Gentleman Thief - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Notable gentlemen thieves (and lady thieves) in popular culture include the following:

  • Leslie Charteris's Simon Templar
  • Thomas Crown from The Thomas Crown Affair
  • John Robie in Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief,
  • E. W. Hornung's A. J. Raffles
  • Carmen Sandiego (character)
  • Edward Pierce from The Great Train Robbery
  • Selina Kyle (Catwoman)
  • Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin
  • Arsène Lupin III, from Lupin III (by Monkey Punch).
  • Kaito Kuroba the Phantom Thief Kid from Magic Kaito and later Detective Conan (by Gosho Aoyama)
  • Meimi Haneoka, who transforms into Saint Tail, a thief with acrobatic and magician skills, from Saint Tail (by Megumi Tachikawa)
  • Dark Mousy the angel-like thief from D.N.Angel (by Yukiru Sugisaki).
  • David Goldman in An Education

All are superb at stealing while maintaining a sophisticated front and/or a thief's code of honor: Raffles steals mostly when he is especially in need of money; Lupin steals more from the rich who don't appreciate art or their treasures and redistributes it (not unlike a modern Robin Hood); Saint Tail steals back what was stolen or taken dishonestly, or rights the wrongs done to the innocent by implicating the real criminals.

Read more about this topic:  Gentleman Thief

Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or culture:

    If our entertainment culture seems debased and unsatisfying, the hope is that our children will create something of greater worth. But it is as if we expect them to create out of nothing, like God, for the encouragement of creativity is in the popular mind, opposed to instruction. There is little sense that creativity must grow out of tradition, even when it is critical of that tradition, and children are scarcely being given the materials on which their creativity could work
    C. John Sommerville (20th century)

    Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay.
    Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)