Gregory Greenleaf, Harpswell: Our kids don’t want our pop culture icons – and that’s fine

The other day my daughter asked me if I had seen any reviews of the movie “Godzilla vs. Kong”. She is 14 and her question surprised me as she has never shown interest in any of the Hollywood movie franchises.

I wondered if she had interfered in watching the old classics – without me. Mindlessly throwing popcorn into her mouth while watching the 1971 classic “Godzilla vs. Hedorah”. Downing can after can of Diet Coke as an inexplicable storyline played in the 2005 film “Kong: King of Atlantis”.

Everything without me?

“I read it was bad,” I said, trying to hide the pain of abandonment I was feeling. “And in the end, they don’t even fight but team up to take on a robot.”

“Ah, a robot? She said, surprised. “What about Mario?

“Mario? ” I asked.

“You know, Mario. He also has a cousin named Luigi.

“Luigi”? It sounded like a “Godfather vs. Kong vs. Godzilla” movie.

“Donkey Kong,” she said. “You know, the Mario and Luigi in ‘Donkey Kong’ … the video game.”

And then she asked me another question.

“Is Godzilla a big dog?” I heard that at school.

When I called my brother to tell him that my daughter thought “King Kong” was “Donkey Kong” and Godzilla was a Saint Bernard, he told me that I was a completely failed father. How can you disagree?

Besides providing food and shelter, I have few responsibilities as a father. The only two others offer my children an unlimited data plan and pass on their television and film cultural heritage.

Here I had failed because I had taken for granted that something else, namely the consumption of mass media, would take care of this for me. This was not the case.

But maybe I should take a step back and ask myself what I knew about my father’s TV and movie icons. How many could I quote?

Just a handful.

So here is a lesson for you. Most of the characters in film and television and the golden age of radio are not memories passed down to the next generation – they fade from memory. Or if they don’t totally fade, they appear on TV at 2 a.m. when the kids should be sleeping.

And if they don’t sleep at 2 a.m., they certainly aren’t watching old episodes of “Quincy.”

But here’s the good news. When we need them on a sleepless night, Ponch and Edith of every generation, every Matt Dillon and Agent 99 is just waiting for us, our generation, not the generation before or the generation after. They are just waiting for us as some kind of comfort food in black and white, grainy Technicolor.

Later that night, I went to my daughter’s room and popped my head there.

“Hello, sorry to interrupt. I was just wondering if you’ve ever heard of The Fonz. Do you know who he is

“No,” she said.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Aaaayy, it’s okay.”

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