- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Young Frankenstein
- An Affair to Remember
- Blade Runner
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
This got me thinking...there are certain cultural entities (usually television, film, or music) that tend to define specific time periods so completely that they become part of the public consciousness. At a certain point, they are so ubiquitous that you just assume that people share that experience with you. It would never cross my mind that anyone around my age had never seen Sesame Street. It's a given that they also know about Jack, Janet and Chrissy*.
However, I'm guessing that, like the film critic I mentioned above, we all have a few pieces missing from our cultural mosaic. I'll bet that each of us have missed a few cultural events that 99% of our peer group can speak about fluently.
I think there is a sub-culture of people that take a certain sort of pride in avoiding things that are popular. As Stephen King said in 2003 in response to criticism that a "popular author" (him) was given the prestigious lifetime achievement medal from the National Book Foundation, "What do you think? You get social or academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with your own culture?". I'm not talking about this kind of deliberate culture avoidance. I'm talking about the situation where you had the flu for a weekend at age 12, missed the neighborhood outing to see Star Wars, and just never did get around to watching it.
I've never seen Pretty In Pink or Say Anything. I've never seen Caddyshack, Animal House, Flashdance, or St. Elmo's Fire. I've also never seen an episode of M*A*S*H.
What pieces are you missing?
*small piece of trivia: I didn't know how to spell Chrissy, so I looked it up on IMDB and found that the character's full name is "Christmas 'Chrissy' Snow". I'll be damned.
4 comments:
I, for one, have never seen the movie Dirty Dancing. And it certainly hasn't been because I haven't had the opportunity. That movie was HUGE when I was in high school, but somehow, I managed to miss it then and I just have never bothered to see it.
This totally speaks to me, because I missed so many shows and movies in my childhood that it seems everyone else watched or at least has a basic understanding of: Miami Vice, Star Trek, the Indiana Jones series (though I admit I have seen Temple of Doom, and yes, I have been told it's the worst one), Gremlins, Bladerunner, Xanadu. But what makes this story tragic are the movies that I DID go see and in some cases - gasp - watched at home. These include: Muppets Take Manhattan (3 times in the theater, baby!), FEDS (2 times in the theater), Mannequin (that Beta tape was worn out!), Policy Academy 4 (taped off of the TV so it has lame voiceovers but we didn't care or notice), Back to the Beach (anybody remember this one?).
But I'd be remiss if I didn't pull out the old Bell family classic: Summer School. My mom finally bought us all our own copy to end the ongoing fight of who got to keep the taped-off-Showtime version.
I'm with ya Dan! I never saw Dirty Dancing. There were so many crazy eighth grade girls in my school who were insane over the movie that I decided that I would NEVER see it. And so far I haven't.
On another note...I've never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Even as a kid, I just thought that it sounded gross. The irony is that at least every other day I have to make one for one of my kids.
You've never had a PB&J? Sweet Sassy Molassey!
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