Popular Culture
References to the Indianapolis sinking and aftermath have been adapted to film, stage, television, and popular culture. The incident itself was the subject of 1991 made-for-television movie Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, with Stacey Keach portraying Captain Charles Butler McVay III.
Arguably the most well known fictional reference to the events occurs in the 1975 thriller film Jaws in a monologue by actor Robert Shaw, whose character Samuel Quint is depicted as a survivor of the Indianapolis sinking. The monologue particularly focuses on the numerous deaths caused by shark attacks after the sinking. John Milius was specifically brought into the production to write lines for this scene and he based them on survivor stories. However, the speech states the date of the sinking as 29 June 1945, when the ship was actually sunk later on 30 July.
Read more about this topic: USS Indianapolis (CA-35)
Famous quotes related to popular culture:
“Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The lowest form of popular culture—lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives—has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.”
—Carl Bernstein (b. 1944)