Zorro - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

• Bob Kane has credited Zorro as part of the inspiration for the Batman. Like Zorro, Bruce Wayne is affluent, the heir of wealth built by his parents. His everyday persona encourages others to think of him as shallow, foolish and uncaring to throw off suspicion. Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again both include multiple Zorro references including the Batman inscribing a Z on a defeated foe.
• Zorro's black mask, cape and gaucho hat have been adopted by mascots at University of California Santa Barbara (Gauchos), University of San Francisco, Texas Tech University and Edward S. Marcus High School.
• Shrek's Puss in Boots, who also appeared in an eponymous 2011 film, was based both on the fairy tale character of the same name and on Zorro. The character was voiced by Antonio Banderas, the actor who portrayed Zorro in The Mask of Zorro and The Legend of Zorro. At one point the cat uses his sword to scratch a "P" on his victim, a parody of Zorro's trademark move.
• In the 1999 episode of The Simpsons "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" Zorro was featured in a parody of a blatantly historically inaccurate movie called The Poke Of Zorro, culminating in a glove-slap to the Scarlet Pimpernel, the winning of King Arthur's crown, and a hip-hop tune with the lyric "The Z to the O to the double-R O, he's the dude in the mask from the barrio."
• In the film The Artist, George Valentin portrays a character similar in appearance and of a similar setting to Zorro.