# Slaughtering Sacred Cows of Entertainment **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 9, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834 "2005-01-09T03:25:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/241 "2005-01-13T10:00:08Z")
**Askia** - word. I’ve actually been pissed off more than once lately, when the newsletter arrives and there are no staff reports, only classic columns, which I’ve read a long time ago. Cecil’s lost his edge. I don’t think even hard core fans are trying to say that Dan Brown is Shakespeare **WhyNot** , but readers who are willing to dump a couple o’ Ks into going to Scotland to look at an old church, indeed take his ideas seriously. It might be that the average Doper think that something has to be lichatoor to be a serious work, but considering how many people buy into Dr Phil, Paolo Cuelho (sp?) or The Celestine Prophecy literature =/= impact on people. There are a lot of die hard fans for whom Dan Brown is indeed a sacred cow. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/242 "2005-01-13T13:12:47Z")
> [@continuity eror](#): > > — Star Wars. Terrible plotting, cardboard characters, wooden dialogue. Terrible movies, all. My boyfriend says I don’t like SW only because I didn’t grow up with the movies. (Didn’t see them until I was 20.) I say I know a bad movie when I see it. I believe that the whole “Star Wars” phenomenon is based on reliving your childhood. Move on with your life. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/243 "2005-01-13T15:58:12Z")
Actual Sacred Cows slaughtered here: Shakespeare Beethoven’s 9th Picasso Citizen Kane Frank Sinatra Beatles Bob Dylan Everything else (and possibly even the last 4) is pop culture you don’t like. ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/244 "2005-01-13T17:34:44Z")
Did anybody mention Led Zepplin? 'cause I hate 'em. Bloated, overrated crap that inspired shitloads of crap. It’s crap. And Rush sucks, too. ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/245 "2005-01-13T18:25:13Z")
I find it funny that some people are complaining the cows are not sacred enough and others are complaining they’re too sacred. **jsc1953,** the OP specified sacred cows of entertainment not the sacred cows of great art, and gave as examples Tolkein and Star Trek - so I think many of the nominations that you reject fall well within the defined paramaters (though NEVER NEVER Paulie Shore). I can’t imagine that two of my sacred cows - Maya Angelou and Thomas Pynchon are not sacred cows by anyone’s standards. **Crandolph** , I don’t see how a work of art being rated top in the field does not leave a lot of room for the possibility that it might be overrrated (i.e. maybe it’s not the TOP in the field?) Anyway most people aren’t even claiming they’re overrated, they’re just saying they don’t like them. For instance I didn’t say jazz was bad - I just said it gives me a migraine. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/246 "2005-01-13T18:41:32Z")
> [@uglybeech](#): > > **jsc1953,** the OP specified sacred cows of entertainment not the sacred cows of great art, and gave as examples Tolkein and Star Trek - so I think many of the nominations that you reject fall well within the defined paramaters (though NEVER NEVER Paulie Shore). I can’t imagine that two of my sacred cows - Maya Angelou and Thomas Pynchon are not sacred cows by anyone’s standards. Point taken. I think Maya Angelou and Thomas Pynchon are close enough to the border between Art and Entertainment that they would qualify in either category as Sacred Cows, and I should’ve included them in my short list. I guess I just reject the premise of the OP. When it comes to Entertainment, there are no sacred cows. There are just forms many people like, but you don’t. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/247 "2005-01-13T18:51:15Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > I guess I just reject the premise of the OP. When it comes to Entertainment, there are no sacred cows. There are just forms many people like, but you don’t. There are sacred cows in entertainment (tangentially, I reject the notion that entertainment is not art) - if the very act of disliking a given performer or performance _offends_ a large group of people, that’s a sacred cow. When someone takes it personally that you dislike something they like, you’ve hit one of their sacred cows. Most things in here qualify. ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/248 "2005-01-13T19:10:20Z")
> [@lost in the post](#): > > I name not a person, or specific work, or genre, but a style: SHAKY CAMERA ! The “style” I despise – way, way **WAY** overused “style” – is the revolving camera. You know it, when two characters are talking and the camera revolves around them, like the camera’s on a merry-go-round, pointed inward. A close second is the never-still camera. It doesn’t necessarily revolve, but it constantly pans across the scene, with the director taking great care to put blurry foreground objects in the way that obscure the characters for a while. What the holy “h” is with that? Get a clue, stupid directors, it’s not “artsy”, it’s just damned distracting! Instead of being able to focus on the story, the dialog, the characters, the scene, I’m constantly being reminded by your damned moving camera that I’m watching something that was filmed!! ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/249 "2005-01-13T19:15:27Z")
> [@lost in the post](#): > > I name not a person, or specific work, or genre, but a style: SHAKY CAMERA ! > > All too often in film, these days, it’s used project the gritty immediacy of a real situation, or just as a random artistic effect. > > I just get motion sick … so all you directors out there, cut it out, I don’t think nausea is the reaction you’re looking for … > > (And yet I don’t get car-, sea-, or air-sick.) Hear hear! I raise my stein to you, good sir! I especially hate that Spielberg, who at one time had some very well thought out action scenes, has fallen in love with it. Minority Report and Saving Private Ryan were both ruined for me because of the cliche’d crappy shaky-cam. Compare the fist fight in the factory from Minority Report to Indy’s fight around the flying wing in Raiders, and you’ll see exactly what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2005, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/250 "2005-01-13T19:26:25Z")
> [@Crandolph](#): > > I imagine Citizen Kane was mindblowing when it came out compared to everything else around it; it was exteremely influential and, again, you can say “I don’t like it” (I do) but you’d better be prepared to rewrite cinema history in claiming “overrrated.” I don’t see any need to rewrite cinema history to say that _Citizen Kane_ is over-rated. Ok, so I’ll grant that the cinematic techniques in it were innovative for the day and that most films that followed borrowed or expanded on those techniques. But as a **movie** , _Citizen Kane_ is nothing special. Pedantic story, stupid “mystery” driving the “plot”, which I quote because there really wasn’t much of one, and characters that were not particularly interesting or well-drawn. But the best argument for why it’s way over-rated is that many critics to this day call it the greatest movie ever made. “Ever made”? Ok, it was innovative for it’s day, but to call it the greatest movie **ever made** you have to legitimately compare it to the thousands of movies that have been made since. Movies that, sure, may owe a debt to _Citizen Kane_, may have built on techniques pioneered by it, but you’re going to tell me that no movie since has improved on those techniques, or come up with variations or even \ entirely new techniques that eclipse that “masterpiece?” _Citizen Kane_ is over-rated; by today’s standards it’s a mediocre film. Call it innovative and pioneering, but don’t call it still the best movie ever made. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/251 "2005-01-14T09:16:27Z")
> [@Roadfood](#): > > _Citizen Kane_ is over-rated; by today’s standards it’s a mediocre film. It has an actual original storyline and characters who aren’t out of video games or '60s sitcoms; by today’s standards it’s High Art. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2005, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/252 "2005-01-14T22:22:09Z")
> [@Crandolph](#): > > It has an actual original storyline and characters who aren’t out of video games or '60s sitcoms; by today’s standards it’s High Art. By those standards, _Christmas with the Kranks_ is High Art. I think we can set the bar a little higher than that. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/253 "2005-01-15T08:36:49Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > By those standards, _Christmas with the Kranks_ is High Art. I think we can set the bar a little higher than that. Obviously there are any number of things that recommend _CK_ as at least a decent movie. I was being a bit facetious; even so the fact of the matter is that _Kranks_ is typical of “today’s standards” of a Hollywood release and the two minimal requirements I noted are not met by a lot of Tinseltown’s current stream of dreck. If someone would like to start listing the great Hollywood releases of 2004 that are just flat out better movies than _CK_, and we can establish this list as “today’s standards,” I’m willing to have a look and start a discussion as to whether or not CK was “overrated.” In the meantime, I have to reiterate that a lot of this thread has simply been people stating that they don’t happen to personally like (and, hey, to each his own) incredibly popular and influential art pieces and entire genres of arts without bringing anything to the table in terms of useful or comparative criticism. (The last time I participated in one of these types of threads, I was arguing with someone who found The Beatles to be inferior in range, scope and accomplishment to… wait for it… Judas Priest and Tears for Fears. Please tell me we’re not about to do the cinema equivalent! :smack:) ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/254 "2005-01-15T14:05:54Z")
Howard Stern. It’s not that I’m some overprotective mother who objects to sleeze on moral grounds, I don’t like him because he’s not funny. He’s not talented enough to have an entertaining show without describing strippers masturbating, and he has to resort to making fun of handicapped people to (rarely) be funny. Other radio shows are funnier (eg. Bob and Tom) without resorting to ‘shocking’ stuff. For example, the Monsters (who are always funnier than Stern) are funnier when they have Wendy (known as 'Wendy the retard on Stern) on, and they don’t make fun of her. [Slightly OT] It seems to me that most CS threads get changed to a “xxx is the worst movie ever” thread. Or, at least, most have an OT post about how Titanic is the worst movie ever. (For the record, it’s not the worst movie ever. It’s not even the worst ‘big budget’ movie ever – Battlefield Earth is. Titanic may me the most over-rated movie ever, but it’s not the worst.) I’d like to think that, in the future, anytime a CS thread starts to get hijacked like that, someone will politely refer that poster to this thread. Thus, this thread is serving a noble purpose. Re: crapping on a thread. This is why I forced myself not to post in a recent thread about that non-funny piece of crap ‘comic’ “For Better Or Worse”. (Lynn Johnston must think that her strip appears in a section of the newspaper called “The Poinants” or “The Thoughtful, Touching Craps”) That would make me an asshole. And this is why I’m going to force myself not to defend any of my favorites being slammed here (and it’s hard) – This isn’t the place. However, I will say that a lot of “sacred cows” mentioned here are really, at best, “somewhat liked cows”. The Great Gatsby might be a ‘sacred cow’. Adam Sandler is not. Gattaca ain’t even close. [I wrote most of this before I had read half of the thread (damn, it’s up to like 6 pages now!). I see that astorian an other have gotten into this already. What the hell, I typed it up, I’m going to post it.)] Still, better to have a thread like this for people to dump on things that they perceive to be overrated, than for every other CS thread to get hijacked. [/slightly OT] Now for the seconding… anime. I once watched 30 minutes of Dragonball Z with my friend’s son, and figured that it could have been done in 5 minutes (and been entertaining) if they just cut out all the repeating-of-over-emoting crap. Picasso sucks. (Incidentally, in my prepubescent years, I liked to read Judy Blume books. One had a part where a character’s father was one of those overrated, bad artists, who made a buttload of money selling a canvas that his estranged wife had thrown a bucked of paint over. I thought that it was a funny jab at crap that some people call art. For me, Picasso is the emitome of overrated bad art.) And an original (I think): M_A_S\*H PookahMacPhellimey, check out [maddox.xmission.com](http://maddox.xmission.com) for his list of the 11 worst songs of the year. Try As I Might, I don’t know what you mean by “kneebiter”, but it’s amazing how many shows have a fat, stupid husband with a hot wife. One of the sketch-comedy shows did a bit making fun of this. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/255 "2005-01-15T15:13:50Z")
Bob Dylan - Nasal whiny wheezing, words nobody can understand or decipher. Even sadder, any band in the world from the Turtles to the Byrds to the garage band down the street can do his stuff better than he can. Easy Rider - Everybody loved it (?). To me it was a boring film about boring people on bikes. Did I mention that it was boring? Hemingway - Almost all his stories can be boiled down to bare bones by simply writing “This was a miserable SOB who had a shitty life and then died. Alone. In the rain”. Breakfast Club - I know it was already mentioned. One of the most boring, pointless things I ever saw. Andy Warhol - I never did “get it” and probably never will. A painting of a soup can, a painting composed of giant dots (like looking at the funny papers with a magifier) and other assorted wierdness. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/256 "2005-01-15T15:25:08Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Andy Warhol - I never did “get it” and probably never will. A painting of a soup can, a painting composed of giant dots (like looking at the funny papers with a magifier) and other assorted wierdness. I hate Warhol too, but one of the reasons for his fame was simply the people he hung out with. He hung out with the popular crowd. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/257 "2005-01-15T15:40:10Z")
> [@Crandolph](#): > > My candidate for overrated? “Dr. Zhivago,” the movie and the book. Strelnikov the villain is the only charcter with a consistent morality, which is precisely what Pasternak didn’t want to portray. Few of the characters behave believably. Zhivago himself is a womanizing pig. Pasternak seems to have contempt for the average peasant Russian. At least it was beautifully filmed, and the leading lady was a knockout. But as a story…? If it weren’t trashing the Soviet revolution, it would never have sold… bad piece of storytelling, told poorly. I keep a copy of the novel about. When I pick it up and try to read it, I know that it is time to go to the library… ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/258 "2005-01-15T17:51:23Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Andy Warhol - I never did “get it” and probably never will. A painting of a soup can, a painting composed of giant dots (like looking at the funny papers with a magifier) and other assorted wierdness. Sorry, not a defense of his art or anything - but I think you mean [Roy Lichtenstein](http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/frames.htm) (site uses flash exclusively) regarding the “funny papers with a magnifier”, not Warhol. Not being familiar with Warhol’s stuff, I could very well be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/259 "2005-01-15T17:54:52Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Whenever a thread like this is started, we should recall the wise words of Stanley Crouch: when you get right down to it, NOTHING is as popular as we think it is!.. Good post, mate. _applauds_ 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Thirty-Nine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f0a364/32.png) [@Thirty-Nine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thirty-Nine)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834/260 "2005-01-15T20:13:53Z")
I wrote most of this before reading the thread (to avoid influence), and just about every sentiment expressed here has been delivered elsewhere. I’m especially glad to find that others dislike the Hitchhiker’s Guide. **Homer Simpson** : Most of the time, I hate the stupid characters in the Simpsons - Homer and Ralph in particular. Most of the jokes connected to them are either slapstick or derivative ‘stupid statements’. Modern day clowns. And Family Guy had to go and make four strong multi-dimensional characters, then throw Homer and Ralph clones in. That said, I’m a huge fan of both shows – fortunately most of the humour comes from the situations Homer and Peter end up in and not the characters themselves. Yeah, Family Guy does take it too far sometimes, but I believe it betters the Simpsons in many respects. As I already hinted at, the characters are a lot stronger. Marge is just a housewife, but Lois has a lot more to her than that. Family Guy also does the cutaway thing that the Simpsons stopped doing. I too am completely baffled by **Futurama**. **The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy** : I’ve read through the ‘trilogy’ (a five book trilogy - talk about ‘thinking outside the box’…) once and recently made a second futile attempt to enjoy it. I usually like simple writing, but with Douglas Adams it feels more as if a little kid is telling me the story. The writing is exceedingly facetious, often leading to these ‘playful philosophies’ which are more often irritating than enlightening. Finally, the books are full of these largely irrelvant snippets of information about some part of Adams’ fantasy universe, and subsequent comic interactions with these objects. I just don’t find this interesting whatsoever (which isn’t to say nobody else should). Actually, thinking about it, Futurama isn’t amusing to me for the same reason the Hitchhiker’s Guide isn’t: too difficult to identify with. **Alice in Wonderland** is awful as a story, but the strength of the individual sections means it’s still on my bookshelf. **U2** aren’t bad, but the reverence they’re paid just doesn’t make sense. Take away Bono’s ego, and what do you have left? A fairly standard soft rock group with some neat catchy riffs. Similar deal with **Queen** and **Aerosmith** – they seem(ed) to be trying harder to be rock stars than actually making interesting music. Case in point: Disney’s Rock & Rollercoaster – with Aerosmith! There’s way too much slapstick in **Monty Python** , but the sketches which rely on a different sort of humour are classic. The Doors aren’t really overrated, but **Jim Morrison** definitely is. Glassy, the keyboard guy is Ray Manzarek and definitely the Doors strongest element IMO. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slaughtering-sacred-cows-of-entertainment/283834.md?page=14)