You Donāt Need To Know Everything
When I was 21, I took a flight from London to Toronto for the film festival. It was the longest I had traveled by myself, and I felt juvenile and underprepared. I was attending as a film criticā writing for my own made-up magazineābut had never seen The Godfather. So I downloaded a dodgy DVD rip onto my laptop and watched it on the flight. Why? Not because I wanted to, but because I felt like I had to. I was worried, for some reason, that in 2016, someone would ask me my thoughts on Francis Ford Coppolaās 1972 classic. To be at a film festival not having seen what many consider the best movie ever made would make me an imposter. My job revolves around keeping on top of these things, but thereās plenty I have to let slip through the cracksāif not for reasons of practicality, then for my sanity. Iāve made peace with this. You can be smart and also not know things. I donāt think this is a new development. Iām sure, back in the day, there was a similar sense of FOMO and self-described failure amongst people who didnāt see Jaws or whatever. But of course the monoculture doesnāt exist in the way it did then. Itās become its own unique bog water. The internet forced it to disperse. Take musicians for example: while arena-selling stars are still made big by radio play and late night TV appearances, our favorite artists, who seem like theyāre everywhere on TikTok, are nobodies to our parents. Both are relevant. Thatās twice as many trails to keep on top of. The pressure to be able to launch into a spiel about every subject in contemporary culture has made us approach art with the scorn with which we tackle homework. TV shows, books, movies become tasksāthe reward being that we have something to talk about in bars, at work, around the dinner table. I struggle to make it through fiction novels. My friends tease me because I ādonāt do TV.ā I havenāt listened, top to bottom, to a single record by The Beatles. (It turns out Iām not alone in this.) Iām freeing myself from this pressure to take the blinkers off and rectify my blind spots immediately. Sometimes itās smarter to just admit your cultural shortcomings. I remind myself that our truly brilliant minds experience the same thought process. Our cultural leaders, tastemakers, artists of their generation, have their own thing that niggles on the brain. So I asked a lot of artists that I respect the following question: Is there something in our cultural landscape you donāt know much about that youād like to know more about? Or a part of it youāre proudly ignorant of? Many brilliant people responded. There was new blood, like Nelio Biedermann, the 22-year-old novelist behind the yearās most talked about best-seller, filmmaker Sophy Romvari, who made one of my favorite movies of the year Blue Heron, and Dylan Brady, the young actor-screenwriter who just nabbed a history-making deal with A24 for his erotic thriller. There are ballet dancers, magazine editors, filmmakers, and musicians who walk among usāexcellence on showāwho are comfortable admitting that there are some things they know very little, or nothing, about. Let their responses be a reminder that you can have shit to learn and still be awesome. āIāve never seen anything from the entire filmography of Paul Mazursky.ā āPrestige television is my biggest cultural blindspot. I just donāt have the attention span to follow a multi-episode story arc. And whenever I actually watch the show that everyone is āobsessedā with, I find that itās a bit like doing homework. The lobby of my building is featured prominently in the new JFK Jr show, and I still havenāt bothered watching it.ā āI donāt really know anything about The Beatles. I think when I was a kid I decided I didnāt like them, because I had a guitar teacher who said everyone would have their Beatles phase, but it sounded tinny and cold and boyish to me. I couldnāt find it beautiful. I only recently learned they were from Liverpool because I was going to Anfield with my girlfriend, which has obviously made me think I could like them. Iām sure they have some perfect songs - Iāve just never been in a rush to listen to or get into art that is deemed essential or āthe bestā, I just feel it will be waiting for me when Iām actually ready to receive it. I also find it easier to get into things if someone I love shows it to me. I just started watching The Sopranos recently because the timing was perfect. āI have never read Harry Potter, which fortunately gets less important the older I get. I have never seen a single Star Wars movie nor a Marvel film, and Iām a stranger to all the famous fantasy books and films.ā āI never went to museums when I was growing up. It wasnāt part of my childhood. So when I went on school trips or, in later life, found myself on a date at the V&A or meeting friends at an exhibition, I often felt out of place. Like I was pretending to know what it was to observe and appreciate art. It felt like I didnāt have the right eyes to understand it, but as Iāve gotten older, I think itās important to sit with the unclear, the uncomfortable, the things that feel out of reach of our understanding. Even if you donāt have the language to express how something makes you feel, to interrogate what something might mean, it doesnāt matter. To have experienced it is the point.ā āIāve started Severance about 12 times and never got through more than 5 minutes. Not because it looks dodgy, just because everyone is always banging on about it and that somehow makes me feel like Iām under mad pressure whenever I turn it on. Like if I donāt bloody love it something is wrong with me. Canāt cope with that pressure, I used to cry when I was subbed onto football games as a kid ā donāt rehash my childhood trauma please.ā āI work in music and like to think I have a pretty good cultural awareness generally - I go to the cinema all the time, Iām interested in art, I go to concerts, gigs, opera, sometimes I go to dance. I donāt know much about jazz though, but I want to! Iād love to be a better jazz pianist and be able to just play - but I never seem to find the time to sit down and practice.ā āI know enough about show business! Iām proud that I am completely ignorant of reality TV [and its] stars. Iāve never seen one of them.ā āI pretty much never watch television series, and thatās a problem because it seems to be everybodyās favourite reference, 24/7. Iāve never seen even a glimpse of Succession, Euphoria, Mad Men, Downton Abbey, and the many, many other pillars of todayās reference culture. Iāve seen The Crown though, which I loved, and Heated Rivalry, but struggled with the pace of the latterācute and quite funny but boring and slow. āOn a completely different note, Iāve never done coke or speed, but that really shouldnāt be something to apologise for or be ashamed about, nor do I consider it ācultureā.ā āTrue crime, but I donāt know if I want to know more hahaā¦ I realize there is a huge fascination with true crime in all mediums, podcasts, film and TV but it has never drawn me in. I find that specific type of morbidity to be grotesque in a way that I rather not engage with. āSomething I would love to be less ignorant about is poetry! I feel like there is a whole expansive world of poetry that Iāve yet to tap into.ā āI donāt want to sound like a completely out of touch millennial, but my contemporary pop culture knowledge is very poor. I only just found out what Letterboxd is, I donāt have (and donāt want) TikTok, and know barely any of this yearās Brit award nominees. I donāt know if I have an active desire to hermit myself from the popular, but Iām not sure I mind lacking knowledge in that area.ā
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