Books by Jonathan Franzen. They almost set the definition. So called “important literary works” filled with unlikeable people acting stupidly doing things with no consequence or merit and essentially no plot.

I read The Corrections and the first 95% of the book is rotten people waiting for something to develop or happen, and then, as Franzen himself said at the end of the book, ”...was not an overnight bursting of a bubble but a much more gentle let-down, a year-long leakage….”

What a load of crap. And he got all the awards and controversy over Oprah choosing it for her book club and Franzen saying, “no” to that.

Books no. Movies, I can name two off the cuff.. Cleopatra, 1963. Overblown over hyped and boring “historical drama” that is more famous today for the antics of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton during the filming than for anything else. Also “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, 1965, a Biblical drama that features cameos of about every big star in that era, many badly mis cast..John Wayne as a Roman centurion? Please…“Wall, shorely that there Pilgrim was the Son of Gawd, uh huh.” Gimme a break. Rename that one, “Rooster Cogburn Meets Pontious Pilate”.

I’m watching the play “Red” on streaming. It’s about the artist Mark Rothko, played by Alfred Molina, and his assistant and I would call most of the acting and the writing pretentious. It all seems far too “theatrical” to me but maybe it played better live.

Movies or books about British royalty. How is a regular person supposed to relate to a bunch of posh colonizers lol.

Thanks for your answers. I was inspired to ask this question after reading a review of “The Marriage Plot” by Jeffrey Eugenides that accused it of being pretentious because of the wealthy, educated characters who constantly spout literary and philosophical references. The idea was this was the author’s way of showing off how educated he is. It sounds like it could be a good book, though; I’m a little pretentious myself. :P