Research Statement
For my source, I chose to research the first season of Stranger Things. Stranger Things is a Netflix original series created by the Duffer Brothers in 2016, it focuses on three main groups of people throughout the season, who all have the same goal, find Will Byers. Will goes missing and ends up stuck in the “upside down”. The first group is a group of preteen boys whose friend goes missing and they make it their mission to find him. The second group is a group of teenagers, and the last is a group of adults, who are all trying to find Will.
Throughout the season, I think one of the major fears that were explored is the fear that the government isn't telling us everything. For example, when Hopper, the sheriff, broke into the Hawkins National Laboratory to see what was going on, he was knocked unconscious and woke up in his trailer, and found it to be bugged. This fear is evident throughout the entire season, the government doesn’t want the people to find out about their experiments that have taken place. The series also does a great job of reflecting one of today’s biggest societal fears, the fear of child abduction, in a time period where it wasn’t as prevalent. There is also a major lack of technology in the 80s than there is today, I feel that if they had modern day tech, then things might have ended up very differently.
Changing the time period of this show I believe would have a huge impact. I believe that if this series was set during the modern day, many things would be different. For example, most kids would never be allowed to be out late without supervision. Most kids also have cellphones, back in the 80s cellphones weren’t nearly as common and very expensive, not many people had them. Most parents would know pretty quickly if their child was missing, but in the show, Will’s mother didn’t know until the next morning when she got home. Fears of child abduction are much more prominent today than in the 80s. If it was set in a modern day time period, there’s a good chance that Will might not have went missing or that he would’ve been found quicker.
Changing the setting would have some significance but not nearly as much as changing the time period. If it was set in a big city, the kids wouldn’t be running around in the woods, and in a city, there might be more people to witness when things happen. Whereas in the small town that they live in there are much fewer people and very few police officers, and lots of woods and open areas.
In my adaptation, the main ideas I really want to explore are the fears of the government and how they don’t tell us everything, the fear of child abduction in the 80s vs modern day, and what it would be like if this was a modern day series. The fear of child abduction is a big one, expecially in today’s world, the rate of abductions haven’t changed a whole lot over the years, but there has become a much greater fear of it today, I would say mainly becuase of mainstream media, the word about abductions spreads much quicker with modern technology than in the 80s. There hasn’t really been a rise in numbers but more so the awareness about it due to how quickly things spread. Without looking deeper into the numbers, if I had to guess, I would say that the number of abductions in the 80s vs today probably isn't that far off from each other, just not as many people knew about it back then.
For my source, I chose to research the first season of Stranger Things. Stranger Things is a Netflix original series created by the Duffer Brothers in 2016, it focuses on three main groups of people throughout the season, who all have the same goal, find Will Byers. Will goes missing and ends up stuck in the “upside down”. The first group is a group of preteen boys whose friend goes missing and they make it their mission to find him. The second group is a group of teenagers, and the last is a group of adults, who are all trying to find Will.
Throughout the season, I think one of the major fears that were explored is the fear that the government isn't telling us everything. For example, when Hopper, the sheriff, broke into the Hawkins National Laboratory to see what was going on, he was knocked unconscious and woke up in his trailer, and found it to be bugged. This fear is evident throughout the entire season, the government doesn’t want the people to find out about their experiments that have taken place. The series also does a great job of reflecting one of today’s biggest societal fears, the fear of child abduction, in a time period where it wasn’t as prevalent. There is also a major lack of technology in the 80s than there is today, I feel that if they had modern day tech, then things might have ended up very differently.
Changing the time period of this show I believe would have a huge impact. I believe that if this series was set during the modern day, many things would be different. For example, most kids would never be allowed to be out late without supervision. Most kids also have cellphones, back in the 80s cellphones weren’t nearly as common and very expensive, not many people had them. Most parents would know pretty quickly if their child was missing, but in the show, Will’s mother didn’t know until the next morning when she got home. Fears of child abduction are much more prominent today than in the 80s. If it was set in a modern day time period, there’s a good chance that Will might not have went missing or that he would’ve been found quicker.
Changing the setting would have some significance but not nearly as much as changing the time period. If it was set in a big city, the kids wouldn’t be running around in the woods, and in a city, there might be more people to witness when things happen. Whereas in the small town that they live in there are much fewer people and very few police officers, and lots of woods and open areas.
In my adaptation, the main ideas I really want to explore are the fears of the government and how they don’t tell us everything, the fear of child abduction in the 80s vs modern day, and what it would be like if this was a modern day series. The fear of child abduction is a big one, expecially in today’s world, the rate of abductions haven’t changed a whole lot over the years, but there has become a much greater fear of it today, I would say mainly becuase of mainstream media, the word about abductions spreads much quicker with modern technology than in the 80s. There hasn’t really been a rise in numbers but more so the awareness about it due to how quickly things spread. Without looking deeper into the numbers, if I had to guess, I would say that the number of abductions in the 80s vs today probably isn't that far off from each other, just not as many people knew about it back then.