The Bicycle in Popular Culture

Step Brothers (2008)

2009-03-28T16:05:00.002-05:00

In "Step Brothers," John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell play two losers still living at home with their parents well into their thirties who are brought together by the marriage of one's mother and the other's father. They don't have jobs, they have bad table manners, they are immature, they're a little dense, and they have juvenile interests, so of course they travel by bicycle. We don't see that until towards the end of the movie, when they are returning from a failed job hunt to show their step/parents that they really are responsible after all. Prior to that, the bicycle makes an appearance as a weapon in a front-lawn brawl between the step brothers.

Boost Mobile Commercial (2009)

2009-03-28T15:45:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since examples of The Law have been added to this blog, but that is not due to any shortage of choices, as this commercial for Boost Mobile shows. The woman and her companion are clearly portrayed as losers, she for having ridiculously long armpit hair, he for having a girlfriend with ridiculously long armpit hair and allowing her to tickle his nose with said hair, and both of them for riding a tandem bicycle.

Cracks in the Law?

2007-11-13T13:43:00.000-05:00

Bicycling's image as the preferred mode of travel for perverts and losers seems to be showing some cracks. A story from September in the New York Observer comments on the outrageous phenomenon of women (models and actresses, even!) riding bikes in NYC. While one might interpret this as a step in the right direction--surely if models do it, it can't be only for perverts and losers!--though there is the taint of perversion in the fetishism of pretty girls on bikes. See comments to the Observer story, as well as the Copenhagen Cycle Chic blog, devoted to photos of women on bikes, and the similar montage from Monkey Warfare.

Diff'rent Strokes (1983)

2007-11-13T13:32:00.000-05:00

There has been somewhat of a drought recently of material for the blog, until this great submission from an anonymous reader. Daily Ramblings has a post from 2002 about an episode of Diff'rent Strokes in which a bicycle shop owner tries to molest Arnold and his friend Dudley. Apparently the actor who portrayed Dudley, Shavar Ross, favored an 8 x 10 glossy of this episode for fan autographs.

Owen Wilson Bikes to Strip Clubs

2007-06-12T14:04:00.000-05:00

Here's a recent post to thesuperficial.com that's a bit of an inversion of The Law. Owen Wilson rides his bike to a strip club in real life, and is then portrayed as a loser and a pervert for doing so by commenters on the blog.

Monkey Warfare (2006)

2007-05-12T14:27:00.000-05:00

This film is a bit of a quandary, at least as far as The Law is concerned. Dan McKellar and Tracy Wright portray Dan and Linda, a dysfunctional couple in their thirties whose relationship glue is a 2-stage epoxy of dope smokin' and a dark secret from their past. They travel almost exclusively by bicycle. They are proceeding in a mutually unsatisfying stasis, subsisting as marginal players in the eBay economy, where they sell junk/treasures that they find or buy at yard sales. Then their dealer gets busted, upsetting the delicate weed/dark secret balance.
Susan (Nadia Litz), a nubile bicycle bud dealer, steps in to fill the weed void, only to bring the dark secret bubbling up from the depths of the bongwater. Dan encourages Nadia's interest in his collection of late 20th-century radical chic souvenirs, mostly as a way of encouraging Nadia's interest in himself, but Nadia takes it all a bit too seriously. I won't give away the ending, but there is some bicycle-based terrorism.
So, are Dan and Linda really losers? They do have a pretty marginal existence, but it's hard to tell if this has just been forced upon them by circumstance (the dark secret). They're also not perverts, though Dan has a fetish for girls on bikes, expressed in an entertaining montage of Toronto bicycle cuties and a vaguely erotic saddle-adjustment scene. Similarly, Susan is hard to pin down as a loser or a pervert, though she makes some morally troubling choices (not the pot selling).
Overall Monkey Warfare is an outlier with respect to The Law. Perhaps a new clause is called for.

Pretty in Pink (1986)

2007-04-12T10:29:00.000-05:00

Jon Cryer plays Duckie in this chapter of John Hughes' extensive chronicles of coming-of-age in suburban Chicago. Duckie is a loser who can't get up the nerve to proclaim his love for his crush of innumerable years, Andie, played by Molly Ringwald. Inevitably, he travels by bicycle. In case you might miss the bicycle=loser intent of the film, Duckie makes it perfectly clear with his quip that "Drinking and driving don't mix. That's why I ride a bike." as he leaves Andie's room, juice box in hand. He also veers close to pervert territory towards the end of the film when he stalks Andie on his bike. All this might have been redeemed by the reported original ending of the film, in which Duckie gets the girl. Alas, she ends up with the wealthy drip with the nice car.

Roll Film!

2007-01-29T14:53:00.000-05:00

Thanks for reader mindfrieze for pointing out Roll Film!, a service of the admirable Chicagoland Bicycle Federation. Greg Borzo and Brad Strauss are the Ebert and Roper (or Siskel and Ebert, to cite an earlier Chicago movie reviewing duo) of Roll Film!, with monthly dueling reviews of movies from a bicyclist's perspective.

You, Me, and Dupree (2006)

2007-01-27T10:01:00.000-05:00

Owen Wilson plays amiable loser Randy Dupree in this soon-to-be-forgotten comedy. Dupree is a lazy, manipulative leech who can't keep a job, so of course he travels by bicycle. Wearing a hockey helmet. There are several scenes that enforce the bicyclist-as-juvenile stereotype, including this clip where Dupree grabs a baby's bottle to refresh himself on a ride with Matt Dillon (as Carl Peterson, host to parasite Dupree), and another in which Dupree enlists the neighborhood children to help him put up posters to find the missing Carl. There's even an online game (a real trend: see also the Reno 911!:Petty Theft Bicycle game), so you can re-enact the scene and relive the utter silliness of using a bicycle to get around. Pre-eminent cycling ambassador Lance Armstrong has a cameo.

The Muppet Movie (1979)

2007-01-22T11:53:00.000-05:00

The opening scene of this beloved film, Kermit, the archetypal lovable loser, leaves for Hollywood pedaling his classy roadster, complete with wicker basket. Astounding to young eyes previously used to seeing Kermit only seated or flying limply through the air, the bicycle scene was one of the first to show an apparently autonomous Muppet. It ends pretty quickly, though, when Kermit is distracted by a billboard advertising Doc Hopper's Fried Frog Legs and crashes into a steamroller that crushes his bicycle. "It's a good thing frogs can hop, otherwise I'd be gone with the Schwinn." Sheesh.
The Great Muppet Caper (1981) has a scene that, at first, might seem to violate The Law. Kermit and Miss Piggy ride through a park and sing "Side by Side." The Great Muppet Caper, however, is set in London, a pop-culture-appropriate setting for adult puppets to enjoy bicycling (see Clause B).

Reno 911! (2003-present)

2007-01-19T10:13:00.000-05:00

In this fictional adaptation of Cops!, Thomas Lennon plays loser Lt. Jim Dangle, leader of the incompetent Reno police department. Lt. Dangle, who favors a hot pants version of the traditional policeman's uniform, is also the primary member of the Reno PD bicycle patrol. The running joke is that Lt. Dangle is forever having his bicycle stolen from him in the course of duty. Comedy Central even has a little on-line game called Reno 911!: Petty Theft Bicycle, in which you get try to keep away from the Reno PD after stealing Lt. Dangle's bicycle from outside the doughnut shop.

Blond Ambition (2007?)

2007-01-18T09:37:00.000-05:00

A reader sent in a link to some photos of Jessica Simpson on the set of a film apparently in production entitled "Blond Ambition." Based on the fascinating photos from the set posted here, I am waiting with baited breath to see if this film is an application of The Law. I'm leaning heavily towards loser at the moment. What's with the kneepads?

Mr. Show, "If You're Going to Write a Comedy Scene, You're Going to Have Some Rat Feces in There," (1996)

2007-01-17T10:17:00.000-05:00

In this episode of the Bob Odenkirk/David Cross sketch comedy show, David Cross plays "Grass Valley" Greg, a Silicon Valley caricature who invented the delete key. Clearly a loser, his company is a place "Where ideas can hang out, and do whatever!" and there are frequent Tofutti breaks. To reinforce how much of a loser Greg is, he is shown riding a recumbent bicycle to work. The reader who reminded me of this example of The Law of Bicycles in Popular Culture points out that, even among bicyclists, recumbent bicyclists are regarded as perverts and losers.

Notes on a Scandal (2006)

2007-01-16T21:02:00.000-05:00

In this film, Cate Blanchett plays a pottery teacher, bicycle commuter, and pervert Sheba Hart who is engaged in an affair with a teenage student. This is a British film, and it shows in that Sheba is a pervert who happens to ride a bicycle, rather than the bicycling being presented as an inherent characteristic of perverts (see Little Children).

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985)

2007-01-16T19:54:00.000-05:00

Paul Reubens plays his character of Pee-Wee Herman in Pee-Wee's quest to reclaim his prized bicycle. Pee-Wee is a loser, if an endearingly eccentric and non-self-aware one. Despite Mr. Reubens' personal habits, though, Pee-Wee is not really a pervert but asexual, or just trapped in a state of arrested development.

I Heart Huckabees (2004)

2007-01-16T16:53:00.003-05:00

Jason Schwartzman as Albert Markovski and Mark Wahlberg as Tommy Corn both portray losers in this comedy. Albert is an insecure, self-doubting environmentalist. Tommy is a fireman opposed to the automobile going through a messy divorce. They both travel by bicycle.

Little Children (2006)

2007-01-16T16:53:00.001-05:00

Jackie Earle Haley plays Ronnie J. McGorvey, a convicted child molester, in this film of suburban ennui. Ronnie, a pervert and loser, travels by bicycle, except for one scene in which he is the masturbating passenger of his blind date's car.

Arrested Development (2003-2006)

2007-01-16T16:44:00.001-05:00

Michael Bluth, played by Jason Bateman, is the loser protagonist of this cult hit TV show. As the most stable member of a family of self-serving bumblers, Michael takes it upon himself to make the necessary sacrifices to keep the family business above water. One of these sacrifices is riding a bicycle to work, when he is not driving the "stair car", a pickup truck from an airport with an attached set of stairs on the back for boarding planes.

40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)

2007-01-16T16:43:00.002-05:00

In this comedy Steve Carell stars as Andy Stitzer, the eponymous virgin. He is a loser who works in a big-box electronics store and rides a bicycle to work, with the clear implication that his bicycling is partly to blame for his continued virginity. He eventually finds love in Trish Piedmont, played by Catherine Keener. Trish shows that she can look beyond the fact that Andy is a loser by buying him a new bicycle, which he uses to run away from Trish after a fight. She follows him in her car and he crashes into the side of a truck.

The Office, "Diwali" episode, (2006)

2007-01-16T16:43:00.001-05:00

In this episode of the American version of the UK TV show created by Ricky Gervais, Jim Halpert, the lovable loser played by John Krasinski, decides to ride his bicycle to work. He arrives sweaty and exhausted. At the end of the episode, he gets drunk and crashes his bike into a bush. He is then driven home, with his bicycle tossed in the back of an SUV. The UK version of The Office never actually shows a bicycle, though there is one episode in which Gareth Keenan, the loser played by Mackenzie Crook, is shown stretching in an absurd manner after riding to work in a spandex outfit. One of the less common foreign examples of The Law noted in Clause B.

The Wicker Man (2006)

2007-01-16T16:41:00.001-05:00

In a scene from this remake of the 1973 cult horror film, we see a loser, the moronic puritanical detective played by Nicolas Cage, steal a bicycle from a pervert, a female member of the free-love, pagan sacrifice cult inhabiting the island (watch the scene ). Note that this scene, set on an island off the coast of Seattle, does not appear in the original UK version of the film. This is further confirmation of Clause B of The Law of Bicycles in Popular Cultur e, which states that the law applies consistently only to products of American popular culture.

The Law of Bicycles in Popular Culture

2007-01-16T16:37:00.000-05:00

As a person who thinks that the bicycle is the best way to travel, I have an interest in how bicyclists are represented in popular culture. Careful observation has led me to formulate this law:

The Law of Bicycles in Popular Culture
All adult characters shown riding a bicycle for utilitarian purposes in a creative work will be depicted as either perverts, losers, or both.

Clause A: This law applies only to works set in the years from 1970 onwards.

Clause B: This law applies consistently only to American works, though foreign examples may occur.

This blog will catalog examples of The Law's validity.