To Kill a Mockingbird in popular culture

Since the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960, there have been many references and allusions to it in popular culture.

Parties were held across the United States for the 50th anniversary of publication in 2010. In honor of the 50th anniversary, famous authors and celebrities as well as people close to Harper Lee shared their experiences with To Kill a Mockingbird in the book Scout, Atticus, & Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird. The book features interviews with Mary Badham, Tom Brokaw, Oprah Winfrey, Anna Quindlen, Richard Russo, as well as Harper Lee's sister, Alice Finch Lee.

Comics

• In The Simpsons/Futurama story "Crossover Crisis II", various literary characters try to bring down a giant Homer Simpson. One character asks how Atticus Finch is succeeding in this task to which he replies 'It's harder than killing a mockingbird!'
• In the comic strip Get Fuzzy, Bucky the cat begins to read the book, before his owner Rob explains that it is not "a how-to manual."
• In DC Comics continuity, it has been established that To Kill a Mockingbird is Superman's favorite book and movie.
• In the comic strip Frazz, Caulfield is a ham for Halloween. Frazz is the only person to guess that Caulfield is Scout Finch in the pageant.
• In the comic strips Bloom County, Outland, and Opus, Opus the penguin is frequently seen reading To Kill a Mockingbird and has stated he rereads it every summer. In the comic strip, a fictional movie was created entitled Kill Mo' Mockingbird.
• On August 24, 2007, the Halo-based comic One One Se7en parodied a quote from To Kill a Mockingbird entitled "Boo, Indeed"
• In the comic strip Garfield, Garfield can be seen reading a book entitled To Grill a Mockingbird.
• In the webcomic Angel Moxie, comic 511, Tristan is seen reading To Kill a Mockingbird. When asked about it, she calls the book How To Kill A Mockingbird. After Alex explains the correct title, Tristan remarks, 'That explains the lack of step-by-step instructions.' She is shown reading the book again in comic 610.
• In the 1998 comic strip, Tubularman, Ross Wainright (aka Tubularman) decides to download someone else's book report instead of completing his own book report on To Kill A Mockingbird. His roommate, Wade Poole, discovers that the downloaded report may not be that well written after all.

Movies

• In Cameron Crowe's 2000 film Almost Famous, the young William Miller and his mother Elaine have just viewed the 1962 film and discuss it as they stroll along the street.
• The 2006 film Failure to Launch contains a subplot about killing a mockingbird. The book is specifically mentioned in the gun shop scene.
• In the 2002 film A Walk to Remember, Mandy Moore's character Jamie was seen reading the novel as part of her book list.
• In the 2002 film Mr. Deeds, Wynona Ryder's character, Babe Bennett, alludes to Boo Radley in an attempt to lie about her past. When Babe goes into a building, she says hello to 'Mrs. Finch and her pet Atticus', a reference to Atticus Finch.
• In the film Vanilla Sky, the movie is on the screen in the background of the security room in David Aames', played by Tom Cruise, cell. Atticus Finch is also revealed to be the inspiration for Dr. Curtis McCabe, played by Kurt Russell
• In the 2005 film Capote, Truman Capote is invited to the publication party for the novel.
• In the 2007 film Freedom Writers, Erin Gruwell mentions how her father was like "Atticus Finch" when she was growing up.
• In the film Benny and Joon, Joon asks Sam, played by Johnny Depp, if he's having a "Boo Radley" moment after she catches him staring at her.

Television

• In the TV series Lost, Season 3 - Episode 5, "The Cost of Living", Juliet shows Jack a video tape, calling it To Kill a Mockingbird, while the tape is actually a secret message requesting his help to overthrow Ben, the apparent leader of The Others.
• In the TV series Get Smart, Maxwell Smart hunts down the Mexican artifact, the "Tequila Mockingbird."
• There is an episode of King of the Hill entitled "To Kill a Ladybird".
• In one of the episodes of the TV series Smallville ("Hug", season 1) Lex refers to Clark as "Atticus" due to the fact that Clark is trying to help a seemingly guilty man. Lex explains he is in the book To Kill a Mockingbird. When Clark asks Lex how the book ends Lex pauses and replies "The ending's not important, it's the journey".
• An episode of the American situation comedy Frasier was titled "To Kill a Talking Bird".
• In one episode of The Simpsons Homer says, "I'll have to read Marge's book and I swore never to read again after To Kill a Mockingbird gave me no useful advice on killing Mockingbirds! It did teach me not to judge a man by the color of his skin, but what good does that do me?" In another episode, is a pun title of an Itchy And Scratchy Cartoon called "To Kill a Talking Bird". Also, in "Bart to the Future", Bart Simpson's failed band is called the Tequila Mockingbirds. In the 2/15/09 episode, Homer is at a prom with a girl, but sees Marge, and tries to sidetrack the other girl so he can dance with her. He tells her he forgot that he had an English paper due on Monday, and asks her to read "To Kill a Mockingbird", and find out the relation between Boo Radley and Southern Gothics.
• In Everybody Loves Raymond, Debra wrote her college thesis on To Kill a Mockingbird, prompting Robert to suggest to Raymond that he buy her a first edition copy of it for Christmas.
• In Gilmore Girls, season 3, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore refer to Boo Radley. "A town needs as many Boo Radleys as they can get".
• In an episode of 8 Simple Rules Rory has to do a book report on the book. In another episode, Paul impersonates Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird in response to a poker buddy's impression of John Wayne.
• In a VH1 Documentary titled Awesomely Wacky Celebrity Baby Names Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's choice of their daughter's name "Scout" is discussed.
• In Michael Nesmith "Dr. Duck's Super Secret All-Purpose Sauce" there a video segment called '5 Second Theater'. In which "To Kill a Mockingbird" is depicted as a bird singing in a tree then a nuclear explosion happens.
• In the episode "Boogeyman" of My Name is Earl, Randy hides behind a tree in the corner of a large house. He is noticed by two people who mistake him for a child of the owner. One of the two people say, "Who's that Boo Radley character behind that tree?"
• In one episode of The Simpsons, Lisa Simpson mentions that To Kill A Mockingbird was one of the best books of all time.
• In another episode of The Simpsons, Another Simpsons Clip Show, Lisa's narration "It was an unusually warm February 14th, so the children walked home without jackets" is perhaps a reference to the line "The weather was unusually warm for the last day of October. We didn't even need jackets" in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Music

• The character of Boo Radley – a mysterious neighbor who lives quietly in his dark house and is feared by the local children – gave his name to the British band The Boo Radleys.
• The Moxy Früvous song "Boo Time" is also named for Boo Radley. The song exhorts the listener to "Trim the trad, go troglodyte" – in other words, to leave behind civilisation and let the animal nature within take over, as Boo arguably does in the novel's climax.
• The Knoxville, Tennessee-based rock band Atticus was inspired by To Kill a Mockingbird.
• In 2005, the Seattle-based rock group Acceptance released an instrumental track on their album Phantoms titled "Ad Astra Per Aspera", after the Halloween pageant that Scout is in near the end of the book.
• In 2001, Blink-182 band members Tom Delonge and Mark Hoppus created the clothing line Atticus Clothing, named after the character in this book. Similarly, the female line of the brand is called Scout. The brand's logo is a dead bird.
• Bruce Hornsby wrote a song called "Sneaking Up on Boo Radley," which describes the kids' adventures and reactions with regard to their neighbor Boo. The end of the song suggests that it is written from Jem's point of view. The song can be found on the 1998 studio album Spirit Trail and the live album Here Come the Noise Makers, which was released in 2000.
• The fictional rock band Strange Fruit, from the movie Still Crazy, wrote a song entitled "Tequila Mockingbird."
• The Ra Ra Riot's song "Each Year" is based on To Kill a Mockingbird.
• The Noisettes song "Atticus" is inspired by To Kill a Mockingbird.

Other

• A Flash animation, How to Kill a Mockingbird, is presented as a book report by a student who's never read the work. It starts out as a genuine description of the book's opening and, through various means, turns into an enormous space battle over ancient China between an armada of undead mockingbird helicopters that shoot flaming lightsabers out of their skulls, and "Boo" Radley leading an army of ninjas, dinosaurs, pirates riding flying, burning sharks from their time travelling castle, volcanoes, lightsabers that shoot other lightsabers, and burning wildlife.
• To Kill A Mockingbird is also one of the feature films the character may watch in the game The Darkness.
• Bruce Willis and Demi Moore named their second child Scout, reportedly after the character in the novel.
• Smoky Mountain Wrestling once had a character named Boo Bradley, who was an homage to Boo Radley. The wrestler went on to become ECW and WWE character Balls Mahoney.
• Jake Gyllenhaal has stated that the book is his favorite, and named his two dogs Atticus Finch and Boo Radley.
• One of the various monsters that players can encounter in the game Munchkin is the Tequila Mockingbird.
• In the 2005 novel by Sarra Manning Let's Get Lost, it is revealed that the character "Smiths" Christian name is Atticus, after Atticus Finch, because his parents had been "anti-war hippies"
• A teen novel, Premonitions, the main character Gracie makes a reference to how her cousin saved her from a kidnapper, "Like Boo Radley jumping Bob Ewell!"
• The book is extensively referred to and borrowed from in Mark Giminez's first (2005) novel "The Color of Law", where Harper Lee's "great novel" is acknowledged by author Mark Giminez as his inspiration to become a lawyer, the main hero is named Atticus, Atticus Finch is used a moral exemplerer, and the plot borrows the issue of the right handedness of the real criminal but left handedness of the person charged with the crime.
• Daniel Clay's debut novel Broken is a modernization of To Kill a Mockingbird. It features many parallels to Lee's novel. Broken follows a series of events in the lives of Skunk and her brother Jed, the children of lawyer Archie Cunningham. With their nomadic friend Dillon, they navigate their way through the trials of English suburban life. The children attempt to unravel the mystery of their reclusive neighbor "Broken Buckley" while evading the clutches of the unruly Oswald clan. Clay, like Lee, explores the challenge of preserving innocence as one comes of age in an increasingly nefarious society.

Puns

• The name tequila mockingbird is used for various alcoholic drinks, bars, restaurants, etc.

• An educational joke asks, "What do you call 2000 mockingbirds?" The answer is "two kilo- mockingbirds", playing on the scientific prefix kilo-, meaning 1000.

Bibliography

• Murphy, Mary McDonagh. Scout, Atticus & Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird. HarperCollins: 2010. ISBN 978-0-06-192407-1

External Links

• Scout, Atticus & Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird