The five greatest Kurt Vonnegut references in TV and movies
There have been few writers who’ve cast such a vast influence as Kurt Vonnegut. Whilst ostensibly a science-fiction writer, his imagination and pitch-perfect prose transcended the genre and attracted legions of fans from all corners of culture, ranging from straight-up science-fiction nerds, brooding teenagers and literary hipsters to regular citizens looking for a unique read.
In 1959, his second novel, The Sirens of Titan, secured Vonnegut as a formidable player in the science-fiction realm, and his 1963 follow-up, Cat’s Cradle, proved that the author was able to deftly flit between science-fiction and post-modern literary prose. However, it wasn’t until Slaughterhouse-Five in 1969 that the author was catapulted to fame and broke past the gate of a specific genre and into widespread, mainstream acclaim.
The novel was an instant hit and resonated particularly strongly with the 1960s youth, partly due to its strong anti-war sentiment whilst the Vietnam War continued to rage and partly due to its insanely imaginative tale of a time-travelling American soldier caught in the middle of the 1945 bombing of Dresden. Vonnegut’s prose weaved seamlessly between vivid depictions of human atrocity, hilariously barbed commentary on war’s absurdity, and mind-melting descriptions of time travel.
With a career spanning over five decades, 14 novels and numerous short-story collections, essays and plays, it’s not surprising that Vonnegut’s presence has been felt, acknowledged and celebrated in other art forms. While there have been several actual film adaptations of the writer’s work, some of which are very good, the number of easter eggs and references embedded on the big and small screens is countless. Here, however, are the best five of them.
The five greatest Kurt Vonnegut references:
5. ‘Judge, Jury, Executioner’, The Walking Dead (Greg Nicotero, 2012)
AMC’s The Walking Dead isn’t particularly renowned for its profound nods to high-brow literature, but fans of Vonnegut would have immediately identified this moment in what would turn out to be a genuine highlight for an otherwise mediocre show. Coming in at the penultimate episode of the second season and closing the much-derided saga taking place solely on Hershel’s farm, ‘Judge, Jury, Executioner’ reached uncharacteristic levels of profundity when it directly quoted a line from one of Vonnegut’s early novels.
After executing a zombie-bitten member of the camp and setting in motion a ripple of existential angst about how brutal, merciless and cold they were actually prepared to be, Dale cited this powerful line from the 1962 book Mother Night: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
4. ‘The Constant’, Lost (Jack Bender, 2008)
Known for its puzzle-box narrative structure, sci-fi/fantasy leanings and mind-bending twists, Lost contains numerous references to Vonnegut’s work. Perhaps most obviously, however, is Desmond Hume’s arc. In the widely acclaimed episode ‘The Constant’, Desmond became ‘unstuck in time’, tumbling through different time periods and forced to find an anchor (referred to as a ‘constant’) that can help him regain temporal stability.
The episode took direct inspiration from the protagonist of Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim, whose grasp on the past, present, and future becomes increasingly weak and fragile. While concepts of time travel aren’t exclusive to Vonnegut, it was his 1969 novel that separated the ‘travel’ from the necessity of a machine, introducing readers to the concept of consciousness-based time travel that JJ. Abrams and the rest of the Lost team would come to riff on.
3. ‘Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space”, The X-Files (Rob Bowman, 1996)
It goes without saying that the adventures of Mully and Sculder are influenced by every piece of science fiction content under the sun and that The X-Files is littered throughout with references. However, Vonnegut’s imprint is especially visible in the 1996 episode, ‘Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space”. In this episode, the efforts of the two FBI agents in investigating a potential alien abduction are obstructed by a hilariously familiar-looking sci-fi author called Jose Chung.
From its balance between black comedy and hard-core science fiction themes to its wiry-haired, thinly veiled depiction of Vonnegut, this episode from the third season remains one of the most smirk-inducing references to the author. Fans of both the show and Vonnegut alike will find it hard not to be won over by the showrunners’ obvious fondness for him.
2. ‘The Law of Non-Contradiction’, Fargo (John Cameron, 2017)
As one of the finest TV adaptations of a film to ever grace the small screen, Noah Hawley’s Fargo is packed with references to pretty much every single one of the Coen brother’s films. The UFO-based conclusion to season two was a nod to the incredibly trippy ending to 2001’s The Man Who Wasn’t There, but clearly, playing in that particular sandbox tickled Hawley’s fancy, so the third episode of the third season of the FX show was all science-fiction — or, rather, about a science fiction writer.
‘The Law of Non-Contradiction’ went off-piste from the running narrative, instead giving us a wonderful stand-alone episode that followed a sci-fi writer in the mid-1970s trying to navigate newfound fame. Thadeus Mobley, which bears an uncanny resemblance in pure name zaniness to Vonnegut’s own alter ego, ‘Kilgore Trout’, is awarded a top prize for his recent novel — one that uses the simple premise of a single robot to explore much more complex themes of determinism and free will, which closely follows a book within the book of Slaughterhouse-Five, written by Trout.
1. Back to School (Alan Metter, 1986)
This classic 1980s comedy has the biggest reference to Vonnegut of them all… an actual cameo! Starring Rodney Dangerfield as Thornton Melon, a wealthy businessman who decides to enrol in college to motivate his disheartened son, Back to School features a peculiar Vonnegut subplot whereby Melon is asked to write a paper on the famous writer. Believing that education (as well as happiness) can simply be bought, Melon finds the real Vonnegut and pays him to do his schoolwork for him.
In a hilarious climax, Melon receives back the paper about Vonnegut, secretly written by Vonnegut, and is utterly horrified to see that it’s been graded an ‘F’. It’s a specific brand of irony that’s made all the funnier because it’s something you’d see in one of the writer’s own books. The grading professor’s critique? “Whoever did write this doesn’t know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut!”
