Now all I want is for JT to do an album called Deep Impact.

I agree entirely, and yet as a contrarian I feel compelled to make a weak defense - the culture we’re in right now is quite confusing. Depending on where you sit, what is “up” and what is “down” varies a lot. In the absolute, women, gays, lesbians, trans people, bisexual people, and PoCs are still marginalized…

Steamed Hamdom is how they know it in Utica.  In Albany, it’s Steamed Hams memedom.

Fred Durst? Of Limp Bizkit? He’s a director? 2019, that’s impressive new form of sucking.  (I see that he allegedly directed before but... come on.)  Also, the fact that he worked with Travolta says everything about both of them.

Isn’t he like their age?  This is a very confusing story, and makes me wonder who Pete Davidson thinks he is.

Is there a good defense for why people should be allowed to film everything on their cellphones all the time?  I think I’m vaguely young, but I don’t know why every show and concert I go to has 20-somethings filming the whole thing.  What’s the point?  What’s the endgame?  Are these the home movies you’ll never watch?

Exactly right.  Phillips seems like the exact kind of director who can jump from comedy - in truth, his movies aren’t pure comedies.  This isn’t like Tom Shadyac or a Zucker Brother.  He can pull this off.

Ha.  Whiplash, RIP.  I just know Mickey Rourke in the Wrestler was a better performance than anything Travolta has done in the past 30 years, maybe ever.

I mean, their relationship to Keanu and Nicholas Cage is beyond confusing.  

I realize that it’s quite en vogue to bag on Quentin Tarantino for his myriad crimes against humanity.  I’m not on those bandwagons, but when can we break out the pitchforks for his actual greatest sin - elongating the career of one John Travolta?  Why he is known to youths of America and, say, Mickey Rourke is not is…

I mean, no.  Economists have studied this - a system funded by a sales tax alone is regressive.  Europe is progressive in taxation because they also tax wealth and income.  We need all of those here.

Agreed.  I see that in India too.  Cultural hegemony is a hell of a thing.  Still don’t know why the AVClub had such beige responses to this question tho.

You have an amusing belief in the history of European literacy. Illiteracy was rampant in Europe for centuries as well.  Shakespeare and Marlowe were performed for illiterates.  And China, Japan, India, and Iran certainly had cultures to rival the western ones.

Yes.  

I’m not weighing in on what “should” be. Certainly there are arguments (divisive ones) that western art, literature, and culture should be promoted. Not even just from bigots. See, e.g. Harold Bloom.

Half the listed items on this Q&A would have been translated too, though.

Fair, but it’s not like modern American society lacks access to old “pop culture” from at least Japan, China, India, or Iran. I’m just surprised there’s no Rumi or Genji or something here.

I’m rather shocked at how Eurocentric this was, given the leanings of the AVClub on broader views.

Yah, and they also apply to poor people.

So, tax their kids?