Anyone? ... Anyone? ...Bueller? ...

Ok, pop quiz.  Name the movie/show/product/event associated with the following quotes:

"Car!..."
"Car!"
"Game off!''
"Game off!"
...
"Game on!"
"Game on!"

"Did I do that???"

"My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates..."

"Hasta la vista, baby."

"Are you crying?  Are you crying?  There's no crying in baseball!"

"D'oh!"

"Wardrobe malfunction."

I could go on, but you probably get the picture.  References to pop culture are so ingrained into our daily lives that we can recognize many movie lines even in the complete absence of context (evidence? see above). We use them to relate to people, to lighten a tense situation, to relate one scenario to another.  We use them unconsciously, and this fact was totally lost on me until we moved to a country for which I have absolutely no cultural references.  This essentially means that both L and I are complete French Pop Culture virgins, stepping out of the back woods into a civilization that we do not recognize.

I've mentioned this to colleagues, who come up with lists of movies that L and I need to rent, but the reality is that making up 30-plus years of acquired pop culture knowledge is damn near impossible.  The practical result of this in my daily life is that for months now, I have been enjoying some of my co-workers' random comments or actions and thinking to myself how nice it is to work with such delightfully quirky people - only to find out that the delightfully random comments are actually movie quotes (or, even worse, quotes from TV commercials!).  Boo-urns (See? There's another one for you).

It reminds me of a story I heard on This American Life (I listen obsessively. And you should, too) where a woman recounts this silly song her dad used to sing to her every day.  When she gets to college she randomly sees an old movie ("The Jerk" with Steve Martin) and is utterly crushed that her dad's quirky song is totally lifted right from this movie.  It's way better for you to listen to it youself:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/play_full.php?play=438&act=3

So where does one begin?  Should we press rewind and start with the classic 80s coming-of-age movies?  Apparently, here, that would start with a film called La Boum, but even following the plotlines via wikipedia (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Boum) has left me exhausted.  Should we forget the past and just start fresh with the latest and greatest in French pop culture?  Even thinking through all of this is daunting.  Perhaps we should throw in the towel and just continue watching Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice via itunes...

-E