ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates how Stranger Things uses its period setting and borrowed genre aesthetics to explore a number of sociocultural anxieties. Much of the discourse that surrounds the show focuses on its nostalgic references as a means of generic reassurance. Stranger Things, cleverly subverts the Other to establish Eleven as an analogue for E. T.—a unifying force. Through its narrative allusions to Poltergeist, Stranger Things reveals an intention to echo the earlier film's scathing indictment of unchecked capitalism. In addition to Spielberg, Stranger Things is also heavily indebted to another bastion of 1980s pop-culture: Stephen King. In its allusions to It and its television adaptation, Stranger Things critiques social conservatism via its depiction of a malevolent entity with a particular appetite for children. Both Stranger Things and It subvert these ideologies in a number of ways. Stranger Things utilizes the concept through the Demogorgon—a creature that functions as a clear metaphor for adult conformity.
