Stranger Things: Season 1
Jul. 22nd, 2016 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreOk, it's time for me to attempt to articulate why Stranger Things got me to watch the entire first season in 1 sitting and has had me wanting to squeal out loud for the last week.
Stranger Things is the latest Netflix Original to drop. It's a gothic horror series set in a small town in 1983 feature scrappy teenaged monster hunters, evil government scientists and conspiracies, an androgynous psychic kid, teenaged douches and preadolescent bullies, shortwave radio and walkie talkies providing communications to other dimensions, people in other dimensions using lightbulbs to communicate with our world, and D&D loving kids who like to ride their bikes all over town, and a missing child. Winona Ryder was heavily put forth as a lead character, and with good season. Her name alone makes you think of 80s and 90s pop culture hits, and this is her first major role in years. She more than lives up to the hype, but while she plays one of the major characters and is one of the two most central adult characters (the other being David Harbour's sheriff Hopper) but the main focus of the series skews more to wards the teen and preteen characters.
The thing about Stranger Things that makes me love it is that it's a nostalgia show that isn't actually nostalgic. By which I mean, most nostalgia shows and movies are very aware of the nostalgia and are looking back on the nostalgic period, and the narrative itself has some awareness of the fact that it's looking back at a previous time period. Stranger Things doesn't do that. Instead of looking back on the 80s and drawing from them, it completely immerses itself in the 80s. It uses similar camera angles to 80s movies, the credits are 80s credits, everyone sacrifices their heads to poofs and mops, plaid and jackets are everywhere, and the soundtrack isn't "inspired by" the 80s or simply using 80s songs, it actually IS an 80s soundtrack. The only way it could possibly be more 80s than it already is would be if they were to reveal that it secretly IS an 80s show that has been amazingly remastered. Kids able to ride their bikes home at night without supervision? NORMAL. "BECAUSE COMMUNISM" to explain things? YEAH WE KNOW. Tabletop D&D games that have an entire basement devoted to them? WHAT KID DOESN'T HAVE IT? Having to go to a store to get things printed off? HOW ELSE WOULD YOU GET THEM IF YOU AREN'T RICH? Off the top of my head, the only real nod to an awareness that the show isn't taking place in the time it's set in is that some technology that is now obsolete or has changed so much that it's unrecognizable in its form from 30 years ago gets explained, but it gets explained to people who would have a logical reason not to be familiar with it. It's nostalgic because it crams every trope and reference to 80s (and sometimes 90s) horror, scifi and kid adventure movie in that it can, but it approaches it as "that's what people like to watch these days" not "these are what the oldies that were popular then" were like.
(Spoilers past this point, largely for the pilot, and things very heavily implied in the pilot)
Moving on, THE CHARACTERS:
First up, the PREADOLESCENTS BIKERIDING KIDS BRIGADE and the SCRAPPY MONSTERHUNTING TEENS:
Did you watch the movies with the slightly-outcast-but-the-things-that-make-them-outcasts-are-actually-supposed-to-be-cool group of 12-year-old boys who are always riding their bikes? Does one of the boys have an older sister/neighbor/babysitter/whatever who is dating The Douchebag? Does one of the other boys have a crush on her? Does yet another boy have an older brother/neighbor/whatever who is maybe nerdy and/or otherwise unpopular but still conventionally cute who ALSO has a crush on her, and we are clearly meant to want her to dump the douchebag for him? Is there a psychic being on the run from government goons? Do the bike riding kids try to get the psychic being to safety? Are multiple (often highly trained and experienced) adults somehow unable to contain and outsmart a group of 12-year-olds? Do teenagers raid a hardware store for monster hunting supplies? Are you confident that you watched a ton of these movies but cannot currently think of any except for E.T., The Goonies, and the Witch Mountain movies? If all this sound familiar, then YOU KNOW THESE CHARACTERS!
WILL: One of the bike riding kids who is the child that goes missing early on. Not around much, but a shy, sweet little boys who needs to not get killed by a creepy otherworldly creature.
MIKE, LUCAS and DUSTIN: The other bike riding kids. Cute and precocious 12-year-olds who are actually cute and precocious as opposed to overwhelmingly annoying. Have their noses in everything ever.
ELEVEN: The androgynous psychic girl who was raised in a lab and experimented on her whole life and is now on the run. She is a sweet child who deserves all the eggos she wants, but is figuring out things like morals and why you should kill people and how to talk in complete sentences, all due to the whole "raised in a lab and experimented on her whole life until about 2 minutes before the series starts" bit.
NANCY: Mike's older brother. Popular and pretty nerd who is currently trying to be A Different Kind Of Girl because she thinks that's what her boyfriend, Steve, wants. Would really appreciate it if strange things would stop happening so she can have her teenaged existential crisis in peace.
BARB: Nancy's BFF, not big on Nancy Changing For A Boy but determined to be a Good And Loyal Friend anyway.
JONATHAN: Will's older brother, has a crush on Nancy and is considered a weirdo. Would really appreciate it if people stopped talking about his family being weird and focused more on finding his missing brother. Preferably alive and well, and before his mother has a nervous breakdown.
(Sometimes) STEVE: Nancy's boyfriend, unclear as to whether or not he actually WANTS Nancy to reinvent herself to impress him, or is just too drunk on Popular Teen White Boy Privilege to notice the girl he likes is worried he doesn't like her the way he actually is. VERY much The Dochebag Boyfriend. HOWEVER, one of the two LEAST 80S THINGS about the series is that Steve actually has character growth and figures out he's been a douchebag and tries to fix it. For understandable and justifiable reasons, his redemption comes too little, too late for some, but it is there, and done in a pretty decent way.
THE SEMI-RESPONSIBLE ADULTS:
(This is where I start forgetting names, and I'm too lazy to look them up.)
JOYCE: Will and Jonathan's mom, AKA WINONA RYDER. Has possibly had nervous breakdowns in the past and just been dismissed as a hysterical female instead of given help. Buys all the Christmas lights in town because she's convinced her missing son is using them to communicate with her. Is doing her very best to be a Responsible Adult but it's hard to prioritize these things when your younger son has been abducted to another dimension and your older son is off...doing things...that you are concerned about but he's safe and here as opposed to abducted into another dimension.
SHERIFF HOPPER: Is in his tiny town in the middle of nowhere precisely to avoid being A Responsible Adult, but steps up once he realizes there really is a missing kid and is determined to find out what's going on. Has a Tragic Past and does an iffy thing towards the end.
LONG SUFFERING DEPUTIES: Apparently actually responsible and well meaning adults, but largely kept out of the loop and so unable to, you know, do much. Prone to speculating about whether or not Joyce and Hopper have ever Had A Thing, and unfortunately prone to ableist comments.
FAVORITEST TEACHER: Favorite teacher of the bike riding kids. Thinks nothing of giving precocious 12-year-olds who are acting suspicious the keys to the room that holds new and expensive equipment, and asks FAR too few questions when asked how to build a sensory-deprivation tank. Far more Indulgent Adult than Responsible Adult.
MIKE AND NANCY'S MOM: Is, in fact, a Responsible And Grounded Adult and no doubt would have helped keep people in order if she had a single clue what was going on besides kids being upset about missing friends.
THE VILLAINS:
EVIL MATTHEW MODINE: Evil Director of the Evil Facility that conducts Evil Experiments of psychic kids. Rocks the silver Fox Look though.
EVIL MATTHEW MODINE'S HENCHPEOPLE: There are a lot of them. They are very evil. The only one who is really distinguishable from the rest is the concerningly competent blonde hitwoman.
SCHOOLYARD BULLIES: Bane of the bikeriding kids' existence. In need of a lot of discipline and personality transplants.
(Sometimes) STEVE: I mean, he REALLY deserves the Douchebag Boyfriend title at times.
STEVE'S FRIENDS: Who are, in fact, total douchebags through and through, not to mention more bullies.
LONNIE: Joyce's ex and Will and Jonathan's father. Total douchebag and apparently a Deadbeat Dad. Apparently being a douchebag is something you never grow out of.
FREAKY OTHERWORLDLY CREATURE: It really, really is.
And that's the bulk of the cast and show.
Now for THE BAD:
1. THE FLASHING LIGHTS. Yes, I know they're totally 80s and I blathered about the show being good because IT'S SO 80S, but there are scenes with flashing lights in almost every episode, often lasting at least 30 seconds, sometimes several minutes. They went overboard.
2. There are racist, slutshaming, ableist and homophobic comments. Far fewer than I was braced for given the time period and the current tendency to Be Edgy That Way, and none of it is supported by the show at all, but it's there and it's unpleasant.
3. Some people have labeled the show as being aggressively heterosexual. I'm not sure I agree. There's a triangle among the teens that they show considers less important than most other things going on, and a bit of prepubescent crushing between eleven and one of the boys, both of which are standards for the movies the show is drawing from. There's speculation by the LONG SUFFERING DEPUTIES as to whether or not Joyve and Hopper were involved in the past, but within the established canon, there's only a somewhat unsteady friendship and wroking together to save kids. (I mean, I suspect fanon will have a field day with them once more people have watched the show, but the canon is too busy for that.) so,m yes, what's canon is heterosexual, but, IMO, there's a lot less of it than what you'd expect, and what is there is there because of genre standards. THAT SAID, one of the very few protagonist deaths in the series is that of a character who could very easily be interpretted as gay or bisexual, and none of us are really willing to be very forgiving of that.
4. It's really, really white. One of the Long Suffereing Deputies is black, as is Lucas. There's a black girl in the boys' class and none of the three appear to be related, meaning that along with Steve's character growth, the LEAST 80S THING in the series is that there appear to be an entire 3 black families in town, as opposed to the few black characters being related. That said, Lucas is given less development than Mike and Dustin, and is briefly presented as antagonistic. In addition, LONG SUFFERING DEPUTY makes a number of ableist comments about Joyce's mental health and Lucas is mean to and suspicious of Eleven because he thinks she's a danger to the group bromance. In both cases, the black man/boy is being used as a prop to make the white woman/girl more sympathetic. Which, frankly, isn't needed as I think someone would have to be trying really, really hard to not wholly sympathize with Joyce or Eleven. The female classmate had no lines as far as I know, the the only other line I recall a POC having is FAVORITEST TEACHER's wife or girlfriend say something when one of the kids called him.
5. I cannot stress the flashing lights and strobe warning enough.
6. And, I mean, FREAKY OTHERWORLDLY CREATURE really is freaky and disturbing? I think I saw a few comments on tumblr that people found it to be a bit too much so.
YMMV with all of that. If you like 80s stuff, gothic horror, small town mysteries or Adventurous Kids and Teens, then you'll probably like the show. I don't know if Netflix has made any announcement yet for a second season, but it has an open ending that both wraps things up in a way I found satisfying, and gives strong hints about what the second season will be about, if there is one.
Stranger Things is the latest Netflix Original to drop. It's a gothic horror series set in a small town in 1983 feature scrappy teenaged monster hunters, evil government scientists and conspiracies, an androgynous psychic kid, teenaged douches and preadolescent bullies, shortwave radio and walkie talkies providing communications to other dimensions, people in other dimensions using lightbulbs to communicate with our world, and D&D loving kids who like to ride their bikes all over town, and a missing child. Winona Ryder was heavily put forth as a lead character, and with good season. Her name alone makes you think of 80s and 90s pop culture hits, and this is her first major role in years. She more than lives up to the hype, but while she plays one of the major characters and is one of the two most central adult characters (the other being David Harbour's sheriff Hopper) but the main focus of the series skews more to wards the teen and preteen characters.
The thing about Stranger Things that makes me love it is that it's a nostalgia show that isn't actually nostalgic. By which I mean, most nostalgia shows and movies are very aware of the nostalgia and are looking back on the nostalgic period, and the narrative itself has some awareness of the fact that it's looking back at a previous time period. Stranger Things doesn't do that. Instead of looking back on the 80s and drawing from them, it completely immerses itself in the 80s. It uses similar camera angles to 80s movies, the credits are 80s credits, everyone sacrifices their heads to poofs and mops, plaid and jackets are everywhere, and the soundtrack isn't "inspired by" the 80s or simply using 80s songs, it actually IS an 80s soundtrack. The only way it could possibly be more 80s than it already is would be if they were to reveal that it secretly IS an 80s show that has been amazingly remastered. Kids able to ride their bikes home at night without supervision? NORMAL. "BECAUSE COMMUNISM" to explain things? YEAH WE KNOW. Tabletop D&D games that have an entire basement devoted to them? WHAT KID DOESN'T HAVE IT? Having to go to a store to get things printed off? HOW ELSE WOULD YOU GET THEM IF YOU AREN'T RICH? Off the top of my head, the only real nod to an awareness that the show isn't taking place in the time it's set in is that some technology that is now obsolete or has changed so much that it's unrecognizable in its form from 30 years ago gets explained, but it gets explained to people who would have a logical reason not to be familiar with it. It's nostalgic because it crams every trope and reference to 80s (and sometimes 90s) horror, scifi and kid adventure movie in that it can, but it approaches it as "that's what people like to watch these days" not "these are what the oldies that were popular then" were like.
(Spoilers past this point, largely for the pilot, and things very heavily implied in the pilot)
Moving on, THE CHARACTERS:
First up, the PREADOLESCENTS BIKERIDING KIDS BRIGADE and the SCRAPPY MONSTERHUNTING TEENS:
Did you watch the movies with the slightly-outcast-but-the-things-that-make-them-outcasts-are-actually-supposed-to-be-cool group of 12-year-old boys who are always riding their bikes? Does one of the boys have an older sister/neighbor/babysitter/whatever who is dating The Douchebag? Does one of the other boys have a crush on her? Does yet another boy have an older brother/neighbor/whatever who is maybe nerdy and/or otherwise unpopular but still conventionally cute who ALSO has a crush on her, and we are clearly meant to want her to dump the douchebag for him? Is there a psychic being on the run from government goons? Do the bike riding kids try to get the psychic being to safety? Are multiple (often highly trained and experienced) adults somehow unable to contain and outsmart a group of 12-year-olds? Do teenagers raid a hardware store for monster hunting supplies? Are you confident that you watched a ton of these movies but cannot currently think of any except for E.T., The Goonies, and the Witch Mountain movies? If all this sound familiar, then YOU KNOW THESE CHARACTERS!
WILL: One of the bike riding kids who is the child that goes missing early on. Not around much, but a shy, sweet little boys who needs to not get killed by a creepy otherworldly creature.
MIKE, LUCAS and DUSTIN: The other bike riding kids. Cute and precocious 12-year-olds who are actually cute and precocious as opposed to overwhelmingly annoying. Have their noses in everything ever.
ELEVEN: The androgynous psychic girl who was raised in a lab and experimented on her whole life and is now on the run. She is a sweet child who deserves all the eggos she wants, but is figuring out things like morals and why you should kill people and how to talk in complete sentences, all due to the whole "raised in a lab and experimented on her whole life until about 2 minutes before the series starts" bit.
NANCY: Mike's older brother. Popular and pretty nerd who is currently trying to be A Different Kind Of Girl because she thinks that's what her boyfriend, Steve, wants. Would really appreciate it if strange things would stop happening so she can have her teenaged existential crisis in peace.
BARB: Nancy's BFF, not big on Nancy Changing For A Boy but determined to be a Good And Loyal Friend anyway.
JONATHAN: Will's older brother, has a crush on Nancy and is considered a weirdo. Would really appreciate it if people stopped talking about his family being weird and focused more on finding his missing brother. Preferably alive and well, and before his mother has a nervous breakdown.
(Sometimes) STEVE: Nancy's boyfriend, unclear as to whether or not he actually WANTS Nancy to reinvent herself to impress him, or is just too drunk on Popular Teen White Boy Privilege to notice the girl he likes is worried he doesn't like her the way he actually is. VERY much The Dochebag Boyfriend. HOWEVER, one of the two LEAST 80S THINGS about the series is that Steve actually has character growth and figures out he's been a douchebag and tries to fix it. For understandable and justifiable reasons, his redemption comes too little, too late for some, but it is there, and done in a pretty decent way.
THE SEMI-RESPONSIBLE ADULTS:
(This is where I start forgetting names, and I'm too lazy to look them up.)
JOYCE: Will and Jonathan's mom, AKA WINONA RYDER. Has possibly had nervous breakdowns in the past and just been dismissed as a hysterical female instead of given help. Buys all the Christmas lights in town because she's convinced her missing son is using them to communicate with her. Is doing her very best to be a Responsible Adult but it's hard to prioritize these things when your younger son has been abducted to another dimension and your older son is off...doing things...that you are concerned about but he's safe and here as opposed to abducted into another dimension.
SHERIFF HOPPER: Is in his tiny town in the middle of nowhere precisely to avoid being A Responsible Adult, but steps up once he realizes there really is a missing kid and is determined to find out what's going on. Has a Tragic Past and does an iffy thing towards the end.
LONG SUFFERING DEPUTIES: Apparently actually responsible and well meaning adults, but largely kept out of the loop and so unable to, you know, do much. Prone to speculating about whether or not Joyce and Hopper have ever Had A Thing, and unfortunately prone to ableist comments.
FAVORITEST TEACHER: Favorite teacher of the bike riding kids. Thinks nothing of giving precocious 12-year-olds who are acting suspicious the keys to the room that holds new and expensive equipment, and asks FAR too few questions when asked how to build a sensory-deprivation tank. Far more Indulgent Adult than Responsible Adult.
MIKE AND NANCY'S MOM: Is, in fact, a Responsible And Grounded Adult and no doubt would have helped keep people in order if she had a single clue what was going on besides kids being upset about missing friends.
THE VILLAINS:
EVIL MATTHEW MODINE: Evil Director of the Evil Facility that conducts Evil Experiments of psychic kids. Rocks the silver Fox Look though.
EVIL MATTHEW MODINE'S HENCHPEOPLE: There are a lot of them. They are very evil. The only one who is really distinguishable from the rest is the concerningly competent blonde hitwoman.
SCHOOLYARD BULLIES: Bane of the bikeriding kids' existence. In need of a lot of discipline and personality transplants.
(Sometimes) STEVE: I mean, he REALLY deserves the Douchebag Boyfriend title at times.
STEVE'S FRIENDS: Who are, in fact, total douchebags through and through, not to mention more bullies.
LONNIE: Joyce's ex and Will and Jonathan's father. Total douchebag and apparently a Deadbeat Dad. Apparently being a douchebag is something you never grow out of.
FREAKY OTHERWORLDLY CREATURE: It really, really is.
And that's the bulk of the cast and show.
Now for THE BAD:
1. THE FLASHING LIGHTS. Yes, I know they're totally 80s and I blathered about the show being good because IT'S SO 80S, but there are scenes with flashing lights in almost every episode, often lasting at least 30 seconds, sometimes several minutes. They went overboard.
2. There are racist, slutshaming, ableist and homophobic comments. Far fewer than I was braced for given the time period and the current tendency to Be Edgy That Way, and none of it is supported by the show at all, but it's there and it's unpleasant.
3. Some people have labeled the show as being aggressively heterosexual. I'm not sure I agree. There's a triangle among the teens that they show considers less important than most other things going on, and a bit of prepubescent crushing between eleven and one of the boys, both of which are standards for the movies the show is drawing from. There's speculation by the LONG SUFFERING DEPUTIES as to whether or not Joyve and Hopper were involved in the past, but within the established canon, there's only a somewhat unsteady friendship and wroking together to save kids. (I mean, I suspect fanon will have a field day with them once more people have watched the show, but the canon is too busy for that.) so,m yes, what's canon is heterosexual, but, IMO, there's a lot less of it than what you'd expect, and what is there is there because of genre standards. THAT SAID, one of the very few protagonist deaths in the series is that of a character who could very easily be interpretted as gay or bisexual, and none of us are really willing to be very forgiving of that.
4. It's really, really white. One of the Long Suffereing Deputies is black, as is Lucas. There's a black girl in the boys' class and none of the three appear to be related, meaning that along with Steve's character growth, the LEAST 80S THING in the series is that there appear to be an entire 3 black families in town, as opposed to the few black characters being related. That said, Lucas is given less development than Mike and Dustin, and is briefly presented as antagonistic. In addition, LONG SUFFERING DEPUTY makes a number of ableist comments about Joyce's mental health and Lucas is mean to and suspicious of Eleven because he thinks she's a danger to the group bromance. In both cases, the black man/boy is being used as a prop to make the white woman/girl more sympathetic. Which, frankly, isn't needed as I think someone would have to be trying really, really hard to not wholly sympathize with Joyce or Eleven. The female classmate had no lines as far as I know, the the only other line I recall a POC having is FAVORITEST TEACHER's wife or girlfriend say something when one of the kids called him.
5. I cannot stress the flashing lights and strobe warning enough.
6. And, I mean, FREAKY OTHERWORLDLY CREATURE really is freaky and disturbing? I think I saw a few comments on tumblr that people found it to be a bit too much so.
YMMV with all of that. If you like 80s stuff, gothic horror, small town mysteries or Adventurous Kids and Teens, then you'll probably like the show. I don't know if Netflix has made any announcement yet for a second season, but it has an open ending that both wraps things up in a way I found satisfying, and gives strong hints about what the second season will be about, if there is one.
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