After reading the linked thread, I was actually ready to get on board with a smiling bandit rant… until the Bridge Over the River Kwai bit.
Watch (or rather, listen to) this and then tell me you think it’s obscure.
So what? Not knowing it hardly makes one blindingly culturally illiterate.
Quick, without Googling, what Division 1 NCAA Men’s basketball coach has the record for most lifetime victories?
Shit if I know. I also don’t know much about Broadway musicals except the famous ones. I haven’t really seen all that many plays, either. My knowledge of modern poetry is woeful, as is my knowledge of the past eighty years or so of art music. I never claimed to be an authority, but if you want to be able to say you know anything about film, you do indeed have to watch movies made before you were born, that’s all. And yes, if you don’t have any knowledge of the movie at all, I’d say either you have a weird gap in your experience or that you are kind of culturally illiterate. I’d at least expect you to know the song, know that it’s a WWII prison camp movie, and to know that Alec Guinness was in it.
ETA - I was trying to think if I could name a basketball coach at all - was Bear Bryant a basketball coach? If so, that’s better than I expected. 
Who is Alec Guinness? Is he that guy from 30 Rock?
I don’t know why, but I’ve known the names Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry since childhood – and I’m not that old.
ETA:
Smart alec.
This is probably just going to throw gas on the fire, but Alec Guiness defined the role of John LeCarre’s spy George Smiley. It was one of his greatest performances EVER! “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” came out in 1979, and “Smiley’s People” came out in 1982.
Both of those performances were AFTER “Star Wars!”
Oh, you know, that was good. I got quite a chuckle out of that.
Sigh. It’s Bow-shaump, light on the “p”. Don’t you know your French, you cultural illiterate?
Maybe they were banking on our cultural illiteracy, expecting we would fail to notice that their version was (peering through my culturally literarily snobbishly ivory lorgnettes) decidely inferior
Of course, you know Guinness only took the role of obi-wan so he could buy up all the negatives from the gay pornos he made in the 30’s
(OK, not true, but if he didn’t have a better reason to accept the part, I wish he’d have turned it down and let it go to Donald Pleasance, who was a much better sport about these things)
While I may not know the answer to that question, I know who Bobby Knight is when the name comes up.
That’s like asking, “Where does Bridge over the River Kwai stand on the all-time list of top-grossing movies?” For the purposes of this thread, they are irrelevant questions.
Dude, if he hadn’t taken the role people like the OP might have absolutely no idea of who he was.
I’ve seen Bridge on the River Kwai numerous times and greatly enjoyed it but is it just me or was Alec Guinness’ performance nothing special.
He just kind of played along with the other characters and even did an overexaggerated “OMG!! It’s so hot in there!! I feel so… so… faint…”.
Maybe he had other roles where he was brilliant but that one surely didn’t stand out.
That is not what **Claire **said. It wasn’t about anyone claiming any authority about movies.
Then by your own admission, you would have to be culturally illiterate as well, right?
Philistine. :mad: Football.
I think you’d have a hard time finding somebody who honestly thinks “a big part of culture today” and “culturally literate” are using the same definition of the word “culture.” But you obviously know that, so I didn’t think there was any point in saying it.
ETA - whoops, my mom is going to be disappointed in me. I did, at least, name a coach of some game played with a ball on the college level, so there’s that. Oh, wait, there’s also that guy at Duke with the Polish name that starts with K and is pronounced sheshevsky, right? That has to be basketball.
Then pick another question. How about “What college coach was instrumental in the introduction of the shot clock?” My main point is that sports is as much a part of popular culture as movies are, and that many folks who could quote chapter and verse WRT Alec Guinness movies know piss-all about sports.
Depends on whether you define “culture,” in the sense of “cultural literacy,” to include sports (and I think a case could be made either way). If it does, then yes, that would make someone culturally illiterate. If no, then they’d be some other kind of illiterate.
And by these standards, if you want to call me “illiterate” (or ignorant), I’ll cheerfully accept the label. It’s not an ignorance that particularly bothers me, but neither am I proud of it; and for the most part I’ll humbly keep my mouth shut in discussions of football or basketball.
If by “today” you mean “the past eighty years.”
OP is weakly executed, but good in theory. Let’s look at the original quote:
For many people born in the 70s and 80s, their first exposure to Sir Alec Guinness was his role in Star Wars. Often times, our first impression of an actor sticks - he did a fine enough job to be iconic as Obi-Wan Kenobi, so folks (such as myself) will always best remember him for that role despite having seen him in other films.
Does that make one “culturally illiterate”? No, it just means a strong first impression can stick.
Also: fuck.