Ever feel our generation is the last literate TV/Movie generation ?

[palitoy]

Breaking News,This just in, studies show teenagers are showing less interest in antiquing and aren't spinning Glenn Miller records like they used to.

My father in law has a habit of harassing the younger brothers in law with "I listen to real music, not what you call music!" schtick. I don't wanna do that.

[madmarva]

It's funny to think that actors like Harrison Ford and Meryl Streep to kids today are like Jimmy Stewart and Katherine Hepburn were to us.

That means for a kid to be film or television literate in our minds, they would have to be conversant about twice as much material or more at the same age as we were.

A hundred years ago, an educated person would be expected to know classics of iterature that are practically lost to not only the teens of today but also to much of our generation.

Some believe that much useful information lost in the Dark Ages has yet to resurface.

Just think of how many great works of art or literature or scholarship or music that we have no knowledge of whatsoever
has been lost to war, disaster and time.

Mass production of books has only been around for what, less than 700 years. photography 150 or 160, film a 100 or so. Computers 60 or so.

Kids today have access to so much more from the past as well as so much more being produced as we read and write on this forum through new media. It really is minding boggling. The idea of a true renaissance man is gone. There is no way one could be an expert on that much material.

[HardyGirl]

Amen, and pass the Pop-Tarts!

^You hit on something here...anticipation versus gratification. I remember the FUN of having only three channels on TV, and cartoons only on Saturday morning...the anticipation of Saturday was just magical. It was something you looked forward to all week, and the reward of watching those cartoons something to be cherished.
What kids have access to today, I liken to having Christmas every day. When you do that, it's no longer special and loses the magic. There's nothing to look forward to.

[Gorn Captain]

The young people that I know hardly read anymore (except maybe Harry Potter), and know very little about movies.
They'll just go to the theatre, look at the CG, and be texting and talking at the same time. It's all just "pretty pictures"...

Last year, I had a booth at a vintage poster convention, selling my vintage poster collection. Nice stuff, like a Belgian 1954 Black Lagoon and such.
The average age of visitors was 50-80. It was like a geriatric ward. I haven't seen this many walkers since The Empire Strikes Back.
Hardly any young people, and the few that were there went like "why does this poster cost $300, I can download it for free from the net"?


My niece (25) has never read a book. The few that she had to in school, my sister read in her place. Great parenting!
I have an old phone with a turning dial, and she didn't know how it worked.
As a child, when I was watching something in B/W, she said "the TV is broken"...

Welcome to the age where stupidity means you're part of the in-crowd.
First we sent letters, then e-mails, then Twitter, soon we will be communicating like cavemen.
"Rihanna good, fire bad!!!"

[SeattleEd]

*Agreed*

It's all marketing and what is not put in front of the masses soon wanes in history but not forgotten by the zealous few. Has always been the history of Hollywood and Broadway. Hence all the docus that come on on famous people, including presidents. Anyone hear about the steamy letters President Harding wrote to his paramour? Streamy and who knows that might boost his ratings into the limelight.

It all goes in cycles and funny hearing the newbie fan boys here at work talk about old movies and shows as if they lived through it. It's one thing to watch on television and have it displayed in one dimension and it's another to live trough and around it via media outlets. Not the same thing as many of you older folks can attest to with your favorite shows and how they reflected culture at the time.

Just all the new young actors now that are in the spotlight and making impressions on the the current younger generations, they will soon be forgotten in decades to come by another generation.

Enjoy the moment and share the memories is what I do with my kids. I got them into the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, they love it but I explain to them that life was not like for everyone that back in the early 90's, especially in L.A. but some of the culture is reflected on there.

Not my kids. They don't care how old a movie is. If it's good...they'll watch it. They both love the classic Universal Horror movies. If I land on something that interests them on TCM, they'll watch it. My son and I watched The Dirty Dozen just a month or so ago, and I am not generally a military movie guy, so it really wasn't due to my influence.

I think some of this is just cyclical. Eventually, movies, actors, books, etc, that aren't continuously in the spotlight somehow, get forgotten by the masses, and are remembered only by the die-hard fans of that particular subject.

In the time of the silent films I'm sure there were very early movie stars and stage actors that were still popular, but were eventually forgotten by the time the 40s rolled in.

Chris

[SeattleEd]

Welcome to the age where stupidity means you're part of the in-crowd.
First we sent letters, then e-mails, then Twitter, soon we will be communicating like cavemen.
"Rihanna good, fire bad!!!"

What's scary is having all the (questionable)knowledge at their finger tips and not taking advantage of it where we dependent on paper and microfiche for extensive research. Not to mention what is being spoon fed to them via media outlets and perpetuating the in-crowd mentality which in reality doesn't help us advance as a human race and grow with compassion and mindfulness....damn I've been watching too many music videos at work. :(

[hobub]

Here's one I was reading about last night...
The King of Hollywood. Why? Because he's from neighboring town, Cadiz, Oh.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Gable

I was thinking the same thing while reading that. I'm a bit of a dinosaur around here and allot of my posts about early nostalgia get a huh? Or no reply. I love history and relate to you folks on one major level, Megos. But it's all about where your interests take you. In my early years, I was glued to tv shows like the Lone Ranger and Daniel Boone, and even the later airings of Gunsmoke. But being a late baby boomer as such, I've seen not only the cultural turn from westerns towards sci-fi to music vids then reality tv, and even this site and Mego interest go from all Megos to primarily Super hero fanatics . All I can say is times change and there ain't nothin we can do except roll with it. :-) but I do know exactly what you mean from my perspective.

[enyawd72]

^Super hero fanatics?! Is that what I am? I thought I was just weird.

[hobub]

lol

[Mikey]

It just seems like now the the the same (small) talent pool is picked from for very movie. .

Very true ...... as an example I personaly HATE the sight of Tom Cruise.

I would pick a horrible painful death instead of watching one of his movies.

Unfortunately this compulsion has made me miss many of his movies -- some I would have watched if he wasn't in it - ex.Valkyrie

I'm just glad I don't have this bias against Johnny Depp or i'd really be screwed because he's LITERALLY in EVERYTHING

[Gorn Captain]

^Super hero fanatics?! Is that what I am? I thought I was just weird.

I think you're both!
Welcome to the club!

But I can understand what Hobub is saying.
I don't think they would be such a frenzy here about a new line of Western heroes, as we see now with Superheroes and such.

What I find strange about young people is the "that was before my time" attitude.
As if history...is history...
I always like good movies, no matter from which era.
I've always read about historical figures, and didn't have to find about them until Ridley Scott made a -historically inaccurate- movie about them.
I've never had an "only today and tomorrow count" philosophy.
I've always felt that knowledge makes you stronger and better.

When I hear young people on the bus bragging about how many courses they've failed, I'm at a loss for words...

[TomStrong]

The young people that I know hardly read anymore (except maybe Harry Potter), and know very little about movies.
They'll just go to the theatre, look at the CG, and be texting and talking at the same time. It's all just "pretty pictures"...

Last year, I had a booth at a vintage poster convention, selling my vintage poster collection. Nice stuff, like a Belgian 1954 Black Lagoon and such.
The average age of visitors was 50-80. It was like a geriatric ward. I haven't seen this many walkers since The Empire Strikes Back.
Hardly any young people, and the few that were there went like "why does this poster cost $300, I can download it for free from the net"?


My niece (25) has never read a book. The few that she had to in school, my sister read in her place. Great parenting!
I have an old phone with a turning dial, and she didn't know how it worked.
As a child, when I was watching something in B/W, she said "the TV is broken"...

Welcome to the age where stupidity means you're part of the in-crowd.
First we sent letters, then e-mails, then Twitter, soon we will be communicating like cavemen.
"Rihanna good, fire bad!!!"

Boy are you right! My step daughter has never read a book in her life. I can't imagine living my life that way. My wife and I have always been voracious readers and have always encouraged her and other young people in our lives to read. She's obsessed with Instagram, Facebook, and texting. And when I say obsessed i mean obsessed, like Gollum and the precious. It's really sad, for all the wisdom and advice and love we've given, it all takes a back seat to whatever chicken finger joint her friends are eating at. She literally cannot watch a movie through without texting, so knowing old stars or even getting the plot are beyond her.
And another thing, these kids have go to get often my propity.
This makes me feel like a crotchety old man but I was at least conversational with all the things my parents were familiar with, kids now for the most part are really oblivious to so much around them. They have all this technology available to them and they use it for the most vapid things I've ever seen.

[boss]

That's a shame. Our boys read every night (mostly comic books, but still...). We watched ET as a family last weekend and we've got Monty Python and the Holy Grail queued up for sometime this week. My 9 year olds favorite song is Back in Black by AC/DC. Neither son owns a phone (yet).

[EmergencyIan]

Mikey, I think that we probably are. Great topic, by the way.

I'm 40 and I think that more than 50% of people my age are even familiar with actors who weren't well known after 1980.

For me, I don't have any interest in seeing 95% of films that are being produced today. They simply don't look any good to me.

Therefore, I look for old/older films all of the time that I haven't seen before. My sources are TCM, Netflix, Film Forum in New York City and a guy in my apartment building who picks up old movies on DVD on a regular basis. Once he is done with them, he brings them over for me to watch.

I don't have a particular genre to that I prefer. If it looks like it's going to be a good movie, I watch it. The DVD's that guy brings over, I just watch. He seems to have good taste in them and hasn't brought over a clunker. I have no aversion to Westerns and war movies. I like John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, James Stewart, Clint Eastwood, Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Richard Widmark, Steve McQueen, William Holden and the list goes on and on.

In fact, in September through October, my wife and I will see a number of classics at the Film Forum here in NYC. They'll be showing all of Frank Capra's films (all restored to 4K) and those classic Tennessee Williams movies such as "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" and "A Street Car Named Desire" (restored to 4K, as well). We saw "A Hard Days Night" there early this month.

- Ian

[PNGwynne]

...even this site and Mego interest go from all Megos to primarily Super hero fanatics .

I do think a lot of fans here still appreciate Mego American West, Pirates, Knights, Merry Men, Flash Gordon, Oz. Heck, I've puttered with line expansions of those for years just because I enjoyed them so. But discussed less? True. You're right, they may have been eclipsed by super-hero ReMego.