Auburn finds its way into a lot of things these days. Jennifer Lawrence movies. Broadway plays. Coachella coverage. Prime time crime dramas. That was not the case in 1973.
Which is why the scene in the Burt Reynolds hixploitation classic White Lightning dropped jaws and scored guffaws at The War Eagle Theatre late that June.
But it wasn’t just because hearing Auburn mentioned in a movie was rare. It was because hearing Auburn mentioned in this movie, in this context, was hilarious.
At the time, Auburn’s only real pop cultural claim to fame in film (unless I’m forgetting something… wait, does Back to Bataan count?