Re: (TV) OT: The movies/music our parents did/didn't turn us onto

["Ty Burr" <tyburr@mindspring.com>]

This is a subject of interest to me at the moment (I just turned in a book
about watching classic films with children). My father's taste in old movies
definitely influenced what I got into as a teenager, and later on too, but
he had zero input into the music I listened to. Old school guy, born in
1910, didn't even like jazz -- Gilbert & Sullivan and classical were his
meat, and he had no idea what to make of rock and roll. He chaperoned my
sister and her friends to a Beatles concert in '64 and I still remember his
look of utter incomprehension the next day. I can't imagine what he would
have made of punk, Television, et al had he lived to hear it. Would have
been pure noise to him.

On the other hand, my mom's tastes in jazz -- big bands/small
groups/everything up to but not including be-bop -- made an impression on me
once I opened my ears to it in college, and she in turn was open to stuff my
sisters and I were listening to. In the last years of her life, she even got
into Delta and Chicago blues after I gave her a Howlin' Wolf tape and she
found a blues show on local late-night radio. Not bad for a woman who
shopped at Talbots.

So many variables here: one's relationship with each parent, what's going on
in pop culture at the time, what one's peers and siblings are listening to
(or what the cool kids are listening to), personal taste, where you land on
the rebellion/conformity sliding scale at different points in your life. But
I do wonder how much of what we hold dear in music and movies is built on a
foundation influenced by -- or in opposition to -- what our parents gave us.

(It gets even sketchier now that I'm a dad, of course. I have a 10-year-old
daughter who loves old B&W movies but is bored to tears with dad's music --
choice quote at the dinner table last night: "Who told Leonard Cohen he
could even sing?" I also have an 8-year-old daughter who likes Nickelodeon
and crap Hollywood movies yet also adores Patti Smith, Robyn Hitchcock, and
the Kinks, pretty much on her own dime after I've made the proper
introductions. It'll be interesting to see what she brings home when she
starts listening to her own music.

And yet neither of them could care a whit about Television -- that's daddy
music -- though they know enough to yell "Marquee Moon!" when they hear
duh-duh/duh-duh coming through the speakers.)

Would be really curious to hear other group-member's tales of parental
culture-brainwashing and their reactions pro and con.

Ty

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Hartley" <jh@brainiac.com>
To: <tv@obbard.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 6:09 AM
Subject: Re: (TV) Totally OT: King Kong review for Jay


> On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 21:33:36 -0500
> Ty Burr <tyburr@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> > As Freud would say: IN-teresting. My dad's favorite movie was the Marx
> > brothers' Duck Soup
>
> Your Dad raised you well :)
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