Herewith, the second part of my Millennial Challenge, in which you will find a video of millennials telling us what they know about Hollywood greats and a video of them remembering (or misremembering!) TV classics.
If someone who looks like THAT hasn't heard of Brando ...
First up, "Celluloid Sensations":
Marlon Brando
Bette Davis
Sidney Poitier
Charlie Chaplin
Debbie Reynolds
Mae West
Audrey Hepburn
Shirley Temple
Judy Garland
Jane Fonda
This one blew my mind because so few knew even Jane Fonda, let alone Bette Davis. The guy rockin' a Marlon Brando look while knowing zero about him was also pretty amusing:
Next up,, "Totally Tube-ular," all about TV:
The Golden Girls
The Love Boat
Bewitched
The Jeffersons
Johnny Carson
Friends
All in all, some laugh-out-loud funny answers and non-answers, but also quite a few who knew their stuff.
I don't blame millennials. Think about it: Pop culture as we know it is about 100 years old. If you're 50 and a millennial is 20, that means you had a 30-year head start! You had 50 years to look back on, and the rest you were experiencing as it happened, which is a cake walk. They had 80 years to look back on starting at birth, and on top of that, there are exponentially more movies and TV shows and musicians and platforms to distract.
It's not shocking that so few young people know who Brando is, it's shocking that any do.
Let's hope more will find out.
