Editing Betelgeuse (section)

=== In popular culture ===
As one of the brightest and best-known stars, Betelgeuse has featured in many works of fiction. The star's unusual name inspired the title of the 1988 film ''[[Beetlejuice]]'', referring to its titular antagonist, and script writer [[Michael McDowell (author)|Michael McDowell]] was impressed by how many people made the connection.<ref name="schaaf" /><!-- ref cites two previous sentences --> In the popular science fiction series ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' by [[Douglas Adams]], [[Ford Prefect (character)|Ford Prefect]] was from "a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse."<ref name="conley">{{cite book
 |title=Magic Words: A Dictionary
 |author=Conley, Craig
 |year=2008
 |page=121
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3SB60Wavy6MC&pg=PA121
 |access-date=22 September 2010
 |isbn=978-1-57863-434-7
 |publisher=Weiser}}</ref>

Two American navy ships were named after the star, both of them World War II vessels, the {{USS|Betelgeuse|AKA-11}} launched in 1939 and {{USS|Betelgeuse|AK-260}} launched in 1944. In 1979, the French supertanker ''[[Whiddy Island disaster|Betelgeuse]]'' was moored off [[Whiddy Island]], discharging oil when it exploded, killing 50 people in one of the worst disasters in Ireland's history.<ref>{{cite news
 | first=Nicolla | last=Tallant | date=15 July 2007
 | work=Independent Digital
 | publisher=Independent News & Media PLC
 | title=Survivor recalls the night an apocalypse came to Whiddy
 | url=http://www.independent.ie/national-news/survivor-recalls-the-night-an-apocalypse-came-to-whiddy-1037842.html
 | access-date=10 June 2011}}</ref>

The [[Dave Matthews Band]] song "[[Black and Blue Bird (song)|Black and Blue Bird]]" references the star.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dmbalmanac.com/Lyrics.aspx?iid=55845&sid=2828 |title=Black and Blue Bird |website=Dmbalmanac.com |date=5 July 2015 |access-date=30 January 2016}}</ref> The [[Blur (band)|Blur]] song "Far Out" from their 1994 album [[Parklife]] mentions Betelgeuse in its lyrics.<ref>{{cite web |title=Blur – Far Out Lyrics |url=https://genius.com/Blur-far-out-lyrics |website=genius.com |access-date=7 February 2020}}</ref>

The [[Philip Larkin]] poem "The North Ship", found in [[The North Ship|the collection of the same name]], references the star in the section "Above 80° N", which reads:
<blockquote>"&thinsp;'A woman has ten claws,' <br/>
Sang the drunken boatswain; <br/>
Farther than Betelgeuse,  <br/>
More brilliant than Orion  <br/>
Or the planets Venus and Mars, <br/>
The star flames on the ocean;  <br/>
'A woman has ten claws,' <br/>
Sang the drunken boatswain."</blockquote>
[[Humbert Wolfe]] wrote a poem about Betelgeuse, which was set to music by [[Gustav Holst]].<ref>{{cite book | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4L0gidyMKgEC | title=Try Whistling This: Writings on Music | publisher=Black Incorporated | author-link=Andrew Ford (composer) | year=2012 | location=Collingwood, Victoria | isbn=9781921870682 | last=Ford | first=Andrew | chapter=Holst, the Mystic}}</ref>