In the 1996 film Citizen Ruth, the character Ruth (Laura Dern), a homeless drifter, is depicted inhaling patio sealant from a paper bag in an alleyway. In the tragicomedy Love Liza, the main character, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, plays a man who takes up building remote-controlled airplanes as a hobby to give him an excuse to sniff the fuel in the wake of his wifes suicide. Harmony Korines 1997 Gummo depicts adolescent boys inhaling contact cement for a high. Edet Belzbergs 2001 documentary Children Underground chronicles the lives of Romanian street children addicted to inhaling paint. In The Basketball Diaries, a group of boys is huffing carbona cleaning liquid at 3 minutes and 27 seconds into the movie; further on, a boy is reading a diary describing the experience of sniffing the cleaning liquid. In the David Lynch film Blue Velvet, the bizarre and manipulative character played by Dennis Hopper uses a mask to inhale amyl nitrite. In Little Shop of Horrors, Steve Martins character dies from nitrous oxide inhalation. The 1999 independent film Boys Dont Cry depicts two young low-income women inhaling aerosol computer cleaner (compressed gas) for a buzz. In The Cider House Rules, Michael Caines character is addicted to inhaling ether vapors. In Thirteen, the main character, a teen, uses a can of aerosol computer cleaner to get high. In the action movie Shooter, an ex-serviceman on the run from the law (Mark Wahlberg) inhales nitrous oxide gas from a number of Whip-It! whipped cream canisters until he becomes unconscious.
The Ramones, an influential early US punk band, referred to inhalant use in several of their songs. The song "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" describes adolescent boredom, and the song "Carbona not Glue" states, "My brain is stuck from shooting glue." An influential punk fanzine about the subculture and music took its name (Sniffin Glue) from the Ramones song. The 1980s punk band The Dead Milkmen wrote a song, "Life is Shit" from their album Beelzebubba, about two friends hallucinating after sniffing glue. Punk-band-turned-hip-hop group the Beastie Boys penned a song "Hold it Now – Hit It", which includes the line "cause Im beer drinkin, breath stinkin, sniffing glue." Their song "Shake Your Rump" includes the lines, "Should I have another sip no skip it/In the back of the ride and bust with the whippits". Pop punk band Sum 41 wrote a song, "Fat Lip", which refers to a character who does not "make sense from all the gas you be huffing..." The song Lança-perfume, written and performed by Brazilian pop star Rita Lee, became a national hit in 1980. The song is about chloroethane and its widespread recreational sale and use during the rise of Brazils carnivals. Inhalants are referred to by bands from other genres, including several grunge bands—an early 1990s genre that was influenced by punk rock.