I work in a team of 6 – one guy in his fifties, two in their mid forties (incl. me), a guy in his mid thirties and two guys in their late twenties.

Talk today randonmly brought up the subject of Steve McQueen. All three of the young pups had absolutely no idea who he was. Never heard of him.

On further questioning it turns out that the oldest movie any of them had ever seen in their lives was The Terminator (1984)

No Star Wars, no John Wayne, no Charlie Chaplin or Laurel & Hardy.

No Great Escape or Magnificent Seven.

Not even It’s a Wonderful Life. None of them had ever watched antyhing in black & white. Ever.

I am saddened and appalled. 🙁

It’s like you naming the star of The Battleship Potemkin, really, though, isn’t it?

Vladimir Itllallkickoff 😉

Ash and Pikachu?

I am saddened and appalled.

Different age groups have their own reference points, its not that shocking or appalling.

I only watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid last week (39).

Bloody great film.

Never seen Wonderful Life or Mag 7.

Edit: Or
Bambi
Mary Poppins
Lion king
Any Harry Potter
Flesh Gordon (yes)
etc

I’m 44 and I’ve never seen a Steve Mc Queen film. Most pre 1970’s films are pretty shite in my opinion so it’s doubtful I’ll ever watch any in future either.

I like the director Steve McQueens films though…

It’s like you naming the star of The Battleship Potemkin, really, though, isn’t it?

No…..because I am aware of the existence of these old creaky silent films and have at least been exposed to a few. I get the reference.

These guys just don’t.

It’s not so much that they haven’t seen the movies. They’ve never even heard of them.

It’s not as if Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is on TV every Christmas is it?

So they’ve never seen Mary Poppins or The Sound of Music?

Awww,there there auld yin,did you give them a Steve look..

Perchy at the site office ^^^ 😛

I’m 39, and not performing well on the OP’s list

Star Wars – I’ve seen one, the one with spaceships and a big yeti
John Wayne – Not seen any
Charlie Chaplin – Nope
Laurel & Hardy – Nope
No Great Escape – Yes
Magnificent Seven – Nope
It’s a Wonderful Life – Never heard of it

So they’ve never seen Mary Poppins or The Sound of Music?

Sounds like they dodged a bullet then.

I haven’t seen the whole of The Sound of Music. I’m vaguely aware of some bits of it.

Edit: same with It’s a Wonderful Life.

did you give them a Steve look..

Nope. I went Full Yul…

I like the youth replacing the old, it’s like regeneration innit.

Some of those movies from BITD were frankly quite rubbish.

Pat the yoofs onda back and thank God they care less about you.

When all the BBC kerfuffle about him was going on, a girl at work was shocked to discover Cliff Richard wasn’t black.

Magnificent Seven, bah Seven Samurai I think you mean, hate these modern remakes. 😛

Different age groups have their own reference points, its not that shocking or appalling.

In a way … I missed Elvis and the Beatles … (and Frank Sinatra) by a long shot but they are still part of my music reference…

TV/Film wise we only had 3 channels … and I saw a lot of stuff decades old.

Most pre 1970’s films are pretty shite in my opinion

Most of last years films were also pretty shite (in my opinion)… that’s always been the case but everything Perchy mentioned were (in my opinion) classics…

What has changed is more to do with instant availability than quality (in my opinion)

I work with a fair few recent grads and apprentices and in the last couple of weeks;

Who are Led Zeppelin
Who is Eric Morecombe

It is only when you realise that they were born a couple of decades after these things were popular that you start to understand why.
I was born in 1968 and have never known much about the stars and films of the 1940’s/1950’s

McQueen? Fashion designer famous for feathers right?

I’ve had a similar experience with music when a younger guy in the office (20s) claimed to have never heard of The Smiths or New Order.

I don’t really buy the ‘music of your generation’ argument as it’s a pretty short timeline anyway. Pop music stems (arguably) from around the 50s onwards so it’s pretty easy to have at least an overview of all the main players.

Movies have a somewhat (but not so much) longer history so to my mind the same applies. Of course being younger they’ll have had less time to see all the greats but I’m always surprised that they’ve not at least HEARD of them.

How has this thread gone so far without a xkcd link?

I’m almost 40. To current teenagers, Oasis and Blur are as outdated as Queen was when I was their age.

Steve McQueen didn’t he design Barbours?

Pop music stems (arguably) from around the 50s onwards so it’s pretty easy to have at least an overview of all the main players.

Even assuming a constant rate of music production:

* My dad was born in 1950. When he was 16 there was 16 years of pop music history.
* I was born in 1977. When I was 16 there was 43 years of pop music history. That’s 2.7 times as much for me to know about, compared to my dad.
* My eldest daughter was born in 2003. When she turns 16 there will be 69 years of pop music history. That’s 4.3 times as much for her to know about, compared to my dad.

Ditto for films, TV, etc.

If you factor in an explosive growth in production of media, there’s no way today’s young people will know as much about my media/cultural history as I did about my dad’s.

My daughters are 10 and 13

They know Mary poppins and Chitty Chitty bang bang etc word for word. They would rather watch an old classic than Trolls

My youngest favourite band is The Levellers and the oldest is into ACDC and the Stone Roses (as well as some modern tripe) plus Mozart

Kids just need bringing up properly!

My eight year olds have seen star wars and plenty of the older disney films and they like the Beastie Boys, although I have to cough over some of the lyrics.

No Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You should be ashamed of your parenting.

No Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You should be ashamed of your parenting.

Is that the one with Johnny Depp in it?

When Rik Mayall died I was trying to explain who he was to my apprentices, who had never heard of him. Eventually there was a spark of realisation from one of them – “oh, you mean the guy out of the Bombardier advert!”

Is that the one with Johnny Depp in it?

Who’s that?

To redress the balance, my eldest son has just turned 15.
I have already watched with him:

Rear Window
Rope
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Sting
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Star Wars (all of them – I even had to sit through the shit ones)
The Hudsucker Proxy
Raising Arizona
Primer
The Hustler

And a load of other 80s and 90s comedies and sci-fis like So I married an Axe Murderer, Groundhog Day, Big, etc.

Sadly no Steve McQueen, but we did once own a Puma 😉

I dont want them thinking a weird old man offering them sweets and a look around his ‘chocolate factory’ is normal behaviour.

Talking of mad dog Depp – I watched Edward Scissorhands last week

27 years old and looks it.

I’m almost 40. To current teenagers, Oasis and Blur are as outdated as Queen was when I was their age.

My Daughter listens to Queen. She’s twelve.

winston – Member

Talking of mad dog Depp – I watched Edward Scissorhands last week

27 years old and looks it. That’s on our list (along with about a million others).

Twenties, try teenagers !

Oldest film I’ve seen.. hmm.. not sure. My wife has brought in a few – mostly musicals, but also one about a guy who sees a man-sized invisible bunny with him everywhere he goes.. forget what it’s called but the star is someone famous.

Seen a few Chaplin films though as there was a season on when I was about 12 or so. Enjoyed immensely. Also bits and pieces of Laurel and Hardy from when I was younger still.

B&W classics I’ve seen include the original War of the Worlds film which is properly good, and stuff like the Day the Earth Stood Still from a series of old scifi that was on once.

Twenties, try teenagers

I often try but it’s so much harder since Saville