Too Many Pop Culture References.

I was internally embarassed today in class when we were asked to discuss the effectiveness of a the following passage in describing a piece.

Diderot, on Taraval’s The Infant Hercules Strangling the Serpent:

One sees at right a frightened servant, then Alcemene and her husband. The latter grasps his child and lifts him from the cradle. In the neighboring cradle, the seated young Hercules holds a serpent by the neck in each hand and strains his arms, body, and head in strangling them. In the left background, beyond the cradles, some women trembling for him. At the far left, two more standing women; they’re quite calm. One of them, seen from the back, points towards the heavens and seems to say to her companion: The son of Jupiter. On the same side, columns. Between these columns, an ample curtain attached to the ceiling to form a canopy over the cradle.

We were asked to read this passage before actually seeing the piece. I-- who equate everything I know to the cartoons of my childhood-- immediately related the entire scene to the Disney interpretation in which the fictional Disney characters, Pain and Panic transform into serpents and proceed to attack the infant Hercules. I often wonder if this is a quality of most of my generation. I am very ashamed of it, and also of my inability to keep from associating things to children's movies and television. I am in a dilemma of whether or not to embrace this.