This essay proposes instances of how Anglophone popular culture can offer a place for nurturing critical encounters in the context of learning English. It delineates the theoretical bases that reveal popular culture as a fundamental indicator of society and, using Anglophone movies and stories, analyzes the pedagogical possibilities for stimulating appreciative and self-reflexive responses in students on the path to transcultural Hispanic-Anglo understanding. It also emphasizes the radical potential of popular culture for evaluating the preoccupations of contemporary society. In order to understand a foreign culture, one must see it from the viewpoint of that milieu. This "outsideness" provides a creative understanding of the foreign culture. Two recent films of the African American, Spike Lee, "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever," uncover the hostility among urban ethnic/racial groups. The first film makes viewers wonder if something analogous could happen in Mexico, and what would be the reaction of the government and society. The second film can stimulate discussion on the pressures in Mexico to establish relationships circumscribed within one's own social class. Stories and other films reveal other realities in popular culture. Final comments advocate a transcultural agenda in Mexican universities that is constantly updated. (Contains 35 references.) (CK)