The
Onion AV Club (a website that all right-thinking people should be reading) just did a
Q&A with their writers about what artifact of pop culture (seminal or otherwise) they had determinedly managed to avoid consuming over the course of their life, and why. Seeing as how I am consummately capable of avoiding important cinema and television while still managing to deliver a verdict as to their quality (what can I say, ignorant judging is a skill), I thought I'd explain some of my bigger cultural gaffes:
1. Shakespeare in Love: this one is more for my family, because I'm sure a lot of my friends have never seen it and don't feel any shame or bizarre pride over that fact. But it came out when I was in my "devouring the classics, maybe if I read smart books no one will notice that I have zero social skills" period, and that coupled with my drama club tendencies made me something of a Shakespeare freak. My mom, my aunts and uncles, cousins, siblings, the homeless guy down the street: it seemed like everyone was seeing Shakespeare in Love and raving on and on about how great it was. I was going faux-rebellious stage (confession: if I'd had access to a mall, I'd probably have been shopping at Hot Topic, so I think we should all take a moment to thank Berkeley's quaint anti-mall zoning laws) and at a certain point I reached that stubborn "if everyone says it's good it must suck, because everyone is actually stupid" threshold. I refused to see it and now it has become something of a badge of honor. Every time I see a family member one of them has to mention renting Shakespeare in Love and I have to protest loudly and angrily against it. It's tradition. Also, now that my vague dissatisfaction with Gwenyth Paltrow has erupted into full-on dislike, there really is NO reason for me to sit through it.
2. Battlestar Gallactica: the funny thing is, I saw the four hour miniseries that the new Sci Fi show was based on. I even liked it! That might have had as much to do with the AP Latin exam I was avoiding studying for at the time as it had to do with its quality, but still! The guy who played Lee Adama was cute, I loved the idea of the Secretary of Education being made President because everyone else was simply too dead to do the job (hooray for presidential succession!), and the Cylons were pretty awesome... but then I took the AP Latin exam, got distracted by other stuff, and one day woke up to realize there was this whole backstory and two seasons of show I'd have to get through to even begin to understand what everyone was talking about. Too much effort for not enough crazy laser beams. Don't worry, though, I still get the Cylon jokes.
3. The Wire: I know, I know, it's the greatest drama of the last five years, the last decade, the last half-century, since Philo T. Farnsworth invented television, since Shakespeare, since Aeschylus, since Adam and Eve, etc. And yet, I really can't be bothered. Maybe it's the buzz, or the convoluted story lines, or the fact that if I want to be depressed by man's inhumanity towards man I can just read the New York Times, but I simply don't want to make the effort required to get into this.
4. Sex and the City: Okay, so I haven't intentionally avoided watching this - I've even forced myself to sit through a few episodes. Every time I try, though, I walk away feeling a little dirty and really, really depressed. I just don't get the claim that this show is some hilarious and witty view into the mind of the modern career woman; the whole show is a downer, as far as I can tell. I mean, here are all these gorgeous, smart successful women with lovely and glamorous lives and yet they are simply incapable of being HAPPY. It drives me crazy! They have this supportive friendship, impossibly beautiful NYC apartments and the best collection of shoes I've seen outside of a fashion institute exhibit at the Met but they keep on bitching and moaning about men! Do you know what I could DO with their lifestyles?! A lot more than they do, I can tell you that. Sex and the City depresses me and makes me righteously furious at the characters every time I try and watch it, which is why I stopped trying years ago. Also, Carrie and her stupid voice-over makes me embarrassed for freelance writers across the globe.
5. Pulp Fiction: this is something that truly does embarrass me. I don't know why I haven't gotten around to watching it - it just keeps on floating somewhere around the middle of my Netflix queue. Whenever it gets close to the top, I end up put something trashy and stupid (27 dresses, anyone?) in front and tell myself that I'll get to Pulp Fiction eventually. Let's be honest, though - I probably won't.
6. Ulysses: I have never read it. Not because I don't have access to it, mind you: there are currently three different battered and used copies of this epic literary masterpiece sitting on my shelf, taunting me with their convoluted sentence structures and endless pages. It's rare for me to leave a used bookstore without a copy of Ulysses in hand. Every time I buy a new-to-me copy I think "this will be the one I read. This will be the one I carry in my bag and pull out on the train, impressing all the other riders with my grasp of lit-rah-cha. This will be the one that I cover in marginalia, writing pithy little remarks and underlining the passages that Changed My Life in blue ink so that years from now some young thing will find my copy of Ulysses in a junk shop and be amazed by my ancient brilliance. This will be the one!" And yet it never, never is.
7. My So-Called Life: I'm sorry Acree, I've failed you! You and V are going to kick me out of the pop-culture club! I clearly don't love the 90s as much as I claim to! I've been faking all these years! I secretly hate flannel!* No, but in all seriousness, it's strange that I've never gotten into this show. I mean, I'm one of the few people alive who still LIKES Claire Danes! I enjoy her wooden acting and the voice that is simultaneously strident and whiny. And you'd think I'd be all over something that was critically acclaimed yet dropped way to early (like Arrested Development! And Veronica Mars! And my dear, soon-to-be-departed Pushing Daisies!). But I think something about Angela Chase's adventures in hair-dying and her undying love for the terminally terrible Jordan Catalano drove me crazy and made it impossible for me to sit through an episode of this show without wanting to throw something at the screen.
There are more (tons more), but I'm sick of writing this. Anyone have anything they want to get of their chest, pop-culture wise?
*This last one is a lie - I love flannel like Blair loves Chuck... wholeheartedly but with a pinch of hate and a soupcon of disgust.
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