In Popular Culture
- Mentioned by Jack Lemmon in Billy Wilder's 1966 film The Fortune Cookie. Impersonates painting pose to his estranged wife
- A painting of Whistler's Mother is seen in multiple episodes of The Simpsons.
- In "Rosebud", it's seen in Mr. Burns' bedroom .
- In "The Trouble with Trillions", the painting can be seen when Mr. Burns gets arrested by two IRS agents.
- It can also be seen in "The Burns and The Bees" when Mr. Burns' shoots an arrow at the picture in the "Billions Club".
- In Bean, the portrait of Whistler's Mother is used as a plot device by having Burt Reynolds purchase the painting for $50,000,000 (USD) and return it to America. Within the story, Mr. Bean ruins the painting by using paint thinner and surreptitiously replacing the painting.
- Part 6 of Don Delillo's "Underworld" is titled "Arrangement in Gray and Black."
- John Lennon's album "Shaved Fish" features a cover for his song "Mother" which shows him in the position of Whistler's Mother.
- In the musical Anything Goes by Cole Porter, Reno Sweeney refers to Billy Crocker as "Whistler's mama."
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