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The Energy Department Focuses on the Important Things. Like Netflix Shows.
When you shovel your annual tax payments into the greedy maw of the IRS, you might wonder where your hard-earned money winds up. Is it funding cool weapons systems to help make our troops more effective? Helping fund junior’s education at State U? Maybe providing grandma with a little extra cash to buy a new tea kettle?
Not surprisingly, much of what government spends your money on is really, really stupid. Destroying “excess” cherries to insure you pay more for them at the grocery store. Mounting PR campaigns to cast bureaucrats in a positive light. Reminding forgetful citizens to drink water.
On Friday, an Energy Department employee spent some of his taxpayer-funded salary fact-checking a fictional show. The popular new Netflix offering “Stranger Things” involves a missing child, his frantic mom, and a police chief whose investigation leads him to the supernatural and a sinister, secret program run by the Energy Department. Free citizens criticizing their government in fiction? This cannot stand!
DOE employee Paul Lester was so offended, he dedicated untold workhours to writing a 750-word takedown of the portrayal:
[W]hile I really enjoyed “Stranger Things” as a mashup of Goonies and X-Files with some amazing 80s music mixed in, the show’s portrayal of the Energy Department was a little less than accurate. Here’s why (spoilers ahead!):
HAWKINS NATIONAL LABORATORY DOESN’T EXIST.
In the show, Hawkins National Laboratory is a tightly secured Energy Department facility in the middle of a deep, dark forest. The truth is Hawkins National Laboratory — just like the fictional town of Hawkins — doesn’t exist…THE ENERGY DEPARTMENT DOESN’T EXPLORE PARALLEL UNIVERSES.
There are several scenes in the show where Hawkins Laboratory researchers don full body suits and protective gear to walk through a peculiar portal, which transports them to an alternate dimension known as “The Upside Down.” While the Energy Department doesn’t chart parallel universes, it does help power the exploration of new worlds…THE ENERGY DEPARTMENT DOESN’T MESS WITH MONSTERS.
“Stranger Things” depicts the Energy Department as a federal agency confronting terrifying monsters lurking in different dimensions. We don’t mess with monsters…NATIONAL LABORATORY SCIENTISTS AREN’T EVIL — THEY’RE ACTUALLY REALLY NICE (AND SMART)!
In “Stranger Things,” actor Matthew Modine plays Hawkins National Laboratory’s Dr. Martin Brenner, a sinister scientist whose motives are questionable. However, actual National Laboratory scientists are among the brightest people in the world….LIGHTS AREN’T POWERED BY MONSTERS OR OTHER LIFEFORMS.
Okay, I think you get the point. Lester finds time to educate readers on how Christmas lights work, insists that not all scientists are evil white males, and links to a “cool infographic” about space exploration.
During the government shutdown, bureaucrats assured us that there wasn’t a dime of non-essential funding left to cut and that not raising the insanely high debt limit bordered on treason. If we want to make headway on the $19.4 trillion we owe, maybe we should start with abolishing the Department of Energy.
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Wowie, @richardeaston! Your dad?!
Yeah, I think that’s the one where the aspect ratio isn’t quite right. But it’s watchable.
Say hi to Vladimir Vladimirovich for me if he happens to wander into the St Petersburg suburbs. If you’re so inclined you could tell him that one thing that has gotten a worse, the longer he’s been in power, is his movie industry.
Thank you!