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Continuing this week's theme of stealing content from the past (because it's Half Term and I'm lazy), here's something I posted on the book of faces in 2016, when I was teaching at The Bad Place. I guess I didn't post it here because back then , all I pretty much did on this blog was write about music...
Squire - The Face Of Youth Today
A recent conversation with a student highlights the problem with the yoof of today...
Me: JK Rowling took a lot of her ideas for Harry Potter from Lord of the Rings...
Student: Yeah, but Harry Potter is much better than Lord of the Rings.
Me: Why's that?
Student: Harry Potter has his own theme park.
Me: Oh, so that's how we judge the worth of a story, the "greatness" of literature, is it? If they give them their own theme park?
Student: Yeah - I mean, who else can you name who has their own theme park?
Me: Mickey Mouse... Truly one of the greats of literature. After all, it was William Shakespeare himself who created Mickey Mouse.
Student: Did he???
Young Galaxy - Youth Is Wasted On The Young
Worse still, when relating this story to others in the staff room, a teaching assistant in her early 20s immediately responded: "Did he? I didn't know that."
Amy MacDonald - Youth Of Today
All of which brings me to my theory about what's wrong with the yoof of today. They have no cultural awareness beyond their own lifetime...even beyond the last couple of years in most cases. This is the fault of the internet and 57 channels of TV. When we were kids, we 3/4 channels, we watched whatever was on. Which often was old stuff made long before we were born. And we were happy with that. And it made us aware of cultural history. By the time I was 16 (the age of the above student) I was well-versed in Hitchcock, Bogart, 50s sci fi, Orson Welles, Universal horror films of the 40s, Hammer, Clint Eastwood et al. On top of all the stuff I grew up with (Star Wars, Back to the Future, Ferris Bueller). Nowadays, you can comfortably watch E4 all day and never see anything older than Friends. And why would you ever watch something in black and white?
River City People - When I Was Young
Which leads me to another conversation I had with another 16 year old recently...
Me: What's your favourite film?
Student: Magic Mike 2.
Me: Really. And why do you like that?
Student: Dunno.
Me: Well, why the sequel? What makes Magic Mike 2 better than the original Magic Mike?
Student: It's newer.
Musical Youth - Pass The Dutchie
It's worth pointing out that when I originally posted this 8 years ago, a couple of people who've known me for a long time and who are similar ages to me suggested that I wasn't typical of the average 80s teen in the way I reached back to old black and white movies, that many of my contemporaries just watched new stuff back then and never looked back at all. I wonder if you'd agree?
I don't agree. But then maybe I wasn't an average 80s teen either...
ReplyDeleteI don't agree either. It did start me wondering, though, if it has always been the case, for a sizeable majority anyway. That 1950s and '60s teenagers rejected things from the '30s and '40s, and so on? Having said that, they probably at least knew about it and were exposed to it, rather than being completely ignorant or oblivious.
ReplyDeleteStill, on a postive note, I was heartened just the other day to hear about a friend's 15-year old granddaughter who apparently loves going round second hand record shops as she's really into '60s and '70s music. She finds it so exciting to delve back into what is, at least, completely new to her ears. There is hope (I hope!)