“Nostalgia is an illness for those who haven’t realized that today is tomorrow’s nostalgia.”
—Zeena Schreck
Upon watching this third season of Stranger Things (2019), I began to notice that only the adults that listened to the kids were of any consequence. They didn’t wax philosophical about their eras. Hopper didn’t prattle on and on about Led Zeppelin.
And something hit me, is this show using nostalgia to condemn it?
For starters if Eggo Waffles, Saturday morning cartoons, and neon lit arcades were people, they’d resemble me (see pic). And admittedly I’m a lil off.
“Holy shit, did you just make a He-Man reference ?”
“Your observations didn’t age well … you didn’t age well.”
People shouldn’t be entitled to the thirty year cycles that media often indulges in. Back to the Future (’85) looked at the 1955, Some Like It Hot (’59) took place in the 1929, and Austin Powers (’97) started in 1967.
Ironically, the most comedic of my examples highlights my point. Austin Powers kind of shows that you can’t just remember the highlights of an era. Austin was a kind of skeevy. He actually comes to terms with himself in the film and spends the latter half apologizing to his colleagues. In comparison Dr. Evil makes a much easier transition. He just has to adjust his ransom rate for inflation.
But Stranger Things feels too easy. Those kids are not from the 80s. They’re so much better than we were. They’re blind to differences in every capacity.
Case in point: If you were a brown, weird, religious kid in the 80s you would NEVER find more than one friend, and even they would look the other way as you were force fed grass because your mom made you wear a cow shirt to school (actual memory).
Stranger Things isn’t the 80s because the 80s sucked! People were casually racist, extremely xenophobic and homophobic back then. And yes, our current era has that but that’s only because an 80s icon is president.
In Austin Powers and Hopper fashion I looked at myself with a critical eye. Nostalgia is a problem.
It’s like entering the basement of a burning house. You can’t retreat into the past if you want to thrive in the future.
Lesson learned.
No more He-Man jokes. Talk less. Listen more. Learn from people who are younger than you. That’s free tuition in future school.
—louis hernandez
Flommist Louis Herdandez is obsessed with going Bauhaus and becoming The Machine. Preferably a drill press. Copyright © 2019 Louis Hernandez.
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