Both Deutschland 83 and Stranger Things are both dramas that are set in the 1980s and explore different themes. They are both an hour long and are long drama series (narratives that span over many episodes and usually there’s a conclusion at the end of every series).
There are a thriller and horror theme that is used on Stranger Things, therefore, it includes a monster from another dimension invading the people of Hawkins, Indiana. During the first episode of the series, the monster is anonymous as the audience gets to see it as a silhouette however they do know that it is tall, fast, eerie and seems to have the ability to teleport between different places. Furthermore, there is this character named Eleven that doesn’t seem to be born on Earth as she has abilities of her own such as telekinesis (the power to move objects at a distance by mental power) and it seems that her abilities are tied to her emotional state for example, if she is unhappy, the room that she is in starts to shake, making walls to crack and causing some debris on the floor. On the other hand, Deutschland 83 explores the genres of romance and thriller and it is a cold war espionage series. It is about two sides of Germany (East and West) are at war and the main character Martin Rauch is a 24 year old native of East Germany is sent to West Germany as an undercover spy for the HVA, the foreign intelligence agency for the Satsi in the year of 1983, where he enlists in their army to glean secrets concerning ATO military strategy. He has to serve as an aide-de-camp to General Edel, a senior West German army officer whose dealings are mainly with the Americans and he uncovers secrets about the nuclear bombs.
Both dramas do a representation that masks the basic reality of what is going on within episodes. Within Deutschland 83, the characters come across some issues and the can be complex on the other hand they can’t be divided into the binary opposites which are good and evil. For example, the fact that General Edel supposedly working with the Americans. There is a reason behind every issue; from one side West Germany sees that it benefits them to work with America. Alternatively, East Germany sees this as a bad thing as that they view Americans to be the enemy so that status will be transferred to West Germany. In comparison, because of children’s will to do anything without thought, bad things can happen to them if they are not looked after or if they play compulsive games such as dungeons and dragons which takes for hours to play the game. The bad event that happened to them is that they are confronted with a monster that terrorises people and potentially meeting Eleven. This can be subjective by saying that it is bad that the children are taking care of a being that should be in the hands of the government, however, it is a good gesture as she can hardly communicate with others and that they are treating her with care and not with abuse (which the audience can tell by her refusing to go and running away from them in the episode).
In comparison to representation masking basic reality, it also masks the absence of a basic reality for both dramas. As Deutschland 83 has the genres of spy and thriller, its conventions are daft and are unlikely to happen in real life. For example, the narratives of spy thrillers are that they have a hero (in this case Martin or Moritz) and he is somewhat defeating the enemy (West Germany) by completing objectives so that there can be a twist in the plot which is often seen to trick the audience to watch more episodes as it will intrigue them of what is happening next, therefore, it makes this unlikely to happen because nobody is pressured into doing something that they don’t want to do. Another convention that is used in the series is the usage of historical archive footage from the 1980s to give the audience information about what is happening and will help the audience understand the series more. On the other side of the spectrum, the audience is bought into a group of four young boys and a telekinetic person taking on danger from both the government and the monster, but this is unlikely to happen as monsters don’t exist and the fact that the government wouldn’t come to their senses to chase after children.
Baudrillard’s concepts of simulacra and hyperreality can both applied to the dramas. Simulacra refer to simulations of reality which replaces the ‘pure’ reality and this is being replaced by hyperreality which is a boundary between reality and imagination. In Deutschland 83, there is some historical reality such as the fact that West Germany was richer than the East, therefore, they can afford items such as coffee and the East treasures it. However, hyperreality does take in place when Martin (now disguised as Moritz) is the West German supermarket and goes down an aisle where every product/grocery is stocked on the shelves which make Martin being shocked. There is no supermarket that has aisles so tidy like the scene in Deutschland 83 and the series is essentially portraying to the audience of West Germany’s wealth. In Stranger Things, it explores the theme of a monster roaming around and causing havoc on the streets of Hawkins but this is hyperreality as monsters don’t exist in real life.
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