I think it's important to be comfortably familiar with any and all social imfluences, whether it is the imortal lines uttered by Clint Eastwood as Harry Calahan in the Dirty Harry films ("Go ahead, make my day."), or the scene with Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet on the bow of the Titanic.
That way, I feel, it is from a more knowledgeable standpoint that we may draw inferences and conclusions.
Further, stories that have had a deep impact on the society we live in, however ancient, are worthy of the same familiarity. (Significant artistic and linguistic merit, notwithstanding.)
Then again, I love to learn.