A Midnight in Willoughby: Common Themes in Popular Culture The Twilight Zone is known for being a highly renowned piece of popular culture that has inspired countless other television shows and films since its debut. One of the many films the show inspired is Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. The film takes inspiration from an episode of The Twilight Zone titled "A Stop at Willoughby," as both pieces revolve around a middle-aged man desperately trying to escape the pressures of modern life. Both stories focus on a theme in which individual protagonists find their own kind of fantasy world that takes them back to an era before their time, seemingly devoid of any responsibility. The common theme of "A Stop at Willoughby" and Midnight in Paris is timelessly relevant in popular culture due to its social commentary and relatable nature. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay “A Stop at Willoughby” and Midnight in Paris, share the theme of the desire to escape modern stress by venturing into the past, making it timelessly relevant to popular culture because of its social commentary. Both stories criticize the present for being too stressful and leading the main characters into crisis. In “A Stop at Willoughby” the audience gets to know the main character Garth, as he finds himself in the midst of a particularly bad day in his career as an advertising executive and also sees the pressure his wife puts on him at home. The entire episode revolves around Garth as he struggles to keep up with the pressures of modern life, his only temporary escape being the fantasy land he travels to on the train home from work. The social commentary in this episode is intended to draw attention to the fact that modern life is making people unhappy. Garth's escape is delayed in a simple town called Willoughby which he finds when he falls asleep on the train. At the end of the episode, we see Garth make the choice to stay in his fantasy, which leads him to escape reality by jumping off the train to get to Willoughby, thus ending his life. This is a significant criticism of modern society because the audience sees Garth as stifled by his career-focused modern life and the demand to provide for his wife, and from this it is easy to understand why Garth ultimately chooses his fantasy over the realities of modern life . . This theme is still relevant in popular culture today because social commentary on the negative effects of modern society is still extremely relevant today and shows no signs of changing. Fifty years after this episode of The Twilight Zone aired, this theme is still prevalent as seen in the film Midnight in Paris. Similarly, in Midnight in Paris, protagonist Gil also faces work pressures and additional relationship stress that leads him to yearn for an escape, ultimately sending him into the past via a magical car ride through the streets of Paris. This film delves into exploring why the protagonist is obsessed with escaping to the past instead of just looking at how modern pressures are leading him there. Over the course of the film, Gil spends most of his time trying to access his fantasy world in the past, which for him is Paris in the early 1900s, until he discovers that the only way to fix his reality is to alter the way he lives. lives in it. Instead of embracing his fantasy like Garth, Gil decides to give up how he previously lived in favor of a simpler lifestyle, and.