# Aspects of pop culture people seem to misunderstand **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 16, 2013, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417 "2013-01-16T20:56:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/61 "2013-01-18T19:22:33Z")
> [@MilTan](#): > > This one I can give a pass to (especially compared to “Every Breath You Take.”) Sure, Clapton may have written it about another man’s wife, but that’s just surrounding context. Taken on its own, the song is perfectly appropriate for a wedding. On the other hand, “Every Breath You Take” is about a fucking stalker. My problem with the idea of using “Wonderful Tonight” would be the verse about having to drive the guy home, undress him, and put him to bed because he got wasted (again). Unless that’s your idea of a good time. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/62 "2013-01-18T20:12:36Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > But, they look exactly like stereotypical aliens to my recollection. (It’s been years since I saw it though.) > [@amanset](#): > > Exactly. > > They were supposed to be super-advanced aliens but due to \*extremely \*bad design they were made to look like stereotypical “grey” aliens. Hence the confusion. > > [http://shortstormtrooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/robots.jpg](http://shortstormtrooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/robots.jpg) It’s a little like if Spielberg had said “The guys chasing Indiana Jones in _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ were Hindu priests! You can tell by the swastikas! Just because they though black was fashionable and had German accents, people think they were _Nazis?_ They were educated in Heidelberg, that’s all!” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/63 "2013-01-18T20:20:22Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Get’s even more confusing with “Bride of Frankenstein”. > So it’s bride ‘of’ Frankenstein meaning the bride is his creation and he own’s it but his monster is the future groom. There were actually two brides in the movie. There was the female monster (played by Elsa Lanchester) that Frankenstein builds as a mate for his original monster. And there was Elizabeth, Frankenstein’s fiancee (played by Valerie Hobson) who rescues and reforms Frankenstein. So it was Hobson, not Lanchester, who played the title character. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/64 "2013-01-18T20:32:39Z")
Zombies don’t go around calling out “braaaaiiiins” while trying to, you know, eat brains. At least not the ones from the George A Romero “Night/Dawn/Day/Land/Diary/Survival of the [Living] Dead” series of films. They didn’t say anything and just ate whatever they could get ahold of. The zombies from the more slapstick “Return of the Living Dead” series are the ones that say “braaaaiiiins”. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/65 "2013-01-18T20:36:45Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > OK, she’s truly dead due to staking. And all Dracula has to do is remove the stake and give her some blood, and she’s revived. How is that equal to “truly dead”? When you’re dealing with that which has no life, whether it’s dead or truly dead or really most sincerely dead is confusing. I just looked up the Lucy-staking passage in _Dracula_, and Van Helsing doesn’t actually say why it’s necessary to cut her head off. He does say she’s truly dead after just the staking. Maybe he just feels it’s better to be safe than sorry, or maybe there’s an explanation earlier that I missed. He also solders the coffin closed, although that may have been to prevent any future exhumation of the body that would reveal the staking and decapitation. FWIW, the “sisters” do crumble into dust after Van Helsing decapitates them. He stakes them each first, so again it’s not totally clear that both staking and decapitation were necessary or if just one would have done the job. Lucy presumably didn’t crumble because she hadn’t been undead for as long as the other vampire women. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/66 "2013-01-18T21:43:24Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Body piercing and tattoos-reaction against “beautiful people”? > I have always been puzzled by the embrace of such extreme body modifications-like multiple piercings-many of the people who have these look grotesque. > Is it a reaction against the “supermodel” type people that are all to common in popular culture? My theory is: if you cannot be “beautiful”, then you can be very ugly-but what’s the point? I find these walking hardware stores quite repulsive. > [@Marley23](#): > > Maybe it was supposed to be an example of someone misunderstanding an aspect of popular culture. **ralph124c** , please pay attention to the thread topic. Your post did not have anything to do with the actual subject. I thought it did. **ralph124c** seems to be speculating that the reason people get lots of tattoos and piercings is a misperception. We think they do it to be attractive, but maybe their real motivation is that they aren’t attractive, so they want to revel in being grotesque. But I don’t agree. I think they have a differing view of “attractive”. > [@Chronos](#): > > In _Frankenstein_, it’s true that the monster’s name was Frankenstein. With the caveat, of course, that it’s the human scientist who’s the monster, not his hapless creation. Well, the creation wasn’t a monster just because he was created, he was merely ugly. But he became a monster by the end, with his heartless murder of the little girl and all. But the scientist could be perceived as being a monster by his early rejection of his creation. ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/67 "2013-01-19T21:44:38Z")
Having just come off seeing an excellent local production of **A Chorus Line…** Michael Bennett might have thought that the finale of **ACL** is misunderstood. The song “One” is so upbeat and spectacular, and the dancers look so marvelous, that the finale’s ambivalence is easy to forget. Bennett meant there to be a slightly disturbing component to the ending: all the hard work these dancers have gone through amounts to their being completely anonymous and unrecognizable, backing up the show’s big star. He wanted the audience to leave thinking, “They went through all that just to be anonymous?” Instead, they leave humming “One.” But, then again…it depends on how you look at it. After all, we’ve just had an eleven o’clock number (well, ten o’clock in the production I saw) describing how the dancers felt about their work: no matter the pitfalls or the shortness of their careers, it’s worth it because they’re doing something they love with their heart and soul. That’s their triumph…they don’t need stardom. And maybe the fact that we don’t see the show-within-a-show’s star during “One” is the show’s way of letting the chorus line be the star for once…of seeing the show the way they see it as they’re performing in it. We see it as a triumph because, for them, it is. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/68 "2013-01-19T22:51:03Z")
[quote=“Just\_Ed, post:17, topic:647417”] Dammit, that’s what I was going to say! How about a couple of film misconceptions?[ul][li]Jason Voorhees is not the killer in the original _Friday the 13th_There are no undead zombies in _28 Days Later_[/ul][/li][/QUOTE] Well, the 28 \* Later series are zombie films in all but name. Infected creatures chasing you, just they don’t shamble this time. And humans being idiots. So it’s understandable why there’s a misconception, even if they say the word “virus” like 90 times in the film. And AFAIK never use the “zed word.” Another one: Jason’s iconic mask isn’t there right away, either, 3rd movie I think. The reboot of Friday the 13th seems to condense the antagonists forms from the first three movies into one film. It starts with Mrs. Voorhees (FtT1), then Jason comes with a burlap sack on his head (FtT2), then he finds the hockey mask (FtT3). And Jason X is the tenth movie, but I believe it’s supposed to be “Jason Ecks.” Halloween III does not feature Michael Meyers at all. It’s some cockamamie thing about killer robot Irishmen, or something. They went back to the tried and true in the next one. ---
**Author:** ![butler1850](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@butler1850](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butler1850)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/69 "2013-01-21T14:29:46Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Cartoonacy: > > I don’t recall that we ever found out the question. (Of course, there is a theory that says if the question were discovered, the universe would be wiped out and replaced by something even more confusing and inexplicable.) > > (Another theory states that this has already happened.) We do not get the question. We get “God’s final message to creation.” Displayed in huge flaming letters. Marvin gets to hear the message before his system finally shuts down (it is 4x the age of the universe already)… though I think a left-side diode replacement could have saved him. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/70 "2013-01-21T14:39:21Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > Exactly. > > They were supposed to be super-advanced aliens but due to \*extremely \*bad design they were made to look like stereotypical “grey” aliens. Hence the confusion. > > [http://shortstormtrooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/robots.jpg](http://shortstormtrooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/robots.jpg) They just don’t look like greys, the body shape is reminiscent of the tall alien in **Close Encounters**. That’s how I came to think the robots in AI were actually aliens. “Oh, look - it’s the CET3K aliens, modified for non-copyright violating reasons!” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/71 "2013-01-21T16:13:06Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Jason’s iconic mask isn’t there right away, either, 3rd movie I think. The reboot of Friday the 13th seems to condense the antagonists forms from the first three movies into one film. It starts with Mrs. Voorhees (FtT1), then Jason comes with a burlap sack on his head (FtT2), then he finds the hockey mask (FtT3). It’s a little like a comic book reboot, such as John Byrne’s re-introduction for Superman in the mid-80s: the backstory about planet Krypton, Smalliville, Jimmy Olsen and kryptonite are all there from the start rather than being added on years after the fact. Anyway, as for the OP - I’d suggest that iconic 70s film **Saturday Night Fever**. I was a little kid when it was a big sensation, so only knew about it rather than saw it. SNF is well-known as the movie that propelled disco from being a small, insular phenom in NYC to a huge world-wide fad. But a few years ago, I actually watched the flick. I’ll put a plug in for it as it really is a good film, but what struck me most is how **anti** -disco the movie is; the movie portrays the disco culture as a lurid, vapid vacuum populated by small-time losers. The whole trajectory of the film is that Travolta starts thinking of himself as some hot-shot, but gradually he grows to realize that it is a racist, misogynist, decadent scene and in the final scenes of the movie he abandons it. The movie in no way tries to make disco look glamourous or sexy. In fact it looks cheesy and sleazy as hell. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/72 "2013-01-21T16:54:45Z")
Great addition, **Don Draper**. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/73 "2013-01-21T18:00:31Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Well, we would occasionally actually see the “jumpees” in some kind of holding room, so it seems obvious that they’re actually switching whole bodies and not just consciousness. (My most vivid memories of this are Dr. Ruth and some kind of vampire or monster or something.) There’s also an episode where Sam leaps into the life of a woman with a young child. The kid sees Sam and tells people that’s not her mom. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/74 "2013-01-21T18:52:50Z")
> [@Omega\_Glory](#): > > There’s also an episode where Sam leaps into the life of a woman with a young child. The kid sees Sam and tells people that’s not her mom. There’s also one where Sam’s a bullied little twerp who eventually decides to just pick up and dangle his _only-looks-bigger_ tormentor over the side of a well. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/75 "2013-01-21T18:53:20Z")
> [@MilTan](#): > > This one I can give a pass to (especially compared to “Every Breath You Take.”) Sure, Clapton may have written it about another man’s wife, but that’s just surrounding context. Taken on its own, the song is perfectly appropriate for a wedding. On the other hand, “Every Breath You Take” is about a fucking stalker. Yeah, it’s not like the song gives any hints at all. It’s a love song. The inspiration for it may have been Clapton being a prick, but the song is 100% a love song. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/76 "2013-01-21T18:58:43Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > It’s a little like if Spielberg had said “The guys chasing Indiana Jones in _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ were Hindu priests! You can tell by the swastikas! Just because they though black was fashionable and had German accents, people think they were _Nazis?_ They were educated in Heidelberg, that’s all!” Except the entire movie A.I. is about Artificial Intelligence, not aliens. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/77 "2013-01-21T19:37:22Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > It’s a little like a comic book reboot, such as John Byrne’s re-introduction for Superman in the mid-80s: the backstory about planet Krypton, Smalliville, Jimmy Olsen and kryptonite are all there from the start rather than being added on years after the fact. I haven’t read much Superman, but I’ll also guess that they started him with all his powers, instead of the piles of retcons in the early day. IIRC he only had Super-Jumping early on, and they changed it to flight. Then there’s all those one shot powers, (okay, found [Wikipedia’s page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_and_abilities_of_Superman#Golden_Age_Superman)). Like “Superhuman control of face muscles” (okaayy…), Super-ventriloquism, etc. Sounds like Byrne curtailed his powers more than before or after. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/78 "2013-01-21T20:50:42Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > I haven’t read much Superman, but I’ll also guess that they started him with all his powers, instead of the piles of retcons in the early day. IIRC he only had Super-Jumping early on, and they changed it to flight. Then there’s all those one shot powers, (okay, found [Wikipedia’s page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_and_abilities_of_Superman#Golden_Age_Superman)). Like “Superhuman control of face muscles” (okaayy…), Super-ventriloquism, etc. Sounds like Byrne curtailed his powers more than before or after. Yeah. My local comic book guy is something of a Superman expert/historian, and he said the whole point of the Byrne Superman reboot was to rein him in because his powers had become completely ridiculous. He told me the crowning example was an issue in which Superman flew into space and literally blew out a star, the same way a kid would blow out a candle on his birthday cake. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/79 "2013-01-21T21:23:40Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Or playing **Every Breath You Take** at your wedding. Or **I Will Always Love You** (the singer is _leaving_) or **Saving All My Love For You** (extra-marital “other woman” whining about how the cheater hasn’t kept his promise to break up his family for her). ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417/80 "2013-01-21T22:11:31Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Yeah. My local comic book guy is something of a Superman expert/historian, and he said the whole point of the Byrne Superman reboot was to rein him in because his powers had become completely ridiculous. He told me the crowning example was an issue in which Superman flew into space and literally blew out a star, the same way a kid would blow out a candle on his birthday cake. Actually, that started well before Byrne. The famous “[Kryptonite Nevermore!](http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=user_review&id=1724)” storyline was written in 1971 by Dennis O’Neil, largely to do away with a lot of the silver-age nonsense, including how even dime-store thugs could get ahold of kryptonite, and how Superman kept falling for it, despite being able to juggle planets. The end result was a sharp reduction in Superman’s powers (several dozen orders of magnitude below the “blow out a star” Wayne Boring era, though still at at a level well above Byrne’s reboot). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aspects-of-pop-culture-people-seem-to-misunderstand/647417.md?page=5)