Our Shrinking Culture: Movies and Cultural Literacy

BreakPoint ^ | 4 August 03 | Chuck Colson

[Mr. Silverback]

Critics were very hard on the recent film THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN. Roger Ebert, citing the movie's "idiotic dialogue . . . and general lunacy," proclaimed, "What a mess."

But what a colleague of mine, who saw the film, found most troubling about his experience was not what happened on screen but in the audience -- something that illustrates our incredible shrinking culture.

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN is based on a comic book series of the same name. It is set in 1899 in a world where the great characters of nineteenth-century fiction are real. You have Jules Verne's Captain Nemo interacting with H. G. Wells's Invisible Man and Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray.

As a result, the film, like the comic, is filled with amusing references and allusions to nineteenth-century literature. At least, it would be amusing if the audience caught the references. In his review, Washington-area film critic Joe Barber wondered if the audience could be expected to be familiar with these books.

Judging by the showing my colleague attended, Barber's concerns are correct. Early in the movie, Nemo introduces the others to his first mate who tells them, "Call me Ishmael" -- the first line from MOBY DICK. The audience around my colleague had puzzled expressions on their faces. The joke, requiring cultural literacy, flew right past them.

Historian E. D. Hirsch would not be surprised. In his great book CULTURAL LITERACY, Hirsch writes that American children, including those from affluent families, are not being taught "the basic information needed to thrive in the modern world." Not only do they not get references to classic literature, but words like carpetbagger, Waterloo, and Alamo mean nothing to them.

It shouldn't surprise us then that this "cultural illiteracy" would be reflected in our popular entertainment. Forty years ago, THE MUSIC MAN featured a song whose lyrics went, "I hope, and I pray, for a Hester to win just one more 'A.'" Most of the audience today would miss the reference to Hawthorne's THE SCARLET LETTER and the meaning of the lyrics that, in this case, glorify adultery.

To accommodate our illiteracy, this summer's fare is taken from comic books, television shows, video games, and even a theme-park ride. As Thomas Hibbs of Baylor University has noted, movies, like the rest of popular culture, are being dumbed down: They are entirely self-referential.

These pop-culture references are increasingly the only shared references in our culture. The participants on VH-1's I LOVE THE EIGHTIES know more about the hairstyles worn by musicians in that decade than they know about the Declaration of Independence or the great books of our history.

The problem is not only that this glorifies the trivial and the fleeting, but it deprives us of the moral guidance and wisdom that only knowledge of our own heritage can provide.

Thus, Christians should act counterculturally by setting an example of cultural literacy for our neighbors to follow. Call us here at BreakPoint (1-877-3-CALLBP), and we will suggest some good resources. Not only is it a good way to preserve our moral heritage, but it will even enable you to go to the movies and enjoy the jokes.

[discostu]

Not a bad way to distinguish either. Should send that message over to Marvel, might save the industry. One of the sadder things that's gone on in comics is that the brilliant creators that brought the art and writing to a new and amazing level (Frank Miller, Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman being the "big three") are also primarily responsible for killing the industry. I think it's great that we've got comics (graphic novels) for adults, but there's something seriously wrong with the industry having lost the ability to be sold (with a clean conscience) to people between the ages of 5 and 16.

[churchillbuff]

But The Music Man was set in 1912,

Yes, but the movie came out in 1962 (the stage version a few years earlier) -- and the lyricist (Meredith Wilson, I believe) assumed that the 1962 audience would get the reference. He couldn't assume that today.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Kipling?

[BibChr]

Kipling?

DING DING DING DING!

Give the man, well, a CIGAR, of course!

That wasn't a guess, though, was it? Do you know the title? Do you remember the first stich of the line I quote, and are just afraid to say it? (I confess, I find it a witheringly funny poem.)

Dan

[Lurking Libertarian]

That wasn't a guess, though, was it? Do you know the title? Do you remember the first stich of the line I quote, and are just afraid to say it? (I confess, I find it a witheringly funny poem.)

I don't remember the poem well, but the line is, if I recall, "a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke."

[Taliesan]

A story about a prince who has a crush on his mother, and pretends to be insane to catch usurpers, (because something is rotten in Denmark) may be historically interesting, but it doesn't speak to America, 2003.

Nobody ever read Shakespeare for the plots, you goofball. IT'S THE POETRY.

And "historically interesting"? No, it isn't.

IT'S THE POETRY.

Dear God in heaven restrain me.

[Phsstpok]

I will have all the classics waiting for my son.

Don't forget to introduce him to Verne, Twain and Kipling as well. They require context to demonstrate that they were the enlightened ones of their times, and not the hopeless racists that they might seem to the uneducated. Setting the context is almost as fun as the stories themselves.

My first graphic novel, where I felt it deserved the name (as opposed to comic book, or comic book collection) was the Dark Knight re-invention of Batman. Excellent piece of work. Of course the re-issued pulps that my Dad introduced me to when I was a pre-teen (Doc Savage, the Conan books, John Carter of Mars) were just comic books without the pictures. I actually preferred making my own pictures, though.

[BibChr]

That is correct! The poem's title is "The Betrothed".

Dan

[BibChr]

OOPS! Sorry, bad link!

"The Betrothed".

Dan

[Sabatier]

Speaking of Melville and the movies rent "Bartleby", starring Crispin Glover. It's an updated version of Melville's story of the same name and it's a gem.

[Lurking Libertarian]

I'll see you one and raise you one:

Who said: "What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar"?

[Sabatier]

For the English majors: the full title of Melville's story is "Bartleby the Scrivener":)

[ztiworoh]

As someone who recently graduated highschool and is about to begin college I recognize that the majority of my peers really lack a solid knowledge of classic literature. I have been lucky enough to have a mother who was an english major and who made me (often begrudgingly) read the classics. I began with HG Wells and Jules Verne because as a 10 year old boy the plots were simple enough and filled with action. Now Im constantly reading something, though Ive moved into more non-fiction classics lately (Plato's "Republic", Macchiavelli's "The Prince" etc). Many people don;t know what they're missing by sticking to what TV tells them.

[BibChr]

Ooh, oh, ohhhh... without using Google or the like... ow. Um. Oh golly, I'll just put my neck out:

Mark Twain?

< GOOGLE >

Well, I'm gratified to see Twain credited with it here, but this site says it was Vice President Thomas R. Marshall under Woodrow Wilson in 1917.

Dan

[Question_Assumptions]

Even The Ultimate Spiderman has some safe-sex references and such and such that could make some parents reluctant to give it to a pre-teen. I think the idea that children are "little adults" has pretty much taken over and artists no longer know where any lines are.

My biggest problem with comics / science fiction / fantasy (circle all that apply) is that a lot of the current writers are/were fanboys and fangirls. And it shows because they often seem to want to tear up the works they enjoyed as children or copy them exactly. Fortunately a few, like Kurt Busiek, understand how to do a good homage and make it original.

[Question_Assumptions]

Shakespeare has some wonderful plots! That's why they keep getting copied for modern movies and plays (e.g., West Side Story, Forbidden Planet, Ran, etc.). The specific situations may not matter but the characters, and how they respond to their situations, can still speak to a modern audience. The plots aren't the point? Ha!

[IYAS9YAS]

True. I enjoyed the movie except for a couple of things...I thought at this point, they supported the plot, but at times I did wonder if something wasn't put in just because they could. I thought the Mr. Hyde character was much more realistic looking than the Hulk ever would be.

Did you catch the tie-in to Tom Sawyer?

[discostu]

I don't even think they think children are little adults. I think they found out they could make comics for grown ups and have never looked back. Once they freed themselves from the shackles of the CCA they've gone nuts. At some point (hopefully before the industry dies outright) they're going to have to realize that while they never liked the CCA those restrictions were good for dealing with kids. Eventually I think they'll need to split each company into two sections, one that's CCA (or some equivalent) and makes comics for kids and ones that's no holds barred and makes comics for adults.

The big problem with the fanboy problem is that there's so little originality. Fantasy is ruled by people that want to be Tolkien when they grow up, comics are primarily done by Frank Miller wannabes, everybody in sci-fi is either worshiping Rodenberry or Gibson. Nobody seems to learn something from their mentor and go off in a new direction, everybody is instead trying to replicate. That's why in general I stick with the big names that are constantly being ripped off, or I break out of genre completely, I've read more Elmore Leonard in the last two years than all genre fiction combined, he's so much more entertaining and interesting, and if he is ripping somebody off I've never heard of them so I don't care.

[discostu]

Of course if you do some not so easy digging into that era you'll find Shakespeare did a lot of ripping off too. A lot of his stuff comes from Greek tragedy, most of the rest comes from Italian contemporaries who didn't have the renown he did.

Good plots though always translate regardless of genre.