Director, John Hughes died at 59 yesterday. Hughes wrote, directed, and/or produced seemingly every iconic movie from the 80’s:Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, National Lampoon’s Vacation, European Vacation, and Christmas Vacation, Pretty in Pink, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, The Great Outdoors, and Uncle Buck.
And, remembering all of these movies reminds me that, at 30, I’m already old...but this isn’t the first time I’ve realized this.
One of my friends made a joke at the expense of his 15-yr-old nephew by referring to him as “the new Ferris Bueller.” With simultaneous boredom and disgust, his nephew looked at him and said, “What’s that…Is that some band from the 90’s?”
Earlier this week, I sat down with a 20-something to watch Unforgiven (Best Picture 1992 starring Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, & Gene Hackman). We are not that far apart in age, but he had never even heard of the movie, and he missed every reference or comparison to other movies I tried to make.
Everything worth hearing from me is stolen. So, admittedly inspired by questions raised in another blog (much more clever than this one) and an article by Chuck Klosterman (also referenced by said blog), I want to know what cutural content is required for you to be fluent among your own peer group.
Klosterman’s article and the related blog argued that ignoring cultural phenomena such as Harry Potter today is a conscious choice to become culturally illiterate and irrelevant tomorrow.
Now, all discussions of Potter aside, I want to know two things:
First, what pieces of pop-culture (music, movies, and TV) form a baseline for cultural literacy among your peers?
And second, what are the new classics? What recent releases (broadly recent; in the last 5-10 years) are the new pop-culture musts?
