New Culture

Does it bother anyone else that pop culture seems to be devolving into an ever-tightening spiral of self-reference?
   It seems to me that the art and drama and literature and music we produce all depend on knowing and understanding what happened in movies, TV and radio for the entirety of the past forty years. And it's not like the references are passing, there for amusement or for spice on an otherwise savory bit of new work. These references are integral, they're vital to your understanding of the joke, or the pathos, or harmony.
   I think 'The Family Guy' is the worst offender, the leader of the pop culture self-reference pack. I love that show, I watch it every chance I get, but I don't see how someone who is not my age with the same background could find any of it funny. I don't see how it's going to remain funny ten years from now, when its new audience has grandparents who don't get most of the references.
   Think about 'I Love Lucy,' a show that displays pure genius, that was funny 60 years ago, and is still screamingly hilarious now. I'm sure you've seen it, that's one pop culture reference most Americans really do all understand. But think about those instances the show veered into the pop culture of its time. You've seen episodes where there's a knock on the door and when Lucy opens it the audience erupts into applause. They recognize the famous face on the other side. We do not. We have no idea who that person is or what the context is for their clever one-liner that gets thirty seconds of cheers. We don't get the joke. This is what's going to happen to all the self-referential pop culture of our time, it's not going to last.
   We need new pop culture, not rehashes of stuff that's been around for 35 years. Yes, George Lucas, I'm looking in your direction here; matter of fact I need to shine a spotlight in your direction and hit you in the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Stop it. And for the rest of you, no more vampire crap, no more kid wizards, no more 'one last heist,' no more dystiopian computer-run future, no more cocky kids with inept parents, and especially no more sassy young women trying to make their way in the big city.
   We need a wave of new stuff, creators that don't pick through the bloated corpses of material that came before like trope-hungry vultures. Come up with something new, something innovative, something we haven't seen before. Sure, it's a risk, the marketers won't know what to do with it, but art is risk. And if you're not risking something for your art you're not really making art at all, you're painting with someone else's brush.