#and other very talented analysts have made their own posts about mike in the van that you should check out if you wanna hear more about tha

[pinkeoni]

...but what was Will really saying in the van?

This a post a year after the fact, when post people have already said what needs to be said, but you know what!! This is my blog and I can say whatever I want.

Will talking about himself and using El as a guise is pretty obvious. The handful of people who say that it really was from El are few and far between. El doesn't gaf about DnD, she's not even in the painting, and she even told Mike herself that she didn't know what Will was making.

Whether or not Mike actually believed Will's lie is something that I'm personally on the fence about, but I'm not talking about him today! There are plenty of great Mike posts about this if you want a Mike analysis.

The cinematography supports this as well. At the start of the scene, Will is established on the left side of the frame, and Mike is on the right. When Will tells Mike that El commissioned the painting, we get a shot of the mirror where they swap places.

The switching of frame placement suggests that something is off, and mirrors in film can be used to show deception. The shot supports the idea that Will is not being fully truthful, which is backed up by what we already know. Each mirror shot is also prompted by a shot of Jonathan, suggesting that this is always from his point of view. We also know that he was able to see through Will's lie, so that supports this idea.

But we don't get the entire monologue from this angle, because really Will isn't entirely lying, he's just lying about whose feelings it really is.

It's no secret that the painting is an expression of Will's love for his friends, but also his romantic feelings for Mike. The positioning of the painting itself as a phallus (take a shot every time I've said "phallus" in a recent analysis) displays this in the visual language of the show along with the written one.

I think that gender and the use of pronouns is important here. Will states the entire monologue using "she" and "her" and places El in the place of himself. So what he's essentially saying "My sexuality is a wonderful thing that can bring both of us joy, but only if comes from a girl." In context Mike seems specifically anxious about El so Will is reassuring him from that angle, but it also stands that Will doesn't see his sexuality and feelings as good enough to cure an ailing Mike.

There was scriptgate and the infamous "I hate who I am" line which everyone remembers where they were for, but when the scripts were said to be fake, this line seemed to no longer hold any weight within the fandom and was widely disregarded. He loves himself, actually!

But legitimacy of the script aside, does this line still ring true? Even if it were real, a unspoken internal dialogue in an action line doesn't matter unless the show actually expresses it. So do they?

After all Will said it himself, "you make [me] feel like [I'm] not a mistake at all. Like [I'm] better for being different." So that must be how he feels, right? And yet—

—he doesn't really look like someone proud of his sexuality, does he?

I find the idea that Will doesn't suffer from any internalized homophobia rather absurd. It's definitely informed by external homophobia, but it would be different if Will fought back, but instead we see time and time again Will turning his pain inward. "Zombie Boy" leads to "It just makes me feel like more of a freak." and "It's not my fault you don't like girls" leads to the destruction of Castle Byers. I know that that line is informed by Mike's internal projection and might not be intended to be homophobic, although the statement still is homophobic despite intent. If Will knows he is gay and just heard that from his friend, of course he's going to take it that way. We see a little bit of Will standing up for himself, although this usually results in Will apologizing or not accepting apologies from others even when he deserves it. The bedroom scene in Dear Billy is a big step forward because not only does Mike apologize and assert that Will wasn't in the wrong, but Will actually listens.

It is true that Will accepts that he is gay and doesn't seem to fight it, although as others have pointed out, this doesn't necessarily mean that Will is necessarily proud of who he is. The van scene is just another example of Will taking that external pain and forcing it inward. There is likely to be consequences resulting from his lie that affects all three of them, but Will has decided to go a route that (he believes) will benefit Mike and El and only cause himself pain.

Look at this way. Let's say that Will hadn't lied about the painting being from El, that he was totally honest about the painting coming from him, but Mike didn't understand it as a romantic gesture. Not only would this not really make sense, and require Mike to be a level of oblivious on an absurd level, but it would also communicate something completely different. The new meaning would be this: Will is proud of his sexuality and able to take ownership of it, and the trouble comes from Mike not understanding. The conflict is now completely external.

I've seen debate on whether or not Mike really did understand what Will was saying although I think that's beside the point. If Mike did understand that Will was talking about himself, then this was not communicated to Will. The above scenario leads the conflict to be solely relieved by Mike finally understanding, and while there is surely to still be an external conflict between Will and Mike, Will's conflict of sexuality remains to be internal. Even if Mike did tell Will that he knew it was from him, this wouldn't necessarily solve Will's problem. The remedy to Will's internal conflict can only come from himself, by being able to proudly put his name to his painting.