Elvis never could spit out that mouthful of marbles. He’s famous for the same reason Marky Mark and Marilyn Manson were famous in the 90s - pushing the envelope and challenging the taste of sensible people.
Disney characters and animated movies: Cutesy, devoid of character, and the doe-like eyes make me want to puke. If I want that shit, I’ll turn on Sesame Street and look at Elmo. Even Donald duck is “cutesy cranky”. Bleh. Warner Bros cartoons kick their arse with real, flawed, complicated characters.
Isaac Asimov: Pretentious wanker. There is a limit to how many times you can use the oh-so-dramatic “Said so-and-so:” instead of “So-and-so said,” and the word “sardonically”. Hint: It’s NOT once per page. Storylines are turgid, self important, and boring.
Gone with the Wind is the ultimate suck. Topple that cow!
Ditto, ditto, a thousand times ditto.
Same difference.
And second Elvis. Why is there a cult about him? He died on a toilet of a drug overdose–that’s not a tragedy, that’s stupidity. He was washed up, gone to seed and shabby with it. Ugh.
Blogs–give me verified news, not just your opinion and you might get some traction with me. I don’t mind commentary, but most blogs come across as blowhards who like to “hear” themselves type.
Most poetry is crap–but when it’s not, it can blow you away.
Agreed. Maybe people who half fill their cup with cream, sugar and syrups like it, but it doesn’t taste like coffee.
Thirded on Starbucks.
John Williams… too many of my music-major friends, who listen to classical/jazz/opera/something else that most teens aren’t into and have interesting things to say, also claim to loooove John Williams. I think they’re just confusing it with loving Star Wars. At least, I hope they are.
Lindsey Lohan. The Parent Trap remake was cute. That’s all. (I guess this isn’t a ‘sacred’ person for many age groups, but it is for people my age and slightly younger.)
American Idol. There, I said it. 
I love music, of course, and a few good performers have come out of it, but winning does not always = success, and the true stars could’ve been discovered some other way. Also, when my family begs me to watch with them, I absolutely must skip over the judges’ comments.
Seconded. Along those lines, I’ve always thought that the Doctor Who series was incredibly dull, even with Tom Baker. I’ve heard over and over again that the awful special effects and dialogue were part of its charm, but I can’t find anything charming about dropping beach balls on someone’s head to simulate attack by white blood cells.
I liked The Blues Brothers when I was eight. A few months ago, I Tivo’d it and found myself fast-forwarding through about 3/4 of the movie. It was just way too corny. Too many jokes fell flat, and while John Belushi had a bit of singing and dancing talent, Dan Akroyd absolutely did not, and neither of them made for talented blues musicians. At all. The performances by real blues musicians who in real life struggled and fought their way to well-earned greatness underscored this fact rather horribly, and the sight of Belushi and Akroyd trying to keep up as they performed alongside Ray Charles made me cringe. Why so many people–including Mrs. Fresh–continue to revere this movie is beyond me.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Alan Arkin doesn’t have a funny bone in his body! Every film he ever made should be cut up and used for banjo picks. (Thanks Roger Ebert!)
And while I’m at it, Keanu Reaves was GREAT in Constantine!
And Eps 1-3 of Star Wars are some of the best SF films ever made!
A big swath of anime is crap. People in their 20s and 30s or even older enthusing about Naruto or One Piece make me gag. Those shows are written and marketed as disposable entertainment for pre-teens in Japan. Enjoying them as brainless entertainment is one thing, but saying that they’re TEH BESTEST SHOW EVAR!!! is ridiculous. Crayon Shin-chan has more depth and adult appeal.
Word.
I agree.
Most modern video games. Ever since Super Mario 64- which was a good game, mind you- every video game has been about doing certain acheivements to complete the game, and having a ton of side missions which aren’t important, but are required if you want to have the game 100% completed and have it congratulate you for it. And now we have Internet connections for these dumb “Xbox Live Achievements” where you get useless points for doing things in the games you normally wouldn’t do otherwise. What ever happened to “get to the end” or “get the high score” or “win the battle?” A few hidden goodies are okay, as the earlier Mario games showed us, but you don’t have to make them mandatory. I prefer open-ended sandbox games where there are no set goals, but there aren’t many of those out there.
And on a similar note, I don’t see the point of Second Life. The Sims, I can see and enjoy- it’s a silly sandbox where you can create fantasy people and have them live their lives with either great accomplishements or tragedies worse and more hilarious than Days of Our Lives and World War II combined. Second Life, as far as I can tell, is just walking around in a virtual world, looking at things and talking to people. Why would I do that in a “second life” when it’s much more satisfying and fun to do it in my first?
YouTube. The goal of YouTube was to allow Internet users to easily upload and share their own videos- and there are a number of entertaining videos which either feature original content or utilize pre-existing copyrighted content in ways which would be considered fair use. But 80 to 90 percent of YouTube is just stupid people acting like they’re clever when they really aren’t or Easy Copyright Infringement Warehouse (Now A Division Of Google!). You were named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006 for all You did on YouTube. But did You really do that much? No.
The Thai monarchy. Unfortunately, I cannot say anything further without risking 15 years in prison. 
A trip to China proves that right. They seem to be on a quest to have the biggest of everything. Like Tiananmen Square is the largest plaza or “town square” in the world. And it IS huge, too. Lots of other examples of the largest this or that. Makes claims by Texas seem puny.
The value of live music is the experience. Recordings of live music are almost never as good as the studio versions.
I’ve looked really hard for someone resembling a Sacred Cow, but you know what? There AREN’T any sacred cows today!
There’s practically nobody in any art genre who’s regarded as a genius by even 40% of the population, let alone an overwhelming majority.
Which means, while you’re free to argue that Steven Spielberg sucks and I’m free to argue that Robert Altman sucks, NEITHER of us is exactly going out on a limb. It takes no courage for us to snipe at artists or performers, because even the most popular ones don’t enjoy anything like unanimous adoration.
As Stanley Crouch likes to say, “NOTHING is as popular as you think it is.” There are 300 million people in this country. That means, if you look at the stats, it’s clear that…
-
MOST Americans never saw “Titanic.”
-
MOST Americans never listened to the Eagles.
-
MOST Americans didn’t watch “Seinfeld.”
-
MOST Americans have never gone to “Riverdance.”
And so on.
So, it’s silly when Dopers ask “AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO DIDN’T LIKE ____”, because the answer is obviously, “No.”
Now, depending on your social circles, it MAY be risky to say what you really think. If you were an intellectual teenage white male in the Seventies, it was heresy to say, “You know, a lot of Monty Python episodes were a complete waste and had absolutely nothing funny in them” (even though Michael Palin and John Cleese would probably AGREE with that assessment). Now Monty Python was NEVER huge in the USA. They had a passionate cult audience, but the vast majority of Americans never paid Monty Python any attention. So, it’s not REALLY courageous or audacious to attack them… but it SEEMED audacious when I was in high school, because so many of my peers regarded everything they did as sheer genius.
In MOST places, I could nonchalantly say, “98% of everything Frank Zappa said was bullshit, and so was 85% of his music,” because most people would say, “Frank Who?” or “Oh, you mean that weird guy who did Valley Girl and Dancing Fool?” But the SDMB is not most places. HERE, I’d get my share of abuse for saying such a thing, because the SDMB is frequented by a lot of people who regard Frank Zappa as a demigod.
Just remember that the SDMB is not the real world. Neither is your high school clique. MOST people don’t regard your sacred cows as sacred.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being was unadulterated crap cover to cover, and Kundera should have been exiled to Antarctica for it.
And how are people missing why Harry Potter was so popular? It’s mediocre prose about fantasy stuff that anyone with half a brain cell can read and vaguely enjoy and feel good about finishing a 700 page book. The whole point of sacred cows is that they’re a bunch of crap wrapped in black and white leather that a lot of idiots worship. Or maybe they’re golden. Either way.
ETA: Oh, and what’s the problem with saying someone’s hot in a jewish way? Jon Stewart exudes some jewiness. He’s kinda hot. Where’s the problem?
EETA: And before I forget, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Guns and Roses, Metallica, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, and Aerosmith just need to leave the airwaves entirely. Yeah, there was something there. The sound was good. Not good enough to carry them for 30 years. Stop fucking playing them.
Star Trek devotees, may I have your attention?
You are not Trekkers. You are Trekkies. It’s intended to be a term of derision, didn’t you get the memo?