Assumed Familiarity

So, with travelling home this past weekend, I completely failed to upload this before my crazy Monday started, so here are my missing blogs.  Number 1:  Assumed Familiarity.  This is a response to the Solie reading from last Thursday's class, in which it was discussed that there was a certain degree of musical savvy-ness taken for granted among the readers of MacMillan's journal.  This idea pertained not only to the musical articles written in the publication, but also to other subjects, and even genres of literature.  For instance, it was discussed that fiction writers would use familiar scenes from operas to set particular moments in their writing.  Similarly, certain musical styles were indicative of character traits (of the examples given in the reading, my personal favorite was "a rigid and unsympathetic woman is revealed as a 'most correct' pianist") by novelists.  I find this an interesting cultural trait, and it lead me to consider what would be equivalent in today's society?

In the U.S., an assumption on the public's opinion of certain reality TV shows / personalities, popular music acts, and other mass media-enhanced public spectacles could be considered reasonable.  How many references lately have been made about Snooki, American Idol, or the Super Bowl?  There is a reasonable degree to which such iconic aspects of the popular culture can be assumed as familiar.

Would that such familiarity still existed with the higher arts.  It would be lovely to be able to reference a particularly humorous moment of Il barbiere (other than Figaro's "Largo al factotum") in a general public setting and get an appreciative chuckle, instead of a look as if we suddenly sprouted another appendage.  Or, to tie this into the Victorian era specifically, how exciting would it be to say something is "often" done and have a room full of the general public respond with questions of whether you mean "often" frequently" or "orphan" a person who's lost their parents (I would love to know how many of you readers get that reference ;-) ).

Well, that is my two bits about the topic.  To conclude, it seems that we can draw current parallels to such assumed familiarity with an artistic topic, but the specifics of those topics sadly differ to a great degree.