Stranger Things is All Too Familiar

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I mean look at that jacket. Did you have one just like? Pretty sure I did.

The costume design of Stranger Things struck me right away. This isn’t the usual Hollywood version of a prettied-up 80’s. No, this is the 1984 I remember, the one still stained by the lingering brown-orange hues of the 70’s. The tacky 80’s. The awful wide-wale corduroys, the plaid ruffle blouses.

(Very mild spoilers follow.)

At first, I was swept away by the visual feast the show offered. Every detail was so painstakingly recreated that it distracted me from a lot of other things. But what makes the show so wonderful is also, in my opinion, its greatest weaknesses — its strict adherence to the 80’s vernacular, in both style and substance.

After three or so episodes, I had the oddest sense of claustrophobia. Perhaps it’s different for people who didn’t grow up in the era. But for me, it was like living in a prism of the past from which there’s no relief. This feeling actually works very well, from a story perspective. The show, at least in its first act, is about being trapped. Will is trapped in the — whatever dimension he’s in, Joyce is trapped by the fact no one believes her, Nancy is trapped by both society’s expectations of a sweet young girl and also by her own (misguided) feelings for Steve, and Eleven is trapped, even as she’s escaped her physical prison, by the trauma of what’s been done to her. So this sense of feeling compressed on all sides by the rigid aesthetics of the production design is appropriate.

But that’s also where the show stops being compelling, to me at least. I’ve already lived through this. I already know what will happen. I’ve watched enough Spielberg, read enough Steven King. I can see where the perspective lines lead. And it’s a place that doesn’t feel fresh or new or exciting or, frankly, interesting to me. The show unfortunately replicates many of the same weaknesses of its inspiration material without critical examination of its sources. As an example, take the makeover sequence, which transforms an oddball, powerful, complex female character into a mute Cinderella who reinforces the atavistic idea that all a girl wants, really, is to be pretty to boys’ eyes.

And how on earth Mike knows the intricacies of powder and lip gloss is never explained.
Just how Mike knows the intricacies of powder and lip gloss is never explained.

In effect the show re-imprisons Eleven into heteronormative and rigidly gendered ideas of what a girl “should” look like, and Eleven willingly goes along with this because she yearns for acceptance. It’s a trite trope and Stranger Things does not offer a new perspective on it. The show is actually not that “strange” at all, but fits itself very neatly into a box that was built for it three decades ago.

Isn’t it time we smashed that box?

One Reply to “Stranger Things is All Too Familiar”

  1. I agree with a lot of this, Jane, though tbh my memories lean a little more late 80s than the show takes place. I was looking for it to be stranger, too, and have more of the fantasy/horror than it did – especially in the front end of the series. The ending was also a little underwhelming, though ultimately, maybe this “book” is just set up for the sequel.

    That said, speaking more specifically to the content here — seeing Nancy with her trapper keeper? It solicited an immediate hard core flashback. I had a grey one with a floppy eared bunny on it and seeing her carrying it took me back to every detail including the *smell* of the thing. I had been so excited to get one – because I probably didn’t need it in first grade, but all the big kids had one – that it became one of my prized possessions. I might even have it stuffed away somewhere. I’ll have to look…

    Anyway. The flashback was so strange. That smell…

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