In Popular Culture
Arthur Conan Doyle's hero Sherlock Holmes uses the term to describe the facial distortion of the murder victim Bartholomew Sholto in his story The Sign of the Four. This also led to Dr. Watson confirming strychnine poisoning.
A case of risus sardonicus features in the short story "Sardonicus" by Ray Russell, later used as the basis of the 1961 William Castle movie Mr. Sardonicus.
In the Batman comic book series, The Joker uses a toxin on some of his victims that induces a highly stylized version of this condition. In the video game Batman: Arkham City the Joker's face assumes the same face upon his death.
In season 3, episode 6, "True Romance: Part 1" of the UK TV series Cracker, a body is found that exhibits risus sardonicus secondary to the cause of death being electrocution.
Read more about this topic: Rictus
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or culture:
“For those that love the world serve it in action,
Grow rich, popular and full of influence,
And should they paint or write, still it is action:
The struggle of the fly in marmalade.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Culture is the suggestion, from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities through which he can modulate the violence of any master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor him against himself. Culture redresses this imbalance, puts him among equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)