Paper Girls' Unique Approach To Teen Nostalgia
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the first season of Paper Girls.
When Amazon Prime dropped the first season of its adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s Paper Girls comics, the show was instantly compared to Stranger Things. Granted, it’s a sci-fi series set in the 1980s and it involves teenagers on bicycles, but the similarities stop there. Paper Girls isn’t about monsters seeping in from another dimension; it’s about time travel. And it doesn’t have a nostalgic view of its ‘80s setting like Stranger Things. In fact, Paper Girls is decidedly anti-nostalgia.
Shows like Stranger Things and The Goldbergs take a romanticized look at the 1980s. It’s all shopping malls and bike rides and Amblin movies. Paper Girls actively pushes back against this romanticism. The series’ portrayal of its historical context is closer to the uncompromisingly ugly ‘80s setting of It, with brutal bullies, Reaganomics, and no parental supervision. The inciting incident revolves around the girls winding up in an abandoned building while their legal guardians pay no mind to where they might be. The muted color palette of Paper Girls is a stark contrast to the bright, vibrant compositions of GLOW and Red Oaks and Wet Hot American Summer.
How Paper Girls Touches On Time Travel Tropes
Paper Girls’ study of nostalgia doesn’t just deal with its historical setting; it explores the universally relatable teenage experience. Adults tend to look back on their teenage years as the prime of their lives. Once the bills start piling up and vacation time dwindles down to a couple of weeks a year, being a teenager seems like a breezy and simplistic existence by comparison. But Paper Girls reminds audiences that being a teenager is incredibly
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