From the Friday Vault: The Galaxy’s Most Exclusive Museum is on the Moon

Is smuggling morally wrong in all instances? While by definition transgressive and often a crime, must it always bear the dark stigma of having deliberately introduced something risky or harmful into an unknowing, vulnerable environment? The cult action-comedy film Snakes on a Plane (2006) would certainly suggest as much. So might Arlo Guthrie’s Woodstock-era song, “Coming into Los Angeles” (‘bringing in a couple of keys’). How about Odysseus’ Trojan Horse? Well-intentioned moviegoers could disagree about the 1931 film Monkey Business, in which all four of the Marx brothers play stowaways on an ocean liner, hidden on board in kippered herring barrels. Everybody knows the kind of mischief they can cause.