How great is Stranger Things? I’ve never been so impressed by original Netflix content. Daredevil had a solid first season, Orange is the New Black is good, but Stranger Things is just absolutely captivating. The writing is rock solid, the acting is incredible (Winona Ryder needs an Emmy for this), and the design of the show is beyond what it has any right to be. And it is so many things– people have called it so many things– that it only just slips the might what it isn’t.
Stranger Things is not horror. At least, it’s not just horror.
Now, I’ve probably called it horror in conversation, and if you love horror, you will love this show, but it’s not simply horror. I considered doing a “Breaking Genre” piece on this like I did for Star Wars, but this isn’t such a difference that it would make sense. And in any case, it’s a very specific genre that most are not as familiar with as they are Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Stranger Things is American Gothic.
Mild spoilers ahead.
10/31/2018
Back to Basics: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
valeriemclean1919 Frankenstein, Halloween, Horror genre, Mary Shelley, Science Fiction, the British Romantics About Writing 0 Comments
Happy Halloween, everyone!
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheusis a classic of Science Fiction, Gothic Horror, and Romantic literature (but not romantic literature, of course). It is also very different from the story you probably know. First published in 1818, Frankenstein was always popular, though it took some time for critical opinion to catch up– there was a particularly scathing review of the book in The British Critic that ended by saying “The writer of it is, we understand, a female; this is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel; but if our authoress can forget the gentleness of her sex, it is no reason why we should; and we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further comment.” The review derided the book for the grotesque nature of its “disjointed combinations and unnatural adventures”, and expressing just how horrifying the book is, object to the wicked and immoral actions of its protagonist.
Of course, that’s the entire point, but they seem to have missed that.
Today, we’re going to go over the content, context, and themes of the book, and how they have grown into what we know of the story today.
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