the traditional children's song "My Little Rooster", to the stoner metal of the California band Sleep. Other popular songs include Buddy Holly's "Everyday" and Roy Orbison's "Crying", which closes the film and is directly referenced in the dialogue. Metal and powerviolence bands such as Bethlehem, Mystifier, Absu, Burzum, Bathory, Brujeria, Eyehategod and Spazz are also featured. Korine later showed interest in black metal subculture in his 2000 visual series The Sigil of the Cloven Hoof Marks Thy Path. Themes The film explores a broad range of issues including drug abuse, violence, homicide, vandalism, mental illness, poverty, profanity, homophobia, sexual abuse, sexism, racism, suicide, grief, prostitution, and animal cruelty. Korine avoided any romantic notions regarding America, including its poor and mentally disabled. Korine comments on the film's pop-aesthetic, saying: "America is all about this recycling, this interpretation of pop. I want you to see these kids wearing Bone Thugs & Harmony t-shirts and Metallica hats – this almost schizophrenic identification with popular imagery. If you think about, that's how people relate to each other these days, through these images." Dot and Helen are modeled after Cherie Currie. "I wanted them to seem like homeschool kids... sort of guessing and coming up with these hipster things. They almost make a homeschool hip language. I wanted this inbred vernacular." The film has a strong vaudevillian influence. The name of the character Tummler is taken directly from the vaudevillian term given to lower-level comics of the day. "The guys that would check you into a hotel room, take your coat, and at the same time throw a few one-liners out. They're like the warm-up, the lowest level comedian. The tummler." (See Borscht Belt) Robin O'Hara argues that while people naturally look for points of reference to describe Gummo (such as Herzog, Cassavetes, Arbus, Fellini, Godard, Maysles and Jarman) that Korine's art really is his own. "He is an original, in every sense of the word." Korine comments on the film's aesthetic: "We tried very hard not to reference other films. We wanted Gummo to set its own standard." Release Gummo premiered at the 24th Telluride Film Festival on August 29, 1997. During the screening, several people walked out the theater during the opening sequence when the cat is drowned and eaten by one of the protagonists. Several festival appearances followed including International Film Festival Rotterdam where it won the KNF Award for "best feature