From Homelamb to Home(r)land: Gotta Love Carrie and Brody in Pop Culture!

Damian Lewis was already an internationally known actor before Homeland. Yet, Homeland brought him big stardom, made him a household name, and it turns out some manhandling in the streets, too! Damian talks a bit about his post-Homeland fame in an interview with Buzzfeed: “It can be aggressive, that kind of adulation… People can go a little bit crazy, so there’s quite a lot of manhandling in the streets. Now I know what it must have been like to be Brad Pitt for an entire lifetime, ever since he did that scene in Thelma and Louise where he took his top off — I’m straight and that scene did it for me as well.”

Hmmm… So… you sort of know you have made it when someone tries to… I don’t know… pinch you on the street? 😀 But, seriously, when do you really know your show or your character has really arrived?

Well… One obvious indicator is the ratings that a show gets along with the awards it receives… And, Homeland proved multiple times, in particular in its first two seasons, that it has been one of the best things that has ever happened to TV.

Having said that, as much as ratings and awards matter, a show REALLY becomes a phenomenon, in my humble opinion, when it gets into national conversation… when it permeates into popular culture… Well… It could be a Jay Z song… or a Saturday Night Live sketch… or a Sesame Street parody… or a homage from The Simpsons… or it can be all of the above and even beyond 😀

Did you know that the Jay Z album Magna Carta… Holy Grail, had a track “F.U.T.W. (F… Up The World)” with the lyrics going on like this?

Feeling like a stranger in my own land

Got me feeling like Brody in Homeland

On Jonathan Ross Show, Damian jokingly reveals that he knew he made it “across the pond” when he found out about the Jay Z song:

“He referenced Brody in one of his songs which was… I don’t know, if you want to arrive anywhere, that’s where you want to arrive isn’t it? In a Jay Z song.”

And when asked if he had spoken with Jay Z about the song, Damian answers with a laugh:

“It’s ‘Jay’ now between us two but no, no I haven’t.”

When asked about whether he was aware of FUTW track in the Jay Z  album Magna Carta… Holy Grail in an interview with Esquire, Damian says:

“I was aware of that, yeah.”

“That’s quite a cool thing, isn’t it?”

“It’s one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me.”

“Are you serious? It’s pretty good, right?”

“My natural habitat is quite a long way from, you know, a gangster rapper. So the fact I’ve somehow straddled popular culture to find myself name checked… From the RSC…”

“To the Jay Z?”

“To the Jay Z. I did actually walk around playing it on-set to anyone who’d listen: ‘just in case you might be interested… have you heard this?’” 🙂

And then Saturday Night Live comes up with a hilarious Homeland sketch focusing on Carrie crying a lot (she does!) and Brody not moving his mouth at all…

It turns out Anne Hathaway reached out to Claire Danes and also sent her flowers before the sketch was aired… I can see why 😀 But it’s a hilarious shout out after all… And Claire Danes says she feels flattered:

“To be parodied on ‘SNL’ means, ‘Oh boy, we’re relevant! We’re in the zeitgeist. We’re cool enough to be made fun of!”

Yes, Claire and Damian are the COOL kids! And, Damian is beyond hilarious when asked about the SNL sketch on the Golden Globes Red Carpet in 2013 — watch this!

The shoutout gets COOLER when the celebrated kids’ program Sesame Street does a brilliant parody of Homeland  with Frantic Lamb Agent C-a-a-a-arrie, who inevitably falls in love with Special Sheep Agent Ba-a-a-a-rody, along with a farm’s worth of other characters  — complete with a jazz-themed music and a wonderful poster 🙂

The quite  mysterious plot can ring a bell or two for you, too 🙂 The Big Bad Wolf is on the lam(b). Special Sheep Agent Nicholas Ba-a-a-a-rody is the agency’s only hope for bringing the Bad Wolf to justice. But is he a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Or just a sheep in wolf’s clothing in sheep’s clothing? As you can see Homelamb has as many twists and turns as Homeland has. It’s seriously hilarious.

ENJOY it!

Coolness continues… with The Simpsons, America’s longest-running sitcom, in its Season 25 premiere episode, making a FUN homage to Homeland. The episode puts Homer in the hot seat once he comes back home from a nuclear power conference where Lisa believes Homer to have been turned into a domestic terrorist… Welcome to Homerland! The plot is wonderful and the art work for the episode is simply the COOLEST!

And the moment we think Claire and Damian are the COOLEST kids, Esquire adds one more criterion for confirmation that Homeland has truly arrived!

“More than the magazine covers and the chats on The Jonathan Ross Show and the endorsement deals with fast car companies and the shout-outs from Jay Z, there is one more barometer that shows your work has truly arrived in the top tier of the showbiz firmament. And that’s getting your own parody porn movie. So it is in this spirit that Esquire is delighted to show Damian Lewis This Ain’t Homeland… XXX from Hustler Video.

“Who’s that?” Lewis says, inspecting his likeness on the cover with dyed red hair neatly parted, tight Army uniform pressed just so. “Richie Calhoun. He’s a big porn star, isn’t he?”

Esquire argues the similarity is not terrible at least better than Claire Danes’. Well, this is the cover for your convenience: Brody vs Brody 🙂 Make your decision if the similarity is terrible or not! And, nope, I did not see the movie 🙂

Author: Damianista

Academic, Traveler, Blogger, Runner, Theatre Lover, Wine Snob, Part-time New Yorker, and Walking Damian Lewis Encyclopedia :D Procrastinated about a fan's diary on Damian Lewis for a while and the rest is history! View all posts by Damianista