A brief theory on the popularity of Stranger Things and the future of film and television
I came up with a theory this afternoon while watching a Netflix thriller. No, not than this summer’s breakout hit, Stranger Things. I was watching The Guest, which if you haven’t seen, you should remedy. It’s a bit more graphic than Stranger Things, and there’s no Barb, but there’s another reason a lot fewer people are talking about The Guest than are talking about Stranger Things: The Guest is a movie.
Television shows are having their moment right now, as the overwhelming majority of the pop cultural conversation at the moment seems to deal with the top television shows rather than the top movies. Many reputable pop culture outlets will say we are currently in a “Golden Age of Television,” or if they’re not quite saying that, they’re certainly saying that there has never been a greater amount of possible hours that can be devoted to TV than there is right now.
And that’s true, but there has also never been a greater amount of possible hours that can be devoted to movies than there is right now. Yet, one is a lot more likely to hear about the latest under-the-radar Netflix show than the latest under-the-radar Indie thriller.
Let’s go back to The Guest for a second. The reason I decided to watch this film was on the recommendation of a friend. I realized while I was watching the movie that I couldn’t think of the last time before The Guest that I had had a movie recommended to me. I’ve probably had 10–15 shows recommended to me by friends and family since the last time I had a movie recommended to me by that same crew. That makes sense, people often get their large-scale recommendations from the trickle down effect of the overall pop culture conversation. If critics are talking about Stranger Things, then your friends and family are really tapped into pop culture will watch it and recommend it to the middle class of pop culture consumers, and so on, down the line.
If no one is talking about movies anymore (and “no one” is obviously relative), then where can you get your recommendations from?
While watching The Guest, I remembered how much I love movies. This film was far from The Godfather or even a movie that will show up on most end-of-the-year top ten lists, but it brought me back to my high school days of watching movie after movie late into the night during summer vacation. There’s just that movie feel to it.
And right now, there is only one show on TV that can capture that same feeling: Stranger Things. Stranger Things is basically a six-hour movie, just split into eight delectable chapters. And in an era when we are all collectively seeing fewer and fewer movies, especially when compared to the amount of television or number of podcasts we consume, that film feeling is becoming a forgotten memory.
Yes, The Guest was entertaining, and it technically “only” lasted 100 minutes, but I put only in quotation marks there because that 100 minutes was what jumped out the most when thinking about the difference between movies and TV right now. Even though the payoff of The Guest came after just an hour and 40 minutes, it was somehow less convenient than all six hours of Stranger Things. I started a workout right as I started watching The Guest, and that didn’t even last the entirety of the film. When I was done working out, there was still a half hour to go, and for someone who likes to multi-task while watching TV/movies, this was a nuisance. I didn’t want to just sit there and watch the final half hour, but I also didn’t want to stop the film just as it was reaching its most exciting part and pick up again later. I ended up eating and cleaning a bit during the end of the movie, but still, it somehow seemed like an inconvenience I hadn’t had to deal with while watching a TV show in a long time.
Of course, this is ridiculous. An hour and forty minutes is far less of a commitment than six hours, but modern television knows it is perfect for the modern attention span-shortened, multi-tasking viewer. Quick hitters that we are willing to go back to. Often sooner than later.
Stranger Things has perfected the art of blending movie into television. It’s a good chunk of why the show has been the breakout hit of the summer — I mean who doesn’t associate their summers growing up with seeing movies? (Can’t be anyone who has gotten this far into an article named “A brief theory on the popularity of Stranger Things and the future of film and television.”)
In many ways, television has made their move. Between Netflix, Hulu, HBO etc. the television media is as geared to modern viewers as can be right now. It’s highly consumable and at one’s fingertips in the blink of an eye.
So the ball is in your court now, movies.
Will movies adjust themselves to once again take over as the Kings of Culture? Given the cyclical nature of history, the question should probably be “how” and not “will.” So, will it take movies trending towards shorter running times, but faster sequels? For instance, a new movie coming out with a Part 1 in September, and a Part 2 just a month later. Or maybe movie theaters will start charging by the half hour. Worried about paying $10 to waste two hours of your life? How about paying $2.50 every half hour, and then not feeling committed to sticking around if you don’t like what you see in the first act. Or maybe it will simply be a movement towards a lot more young talented artist bringing their skills to the Video on Demand realm, making films all the more accessible for the sometimes lacking in patience millennial crew.
These ideas may seem far-fetched, but it wasn’t too long ago that big-time actors thought acting on TV was a death knell for their careers, and TV was called the small screen for a reason. Trends come in waves, and with the way television is dominating the pop culture conversation right now, you know the movie industry is going to make some significant changes sooner than later.
All I hope is that the ensuing change is as awesome as Stranger Things which right now can claim to be the beautiful result of television stealing just enough from the movies.
