In Popular Culture
Novelist Donald E. Westlake, who wrote scores of books in which the caper heist is the central plot and who featured the popular fictional character John Dortmunder, a professional planner of thefts, did somewhat glamorize theft as a way of life. In Westlake's comedic novels, the fence is portrayed in extremely negative lights. Dortmunder's usual fence, Arnie Albright, "was a fellow with a distinct personality problem." He is so repellent that his own family members raise enough money for a "personality intervention" to take place at a Club Med resort in the Caribbean area. Arnie's cousin, Archie, explains that they want to cure him of "his obnoxiousness."
In a non-series novel, Westlake writes of another, even more repulsive character:
As fences go, Jersey Josh Kuskiosko was no more scuzzy than the average. As human beings go, of course, Jersey Josh was just about at the bottom of the barrel, down there in the muck and the filth and the fetid stink where thoughts just naturally arise of retroactive abortion. But as far as fences are concerned, he wasn't bad.Read more about this topic: Fence (criminal)
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“The lowest form of popular culture—lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives—has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.”
—Carl Bernstein (b. 1944)
“Just try to prove you’re not a camel!”
—Russian saying popular in the Soviet period, trans. by Vladimir Ivanovich Shlyakov (1993)
“All objects, all phases of culture are alive. They have voices. They speak of their history and interrelatedness. And they are all talking at once!”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)