Watching an episode of Modern Family had me thinking about the
importance of being able to have a context for understanding of
so many things we are confronted with on a daily basis. Cameron,
the big gay guy, was wandering the streets looking for Stella,
the lost dog Jay adores. As he shouts out ‘Stella’, he realises
he is wearing a tshirt very like the one worn by Marlon Brando
who played Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee William’s, ‘A Streetcar
Named Desire‘. His cries for Stella become more impassioned as a
result. For me, the joke was obvious, but my two children,
having no context, had to ask why was I laughing. Today, I was
reading an answer on Quora, and it made mention of Alexander the
Great and Bucephalus. I was immediately taken back to my
obsession with all things Ancient Greek in my first year at
Teacher’s College. But once again, it had me wondering. How many
times a day do we not entirely grasp the full intentions of
information we read or view, because we don’t have enough
context to understand it