Mobile, Alabama in popular culture

Mobile, Alabama features prominently in baseball lore, with more players in Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame than any city except New York and Los Angeles.[1] The list includes Hank Aaron, Ozzie Smith, and Satchel Paige. Singer Jimmy Buffett is another famous Mobilian, as is Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, Inc.

Mobile is occasionally featured in movies and in literature, such as HBO's The Pacific miniseries, the film Driving Miss Daisy and the novel Forrest Gump. Mobile is also the setting for one of the most famous lines of the American Civil War. During the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864, Admiral David Farragut is said to have uttered: "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"[2] Mobile, Alabama was originally settled at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff, and is credited with the beginning of the annual celebration of Mardi Gras started by Nicholas Langlois in 1703. Mobile was then the Capitol of Louisiana. Mardi Gras was later annually celebrated in New Orleans in 1709. Joe Cain started the modern celebration of Mardi Gras in Mobile in 1866. (6)ref-CNN Fact Check.

Film

Many scenes in director Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind were filmed in Mobile—in the Bankhead Tunnel, in a large hangar at the Brookley Aeroplex (alien mothership arrival) and some exterior shots near the hangar, and in a West Mobile suburb (exteriors at the Neary residence). Nearby Bay Minette stood in for Moorcroft, Wyoming in the rail-station evacuation scene.

The opening scenes of The Final Destination were filmed at Mobile International Speedway, in nearby Irvington, Alabama

Most of the Steven Seagal movie Under Siege (co-starring Tommy Lee Jones) was filmed on the USS Alabama, which is docked on Mobile Bay at Battleship Memorial Park and open to the public.

In the movie Driving Miss Daisy, Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy) has her driver Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman) drive her to her brother's birthday party in Mobile.

Much of the feature films Love Liza (starring Philip Seymour Hoffman), and Hometown Legend (starring Terry O'Quinn), and the TV movie Sacrifice (starring Michael Madsen and Diane Farr) were shot in Mobile.

Brian Bosworth's movie Stone Cold also featured scenes shot in Mobile.

In the Coen Brothers comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Soggy Bottom Boys are told their song Man of Constant Sorrow is a hit with the explanation that it's played "all the way down in Mobile."

In the movie Maverick Mrs Annabelle Bransford (played by Jodie Foster) claims that she is from Mobile and has tried very hard to forget the place.

In Con Air Nicolas Cage's character briefly returned to his wife in Mobile in the beginning of the movie.

In a 2010 episode ("The Double Blind") of TNT's Leverage the Mobile city council building is featured in an aerial shot. The building is supposed to represent the offices of a medical research company. In the scene the downtown Holiday Inn and the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception are among the building featured.

In the 2010 movie Red, the characters visit Mobile. The actress Mary-Louise Parker mispronounces Mobile.

Many scenes in HBO's The Pacific are set in Mobile, since the series is partially based on the book With the Old Breed by Mobile native Eugene Sledge.

The movie Tough Luck was partially filmed in Mobile. The movie starred Armand Assante, Norman Reedus, and Dagmara Dominczyk. The carnival scenes and the restaurant scene were filmed in Mobile. The restaurant scene was filmed in the restaurant The Pillars. The movie was originally to be named Grift but ended up being named Tough Luck and was released straight to video in 2003.

The 2014 movie Rage, starring Nicolas Cage and Danny Glover, was filmed in the downtown area of Mobile from June 8 to July 16, 2013.

In the 2015 movie Those People, the character London, played by actress Meghann Fahy, is said to have climbed the corporate ladder out of Mobile.

In the 2019 documentary McMillions, retired FBI agent Douglas Astralaga is interviewed regarding his involvement in the investigation of fraud regarding McDonald's Monopoly in the bureau's Mobile office. A sign labeling it as such can be seen in the background during those scenes.

Literature
  • Mobile native Eugene Walter celebrated Mobile in his fiction and non-fiction. His Love You Good, See You Later (1964) is set in the bayou country near Mobile.
  • Henry Miller's essay, "My Dream of Mobile," is in his book, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (New Directions, 1945).
  • Early portions of the novel Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford are set in Mobile.
  • In Winston Groom's novel Forrest Gump, Forrest's home town is Mobile, as opposed to Greenbow, Alabama in the film.
  • Jack Kerley's Carson Ryder crime novels are set in Mobile.
  • Gabriel García Márquez's "The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor" begins at Mobile, where the main character's ship, the Colombian Navy A.R.C Caldas, was undergoing repairs.
  • Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye contains a lengthy description of how being raised in Mobile, among other Southern cities, informs one's attitudes. "Mobile girls" are ascribed a passage and several characteristics such as being "narrow, tall, and still."

Music

Mobile is mentioned in the following songs:

Other Notable Mentions:

The break-out single of Montgomery-based rapper Chika, titled "High Rises", was written shortly after the rapper dropped out of The University of South Alabama.[3]

Sports

Five baseball players from Mobile have entered the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York: Hank Aaron, Billy Williams, Willie McCovey, Satchel Paige, and Ozzie Smith. In tribute to the city's baseball history, the stadium for the minor league Mobile BayBears is named for Hank Aaron. Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Jake Peavy is also from Mobile and Jon Lieber of the Philadelphia Phillies lives in a suburb of Mobile and attended the University of South Alabama with Luis Gonzalez.

Notable football players from Mobile are JaMarcus Russell (the first pick in the 2007 NFL Draft), four-time Pro Bowl tackle Willie Anderson, former three-time Pro Bowl tackle Chris Samuels, former NFL quarterback Scott Hunter, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback AJ McCarron, Los Angeles Rams linebacker Mark Barron, former Atlanta Falcons cornerback Chevis Jackson, and former Dallas Cowboys running back Sherman Williams. Ken "The Snake" Stabler, is from nearby Foley. Legendary Georgia football coach Vince Dooley is also from Mobile.

Former WWE wrestler "Hardcore" Bob Holly and wrestling manager Bill Moody (better known as Percy Pringle and Paul Bearer) are also from Mobile.

Other notables

Mobile gained some Internet notoriety for a leprechaun video that circulated around St. Patrick's Day in 2006.[4]

Red imported fire ants, an invasive species infesting the southern United States, first arrived in Mobile from Brazil.[5]

See also

References
  • Levin, Kevin M., "Mobile Bay", Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, Heidler, David S., and Heidler, Jeanne T., eds., W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, ISBN 0-393-04758-X.
  1. Thurm, Wendy (22 July 2012). "Mobile, Alabama: Birthplace of Hall of Famers". SB Nation. Vox Media. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  2. Levin, p. 1344.
  3. Specker, Lawrence (July 9, 2019). "Breakout Alabama rapper Chika shares her 'origin story'". AL.com. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
  4. Heffernan, Virginia (2006-04-05). "Comic shorts, home on the Web; The young stars of a new medium". International Herald Tribune. Finally, a funny video that deserves more views on YouTube is Leprechaun in Mobile, a local Alabama news segment that seems too hilarious to be real.
  5. "Red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta Buren". United States Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Archived from the original on 2010-11-20.

6. http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/02/16/fact.check.mardi.gras/index.html

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