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:
“Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Both gossip and joking are intrinsically valuable activities. Both are essentially social activities that strengthen interpersonal bonds—we do not tell jokes and gossip to ourselves. As popular activities that evade social restrictions, they often refer to topics that are inaccessible to serious public discussion. Gossip and joking often appear together: when we gossip we usually tell jokes and when we are joking we often gossip as well.”
—Aaron Ben-Ze’Ev, Israeli philosopher. “The Vindication of Gossip,” Good Gossip, University Press of Kansas (1994)
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)