A Brilliant Reference... Totally Wasted

This afternoon, I was discussing an excerpt of Julia Alvarez's How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents with my intermediate comp students. In the story, one of the main characters, Laura, is also called by a few other names/titles-- Mom, Mami, etc. In addition, Alvarez tells us a little about the origins of Laura's maiden name, and its significance in her home country of the D.R. I was attempting to show my students that these subtle shifts in name change imply a lot about Laura's changing identity-- from Dominican to American--and that their meanings are all essential to creating a dimensional understanding of Laura as a character.

To bring it down a notch (or up, I guess-- depending on how you look at it),--to "concretize" the concept for them I said, "Like would Alex P. Keaton still be Alex P. Keaton if he were just Alex Keaton? Family Ties would've been an entirely different show, right?" I expected lightbulbs to shine brightly above their dim little heads. Alas, no.

Then I said, anxiety welling into my voice, "You guys have seen the show Family Ties, right?" Blank stares. Not just vaguely blank-- like, I've-heard-of-that-show-before blank-- but utterly, completely, starkly blank. I tried again. "Well, you guys know who Michael J. Fox is, right?" A few headshakes. "You mean that guy from Spin City?" Well, yes, but also not quite that same guy-- he was a different guy in Family Ties, because he was younger, and a different character, and all that other really important stuff. "Do you mean the Back to the Future guy? He was in another show? Ohmigod, when? It must've been a long time ago..."

Who am I fooling? I dated myself completely with that reference... but I was certain, that like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Family Ties was a classic hit that pretty much everyone has seen. Even Bacon thought I dated myself. Most of my students were born in 1984, which means they finished high school in like 2002. Even my younger sister, my little sister Angela, is older than most of my students.

Arrrggghhhh. 30 looms. It holds a sharp, hot pitchfork in its spiny little hand-- occasionally it jabs me, pretty hard, and laughs like an evil sorority girl who compliments your 100% acrylic sweater at the bar but then laughs about it to her friends when you walk away.