Stranger Things and The Get Down appear to be on everyone’s radar this summer and not just because they were nurtured under the Netflix umbrella.
Even though one dabbles in supernatural science fiction while the other is a 1970s set Bronx musical series, both shows are far more similar than one would initially believe.
Stranger Things is about a small, mid-American town where everyone pretty much knows everybody. And the cast is made up of tweens, teens and adults. It’s the adults come off more or less as capable or incapable as the tweens and teens.
There are single moms struggling to raise kids by working around the clock at the local supermarket while happy-go- lucky high school jocks attempt to make whoopee with the local babes. There also happens to be a mysterious lab outside of town where weird things are afoot and inexplicable occurrences seem to point to a young escapee who goes by the name of “Eleven.”
Ostensibly, Stranger Things sounds like the kind of young adult fantasy one would expect to see on the CW network. But what makes it stand out is the show’s devotion to 1980s movie nostalgia. Steven Spielberg’s E.T., Joe Dante’s Explorers, Richard Donner’s The Goonies and Fred Dekker’s The Monster Squad are but a handful of films that Stranger Things owes a considerable debt to, in addition to a sizable dose of Stephen King.
Like The Get Down, Stranger Things is a period piece that pays homage to the decade in which it is set. Though it features a talented ensemble featuring Winona Ryder, David Harbour and Matthew Modine. But the series really belongs to the kids. The eight- episode format allows the showrunners to explore the complexities and nuances of character and relationship dynamics. So this ain’t no typical “teens/tweens in peril” type of thriller popularized during the Reaganite era.
The 1980s movie adventures, as popularized by Steven Spielberg’s company Amblin Entertainment, were disguised coming of age stories. The emphasis was always on the thrill of discovery and adventure that are usually the stuff of daydreams. Stranger Things wants to pay tribute to the past through a more sophisticated prism and therefore might have more in common with Rob Reiner’s non-genre 1986 film Stand By Me than 1983 hit War Games.
The Get Down, however, uses the real world terrors of urban decay (and possibly looming gentrification) as its backdrop. The threat is no less dire than that of inter-dimensional creatures preying on the small town featured in Stranger Things.
The kids in Stranger Things take on the mission of rescuing one of their friends from the “Upside Down,” an alternate reality where really, really bad things can happen. In the process they have to evade concerned parents, scary adults and the occasional bully while offering the elusive Eleven protection (who eventually takes on their cause).
Yet the goal of the kids in The Get Down involves escaping to a life outside of their environment while evading concerned parents, scary adults in the guise of politicians, pimps and drug dealers and the temptations being offered therein.
Stranger Things traffics in 80s nostalgia (synth music, Atari consoles and phones with LAN lines). The Get Down bathes in 70s nostalgia what with its presentation of the death of disco and the birth of hip hop, graffiti strewn subways and the incumbent NYC mayor Ed Koch.
Both shows present a heightened reality. Stranger Things embraces it’s Spielbergian aesthetic and the Peter Straub/Stephen King book cover font displayed in the title sequence. The Get Down is all sorts of heightened everything. It’s a musical. It’s high opera. It’s borderline camp melodrama. It’s both social satire and political drama. Which is par for the course when your project is developed by flamboyant film auteur Baz Luhrman (unfortunately The Get Down had the budget and production issues to match its ambition).
Of the two shows, I much prefer Stranger Things (which takes its approach seriously and never veers into camp. Unlike other recent 80s tributes such as Kung-Fu Fury, The Guest and The Turbo Kid). But I admire the hell out of The Get Down thanks to the sheer ambition of the project alone.
The protagonists of Stranger Things are confronted with a threat to their hometown. In The Get Down, however, the town is the threat. Not just the Bronx neighborhood but New York City in general was dealing with a spiraling, out of control economic meltdown and a disintegrating infrastructure as well.
NYC in the 70s was so bad, in fact, it could almost have been the real “Upside Down” of Stranger Things.
Together, Stranger Things and The Get Down can be viewed as back-to- back parables on the journey from adolescence to adulthood. Just switch out Matthew Modine’s cold hearted scientist for Lila White’s Big Mamma gangsta. Or trade the scratch master’s turntables for the hazmat suits used in Stranger Things.
Ultimately you have the same story, with the same character arcs, challenges, not to mention a mutual romantic, mutual respect for the relics of late 20th century pop culture.
zeke on the get down making breakfast > jonathan from stranger things making breakfast
— kirsty (@lhommewalk) August 20, 2016