Did the pandemic end? This super-popular Netflix series, which I heard about from a number of uncommon sources, promised more of TV's blessed relief from the monotony of COVID-19 conditions. Alas, it did not much deliver for me. And COVID-19 conditions have only grown worse. The show, or the pandemic, is so humdrum it was hard to work myself up even to watch two episodes in a row, and that's no way to pandemic. Stranger Things is a nostalgia exercise set in the '80s with outlandish horror trappings driven by special effects. The most obvious sources are Ghostbusters and Back to the Future, both referenced directly. There's got to be some Steven Spielberg shout-outs on the way (or maybe they can't get the licensing done?) because Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. are even more the starting points of many conceits here. Stranger Things is also notably '80s and Spielbergian in its wanton use of product placement. Eggos is hammered the hardest but at least has some organic charm within the story. The rest are shoved in like Where's Waldo geared down for preliterates: Coca-Cola (as refreshment but also with a discussion of New Coke), Slurpee and 7-Eleven (the main character with the stylized nosebleed is named Eleven but I'm sure that's just a coincidence, though I look forward to her mixing it up sometime with Seven of Nine from Star Trek not to mention that Prisoner chap), Burger King, The Gap, Cadillac, Orange Julius (can I get some money just for mentioning them all in this review? I really like an Orange Julius!), and Marlboro cigarettes, among others. The pack of Marlboros almost made me gasp. I thought that was illegal with tobacco products! No doubt some of it, such as the cigarettes (and the smoking, with all due disclaimers at the start of each episode), can be written off as '80s parody, but talk about having your cake and eating it too. Well, but having its cake and eating it too is the whole broad stroke of this show. It's a little bit Nancy Drew, and a little bit John Carpenter's The Thing, with an ax to grind about nerds. Not nerd macho, the era we have lived in for some time now, but old-fashioned nerds, who can only dream of the dominations of nerd macho in the actual Stranger Things era. Winona Ryder plays it on one note while the kids in the basement are playing D'n'D, speaking of broad strokes. Is D'n'D a product placement or a nerd brand? Somehow, the absurd arc of this continuing narrative about Area 51-type secret government projects, extra-dimensional telepathic monsters, Russian agents operating under a mall in Indiana, and always time for a Coke the pause that refreshes, is actually driven by D'n'D, at least when it's convenient for the special effects crew, who seem to be the ones in charge here after the marketing department. The skills of these kids in math, science, and AV equipment are critically important too, of course. And plus they're all basically woke. What's not to like, if you like thuddingly obvious.
Savage pan. ST is w/out a doubt shameless, Spielbergian,'80s nostalgia porn. It's so period precious, in fact, I'd suggest it zooms in on only six years, from Close Encounters/'77 to War Games/'83, a window that includes the first three extra kitschy Star Wars flicks. And I like your product placement riff. Also, good point ab the nerd adolescence in the series being pre-"nerd macho." But that's also partly why I think it works as family movie fare. They face monsters, conspiracies, real and imagined, and they get through it all w the help of each other, they endure, even if in scarred, mutated, reconfigured family forms. Do we know they will survive, overcome, b/f the story begins? Yes. That's what family fare is supposed to do.
ReplyDeleteIt's true I struggle with family fare (e.g., most of Disney) but I like it when it's done well and accordingly I can forgive the excesses of Spielberg and his disciples (from Abrams to Zemeckis). But they do have to make it, you know, entertaining, and I never got that from Stranger Things, after three seasons and some 25 or 26 hours. I could have watched Satantango three times instead!
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