This is like compiling Captain America’s list in his little notebook.
Just play that Bill Joel song over and over. It’ll bring them up to speed, or turn them into arsonists.
Except things that are out of the time period. Like 1920’s-Style “Death Rays”.
I may have seen The Notebook out of that entire list. I am a white, middle-class professional in his mid-fifties and therefore not the targeted demographic for many popular films of the last fifteen years (or so).
But it is less important to have seen these films than to know about them. I have not seen Avatar but can recoginze a “blue alien cat people who ride dragons” references.
Many years ago, I had my religious school (not Christian) students work with Hirsch’s Cultural Literacy for several weeks for SAT and college prep. They were unfamiliar with much of the content and many common expressions (like “It’s apples and oranges”). I wouldn’t have been able to utter a word like “Kardashians” to them while they were still students.
We aren’t talking about appreciating or even necessarily understanding. We are talking about cultural literacy appropriate for a 20yo. A 20yo doesn’t need to be able to write an essay on the symbolism of the Saruman character’s story arc with reference to the post-war military industrial complex. For a 20yo to be sufficiently culturally literate to pass WRT TTT, she just needs to know who Saruman is, what he looks like and what his memorable moments on the film.
And yes, you sure an do that without watching TFotR.
A typical 20yo doesn’t understand 1990 and 1980. Any more than 20 years ago, I understood 1975 or 1965.
I think that people are vastly overestimating the amount of historical cultural understanding that teenagers possess. When I was 20, the 1960s seemed like borderline ancient history. My knowledge came from Get Smart, Gilligan’s Island and Batman, and my impression of it was that it was slightly weird. And that was it. I had effectively no knowledge at all of major cultural events such as the Cold War, Sexual Revolution or Generation Gap. I knew a tiny bit about Viet Nam, mostly from watching action movies. And I was significantly more educated and historically aware than most of my peers. It’s just that my historical knowledge came from history books, so I knew more about Etruscan culture than US culture of 30 years earlier.
A typical 20yo today is just the same. They really don’t understand the world before 9/11. And to mimic cultural literacy, you wouldn’t need to understand it. So long as you know what 80s and 90s TV shows are, to today’s kids, what Get Smart and MASH were for my generation, you’ll do just fine, Because that is where kids are getting their knowledge about the 80s and 90s from.
I think a lot of people are confused about what we are trying to achieve here. We aren’t aiming for cultural literacy of a level required for cocktail party conversation amongst middle aged professionals. We are aiming for a level of literacy that will enable a 19 or 20 yo to function without looking like they have lived their whole life on the moon.
A 20yo who has never seen and has absolutely no familiarity with The Notebook, American Psycho or The Prestige isn’t even going to be recognisable. Those movies just aren’t referenced by 20yos who aren’t studying film. In contrast, a 20yo who can’t instantly get the reference when someone says something like “Why so serious, son?” is going to stick out like a sore thumb.
That’s the level of cultural literacy we need to be aiming for. We don’t need an ability to critique every minor character in every work of pop culture of the past 50years. We need an ability to recognise the cultural touchstones of group of 19yos of the appropriate sex. That’s all. We don’t even need to be able to recognise every single reference. We just need to be able to recognise enough to not be the guy who never gets cultural references. If you don’t get “Why so serious, son?”, but are able to say “Puny God” when you hand someone a smackdown, you’ll pass just fine.
I actually like Wolverine’s approach. A list that includes the really big movies and then a couple form each of the really big genres would probably be sufficient to pass. Not every kid has seen every movie, so if someone misses a reference to Batman, that’s fine so long as he is aware that the movie existed and can get or make references to Avengers.
I also like the idea of using media with lots of cultural references. When I was growing up, MAD magazine was the source of a lot of my cultural knowledge about things I hasn’t actually experienced. Shows like Community, South Park or Scott Pilgrim or perhaps even MAD TV would be a good way to get across a lot of the cultural zeitgeist in terms of what parts of pop culture can be laughed at and why and how. Even if you don’t know who Britney Spears is, those shows would give you a pretty good idea of what she is.
I think a lot of people are confused about what we are trying to achieve here. We aren’t aiming for cultural literacy of a level required for cocktail party conversation amongst middle aged professionals. We are aiming for a level of literacy that will enable a 19 or 20 yo to function without looking like they have lived their whole life on the moon.
One movie that I forgot to include was Mean Girls. I saw a Teens React episode about Mean Girl’s 10th anniversary and there was a very high awareness of the movie.
Speaking of Youtube - some popular channels/categories
[ul]
[li]Video game commenters - PewdiePie, Smosh, etc.[/li][li]React Channel (great for learning about popular Internet culture)[/li][li]Epic Rap Battles of Hissss-tooory (actually this whole series could catch people up pretty quickly)[/li][li]Something watched in a high school class - V-Sauce, PBS Idea Channel, Veritasium, Minute Physics, etc.[/li][li]Criticism - movies, anime, fashion, etc.[/li][li]Movie “sins” - HISHE, Honest Trailers, Cinema Sins[/li][li]Instructional videos - makeup, cooking, etc.[/li][li]Music videos[/li][li]Random viral videos - OK Go, Rebecca Black, History of Dance, Charlie bit my finger, Star Wars kid, Gangnam Style, What does the fox say?, keyboard cat, double rainbow, Chocolate Rain, and so on and so on (Viral videos can be an entire lecture in itself)[/li][/ul]
This is mostly a guess as I’m listing things that I like or am aware of. I don’t know what most teenagers actually watch online.
My son is 12, and that looks like a pretty good list to me.
For what it’s worth, I’m a HUGE Elders React fan. I think I’ve seen them all…multiple times.
To you, maybe…
Fantastic contribution there. :rolleyes:
Speaking of “Movie Sins”- Steve Rogers sees Wargames and visits his exhibit at the Smithsonian before seeing Star Trek or finding out about Steve Jobs!
I don’t think I could.
The stuff they’d need to know to blend in would be stuff that an 18-year-old would know. And I don’t know what those crazy kids are watching & listening to these days because I’m old & out of touch. Probably some musicians/bands (Taylor Swift, maybe? a boy band? this is probably gender-specific and I’ve absolutely no idea who boys that age listen to), some movie that all of them saw and loved when they were 13-years-old, a TV show or two that was targeted at that demographic. I’m thinking a video game, too. Possibly a you-tube thingy. Are they old enough for Harry Potter, or was that the group that came before them? They also would need to know how to find things on the internet.
Casablanca is a great movie, but my guess is that most 18-year-olds haven’t seen it and they definitely don’t reference it. They won’t say “huh?” when a Beatles song is mentioned because their peers don’t mention Beatles songs.
There are some that don’t know that Charles Xavier from the X-Men runs a school called “Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters”.
I pretty much agree with what Blake has posted, with the caveat that I think he’s significantly overestimating the amount of TV shows young people watch. Namely, people tend to watch every episode of a series they like, rather than watching a few episodes each from dozens of series. It is perfectly plausible for two people, both of whom watch plenty of television, to have very few shows in common. Not getting a reference to Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead or Breaking Bad is not going to out a young person as an alien imposter. It’s just going to signal that they don’t watch the show in question. There’s also the fact that people watch a lot of television that isn’t TV: things like sports or news that don’t have many cultural referenes.
One thing that I don’t think has been mentioned is that the culture that a person is expected be familiar with varies by the type of person. A young man probably doesn’t need to have seen any romantic comedies, dramas, or movies that don’t involve humor or violence. A young woman doesn’t need to have seen torture movies like Saw.
Finally, there’s the fact that people often reference a specific movie line or phrase rather than the entire film. Everyone knows who Luke Skywalker’s father is. Many more people could tell you what Soylent Green is made of than have seen the film. So it might be worth it to show kids a broad swath of short, important lines from many movies rather than show a few films in totality.
I haven’t been living on the moon, but I do have grey hair and can only barely remember when I was 19 or 20.
So will some somebody please explain what these references are?
Gosh, I don’t want to stick out like a sore thumb. Somebody might think I’m not cool 
But wait. We’re all middle aged professionals. What the heck do we know about this stuff? Shouldn’t this kid be over at the Cool Kids Message Board? Or better yet, get some of those kids over here.