Cultural and Media Influence
As a result of their widespread popularity in human domestic life, and especially because of their popularity in households with children, guinea pigs have shown a presence in culture and media. Some noted appearances of the animal in literature include the short story Pigs Is Pigs by Ellis Parker Butler is a tale of bureaucratic incompetence. Two guinea pigs held at a railway station breed unchecked while humans argue as to whether they are "pigs" or "pets" for the purpose of determining freight charges. Butler's story, in turn, inspired the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", written by David Gerrold. In the Golden Hamster Saga books, there are two guinea pigs named Enrico and Caruso who are modern-day thespians (named after Enrico Caruso) who serve as secondary characters, and often irritate the main character, Freddy Auratus who strongly dislikes their acting antics.
Read more about this topic: Guinea Pig
Famous quotes containing the words cultural, media and/or influence:
“The men who are messing up their lives, their families, and their world in their quest to feel man enough are not exercising true masculinity, but a grotesque exaggeration of what they think a man is. When we see men overdoing their masculinity, we can assume that they haven’t been raised by men, that they have taken cultural stereotypes literally, and that they are scared they aren’t being manly enough.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of an intolerable world, words appear to change very little. State power has become congenitally deaf, which is why—but the editorialists forget it—terrorists are reduced to bombs and hijacking.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“The purifying, healing influence of literature, the dissipating of passions by knowledge and the written word, literature as the path to understanding, forgiveness and love, the redeeming might of the word, the literary spirit as the noblest manifestation of the spirit of man, the writer as perfected type, as saint.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)