Effect On Popular Culture
Rain Man's portrayal of the main character's condition has been seen as inaugurating a common and incorrect media stereotype that people on the autism spectrum typically have savant skills, and references to Rain Man, in particular Dustin Hoffman's performance, have become a popular shorthand for autism and savantism. However, Rain Man has also been seen as dispelling a number of other misconceptions about autism and improving public awareness of the failure of many agencies to accommodate people with autism and make use of the abilities they do have, regardless of whether they are savant skills. Rain Man has been listed as one of the best movies on the subject of autism.
The film is also known for popularizing the misconception that card counting is illegal in the United States.
In the course of the film, it is claimed that Qantas is the only commercial airline that has never had an aircraft crash. While it is true that the company has neither lost a jet airliner nor had any jet fatalities, it had eight fatal accidents and an aircraft shot down between 1927 and 1945, with the loss of 63 people. To this date, the last fatal accident suffered by Qantas was in 1951. The scene in which Raymond reels off a list of statistics of fatal airline crashes was cut by most airlines when showing the film in-flight – except for Qantas, which even promoted one of the movie's writers to first class when he traveled on their airline.
The use of the surname "Babbitt" for the brothers may be in homage to the Sinclair Lewis novel of the same name; Zenith, the city in the novel, is generally believed to be based on Cincinnati.
Read more about this topic: Rain Man
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, effect on, effect, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Airplanes are invariably scheduled to depart at such times as 7:54, 9:21 or 11:37. This extreme specificity has the effect on the novice of instilling in him the twin beliefs that he will be arriving at 10:08, 1:43 or 4:22, and that he should get to the airport on time. These beliefs are not only erroneous but actually unhealthy.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A conceited man is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself.”
—Max Beerbohm (1872–1956)
“The man of large and conspicuous public service in civil life must be content without the Presidency. Still more, the availability of a popular man in a doubtful State will secure him the prize in a close contest against the first statesman of the country whose State is safe.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The hatred of the youth culture for adult society is not a disinterested judgment but a terror-ridden refusal to be hooked into the, if you will, ecological chain of breathing, growing, and dying. It is the demand, in other words, to remain children.”
—Midge Decter (b. 1927)