tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3939909775405220345.post5965883732905697517..comments2024-03-01T10:16:11.283-08:00Comments on AmericanStudies: November 19-23, 2016: Jeff Renye on Stranger Things: The New Weird Made Old?AmericanStudierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06483077716534996778noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3939909775405220345.post-27724912533991122242019-03-11T13:05:48.128-07:002019-03-11T13:05:48.128-07:00The parallels that the author draws between the te...The parallels that the author draws between the television series Stranger Things, and the famous weird literature texts we have been discussing is astonishing. I find it incredibly interesting how the themes we discussed in weird literature are rudimentary in constructing the satisfying terror that Stranger Things does so well. One can clearly see that much of the success this show has garnered is thanks to the much older tales of early 19th century writers, and the shoulders that it could perch its narrative on.<br /><br />The author of the blog talks about the Great God Pan, and how Machen was “living creators of cosmic fear raised to its most artistic pitch... few if any can hope to equal the versatile Arthur Machen…in which the elements of hidden horror and brooding fright attain an almost incomparable substance and realistic acuteness.” One of the many things that Stranger Things does so well is its strong ties to cosmic horror and the unfathomable powers that the genre entails. It pulls from Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan by begin with an experiment gone wrong, and imbuing a test subject with other worldly information. Mary is very similar to the protagonist Eleven, in the ways that they were both products of an experiment that changed them from regular human beings to the supernatural at certain costs. Mary’s brain was overloading with the divine powers of pan, while Eleven was given her abilities from a similar experiment but at the cost of ostracization and proceeding danger. As someone who hasn’t even seen the show, it is still very easy to discern the influences from the old in the modern day show.<br /><br />The blog also touches upon the comfortable nostalgia that Stranger Things pulls from its 80’s predecessors. I believe one of the main reasons that Stranger Things is so successful is not through its originality, but through its clever recycling of old and esoteric techniques of terror. Through its pull of 19th century influences and ideas, Stranger Things reconstructs an engaging, truly scary, narrative that its both familiar and refreshing. As it builds off of the works of Lovecraft and other weird literature poets, it gets its sense of terror right in ways that other contemporary works of horror simply do not. Stranger Things doesn’t look at the fear of the modern day produced by cheap jump scares and thrills, but rather learns from Lovecraftian and Machan styles, bringing its audience back to what true fear really is.<br />River Mageehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09764397014939706817noreply@blogger.com