While I'm at it....

[herewiss13]

Let's talk about cultural literacy. What stuff is just current fads and what has, or ought to have, entered the collective popular lexicon.

Because neither my girlfriend nor ase have any real knowledge of MacGyver...not even enough to get the "let's make a nuclear reactor out of these toothpicks, some salad dressing and this handful of pocket lint" reference. I'm only about 4 years older than they are...is this really a generation gap? I don't think I ever watched MacGyver when it was actually on, but I'm still familiar with the basic premise. Am I over-informed or are they (and presumably all those like them) under-informed.

There are lots of standards for cultural literacy...but what should the list be for 20th Century popular culture? Most everyone can hum the tune to 'Gilligan's Island" and know "A horse is a horse, of course, of course" and "Wiiil-burrrr". You've got "doh!" and "yadda, yadda, yadda" and the Fonz is a happy-go-lucky guy in a black leather jacket. "To Boldly Go Where no man has gone before" and "Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do." I've never seen "The Honeymooners" but I still know "To the moon, Alice, to the moon!" Is this part of the "required" lexicon or is it extra? What knowledge ought to be assumed?

I really wish someone could explain it to me.

Comments

[fairestcat]

I don't mean this badly, but don't take ase as an example of people in general or her age in specific, she is remarkably culturally clueless- which isn't necessarily a bad thing, its a choice she clearly decided to make at some point. Not that that stops us from trying to clue her in whenever possible though...

I think there's something to be gained by sharing in the cultural heritage of your surroundings, and pop-culture is part of that. I'm constantly shocked and horrified by the evidence of cultural-cluelessness I see around me. How can you comprehend and understand the world around you if you can't put it in context.

I'll take one of my favorite topics, music. I am always bemused and a little appaled by people who only listen to the music of "their" generation. How can you listen to/watch Marilyn Manson without having seen/heard David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust. How can you listen to Green Day, without knowing about the Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Buzzcocks... and how can you listen to them without a working knowledge of The Who and the Kinks, even if its just a general awareness of who they were. And how can you stop at James Taylor and Gordon Lightfoot and not listen to the singer-songwriters that followed them, the David Grays, the Rufus Wainwrights. How can you limit yourself to such a narrow swath of time and space?? Its genuinely puzzling to me. In my CD player this evening were U2, the Clash, the Cure, Neil Finn and Robbie Williams. Neil Finn would have been replaced by a good Classic Rock mix, but I couldn't be bothered to go looking for my copy of the "Wonder Boys" soundtrack.

If you're overinformed, consider me proud to be overinformed with you, I couldn't imagine living any other way.

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

::hangs head in shame::

Well, I did say there are different areas of cultural literacy...music is _not_ one of mine. I recognized about 3/4 of the names of those musicians/groups. A music test would probably be flunked.

And I'm not just going on Ase...there's been a small and unrandom sampling of people I know too. ;-)

...I take it that you are familiar with MacGyver as well, then?

P.S. Was amused that, after these discussions I've had, someone on "Survivor" tonight talked about "MacGyvering" his shrunken sneakers into sandals using a machete. ;-) I am not alone!