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Integrational nostalgia within Stranger Things. Romanticism of the past and dissatisfaction with contemporary culture Veronika Licheva MA Television and Cross-Media Culture University of Amsterdam Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2 Literature Review .......................................................................................................................................... 5 1.1 Nostalgia and integrational nostalgia ................................................................................................. 5 1.2 Romanticism of the past ................................................................................................................... 10 1.3 Dissatisfaction with contemporary culture....................................................................................... 14 1.4 Conclusion to literature review ........................................................................................................ 19 Audience research ...................................................................................................................................... 21 2.1 Method ............................................................................................................................................. 21 2.2 Childhood Reminiscing ...................................................................................................................... 23 2.3 Romanticism of the past ................................................................................................................... 27 2.4 Dissatisfaction with contemporary culture....................................................................................... 31 2.5 Satisfaction with contemporary culture ........................................................................................... 35 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 40 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 43 Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 46 Subject 1 (24 years old, Russia) ........................................................................................................... 46 Subject 2 (23 years old, Cyprus) .......................................................................................................... 49 Subject 3 (24 years old, Lithuania) ...................................................................................................... 51 Subject 4 (22 years old, South Korea) ................................................................................................. 53 Subject 5 (22 years old, France) .......................................................................................................... 55 Subject 6 (22 years old, Iran) .............................................................................................................. 57 Subject 7 (25 years old, Bulgaria) ........................................................................................................ 60 Subject 8 (27 years old, Bulgaria) ........................................................................................................ 62 Subject 9 (23 years old, Russia) ........................................................................................................... 64 Subject 10 (22 years old, The Netherlands) ........................................................................................ 66 1 Introduction In recent years we have witnessed a growing trend in movies and TV shows that in some way emulate the 80s and trigger nostalgia among viewers. For example, movies such as Baby Driver (2017) and TV shows such as Riverdale (2017) despite taking place in today’s world, carry elements of retro styles that were emblematic for the 80s. Furthermore, according to an article by Quartzy in 2017 alone there have been thirty-four TV spin-offs of old franchises, such as Dynasty, Twin Peaks, and Heathers (King and Smalera, 2017). On the other hand, Stranger Things (2016) is a TV show that takes place in the 80s and according to Variety is a “a horror pastiche set in 1983 that pays homage to Steven Spielberg’s oeuvre” and is Netflix’s latest attempt to appeal to global viewers through the use of nostalgia (Schwindt, 2016). The story depicts the lives of children, teenagers, and adults residing in the small suburban town of Hawkins. The series is a mystery-thriller that portrays the 80s as very mystical times, and shows how the characters discover the reason for their friend’s disappearance near the secret experimental lab located in the woods. In addition to emulating vintage movies, Stranger Things also relies heavily on various pop cultural references from the 80s in order to successfully recreate the mood and style of that specific time period. With this thesis I will investigate millennials’ readings of the show Stranger Things through the specter of “integrational nostalgia”. The term “integrational nostalgia” refers to people’s ability to feel nostalgic for periods of time they have not lived through when prompted by old photographs, movies, music, etc. This term is also used in Susan L. Holak and William J. Havlena’s article where they further define it as: “Memories of the past created through personal interactions with others who have lived through earlier periods and events. These memories are a combination of tales of the unexperienced past and the experiences of hearing these reminiscences. With the advent of motion pictures, television, sound recording, and radio, depictions of past events need no longer rely on verbal descriptions and can be much more vivid, imparting a sense of actual participation in an event or era.” (Holak and Havlena 1992, 385) This thesis will explore whether millennial viewers experience integrational nostalgia when watching Stranger Things by conducting empirical audience research. The research will compare and contrast two different types of nostalgia. The thesis will focus on Holak and Havlena’s definition of integrational nostalgia in comparison to the regular type of nostalgia, which throughout this thesis will be referred to 2 as ‘classic’ nostalgia in order to differentiate between the two. Since the show depicts life in the 80s, millennial viewers will be the optimal subjects for this thesis, since according to the Pew Research Center (2018) they are the generation born between 1981 and 1996, and the first generation to come of age in the new millennium. For the purposes of this research, I will be solely focusing on millennials born after 1990 in order to ensure that they have not lived through the 80s. This will allow to identify whether they are experiencing integrational nostalgia while watching Stranger Things. Furthermore, this research will take a look at how a person’s view of the past is affected by media depictions and mediated memories. The digital age has made it possible for cultural memory to be carried out throughout the decades. These mediated depictions of the past have the power to shape one’s perspective of how specific time periods looked, felt, and were experienced by the people who have lived through them. However, media depictions of the past are not always accurate, and are often romanticized. This thesis will be looking into romanticism of the past by media and dissatisfaction with contemporary culture due to media. The two concepts will be examined as possible triggers that may allow integrational nostalgia to be experienced. The thesis will study whether the millennial subjects are emotionally affected by the portrayal of 80s life in Stranger Things and how that makes them feel about the present. This will help investigate the relationship between romanticism of the past and dissatisfaction with contemporary culture as potential motives to experiencing integrational nostalgia. In the first chapter of this thesis, I will be examining the pre-existing theoretical research on classic nostalgia. Despite the multiple studies on nostalgia throughout the years by researchers such as Fred Davis’ “Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia” (1979) and Erin Sullivan’s “Historical keyword: Nostalgia” (2010), within media studies there has been almost no work on integrational nostalgia. Furthermore, previous studies on nostalgia in media, such as Paul Grainge’s “Nostalgia and Style in retro America: Moods, and modes, and media recycling” (2000), are solely based on textual research, and not on empirical audience research. Also, while there is quite a lot of audience research on nostalgia and the way it is experienced by different people, such as Holak and Havlena’s "Nostalgia: an Exploratory Study of Themes and Emotions in the Nostalgic Experience” (1992), that research has not been related to media or TV shows. Whereas there is a sufficient number of nostalgia research through textual analysis, this thesis hopes to make a vital contribution in the sphere of nostalgia and media research by using audience research. The theories of classic nostalgia and integrational nostalgia will then be compared and contrasted, in order to understand the difference

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