References in Popular Culture
The pinacate beetle can be seen in the Sergio Leone classic western movie For a Few Dollars More, starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Gian Maria Volontè. In the scene just before the climactic final shootout between Colonel Douglas Mortimer (Van Cleef) and Indio (Volantè), Indio, while seated at a wooden table, being held at gunpoint by one of his gang members, smashes a pinacate beetle that scampers across the table in front of him.
In another Clint Eastwood movie, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Eastwood's character (Josey Wales) has a habit of spitting tobacco juice on several objects throughout the movie, including a hound dog's head, a dead assassin's forehead, and a pinacate beetle.
Off-road motorcycle riders, when discussing a particular machine, may refer to "stinkbug" handling when the machine has a front-low, rear-high feel to it, alluding to the pinacate beetle's defensive posture.
Read more about this topic: Pinacate Beetle
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)
“All official institutions of language are repeating machines: school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is a political fact, the major figure of ideology.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
“The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)