Stranger Things is a little corny, and that’s okay.

Written by Blake Poljacik and edited by Trey Saville

ZERO AI WAS USED IN THE CREATION OF THIS ARTICLE. 0%. ZERO. NONE. AT ALL. IF IT SUCKS, AT LEAST IT IS HUMAN.

Recently I, along with what seems like 50 million other people, finished a rewatch of the first four seasons of Stranger Things in preparation for its fifth and final season airing this month. The show started in and spanned my twenties, and will be wrapping up in my (thankfully) early thirties. As many viewers have been quick to point out, a lot has changed in that time. People that were in high school when it started are now in or have graduated from college. Some people that started watching Stranger Things during its premiere are now watching it with their children who are roughly the same age as the main characters were in Season 1. We’ve had three U.S presidential elections, two new Presidents, countless shows that have come and gone, and the continued explosion of streaming all in the same timespan.

                As we’ve changed and grown, Stranger Things has as well. What started as an isolated, one season nostalgic horror series has morphed into a global phenomenon spanning multiple seasons and has redefined what television can truly be in the streaming era. Like M*A*S*H, The Soprano’s, Seinfeld, and Breaking Bad for the previous generations, Stranger Things has become a television show that defines an entire generation whether they were along for the ride or not.

                Despite its overwhelming success, a lot of people (myself included), can’t get past one thing about Stranger Things: it’s so corny. This isn’t run-of-the-mill, one-liner corny. This is corny to the point where I’m cringing at certain lines of dialogue, or crucial plot points in this show. This is corny to the point that an awkward half laugh won’t really get me through this scene. At times, we’re reaching levels of corny where I’m thirty-five hours into a rewatch wondering if this is actually a children’s show that they show in middle school at the end of the school year and not the adult drama/sci-fi/comedy I’ve convinced myself it is.

                And yes, I am painfully aware no show is actually that serious. At the end of the day, it’s entertainment, not real life. But there are times rewatching this show that I found my investment in a moment completely derailed by just the goofiness of it all. It’s hard to have a serious conversation with someone about a show where you’re using phrases like “demo-dog” or “Mind Flayer” or talking about characters “getting their powers back”. It’s hard to take children seriously, even if they’re great actors. It’s funnier than it is suspenseful to see a character hold their hand out in a dramatic fashion and send someone, or something, flying across the room. This is all part of the suspension of belief that comes along with sci-fi.

I’m also aware that part of this comes from the fact that a vast majority of the show is based on Dungeons and Dragons in one way or another. You can see it in the fight sequences, or hear it in the names. I mean, the kids are literally naming mysterious figures and entities off of things they have encountered in DnD. This makes sense if you’re a kid, it even makes sense if you’re an adult who has spent a majority of their life devoting time to things like DnD, World of Warcraft (like myself), Magic the Gathering, or virtually any form of fantasy world entertainment There is a large portion of the population that falls under this category, to which none of this stuff may seem too corny or immersion breaking. But if I look at someone like…my sister, who’s older than me and was never in to things like this, I just feel like something about the inherent child-like nature of a fantasy world would be hard enough to sell already, but becomes even more difficult when it comes to a story also centered around children. 

                To be fair, I think it’s a dumb-as-shit opinion that losing yourself in fantasy is considered “child-like”, and I don’t think we should ever abandon the part of us that keeps us coming back to it. If it’s child-like, embrace it. It’s better than being the cynical, annoying dick who doesn’t like anything. But we can even set all of the sci-fi aspects aside and find scenes in Stranger Things that are awkward to the point of being uncomfortable. The dramatic zooming-in shot of a character wiping blood away from their nose. The manufactured sexual tension between two characters that feels forced. The nicknames no one’s heard of, that popped up for a quick line of dialogue (when was he ever called “King Steve”?). Or even the over-the-top speech from a high schooler standing on top of lunch tables blabbering about being a “freak” or an outcast.

Yet somehow you still feel connected to these characters. The writing doesn’t allow you to feel indifferent about anyone in the show, and that’s a testament to Stranger Things. Despite how corny the dialogue can be at times, you become invested in these characters. You care about their safety, or hope for their demise. You keep watching for a variety of reasons, but mostly because you want to see the conclusion of everyone’s stories, not just one person. There are virtually no “bit parts” in this show. Even the small, one season characters have a lasting impact on the viewer, the story, and our protagonists. There aren’t many shows that can make this work the way that Stranger Things does. While the dialogue can be off-putting or awkward, it’s there to remind you these are kids growing up. Didn’t we all talk like this when we were kids? You can pretend you didn’t, but I promise you did. And it’s impressive that even as adults, the Duffer Brothers have done such a good job at writing children and the way that they talk.

                In defense of Stranger Things, it truly does make sense for what the show is. It’s the 80’s, baby. Looking back, the 80’s is just one big Corn Ball after another. Apologies to the Gen X’ers, but what the hell were you wearing, listening to, reading, watching, and writing. Maybe it was the cocaine. Anyway, Stranger Things doesn’t just set its show in the 80’s, it sets its filming in the 80’s too. Not with technology, but with all of the sci-fi and cliches of an 80’s movie your parents love to this day. And while some good came out of the 80’s, a lot of garbage did, too. As the rocket ship that is Stranger Things explodes upwards, it’s bound to pick up some debris in the process.

                That debris is the tropes, dialogue, plot-lines, and characters of the 80’s reimagined for today. When a “demo-dog” is munching on the face of a victim, it’s eerily similar to a Face Hugger from Alien, and both hold equally on-the-nose uncreative names. Vecna as the “five star general” to the Mind Flayer, moving and killing with his mind comes awfully close to Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, and the use of the force, does it not? Come to think of it, are these kids not the cast of The Goonies? Were there not dramatic speeches from high schoolers that were “freaks” in The Breakfast Club? Wasn’t the high school lifeguard in every 80’s movie a fantasy for some mom at the pool? Are those movies free of their corny, or cringey moments? Not by a long shot. Does it sound any less ridiculous talking about the color of a Light Saber than an alternate dimension called “The Upside Down”?

                The difference is Stranger Things does “the 80’s”, better than the 80’s. This show isn’t just a show set in that decade, it’s a show filmed in it too, even if it’s only at heart. It truly feels like a show written and filmed in 1983 that existed in an alternate universe where they have technology akin to our present-day technology. The CGI and practical effects are engaging, sometimes even terrifying. The cinematography and the sound are theatrical and captivating. The storytelling is on-par with some of the best shows to air on television. The fact that it’s a corny science fiction show based on an era long gone shouldn’t take any of that away from Stranger Things. It doesn’t make it any less of an amazing show. It truly doesn’t. The corny-ness of it, even if it’s hard to watch at times, almost makes it better. It means they are accomplishing what they set out to accomplish. Creating an 80’s show.

                At the end of the day, what amazing television show in the history of television didn’t have its fair share of corny or cringey moments? There are scenes in The Sopranos of macho mob men begging for things to be shoved into their ass. There’s poorly timed song and dance numbers throughout Mad Men. There’s an awkward sexually driven “Happy Birthday” song in Breaking Bad for god’s sake. All of the above-mentioned scenes make me cringe. They annoy me. I skip them, or laugh at them, or warn people about them before they watch. And these are shows that I love, that I hold in high regard. That doesn’t take away from the show’s greatness. In the past, when I’ve thought about whether or not Stranger Things is one of the greatest shows of all time, I’ve thought, “It can’t be, it’s just too corny.” And then I realized that’s a pretty stupid fucking reason to discredit what is an otherwise amazing show.

If I were watching Stranger Things right now for the first time, and I was thirteen, fourteen years old, I know I would just absolutely love it. I would find no corniness in it, there would be no cringing. I would be captivated, engaged, and excited. I would be that kid that grew up to obsess over World of Warcraft and Dune. I would also take it for granted, not realizing how great it is, like we all do when we’re kids. I would grow up and wish I could go back to that time and watch it for the first time all over again. This is a show that asks you to suspend some of your maturity, some of your pretention, some of your adulthood to truly enjoy it. It’s a show that asks you to just be a kid again, one more time. Even if it’s just for these few hours, even if it’s just for this episode. Be a kid again and don’t cringe, laugh. Don’t mock, fear. Don’t nitpick, believe. We’ve all grown a lot over nine years, and in some ways Stranger Things asks us not to. That’s okay. I’d make that deal every day, every episode.

 I still don’t have an answer to that question, by the way. Is Stranger Things one of the greatest television shows ever created? If not, what’s stopping it from getting there? It’s not that it’s corny. If the answer is no, there’s something genuinely bad about the show, and I haven’t found that yet. And I’ve found it in basically everything else created in the 1980’s.