References to Oscar Wilde in popular culture

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Oscar Wilde is an iconic figure in modern popular culture, both as a wit and as an archetype of gay identity. Especially since the 1970s, there are many references to Wilde and his works in comedies and dramas, as well as in songs, comics, and graphic novels.

Contents 1 Art 2 Literature 3 Humor 4 Drama 5 Music 6 Comics and graphic novels

[edit] Art

• Roy Lichtenstein's 1965 pop-art work Reverie contains the caption "The melody haunts my reverie", which is a paraphrase of a line from Chapter XI of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

[edit] Literature

• Will Self's 2004 novel Dorian reworks The Picture of Dorian Gray.

[edit] Humor

• There is a skit about Oscar Wilde in the Monty Python album, The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief, called "Oscar Wilde and Friends". It can also be found in the 39th episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. He is portrayed by Graham Chapman, himself gay.
• In the Godzilla vs. Megalon episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a character in the movie was named and frequently referenced as Oscar Wilde for wearing a very similar haircut. In fact, Oscar Wilde is a commonly reoccurring theme in MST3K episodes.
• Featured in a sketch from season one of The Kids in the Hall in which Wilde is on an island with Buddy Cole. He is played by Dave Foley.
• Uncyclopedia, "the content-free encyclopedia that anyone can edit," contains many fabricated quotes attributed to Oscar Wilde for the sake of humor.
• In the Blackadder Goes Forth episode Corporal Punishment, Blackadder is being court-martialed for eating a messenger pigeon. Blackadder is sure he will get off, because he has an excellent lawyer, explaining:

Look at what Bob Massingbird did to Oscar Wilde - big, bearded, bonking, butch Oscar, the terror of the ladies. A hundred and fourteen illegitimate children, world heavyweight boxing champion and author of the bestselling pamphlet 'Why I Like to Do It with Girls' - and Massingbird had him sent down for being a whoopsy.

• Queer Duck's Oscar Wildcat is a reference to Oscar Wilde.
• On the 23 January 2007 episode of The Colbert Report, in response to the LGBT TV channel Logo's announcement that they would be launching a series of podcasts, Stephen Colbert suggested one called "Gay Cooking Tips with Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, and Sir Ian McKellan. [1]

[edit] Drama

• Todd Haynes' 1998 film Velvet Goldmine contains many references to Oscar Wilde, and features British child actor Luke Morgan Oliver as the young Wilde, who, in the film's introduction, anachronistically claims that he wishes to be a 'pop idol.'
• The 1980 series four episode "Rescue" of Blake's 7 is derived from The Picture of Dorian Gray, to the point of having a villain called Dorian.
• The film adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which features characters from various works of Victorian literature, includes Dorian Gray as a prominent character.
• The play "Charley's Aunt" includes a character, Lord Fancourt Babberley, who is auditioning for the role of Aunt Agatha in Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest".
• In the film Spider-Man 2, Peter Parker's love interest Mary Jane Watson plays Cecily in a production of "The Importance of Being Earnest". Both the film and the play deal with the theme of double-lives.
• The character John Dorian, aka J.D., on the American television comedy, Scrubs, is loosely inspired by Dorian Gray from Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dr. Kelso's name is also inspired by Lord Kelso, from the same book.

[edit] Music

• Wilde appears on the cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. He can be seen above John Lennon's right shoulder.
• Mention of Wilde was made in The Smiths' song, "Cemetry Gates," released on the 1986 album The Queen Is Dead. Lead singer Morrissey has stated that he has long been an admirer of Wilde and his works.
• The Smiths also have a song called "Oscillate Wildly"
• Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders quoted Wilde's "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" (from Lady Windermere's Fan) in her song "Message of Love" (1981) [2]; the same line is paraphrased by the Pet Shop Boys in "I Get Excited (You Get Excited Too)" (1988).
• Jimmy Buffett mentions Wilde in his song, "Quietly Making Noise", from his Fruitcakes album.
• Ian Lawson wrote music to the words in Wilde's poem "Requiescat".
• Singer/songwriter The Worry Knot performs a song based on "Requiescat" on his album Under Trees. The music was written by Emma Fredsdotter Petersson.
• Boston-based musical duo New Remorse, taking their name from the Wilde poem "The New Remorse." Singer Stephen Driss has cited Wilde as being "the first rock-star..."
• Wisconsin-based band Romantica has a song "Oscar Wilde" on their album It's Your Weakness that I Want. The album name is a reference to the song, which is about a girl who is dissatisfied with her relationship with her boyfriend. The chorus goes

But you just sit there quoting lines from the irresistible Oscar Wilde,

'Cos your own attempts at modern verse lack all the romance of an Irish curse.

You might win your beauty queen if not through love, then sympathy but,

I know your poet's debt to weakness that I want instead.

• British band The Libertines mention Dorian Gray in the chorus of the song "Narcissist".
• British singer / songwriter James Blunt mentions Dorian Gray in the chorus of the song "Tears and Rain".
• Wilde is celebrated and mourned on the title track of The Divine Comedy's Absent Friends album.
• Underground pop singer Robert Marlow with the help of Vince Clarke, had a minor hit with a song based off Dorian Gray, called "The Face Of Dorian Gray"
• German indie band Phillip Boa and the Voodoo Club, mention Wilde in their song "Intrigue and Romance", from the album Decadence and Isolation.
• Suzanne Vega and John Cale perform a spoken word duet on the song "The Long Voyage" from French producer Hector Zazou's 1994 album Chansons des mers froides (Songs from the Cold Seas). The lyrics are based on Wilde's poem "Silhouettes".
• Musician Rufus Wainwright has an allusion to Wilde in his song "In With The Ladies", in which he speaks to "Bosie" (Lord Alfred Douglas), seemingly from the viewpoint of Oscar Wilde.
• Don McLean's song "Everybody Loves Me, Baby", contained the lyrics

"Why, you can't blame me, I'm Heaven's child, I'm the second son of Mary mild,

And I'm twice removed from Oscar Wilde, but he didn't mind, why, he just smiled"

• U2 mention Dorian Gray in the song "The Ocean" from the debut album Boy.
• Irish singer Gavin Friday has alluded to Oscar Wilde multiple times. His debut album Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves and its title song are taken straight from the Wilde poem "Ballad of Reading Gaol". A B-side to one of Friday's singles is called "Sibyl Vaine's Suicide" and references the death of the love interest in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Friday's first band, underground punk group The Virgin Prunes would also recite lines from multiple works of Wilde in concert.
• In the video for "DJ Culture," Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys dresses as Oscar Wilde and sings the line, "And I, my lord, may I say nothing?", which is what Wilde said after being convicted.
• San Antonio, Texas-based, female rock trio Girl in a Coma have a song entitled "Sybil Vane was Ill" which references the events of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
• The Fatboy Slim album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars is an allusion to the Oscar Wilde quote "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars," a line spoken by Lord Darlington in Lady Windermere's Fan.
• The group The Television Personalities have a song called "The Picture of Dorian Gray".

[edit] Comics and graphic novels

• In the Starman comics, Oscar Wilde was briefly shown as a friend/acquaintance of the Shade.
• A multiple-issue 'chapter' of Dave Sim's comic book Cerebus the Aardvark, entitled Melmoth (later collected as a single volume under that title) retells the story of Wilde's final months with the names and places slightly altered to fit the world of the Cerebus storyline, while Cerebus himself spends most of the chapter as a passive observer.
• He appears at one of his famous parties in the graphic novel From Hell, by Alan Moore. Moore cited Wilde as an inspiration on BBC2's "Culture Show", aired 9 March 2006.
• The "actual" Picture of Dorian Gray appears on the cover of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1, drawn by Kevin O'Neill. The back matter of the volume contains a satirical "paint-by-number" portrait of Dorian Gray.
• Wilde appears in a Doctor Who comic strip in the children's magazine Doctor Who Adventures, where it is revealed that he was infected by a vampire.
• Sebastian O, a Wilde cognate, is the main character of an epynomous steampunk mini-series by Grant Morrison
• In Scott McCloud's Reinventing Comics, McCloud uses a picture of Wilde to demonstrate the Comics Code Authority stringent restrictions on depictions of "sex perversion".
• P. Craig Russell has published four volumes of adaptations of Wilde's fairy tales.
• In the 2001 Aria arc The Soul Market, Wilde is inspired to write The Picture of Dorian Gray by a painter whose skill is such that his paintings trap the subject's soul in them.