In an unusual move for the secretive streaming service, Netflix recently revealed how many people watched season three of Stranger Things in just it’s first week. After we picked our jaws up off the floor, we found ourselves asking exactly why we love Hawkins, Indiana and the people who live there so damn much?
Let’s be honest, as much as we enjoy it we have to admit Stranger Things isn’t the most original property on the streaming block. We’ve seen a lot of the plot points before and the storytelling is pretty straight forward. The FX are fairly standard and the cast doesn’t boast any current or (likely) future Oscar winners to dazzle us with their talents. So what is it about the gang from Hawkins and the hijinks they constantly find themselves in that keep us so enthralled? Especially when our notoriously anemic attention spans sometimes have to wait months or even years between seasons?
Look no further than your favourite photo album. Or history book.
The secret of Stranger Thing’s success became apparent when Netflix and show creators the Duffer brothers dropped the first teaser trailer for season three around a year ago. It showcased Starcourt Mall, Hawkins shiny new (and cheesy) citadel of capitalism. If you didn’t know why you loved Stranger Thing’s before seeing the teaser, it was definitely a eureka moment.
Do a few clever Youtube searches and you’ll discover that shopping malls really did make cheesy commercials to run on local television stations (and yes, despite the usual contempt for teenagers, the adolescent presence was considered proof that whatever you were advertising was both cool and successful). But the true genius behind the trailer was featuring a handful of once popular retail chains that have since gone the way of the dodo.
Flashing Radio Shack, Sam Goody and Waldenbooks really sold the journey into the past (it’s too bad they didn’t know about Toys “R” Us before shooting the teaser). It caught a lot of people’s attention and even more people’s interest.
Because in the end, when you watch Stranger Things you’re either swallowing a pill of pure, concentrated nostalgia or getting in a time machine and travelling to the storied 80’s, the immortal pop culture vampire that refuses to die no matter how many stakes we drive through its heart.
The entire show is crafted from the ground up to be a twisted trip down memory lane and a shameless love letter to the decade we just can’t seem to escape. The story draws inspiration from eighties classics like Christine, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, Poltergeist, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goonies and others. Season three even had a dash of War Games thrown in for good measure. Not only is the soundtrack a buffet of 80’s chart topping hits, but the background music feels like its straight out of a Stephen King adaptation. Even the fonts the show uses is an homage to the time period.
But it isn’t just the cinematic smorgasbord that the makes the show the definition of a cult hit. The Duffers and their fellow producers capture the spirit of the time as well. Whether it’s the fashion and hairstyles (or lack thereof) to the toys (how many people nearly fell off their chairs when Eleven casually levitated an original Millennium Falcon in season one?) to the politics of paranoia (everyone was seeing Russian plots everywhere, the growing fear of and contempt for science can be seen in today’s flat-earth society and anti-vaxxer movement and the idea that Dungeons & Dragons was corrupting the world’s youth with Satanism was an actual thing).
It even embraces the economics of the day. While the culture of greed and “more at any cost” was beginning to hit its stride during the eighties (Wall Street hit the decade running and didn’t stop until the next recession), it was also a time when a single mom working full time at the general store could support herself and two sons. That Bob-Joyce’s (short lived) boyfriend from season 2-was able to support his bachelor lifestyle (complete with car) working full time at Radio Shack was not a stretch. Make no mistake, they weren’t rolling in the green, but they did alright.
The fact that the shopping centre (which was a boon of North American social and economic culture) started putting main street out of business was spot on. Before there was Amazon, there was the mall.
There are plenty of other little touches that complete the nostalgia tapestry. Opening season two with the guys scrounging up as many quarters as they could to blow in the new arcade was a brilliant touch. Going as Ghostbusters for Hallowe’en during the same season was equally genius. For any middle class kid, the best stretch of the year was between Hallowe’en and Christmas (where the first two seasons took place). Wrapping both seasons up with amusing Christmas scenes was brilliant.
The other great time to be a kid? Summer vacation, where season three just happens to unravel. Watching the kids fearlessly stomp through their adventures during summer probably reminded a lot of us of the gang from Scooby-Doo.
Starring the likes of Winona Rider, Sean Astin, Matthew Modine, Paul Reiser, Jake Busey and Cary Elwes-eighties veterans of both the small and silver screens-is casting at its brilliant finest.
Throw in a copy of the Sears Christmas Wish Book and some Saturday morning cartoons and Stranger Things would practically be an eighties museum.
Watching kids who enjoy a rare chemistry with each other grow up and mature on screen (encountering all the regular trials and tribulations alongside their supernatural adventures) makes them genuinely feel like family. And it allows our escape into a decadent decade that’s been over for nearly thirty years that much easier.
For better or worse, the eighties are built into our collective DNA. You either lived through/survived them or have spent a good deal of your life hearing about them ad nauseam (either from various family members or from countless documentaries, nostalgic reboots and movie marathons on TV). Stranger Things‘ greatest success is how easily and convincingly it dons the skin of an entire decade, right down to the smell of its sweat.
Ask yourself; would the show work half as well or be nearly as popular if it took place in the nineties?
And this Neverending Story duet between Dustin and his girlfriend Suzie was the perfect storytelling cherry on top of the perfect 80’s sundae.
Image via Forbes.com
