Appearance in Popular Culture
The Simpsons episode "Catch 'Em If You Can", aired 25 April 2004, alluded to the snob appeal of The Economist in an exchange between Homer and Marge Simpson while they are travelling first-class aboard an airplane:
Homer: "Look at me, I'm reading The Economist! Did you know Indonesia is at a crossroads?"
Marge: "No!"
Homer: "It is!"
Four days later, The Economist alluded to the quote, and published an article about Indonesia referring to the "crossroads". The title of the issue was "Indonesia's Gambit", as in The Simpsons' episode. About seven months later, The Economist ran a cover headline reading "Indonesia at a Crossroads." In April 2009, The Economist published an article on Indonesian democracy with the title "Beyond the crossroads". The show returned to the joke in a much later episode, "Million Dollar Maybe". In return for a favour Homer offers another character, Barney Gumble, the contents of a tree containing his stash of "adult magazines". These turn out to be issues of The Economist, one of which features the headline "New challenges for Indonesia".
In 2006, Indian actor Abhishek Bachchan starred in a Motorola KRZR advertisement where one flight attendant asked if he wanted anything to read. He said "The Economist, please", which resulted in the young lady sitting next to him rolling her eyes and his mirror image called him a "fraud". He settles for Stardust instead.
Read more about this topic: The Economist
Famous quotes containing the words appearance, popular and/or culture:
“You speak of poverty and dependence. Who are poor and dependent? Who are rich and independent? When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“The fact remains that the human being in early childhood learns to consider one or the other aspect of bodily function as evil, shameful, or unsafe. There is not a culture which does not use a combination of these devils to develop, by way of counterpoint, its own style of faith, pride, certainty, and initiative.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)