And the latest in that proof? This commercial, which I just saw this morning:
OK, so first, those are pretty awesome costumes.
Second, prior to Verizon, only writer Rusty Carl had trumpeted the sexy potential of Wookies. Is it a good thing, or bad thing, that sexy costumes for women now include giant man-bear things from other planets? I'll let the reader decide.
With help from Kristen Schaal and The Daily Show:
Third, I just yesterday started (and then stopped, because it was boring) listening to a book about the history of Superman. It's called Superman: The High-Flying History Of America's Most Enduring Hero, and it would be hard to make that book boring, but the writer did so -- in the foreword. I made it to the beginning of the first chapter before deleting the book off my Kindle and going to listen to This American Life instead (where, coincidentally, the subject was secret identities!)
Anyway, one of the things the book promised to talk about was the fact that Superman has been beloved by every generation since his creation, that even young kids today still like Superman, and the author thought that was an achievement unparalleled by any other creative endeavor.
Which means that the author might be the only person to have never heard of Star Wars, which is now 36 years old -- 1/2 of Superman's age, about -- and has appealed to multiple generations, and is so widespread that Verizon assumes you will be familiar enough with the iconic images of those films to recognize the costumes in that commercial.
I like to think about what things from our times will survive 1,000 years -- because as history compresses identities of eras, as we decide to remember less and less about the more and more distant past, we have to be selective about what's most important to remember. For example, the years 0-1,000 are summarized by... nothing.
1,000-1,492? Magna Carta.
1492-1776? Explorers, primarily Christopher Columbus. And movable type, and Shakespeare.
And so on. So right now, 20th-century America, which includes the nascent 21st century so far, seems like its full of things the future will want to remember about us. But in 3113, what will society look back and remember?
My guess is Star Wars. They'll probably look at videos like that commercial and assume it was our religion.
Interested in the history of Wookies and how George Lucas maybe stole the idea from a non-copyrightable drawing? Read about that here unless you are one of George Lucas' lawyers, in which case no hablo ingles, lo siento mucho, nobody here can accept that summons.
