Scientists dislike negative portrayals of scientists and scientific research in the media. However, a closer examination reveals that these media images are inevitable and probably cannot be changed. Science should turn instead to practical steps to improve its image with the public.
This address was recorded at the American Association for the Advancement of Science on January 25 1999, and broadcast on the Science Show on April 3, 1999
I come before you today as someone who started life with degrees in physical anthropology and medicine; who then published research on endocrinology, and papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, and even in the Proceedings of the Peabody Museum. As someone who, after this promising beginning, turned to a life of crime, and spent the rest of his life in what is euphemistically called the entertainment business. And it is from the perspective of someone who has lived in both worlds that I want to speak to you today.
Scientists often complain to me that the media misunderstands their work. But I would suggest that in fact, the reality is just the opposite, and that it is science which misunderstands media. I will talk about why popular fiction about science must necessarily be sensationalistic, inaccurate, and negative. I’ll explain why it is impossible for the scientific method to be accurately portrayed in film. I will explain why I think traditional concerns about media are misplaced, and I’ll suggest some steps that science can take to genuinely improve its image.
I’ll speak informally, so I ask your indulgence if I refer to “science” as if it were something monolithic, or if I refer to mass media and popular culture interchangeably. In the past, I would have also have asked you to excuse me for talking about news and entertainment as if they were interchangeable though, of course, these days they are.
But let me return to my original point: that science misunderstands media. Let’s begin by talking about two recent and typical examples of this misapprehension. One is an essay in the journal The Sciences, and the other is an article from the New York Times.
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The incomparable Lon Chaney as Mr. Hyde, in Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde (1932) – one of the first cinematic visions of science gone wrong.
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This image is from the November-December issue of the excellent journal The Sciences. The article is entitled “Script Doctors,” and the subtitle reads “Movie Scientists, from evil doctors to the merely insane, from bumbling nerds to stalwart heroes, still inform public perceptions of the real thing.” No, they don’t.
Notice first how arbitrary the characterization is. The illustrations show an old version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and a still from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. But Stevenson’s story isn’t about science, it’s about the dual nature of man. And Indiana Jones is not a figure that leaps to mind when we think of scientists in movies. He’s an adventurer. And the film The Temple of Doom is, like Gunga Din before it, a story about a murderous religious cult. To identify these pictures as representations of scientists is a stretch.
Another page from the same article, which shows a nasty-looking fellow from a movie no one has ever seen, called Reanimator, based on an H.P. Lovecraft story. We also have Sharon Stone from a movie I co-produced, Sphere. You may not like the flawed character she plays, the reviewer doesn’t, but why single her out, rather than Dustin Hoffman, or Sam Jackson, or Peter Coyote? Everybody in Sphere is a scientist. Do you expect them all to be admirably portrayed? If so, do you think that corresponds to real life?
I ask that because I sometimes think scientists really don’t notice that their colleagues have flaws. But in my experience scientists are very human people: which means that some are troubled, deceitful, petty or vain. I know a scientist so forgetful he didn’t notice he’d left his wife behind at the airport until the plane was in the air. I once was at a party with Jacques Monod when a gorgeous young woman – a Ph.D. bacteriologist – came up to him and said, ‘Oh, Dr. Monod, you are the most beautiful man in the room.” And he preened. But why not? He was very handsome in a sort of Camus-existential-Gauloise-smoking way. We all know that Nobel Prizes tend to magnify human foibles, anyway.
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Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Can a swashbuckling adventurer also be a scientist?
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I find these flaws reassuring, but an essay like this, which primarily focuses on negative rather than positive images, is a perennial exercise in self-flagellation, and is what I call ritual abuse. The implication is that scientists are singled out for negative portrayals, and that the public is therefore deceived in some way we should worry about. I say, that’s nonsense.
Let’s be clear: all professions look bad in the movies. And there’s a good reason for this. Movies don’t portray career paths, they conscript interesting lifestyles to serve a plot. So lawyers are all unscrupulous and doctors are all uncaring. Psychiatrists are all crazy, and politicians are all corrupt. All cops are psychopaths, and all businessmen are crooks. Even moviemakers come off badly: directors are megalomaniacs, actors are spoiled brats. Since all occupations are portrayed negatively, why expect scientists to be treated differently?
But wait, you may be thinking. Don’t these movie images provide some insight into the attitudes of the wider society? Don’t they reflect the society in some way? No, they do not: for proof of that, you need only look at images of women in the last 50 years. Fifty years ago movies were characterized by strong women; Crawford and Stanwyck and Bette Davis. Women of intelligence and substance – women to be reckoned with. Since then, during a time of dramatic change for women in society, the movies have portrayed women primarily as giggling idiots or prostitutes.
So I suggest to you there is essentially no correspondence between social reality and movie reality. None at all. And hence no point in worrying about movie portrayals.
Scientists are not alone in their concern about movie images. Other professions worry as well. Consider the 1994 essay by Victoria Beard, “Popular Culture and Professional Identity: Accountants in the Movies,” or another by Phillip Bougen, “Joking Aside: The Serious Side to the Accountant Stereotype.” Many professions aren’t happy.
Let me refer to a recent article from the New York Times: “Scientists seek a new movie role, hero not villain” (December 1, 1998). Again, notice the arbitrary nature of that dichotomy. We see three pictures: Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, a movie that is mentioned as critical of technology. Charlie Chaplin is run off his feet by racing technology. Imagine feeling that way! But of course it’s a comedy. Next, Jurassic Park, where the caption reads, “Scientists as bunglers: Richard Attenborough, left, hatches a deadly dinosaur.” But Richard Attenborough is not a scientist, he’s a businessman. The other two people in the picture are scientists and they have had nothing to do with the bungling. Indeed, the scientist on the right is about to complain about the bungling, as any sensible person would. How does this story moment get encapsulated as “Scientists as bunglers?”
In passing, I’d remind you Jurassic Park does have a scientist as its hero. He’s right there, Alan Grant. He saves the kids, he saves the day, rights the wrongs, and looks dashing. Beside him is another hero, Ellie Sattler, a botanist. So in a movie where nearly every character has a doctorate, why talk about wanting to be heroes not villains? The scientists already are heroes. Why are they so insistent on discounting the positive portrayals? Ritual abuse.
The third picture, from the movie Contact. The caption here is “Real science: Jodie Foster’s driven search for extraterrestrial life won plaudits from astronomers”. We all know what that means. That means some of the background is authentic, or some technical dialog is good, or the filmmakers went to Puerto Rico and filmed an actual radio telescope. But to call a movie about contact with extraterrestrial life an example of real science is very odd, indeed.
Let’s move beyond the issue of images of scientists, because this discussion is really about something more interesting: how the scientific method is portrayed in fiction.
