2023-12-28 15:06:27
Home Culture Netflix Series
Gilles Vervisch wrote “Stranger Philo”, published by Flammarion. He finds, among other things, in the Netflix series material to evoke nostalgia or the allegory of Plato’s cave via the theme of the upside down world, pillar of the plot, of “Stranger Things”.
Published on 12/28/2023 11:18 Updated on 12/28/2023 2:06 p.m.
Reading time: 2 min There is still no scheduled broadcast date for the final season of the series “Stranger Things”, (illustration photo, May 26, 2022.) (BRYAN BEDDER / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA)
This has been a major trend for several years now: using pop-culture works for academic purposes. Latest example: a book, Stranger Philo by Gilles Vervisch at Flammarion, who analyzes the Netflix series “Stranger Things” in the light of major philosophical concepts.
Anyone who has already seen the Duffer Brothers science fiction series knows everything about the gang of geeky kids who surround the mysterious Eleven and her superpowers, their passion for Kate Bush and their references to Ghostbusters, John Carpenter or ET. “The series takes place in the 80s and I immediately identified with the characters since I was around their age, declares Gilles Vervisch, professor of philosophy and fan of the program. This whole thing about young people doing role-playing games was also my habit. I immediately saw the theme of nostalgia and wondered why it worked so well.”
The two worlds that coexist
The strength of this professor is to find, from this series, material to bring Heraclitus and Albert Camus into dialogue on the passing of time, or Hannah Arendt and Guy Debord on our attachment to cultural objects. “The second thing is this theme of the world turned upside down, resumes Gilles Vervisch, which immediately resonated with the famous allegory of Plato’s cave. This idea of two worlds, with a real world and an illusory world that we find in many other films, starting with Matrix, which some people know.
“I asked myself the question: Why, since Plato, have we always wanted to invent another world? And to use the title of James Bond, why is the world not enough?”
Gilles Vervisch professor and fan of “Stranger Things”
at franceinfo
What does it matter if the creators themselves had not necessarily thought of it. “I think that it is the interest of any work, including literary one, that the reader, that the spectator can see certain things in it. I, as a philosopher or philosophy teacher, I saw there what my culture brings me, I’m not sure, to be clear, that it was intentional. But we still find, in my opinion, the oldest myths of humanity.”
He had already devoted two works to Star Wars. Any work, basically, seems conducive to reflection. “In fact, it’s not the support that counts, it’s what we do with it. In my opinion, we can say very confusing things when talking about Heidegger and we can say things that go very far starting from ‘Stranger Things’. It all depends on what we’re going to do with it. Explaining philosophy from a classical culture, that is to say just as difficult to access, I don’t really see what we gain.”
Still no release date planned for the final season, but this is a good way to wait.
“We can say things that go very far starting from ‘Stranger Things'”: the Netflix series inspires the philosopher Gilles Vervisch – A report by Augustin Arrivé
listen
#Netflix #series #inspires #philosophy #professor #Gilles #Vervisch