Opinion: Pop culture knowledge sheds light on Americans

The Reuters headline, “Seven dwarfs more famous than U.S. judges: poll” sealed the deal. I’m speaking of the Zogby poll that, according to Reuters, was commissioned by the makers of a new game show on pop culture called “Gold Rush.”

At first hearing, I jumped to an erroneous conclusion. I assumed the specific group surveyed would be teenagers likely to know more about pop culture than basic information all Americans should know. The random sample consisted of a cross section of 1,213 Americans, with a margin of error of 2.9 percent.

As the headline proclaimed, three quarters of Americans could correctly name at least two of Snow White’s seven dwarfs, but only one quarter could name even two U.S. Supreme Court justices.

I know. Some folks may make snide comments about there being dwarfs on the Supreme Court.

Not me. I have never been inclined to make snide comments.

The survey prompted me to think of Jay Leno’s gimmick on the “The Tonight Show” called Jaywalking. Leno goes out on the street and asks passersby simple questions that anyone with a measurable IQ should be able to answer. Some answers are so unbelievably dense that I have thought: No one could be that dumb. This poll leads me to believe they could be for real.

According to Reuters, the poll indicated that 57 percent of Americans could identify British author J.K. Rowling’s fictional character, Harry Potter. Only 50 percent knew the name of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Considering that Blair’s name shows up almost every day in the American press, one would think that he would be at least as well known as Harry Potter.

One segment of the survey pits a pop culture “Homer” against a literary one. More than 60 percent of respondents knew that Bart is the son of the pop culture Homer on “The Simpsons” TV show. If you want proof of the supremacy of pop culture knowledge, it is the ability of more than half of Americans to identify Bart and Homer Simpson while only 20.5 percent could name either “The Iliad” or “The Odyssey” as the epic works by the literary Homer, a Greek poet.

It was probably a foregone conclusion that pop culture knowledge would beat the socks off what should be general knowledge. If you doubt this, you need only consider that 60 percent of respondents knew the name of Superman’s fictional home planet, Krypton. Only 37 percent could name Mercury as the planet closest to the sun.

Perhaps the most appalling information unearthed by the survey is that 64 percent of Americans could easily recount the names of the Three Stooges – Larry, Moe and Curly – compared to the 42 percent who could identify executive, legislative and judicial as the three branches of American government. Even if some folks managed to escape from school ignorant of the literary Homer, surely they came into contact with the branches of government.

In truth, I’m surprised that only 23 percent of respondents could identify Taylor Hicks as the winner of TV talent show “American Idol.” Considering what seemed to be near total public saturation in the outcome of the contest, I would have assumed more people knew the name. However, it’s not surprising that only 11 percent knew the name of the most recent Supreme Court Justice, Samuel Alito. Although his name was splashed across the media during Senate confirmation hearings and eventual confirmation, the pitifully slight recognition of his name tells the creators of a pop culture game show all they need to know.

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.