Easter Eggs in Entertainment

By Allison L. Johnson
Assistant Web Content Manager

In music, movies, and TV, there will be plenty of “easter eggs.” Easter eggs are pretty much hidden messages in any form of media. If you’re a film buff or have taken any kind of visual communication class you know that everything is done for a reason in film. Nothing is truly on accident. Here’s a popular easter egg you might have noticed.

In one of my favorite movies of all time, Inglourious Basterds, there is a yellow leaf that falls down on one of the Jewish-soldiers chest. It looks like the Star of David. Neat, right? It worked well as a reminder why the soldiers are scalpin’ Nazis. That’s one of my favorites. You’ll find pxslenty in popular shows like Rick and Morty, Black Mirror, The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad. There’s so many in Breaking Bad, but here’s my favorite. *SPOILER ALERT* When Jesse is cooking Jane breakfast, Jesse tells her “You weren’t supposed to wake up.” As in, he wanted to surprise her with breakfast. If you watched the show, you know Jane dies in her sleep. Foreshadowing can be cool.

My favorite easter eggs to find or hunt on my own are from music. For me, it’s with my favorite band, The Killers. There’s plenty of easter eggs that connect Hot Fuss, Sawdust and Battle Born together. In The Killer’s 5th album, Battle Born, there’s a track called Miss Atomic bomb. This one was an obvious Easter egg. The MAB music video uses clips from Mr. Brightside to tell a story of a man regretting his decisions all due to everything “being all in his head.” So I’m guessing the beautiful dancer was never “never going to bed, and touching his chest.”

Now onto a big inspiration for The Killers. Oasis’ album What’s The Story Morning Glory has two tracks titled Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back In Anger. Now, I know not everyone is a huge fan of 90s alternative, but we all know the words to Wonderwall. In Don’t Look Back In Anger, Noel sings “You aint ever gonna burn my heart out.” In Wonderwall, Gallagher says “Backbeat, the word was on the street that the fire in your heart is out.” *Cries* Nobody feels the way Noel does about you, and you just let the fire burn out? As Brandon Flowers would say, I wanna feel that fire again.

I encourage you to find easter eggs in your favorite music. Regardless if you listen to country, trap, or rock, songwriters have feelings and experiences, and sometimes their experiences and lyrics get mixed up together… it’s interesting.

Featured image by Janessa Rutiaga.