Is 'Stranger Things' inspired by true stories? A look at the real-world parallels as season 5 approaches
The fifth and final installment of 'Stranger Things' is undoubtedly gearing up to be a landmark event in the history of streaming platform giant Netflix. Not only is the upcoming season poised to bring forth the most dramatic showdown between Millie Bobby Brown's Eleven and Vecna, but it is also tasked with providing a befitting conclusion to the popular tale set against the backdrop of Hawkins, Indiana. As this is the last time that the audience will be privy to the Upside Down spreading its dark wings across the skies of Hawkins, one can't help but wonder whether 'Stranger Things' is based on real life, and if yes, to what extent.
The show created by the Duffer Brothers is based on an entirely fictional script. In doing so, the Duffer brothers drew on their shared love of classic summer blockbusters and the aesthetics of 1980s suburban America. The zeitgeist of the show harbours around the audience's shared nostalgia for the days gone by. However, certain crucial elements of the show's narrative have been inspired by real-world parallels.
For instance, the very sinister Hawkins Laboratory is inspired by the real-life experiments conducted by the MK Ultra project. The Hawkins lab is a dreadful place, located at the outskirts of Hawkins, where inhuman mind-bending experiments are conducted by cold and calculating scientists and medical professionals. This echoes the MK Ultra projects, conducted through the mid-20th century, that involved the government and the armed forces deploying considerable resources to educational institutions across the country. These experiments aimed to test the limits of the human mind and develop cutting-edge weapons that would allow the armed forces to gain a decisive upper hand against the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War.
The character of Eleven traces her history to her mother, Terry Ives, being administered a dose of LSD during pregnancy. She was then observed and studied by Dr. Brenner, played by Matthew Modine, who deployed sensory deprivation to heighten the effects of the dose. It is needless to say that such experiments in real life were in direct violation of the Nuremberg Code, which had been developed in the aftermath of World War II.
Moving on, 'Stranger Things' once had David Harbour's Hopper making an explicit reference to the pesticide 'Agent Orange'. It is interesting to note that Hopper's backstory involved him serving in Vietnam, where he witnessed the devastating effects of chemical warfare. Lastly, as per The US Sun, the character of Eddie Munson, played by Joseph Quinn, was based on the true-crime documentary 'Paradise Lost' and writer Damien Echols, who was wrongfully convicted of practising Satanic rituals and murder in the '90s.