Who is Ahab in Death Proof?
Have a look at this frame from Death Proof:
Just on top of Pam's head you can a see a shape of a boat and on top of the 'boat' a word in red that looks like 'AHAB'. This seems to me as a reference to Melville's Moby-Dick. My immediate association is that Pam is Moby-Dick and Stuntman Mike is Ahab since Mike is kind of hunting Pam and also Pam is kind of 'expressly' white.
Is this a reference to Moby-Dick? And if so, who is Ahab and who is being the white whale? Is there a backstory to any of this?
Best Answer
Here's a full-size view of the "boat":
It's kinda blurry, but the red lines no longer really look like the word "Ahab". What's more, you can clearly see the words "Hot Chili" written inside the "boat". So what you're actually looking at is an advertisement for a chili restaurant; the "boat" is a dish full of chili, and the red lines are the heat coming off of it.
In other words, there is no Ahab: this is just a textbook case of over-analysing. It is possible that the chili dish is a visual gag, meant to highlight Pam as being "hot"... or it might just be an advertisement. I don't know.
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