Uncovering Stranger Things

The Duffer Brothers' award-winning Stranger Things exploded onto the pop culture scene in 2016. The Netflix original series revels in a nostalgic view of 1980s America while darkly portraying the cynical aspects of the period.This collection of 23 new essays explores how the show reduces, reuses and recycles '80s pop culture-from the films of Spielberg, Carpenter and Hughes to punk and synthwave music to Dungeons & Dragons-and how it shapes our understanding of the decade through distorted memory. Contributors discuss gender and sexual orientation; the politics, psychology and educational policies of the day; and how the ultimate upper-class teen idol of the Reagan era became Stranger Things' middle-aged blue-collar heroine.