If Stu's reading this, he's probably intensified to a sort-of bulging green colour now.
Anyhoo, my shameful lack of pop culture knowledge cropped up again this morning, due to this week's Back to the Future Twitter scam. A whole bunch of people excitedly tweeted about July 5, 2010 being the day Doc set his Delorean hoverboard machine to jump time into the future. "OMG, it's today!" was the general nature of the tweets.
Now you may be sensing the direction that this is going (I imagine Stu is some sort of dayglo orange by now).
I didn't jump onboard the meme - because I've never seen the Back to the Future movies.
(Fire engine red?)
And it turns out the meme was false - someone had just done some creative photoshopping. I triumphantly told Disco Stu and another colleague, Aaron, that finally my not having seen those movies paid off, as I didn't fall for the scam. That joke fell flat, as they merely looked at me with a combination of pity and resentment. Aaron even declared he didn't think we could be friends anymore.
A few months ago I was roundly admonished by my entire Tasmanian Babes Fiasco cast when they discovered I hadn't seen Back to the Future (there'd been talk of inserting a reference to it at some point, although I forget the details). Several of them told me that essentially I had no business being alive, let alone a director of fine comedy.
 |
| Although his hair was different, wasn't it? |
I don't know why I've never seen Back to the Future. In my defence, I did go on the Back to the Future ride at the Disney Epcot Centre in 1993. So I know there's a magic car, and Uncle Fester's in it, and there's some running gag about Michael J. Fox sleeping with his mum.
It's not like I'm completely against discovering new things. I've gotten into True Blood, for example. But it's time, you know? For example, I haven't seen a movie at the cinemas since Kick Ass about four months ago. I haven't even seen Sex and the City 2. Even though I'm a reasonably busy lass, you'd think I could make some time to squeeze in a couple of hours with Carrie and the girls, racist overtones and all. Apparently not.
Maybe I need to put down the history documentaries. The thing is, DVDs seem to be for me what music is for others. I often just put one on while I cook, clean or work at my computer. TV series are my favourite, as I can just whack on an episode of Father Ted, or Yes, Minister or Blackadder or The Micallef Program or Futurama and have some fun background noise keep me company while I beaver away on other chores.
To actually focus on something requires setting aside other tasks (except perhaps the ironing). I mentioned that I watch True Blood - Ashes to Ashes, Battlestar Galactica, Deadwood and Doctor Who are other recent examples of shows I got keen on. But there's so much more I seem to miss - and that's before you get to reality TV. I've never watched Masterchef Australia, which means 80% of all Tweets go completely over my head.
Here's a list of some more classic movies/TV shows that I'm going to confess I've either never seen or, in the case of some of the TV shows, just seen an odd episode here or there but haven't immediately rushed to JB Hi-Fi to buy the box set and watch it from start to finish over the course of a weekend.
The Blues Brothers
Toy Story (1, 2 or 3)
The Godfather, parts I, II or III
Lost
The West WingThe Wire
24
How I Met Your Mother
Six Feet Under
Dexter
Arrested DevelopmentCurb Your Enthusiasm
Mad Men
The Sopranos
Breaking Bad
The thing is, I'm "bad" because of this. I know that people reading this - many of whom tend to be on the geekier end of the spectrum - will honestly have a reaction that can best be described as "OMG WTF?!??!?!" to at least one of those movies or TV series. Some of you may even feel compelled to leave a comment telling me exactly how bad I am that I haven't seen them. And look, you're probably right. The fact that I pay my bills on time and am nice to old people really doesn't compensate for the fact I haven't seen The Goonies or Taxi Driver.
Should I be mocked and pilloried? Are there more films/TV shows out there I should know about? Does anyone else want to confess to not seeing something they're reliably told they should have? And does anyone have an oxygen pump I can use to revive Disco Stu, who seems to be twitching on the floor?
