member in the Camel family. 2) Contempt of his own middle-class status that comes with his job: Camel, in general, skewed toward older, male, less educated, blue-collar smokers in the 1980s. 3) Nihilism: It is not just that Hopper, a functioning alcoholic, chain-smokes, but he chain-smokes an unfiltered brand. Because they were regarded as more dangerous than filter cigarettes, by the mid 1980s, the combined market share of unfiltered cigarettes in the United States was a minuscule 2.5 percent.
Verisimilitude. Back inside the Byers home, the scene opens on a medium close-up on a radio with Camel Lights pack and an ashtray nearby. Open cigarette packs, and other smoking paraphernalia such as lighters, and strategically placed ashtrays are common occurrences in people's home who smoke.
Season 1, Episode 3
Acting aid. Joyce fiddles with her Camel Lights pack as Karen Wheeler (Cara Buono), the mother of Will's best friend, Finn, visits.
Season 1 Episode 4
Character reinforcement. Hopper smokes a regular Camel in a bar. In the first three seasons, he is hardly seen without smoking a cigarette.
Season 1, Episode 5
Character reinforcement. Hopper's coffee table of doom. A regular Camel pack is prominently displayed along with empty beer cans, a bourbon bottle, and suspicious looking blue and maroon-blue soft-capsule pills.
Season 1, Episode 6
Action prop. Joyce and Hopper smoke together in her kitchen, a recurring occurrence in the series, symbolizing camaraderie and conveying their growing affection toward each other. Here, they plot to pay a visit to Eleven's Aunt.
Character development. Eleven' Aunt, a frustrated working-class woman, who cares for Eleven's disabled mother, smokes Camel Lights like Joyce. Her cigarette filter, however, has the historically right color.
Season 1, Episode 8
Action prop. Here, Hopper's Camels are used as a confidence building measure in the "truce" negotiation after he and Joyce are captured trespassing in the secret laboratory. Threatened with execution, Hopper makes a last-ditch proposal for an agreement. Signaling his willingness to entertain the offer, the head of the laboratory (Matthew Modine) enters the makeshift interrogation room, and without uttering a word, hands Hopper the pack of Camels the arresting officers presumably took away from him. Hopper lights up and the two thrash out a deal.
Aesthetic choice. After visiting a recuperating Will in the hospital--following an action-packed battle with the monster, the missing kid is finally rescued--Hopper is shown smoking in a dramatic, lowkey shot with the glowing ember in the center of the frame.
Smoking as narrative bookends. In the traditional Hollywood storytelling structure, after the climax, the equilibrium needs to be restored. The easiest way to convey the return of normalcy is to repeat a routine activity that took place in the setup before the conflict was introduced. At the end of Episode 8, just like at the beginning of Episode 1, Hopper arrives at the station with a cigarette dangling from his lips. His secretary performs the same action as two months--and seven episodes--earlier: she plucks the cigarette gently from Hopper's lips and puts it out in an ashtray.