Moby-Dick in popular culture

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Moby-Dick is an 1851 novel by Herman Melville which describes the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, led by Captain Ahab, who leads his crew on a hunt for the whale Moby-Dick. The novel has been often referenced in popular culture. See also Moby Dick (film).

Contents

[edit] Adaptations

[edit] Film

[edit] Television

[edit] Stage

  • Writer Julian Rad and Director Hilary Adams created a bare stage adaptation of Moby Dick that premiered in New York City in 2003. The Off-Off Broadway "play with music" was nominated for three 2004 Drama Desk Awards: Outstanding Play (Julian Rad, writer/Works Productions, producer), Outstanding Director of a Play (Hilary Adams) and Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play (Michael Berry as Starbuck). Moby Dick was the first Off-Off Broadway production to ever be nominated in the Play and Director categories in the 50 year history of the Drama Desk Award.[citation needed] For more information see the company website (Works Productions) and the director's website (Hilary Adams).

[edit] Literature

  • The Wind Whales of Ishmael, a 1971 science fiction sequel by Philip José Farmer, transports Ishmael to the far future.
  • Berserker Blue Death, a 1985 science fiction novel by Fred Saberhagen, is basically Captain Ahab in the 25th century, with the white whale replaced by the Blue Berserker ship, and with the facially scarred captain's peg leg made from a captured android leg, instead of a bone from a whale.

[edit] Allusions to Moby-Dick

[edit] Language

  • The phrase "white whale" is often used to describe an obsession with a single goal.
  • The word Moby appears to be an invention of Melville's. It has passed into colloquial English as a rough synonym for "very large".
  • Moby Dicks was Cockney Rhyming Slang for John Player "No. 6" cigarrettes in the 1970's.

[edit] Literature

  • Jules Verne's 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea references a hunt for a dangerous ship-sinking "Moby-Dick", which turns out to be the Nautilus.
  • Kurt Vonnegut's 1963 novel Cat's Cradle makes allusions to Moby Dick in its chapter format (short in length and many in number) and in its opening line ("Call me Jonah" instead of Moby-Dick's "Call me Ishmael").
  • McMurphy, the rebellious main character in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest sports white whale shorts.
  • Nova, a 1968 science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany, features a starship voyage with a misfit crew, and an obsessive and facially scarred captain strongly resembling Ahab.
  • Philip Roth's 1973 book The Great American Novel begins with the line "Call me Smitty," and refers to Moby-Dick several times throughout its length.
  • Bruce Sterling's 1977 novel Involution Ocean is a science fictional pastiche of Moby-Dick.
  • Roger Zelazny's short story "The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth" is inspired by Moby-Dick. It tells the story of a whaling crew on the seas of Venus, hunting a giant Icthyosaur.
  • Ahab's Wife, or the Star Gazer, by Sena Jeter Naslund, is a novel about Ahab's wife, who is only briefly mentioned in Moby-Dick. In Naslund's novel, the heroine meets dozens of famous people, including Frederick Douglass, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Maria Mitchell, and even Henry James as a precocious 5-year-old.
  • In Robert J. Sawyer's novel Far Seer (part of the Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy), Var-Keenir, captain of the Dasheter, is obsessed with hunting down and killing "Kal Ta Goot", an Elasmosaurus.
  • Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment (2004) by American author Jed McKenna begins with the line "Call me Ahab," and references Moby-Dick several times within the broader context of spirituality.
  • Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events has many references to Moby Dick, including the name of a submarine, the Queequeg and the leader of an island, named Ishmael ("Call me Ish").
  • Popeye the Sailor Man: A Whale of a Tale, by Arthur Korb was a childrens book and record released in 1975 that featured a whale named Mopey Nick, who talks like Popeye (Popeye taught him to talk "people-talk") and who eats spinach like Popeye when extraordinary strength is called for. Popeye and Mopey became friends when "Popeye had pulled a whale hunter's harpoon out of Mopey's flipper." The whale hunter turned out to be Popeye's rival, Brutus, and Brutus had been pursuing the whale relentlessly ever since. After a few adventures, Popeye and the whale end up coming to Brutus's rescue, and Brutus promises never to chase Mopey Nick again.

[edit] Comics and Graphic Novels

  • Moby Duck is a character created for Disney's line of comic books, a relative of Donald Duck and the other ducks in the Disney mythos.
  • Mad magazine's obligatory movie satire "Morbid Dick" began with the line, "Call me Fishmeal!"
  • National Lampoon produced a poster in which Moby Dick is rendered as a gigantic condom.
  • In the comic book series Bone by Jeff Smith, the protagonist (named Fone Bone) is a great admirer of Moby-Dick and refers to it frequently. When he tries to read passages from the book to his friends, they immediately fall asleep. His dreams contain a great deal of Moby-Dick imagery, and when he and his companions pass through a region in which their thoughts become reality, his cousin Phoney suddenly gains a peg-leg, a facial scar and a costume like Ahab's.
  • In Marvel Comics' Livewires the ultimate goal of Project Livewire is to seek out and destroy the most secret of all black ops projects, the one they refer to as "The White Whale", because they do not actually know its real codename.
  • A 1990 Classics Illustrated graphic novel by artist Bill Sienkiewicz and writer D.G. Chichester
    Cover of Classics Illustrated graphic novel done by Bill Sienkiewicz
    Cover of Classics Illustrated graphic novel done by Bill Sienkiewicz
  • A 1998 graphic novel by artist Will Eisner

[edit] Television

  • On Series Voyage to the Bottom of the sea epsiode "The Ghost of Moby Dick"
  • Tom and Jerry meet "Dicky Moe" in a 1961 MGM cartoon of the same name.
  • A 1964 episode of Mr. Magoo saw Ishmael Quincey Magoo hunting the great white whale. [1]
  • Hanna-Barbera Studios's 1967 cartoon Moby Dick (IMDb link). Moby Dick was a Lassie-like pet hero, who rescued hapless boys menaced by various Saturday morning cartoon threats: flying saucers, shark men, and so on.
  • Rocky and Bullwinkle once encountered a white whale named "Maybe Dick".
  • "The Doomsday Machine" is a Star Trek episode written by Norman Spinrad that is loosely based on the Moby-Dick story.
  • "Obsession (Star Trek)" is another Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk tries to destroy a vampire-like cloud creature that attacked and killed his captain and his crew on his old ship, the Farragut. Kirk was like Ahab and the creature resembled Moby Dick. However, the story ends with the crew learning about the creature, its menace to known space and deciding that Kirk was fundamentally correct in hunting it. Also See Star Trek movie II The Wrath of Kahn below.
  • Moby Lick was a fictitious character in Mattel's action figure line known as the "Street Sharks", that later appeared in the animated series based on the toyline. While its name is an obvious pun on Melville's work, the character was a humanoid orca (killer whale) with a huge tongue.
  • Captain Ahab makes a cameo appearance in the 1994 animated film, The Pagemaster, as one of a long list of appearances by many famous literary characters and novels. Captain Ahab, along with Macaulay Culkin's character, is attacked by Moby Dick while in a rowboat (IMDb link).
  • In an episode of the animated TV series, The Simpsons, where Krusty the Klown fakes his own death and elopes to a life on the seas, the "Sea Captain" character is seen ending a phone conversation with the phrase "Call me back, Ishmael" - a direct play on the opening line of Moby Dick
  • In the 1978 TV series Battlestar Galactica, remade in 2003, Commander Adama (who later in the show has a scar that runs down the length of his chest) has a man named Lieutenant Starbuck (changed to a female for the remake) as his top fighter pilot. Another Galactica pilot is named Boomer, which is the name of another ship's captain in Moby-Dick. Other vague parallels such as the use of epic names also exist.
  • In episode 39 of the animated television series Futurama, Fry and Leela meet Ahab and Queequeg after a brainlike alien transports them into the book Moby-Dick. the conversation between the pair porodies a famous scene from the novel.

Ahab: A gold doubloon to tha man who firs' spies the white whale!
(The brain emerges from the water)
Queequeg: Big whale over there!
Ahab: Yar! i saw et first. (He pockets the coin)

  • In episode 45 of Futurama, Leela reveals that due to the depletion of petroleum resources, whale oil is used instead, cutting to a giant cannister of "Mobil Dick" with the picture of a white whale.
  • In the television show, The X-Files, Dana Scully's family has a liking for Moby Dick; she names her dog "Queequeg". Ironically it is eaten by a sea-monster during Season 3 after it investigates a noise. Despite Scully calling Queequeg back over and over the dog is obsessed with finding out what the noise was. Scully also used the nickname "Ahab" for her father and he, in return, called her "Starbuck".
  • An episode of Seinfeld features a police officer searching for a notorious violater of parking laws (who turns out to be Newman)). Throughout the show, the miscreant is referred to as the officer's "white whale". Kramer also wears an eyepatch like Ahab for most of the episode.
  • Macross Dynamite 7 an OVA spinoff of the Macross 7 TV series details a Zentradi poacher obsessed with the killing of a gargantuan white space-whale.
  • On the 1960's animated Hanna-Barbera sitcom, "The Flintstones," 5/14 aka "Adobe Dick" Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble accidentally get swallowed by a white whale named Dopey Dick, during a Water Buffalo Lodge deep-sea fishing trip. Barney tries to take a picture of Fred beside the whale-but ruins the picture!
  • In an episode of Fairly Odd Parents Timmy and godparents get trapped in the book where Tom Sawyer (having been released from his book and stolen Cosmo's wand) altered the title to read Moby Duck, where in the place of a white whale is a giant rubber duck
  • In the SpongeBob Squarepants episode, Clams, Mr. Krabs looses his millionth dollar to a giant clam, and force spongebob and squidward to get it back, much like in Moby Dick.

[edit] Film

  • Sam Peckinpah's 1965 film Major Dundee, with Charlton Heston and Richard Harris, recycles many of the story's plotlines and characters into a Western setting (IMDb link).
  • Jaws was a 1975 film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the novel by Peter Benchley. Actor Robert Shaw played Quint, a crusty old Ahab-like sea captain who was obsessed with hunting down a great white shark. In the novel version, Quint dies in much the same way as Ahab, pulled into the depths by the creature due to a snagged harpoon line.
  • Rick Veitch's Abraxas and the Earthman (serialized in Marvel's Epic Magazine) was practically influenced by Moby Dick.
  • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) borrows liberally from Moby-Dick. Khan and his first officer Joachim are based on Ahab and Starbuck, and many of Khan's lines involve the character's near verbatim quotes of the novel, a paperback copy of which is seen on a shelf in Khan's exile quarters at the film's beginning (IMDb link).
  • In Star Trek: First Contact (1996) Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fight against the Borg is compared to that of Captain Ahab against Moby Dick (IMDb link). Ironically, the character who makes the connection (Lily Sloane) had never read the book, while Picard was very familiar with it, paraphrasing (or incorrectly quoting?) a short passage to which Lily responds, "I guess he didn't know when to quit." Even more ironic is the fact that two years later, the actor who portrays Captain Picard, Patrick Stewart, performed the role Captain Ahab in a TV movie version of Moby-Dick.
  • In the 2003 film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the League is greeted by one of Captain Nemo's men. His first line: "Call me Ishmael." (Moby-Dick in popular culture at the Internet Movie Database)
  • The Yoram Gross 1986 film Dot and the Whale featured the character of Dot, with the help of her dolphin friend Nelson, trying to find Moby Dick (who in the film is represented as an old, wise guide; similar to a character such as Gandalf in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) after discovering a dying, beached whale on the coast of Australia. At the time the film was made, the total population of whales was slowly dwindling due to heavy hunting. The film was made to help educate children about the nature of whales and to encourage anti-whaling. [2]

[edit] Theatre

[edit] Music and Audio

  • "Nantucket Sleighride" was a recording by Mountain which describes a ship's crew "in search of the mighty sperm whale" and referring to "Starbuck sharpening his harpoon".
  • The BBC radio comedy series Round The Horne has a spoof of the story, written by Barry Took and Marty Feldman entitled Moby Duck. Its Ishmael character, played by Kenneth Horne, has the unlikely name of Ebenezer Kukpowder.
  • The German funeral doom metal band Ahab refers in all of their songs to the book by Melville. Their demo "The Oath" was released in 2005. On October 10, 2006, their debut album "The Call of the Wretched Sea" is slated to be available in America. [3]
Cover of heavy metal band Mastodon's album Leviathan.
Cover of heavy metal band Mastodon's album Leviathan.
  • The American heavy metal band Mastodon released a 2004 concept album named Leviathan, which contained lyrics based on Moby Dick. Some song titles include "I Am Ahab" and "Seabeast".
  • Francis Macbeth composed a five-movement suite for wind band named Of Sailors and Whales which is based on scenes from the book Moby-Dick. The bombastic suite begins with the quiet "Ishmael", which builds to a heavy climax. "Queequeg" follows with a flitting melody and ends with bleak chords and finally a quick note at the end. The middle movement "Father Mapple" is supposed to be a hymn that an imaginary man sings during the voyage. This movement is actually sung by the band, and begins very wearily but has a rather strong ending. The next movement is "Ahab" which readily depicts the captain. The same is true of "The White Whale", the final movement of the suite and by far one of the most fearsome pieces composed for a wind band. Each movement is preceded by some text supposed to be read to give an indication of the movement.
  • Composer Peter Westergaard has composed Moby Dick: Scenes From an Imaginary Opera, an operatic work for five soloists, chorus and chamber orchestra entitled The work was premiered in October 2004 in Princeton, New Jersey. Its libretto draws on the parts of the novel that deal with Ahab's obsession with the whale.
  • The American/German heavy metal band Demons & Wizards included their song about Moby Dick, "Beneath These Waves", on their 2005 album Touched by the Crimson King.
  • "Moby Dick" is an instrumental recording by Led Zeppelin featuring a drum solo by John Bonham.
  • MC Lars' 2006 album The Graduate contains the track "Ahab", in which Lars raps the story of Moby-Dick.
  • Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. released his song "Call me Ishmael" on Atlantic Records on June 26 in the UK. The video can be seen at his website.
  • "Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream", from the album Bringing It All Back Home, includes several Captain Ahab references; Dylan pronounces Captain Arab as "AY-rab".
  • The musician Moby is Herman Melville's great-great-grand-nephew, and takes his stage name from the book.
  • Speed-talking actor John Moschitta, as part of his audio tape, Ten Classics in Ten Minutes, read a rapid-fire one-minute summarization of the lengthy novel, concluding with the biologically-casual line, "And everybody dies... but the fish... and Ish."
  • The Mariner's Revenge Song by The Decemberists is an allusion to the events of the novel. Narrated in the belly of the whale to Ahab himself, it focuses on a young boy whose widowed mother has an affair with the young Captain. Ahab leaves the mother with significant gambling debts, after which she goes insane. The narrator swears revenge on the Captain and goes about carrying it out, mimicking the themes of the original novel.
  • We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank by Modest Mouse contains various allusions to the novel

[edit] Video Games

  • Rakhnam, a purple arcwhale which threatens the party at various points in the 2001 video game Skies of Arcadia, is homage to Moby-Dick (his name in the Japanese version of the game is "Mobys").
  • The computer game Deus Ex: Invisible War features two fictional coffee shop chains, and the competition between them serves as a side plot. One of the coffee chains is named QueeQueg's while the other is named Pequod's. The names were chosen in relation to the character Starbuck, from which the real world coffee shop chain Starbucks drew its name.
  • In the videogame Just Cause, a patrol boat is called the "Pequod", a reference to the ship in Moby-Dick.

[edit] Annual Events

  • The New England Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts hosts a Moby Dick Marathon [4] reading of the novel every January 3 – 4. The Marathon in 2006 was the 10th anniversary of this event. Volunteer readers are allotted 10 minute time slots over the approximately 25 hours it takes to read this novel aloud. Among the hundreds of Moby-Dick fans who flock to this event, descendants of Melville attend every year.

[edit] Ubiquitous Coffee Chains

  • Starbucks is named after the first mate of the Pequod, Starbuck.
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