Culture and Influence

I have been thinking lately about the things that influenced me when I was younger. It always comes up, doesn’t it? Whenever we try to think about who we are and where we’re up to in our lives, it always comes back to the things we did when we were children; the experiences we had, the music we listened to, or the TV shows we watched.
I have always been omnivorous in my interests. Right from an early age, I wanted to know about everything and experience all sorts of things – I soaked up culture, basically.

I’ve always put this down to being a child of the 1990s where, in my opinion, culture went into something of a decline.

I’m not saying there were no good things – there was Tarantino, of course, and “The Matrix”. Musically, there was Nirvana, whose “Nevermind” album was genius. And, for me, a series of angry girl bands that I listened to repeatedly in the late ‘90s when I was becoming a teenager. There was also, in books, Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History” (of which, more anon). But the decade itself was not really a cultural scene was it? Or at least not where I was. Mostly it was all cheesy pop bands and big budget/high profile romance movies (examples being “Titanic” or “Bridget Jones’ Diary”) Most of the things I loved around this time were harking back to another era, the ’80s or the ‘70s or further back. It wasn’t a revolutionary era for anything, it was the post-generation; meaning post-everything. Everything was over and all we had was nostalgia for another time.

So, unsurprisingly, most of my influences came from an eclectic mix of things that I gleaned from other, older, more culturally grounded people who gave me snippets of their own interests and loves. My dad, for instance, was a big informant when it came to cultural references. He gave me my first intro into music from the 1960s and 1970s (such as The Beatles, The Searchers, The Kinks), he taught me about Doctor Who which, growing up in an era when it was no longer broadcast, I was sadly missing out on, Monty Python whom he loved, the entire history of British comedy basically from about the 1950s onwards. I loved all of that stuff on sight, or even just from hearing about it, because: a) it was great, and b) it was what made my dad who he was – and I wanted to be just like him. He had taste, my dad. He gave me what he called “a proper education”, and, it’s true, I wouldn’t be the person I am now without him.

Because other people – people I went to school with and spent time with out of school – they didn’t all have these influences. Shocking as it seemed to me, I learned somewhere during the course of my childhood and adulthood that some people’s parents, siblings, cousins and older friends do not introduce the younger generation to this stuff in any way. Instead they assume that the newer generations will have their own things to be concerned with and don’t want to hear about all those outdated, “old fogey” things from bygone decades.

But, the thing is, they do. I maintain this point to the end, no matter how much other people argue with me. People do need to know about all these things, because they are hungry for culture. It’s like taking someone who is starving to death in the wilderness and giving them a McDonalds; yes it will fill their stomach but it’s not really food is it? And it’s not going to nourish them. I have had countless arguments with a friend of mine who, a few years ago, had his first child and who insisted, when that child became older, on introducing them to the wonderful world of Disney films by showing them “The Lion King” and “Toy Story”. Both of which, I’m sure, are fine children’s films. But they are hardly classic Disney (“Toy Story” is a Disney/Pixar film for God’s sake and far too 3Dified for my taste.) If you’re going to show kids Disney films you have to start from the beginning with “Snow White” and “Sleeping Beauty” and all of those, because those films have status and majesty and beauty. When people of my generation, or older, think back about Disney they remember these great, beautifully drawn cartoons, with vivid colours and wonderful, crafted effects. You watch “Toy Story”, where’s the craftsmanship? You can’t tell me that any kid who looks back in twenty years time and remembers seeing that as one of their earliest memories will be possessed of anything very valuable. People need to experience the kinds of great wonderful things that have shaped the previous generations; not just the pale imitations and empty nonsensical “entertainments” that we have now. It’s an old saying, but it’s no less true and it goes for just about everything: “They don’t make it like they used to.”

I think this was a problem that was on the rise for a lot of people my age too. When I was at school in the late ‘90s, so many of my friends were throwing their attention away on “The Teletubbies” and The Spice Girls! I mean, looking back, who can get nostalgic about those things? It’s ridiculous really because, as pointed out above, it means that we have little to pass on to our own children when they inevitably start to ask about what we were like as kids and what we saw and heard while we grew up. People nurtured on a diet solely comprised of “Eh-Oh” and “Girl Power” are not going to be able to say very much, are they? I’ve still got friends now who get nostalgic about the cheesy pop songs they listened to at school, even though those things were considered a bit sad and fleeting even at the time. But they do that because that’s all they’ve got. And that just makes me realize how hungry we were – my generation, I mean – for anything that would define us – we wanted a culture that was rich and vibrant and diverse that would reflect us and be reflected in us, we just didn’t really have one. In the absence of that, people will latch onto anything I suppose.

So, I was lucky, because I had people to guide me and show me things and let me experience things beyond what was deemed appropriate for my age group. When I went to the library I was allowed to read anything, when I watched TV I was allowed to channel hop and watch films, documentaries, cartoons, anything I wanted. When I listened to music I was allowed to listen to anything, whether it was my dad’s old record collection, or the radio, or new stuff on tapes or CDs. Nothing was prescribed for me, is what I’m saying, whereas now it seems to be. There are all sorts of arguments now about what children should or shouldn’t be subjected to. There are so many people who think things should be banded according to what is age appropriate – and I get why, I really do, because there’s a lot of inappropriate material around, of course. But that’s a judgment thing for parents and kids to make together, isn’t it? We shouldn’t be telling kids, en masse, that things are not for them just because they’re not brand spanking new, oriented towards a certain demographic, or specifically crafted according to regulation guidelines. It just shouldn’t be like that.

All the things you experience as you grow make you into the person you become and will go on to be as an adult. And that, however you slice the onion, is the crucial thing.
I said I was omnivorous, and I am. When I think about all the things I love, or have experienced with fondness, I come up with a huge, sprawling, eclectic list of things that you would not think would all go together as interests for the same person, but which, over time, have all converged to make me who I am.

When I was a child I loved old Hanna Barbera cartoons and classic Disney. I loved ‘60s music and ‘80s music, but not “contemporary” ‘90s pop. Most of the films I saw were repeats on TV because we didn’t really go to the cinema or rent/buy videos very often. So I loved ‘80s movies, because they were repeated frequently, but knew nothing about what was coming out in the ‘90s until much later. I loved old British sitcoms because these got repeated on all the TV channels and were always hilarious to me – my whole family are also comedy fans, particularly my dad, so I am now well versed in British comedy history and could probably write several books on that subject alone. I had seen all the Carry On films and almost all of Only Fools and Horses by the time I was 10. (This I announce to you proudly because, to me, it seems like something of an achievement.)

Then, when I was older I started to find my own influences; just things that I discovered while I was curiously casting about for things to read or watch. I have mentioned Donna Tartt – she featured quite heavily for me when I was 14 and, when I discovered “The Secret History”, I immediately became fanatical about it. This book was a big influence on me because it got me obsessed with academia and, I am still convinced, it inspired me with the need to learn and become that oh so elusive thing: “erudite”. I wanted to be like Henry Winter, one of the characters in the book who knows everything and is allowed to be a quiet, studious, largely left alone genius in whose orbit other, ordinary people, just sort of hover. Obviously this was not what I became because, the mere ambition to do so, rather than just being that by nature, would have made me insufferable to other people had I gone on with it. But I later went on to do a PhD and, whatever the outcome of that, I know for a fact I would not have wanted to do it had not this idea of the glamour of academia been planted in my head by the aforementioned book.

(N.B. Donna Tartt is a great writer and I am currently reading her new book, which I might review at some point. Stay tuned!)

There were other things too that I only discovered by myself and by accident. Most of these seem to have been TV shows. “Blackadder” for example. Alan Bennett’s “Talking Heads”. Stephen Poliakoff’s “Shooting the Past”. “Red Dwarf”. All of these and more I saw when I was about 14, which makes me think that this age must have been particularly impressionable because these things, now, have gone into the file in my head that is indelibly marked with the words “Important Stuff”. They might not seem all that interesting to other people, but they were great things for me and I still follow them even now.

As I said, I am reading Donna Tartt’s new novel and marvelling at her updated but still so familiar style. But, at the same time, I keep remembering all the things I loved about her writing to begin with and wondering if, had I not read her previous books and fallen in love with her then, I would have chosen to read her now. Rather sadly, I think I might not, which makes me even more glad that I discovered her early.

Similarly, I still follow the work of Poliakoff and Bennett and, yes, if they make a new series of Red Dwarf I am going to be watching it (even though most of the cast are old and flabby by now). I love all of this stuff. I soaked it up as a kid and I love it still.

But, as I look at most of the things I loved, it seems that most of the reasons that I loved them were the fact that they showed me another life, and other things in the world that I did not know anything about and which I was painfully aware had already happened and gone by. Poliakoff’s work is often concerned with bygone eras, and the essence of those eras. “Shooting the Past” was all about the fascination and intrigue that can be invoked when we look at old photographs. It’s set in a picture library in an old manor house in England and, over the course of three amazing episodes, it shows people telling stories and weaving together incredible arcs of narrative just from these old shots. Other projects from Poliakoff have seen him trying to capture the 1950s, the jazz era, the war years, all sorts of things, and I have loved all of this stuff too. But that initial idea of his, of bringing to life the past in that beautiful and compelling way had me hooked from the first titles of “Shooting the Past” and it played on my mind because I, too, wanted to go back to those times and live there.

I was born in the wrong era, I suppose. I always felt that. I did not belong with the rest of the kids my age, who didn’t “get” my references and were thoroughly confused as to why I couldn’t just fit in and love all the crap that they liked because that was “normal”. But, as I’ve explained above, I couldn’t do that because it was not a proper culture – not like the one I had been shown. It was just a scrabbling, desperate attempt to cover up the lack of anything more meaningful.

Through my teens, of course I read Harry Potter and watched “The Lord of the Rings” movies and everything else. I loved those things and I really hope that people will look back on them and remember them fondly, because they were great. But mostly there’s still a struggle to find really great things that will be remembered as cultural highlights. I have followed Tarantino – sort of – through his “Kill Bill” era but not out the other side. I saw the trailer for “Inglourious Bastards” and just thought “Nah, he’s lost it now.” I used to like Woody Allen, until I realized that all his old stuff was way better than anything he writes now or probably will ever write again. I heard his new one is supposed to be great but I haven’t seen it.

I dunno. Maybe it’s true that things are never as golden as they seem when you’re an adolescent. Then, everything seems like it’s got promise, doesn’t it? Whereas, the more you experience and the more you soak up, the more jaded you become about it all.

I think that’s what’s happened to me. I know when I’m looking at crap because I’ve seen so much of it; I’ve immersed myself in all sorts of things and I think I’m only now beginning to sift and think about what it is I really like and love. It is still a long list, but, if I’m ruthless, there are only a handful of things that properly stand out for me.

The most useful thing about my omnivorous nature, probably, has been the fact that I am now able to converse with almost anyone on some subject or another, because, wherever I go, it seems, I have something in common with someone. When I did my PhD I once went to a conference on Iris Murdoch – the least fantastical author you could name – and ended up having a conversation with one of the other, much more established academics there about Terry Pratchett. This, for no other reason than that he happened to see me reading “Mort” in one of the breaks. It’s funny how it happens that things, minor things, like the books and films and music we like can bring us together with people who, in any other sphere, we would not be able to say much to at all.

Because, of course, these are NOT minor things. They are the influences and the driving forces of our lives. They make us who we are. And we should not only celebrate that fact, but we should also keep it in mind for the next generation. Give them the “proper education” they deserve, or where will they end up?