Scientists and Intellectuals in Entertainment Read online

was extremely cowardly and ridiculous, was a mathematician.

  Don’t forget about 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), in which the scientists were the good guys! It wouldn’t be fair to say that all scientists and intellectuals appearing as characters in American movies are evil, naïve or idiotic, but it seems that the majority are.

  The main character in Larry Crowne (2011) is fired from his job because he lacks a college degree. So he goes to college, and falls in love with one of his teachers. I don’t know if the teacher has a PhD, but she does have emotional problems. Larry turns out to be much smarter and wiser than her, and the ridiculous Dr. Matsutani. I’m not implying that it’s impossible for someone without a college education to be smarter or wiser than a professor, but in Hollywood, it is the norm.

  The television industry is perhaps even worse in its portrayal of scientists. The series Wild Wild West (1965-1969), was science fiction set in the American old west. The protagonist, James West, was a kind of gunslinger version of James Bond. West’s nemesis was Dr. Loveless, a megalomaniacal dwarf, and brilliant scientist and engineer. In every episode, West proves to be an even better scientist and eng
ineer than Loveless, but he can still be the hero, because he is not a Doctor or Professor. The movie Wild Wild West (1999) had the same basic theme.

  Lost in Space (1965-1968) was another TV series, featuring Dr. Smith as a conniving, petty, cowardly, selfish, good for nothing scientist. This series was also made into a movie, Lost in Space (1998), with the same basic theme.

  The hit series Gilligan’s Island (1964-1967) involved seven people stranded on a desert island. One was a scientist, who had no name other than Professor. Two of the three women were young and single, but it was always clear that there was no love interest for either one of them. The Skipper was too old and fat, Gilligan was an idiot, Mr. Howell was too old, and married, and the Professor was … a scientist! He was not bad looking, had reasonable common sense, and was always inventing some way to get them rescued, until Gilligan screwed it up. I never understood what was wrong with the Professor.

  Batman had his own laboratory, and he was always outsmarting the villains, like Dr. Hugo Strange, Dr. Jane Blazedale (Blaze), and Dr. Kirk Langstrom (Man-Bat). Of course, Batman (Bruce Wayne) himself was not saddled with any academic credentials. (Many of Batman’s villains also had some physical deformity or disfigurement, supporting the idea that such misfortune corresponded to moral degeneracy. That’s a topic for another article.)

  The doctor on Star Trek (1966-1969) was Dr. McCoy, who had good sense and was generally a good doctor. He was always highly emotional, in contrast to the very logical Mr. Spock. When scientists were introduced in various episodes, they were usually either evil or misguided. This trend continued with many Star Trek spinoffs.

  The Big Bang Theory (2007 – present) features three young PhD physicists and one non-PhD aerospace engineer. Of course they are socially awkward, and their personal lives seem petty and ridiculous.

  When the producers of The Simpsons (1989 – present) need a character even more clueless than Homer, they turn to Professor John I.Q. Nerdelbaum Frink, whose inventions always fail.

  Even The Muppet Show (1976 – 1981) had Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, whose experiments on his assistant, Beaker, caused hilarious harm. We can’t start too early, teaching our kids that scientists and doctors cause harm because they are idiots.

  Num3ers (2005 – 2010) featured mathematicians and physicists who were somewhat quirky, but generally reasonable and well-adjusted. We don’t lose them all!

  Most doctors appearing on television are medical doctors. It’s not unusual for medical doctors to be depicted as decent human beings. After all, everyone has met a few medical doctors. So there are medical shows in which not all bad people are doctors, and not all doctors are bad people.

  Mad scientists also figure prominently in comic books and video games, which naturally appeal to young people. It is reprehensible to misrepresent scientists to that audience. We need to have a few kids who want to be scientists or intellectuals when they grow up, for the right reasons. The superheroes our kids look up to are born with their super powers, or they obtain them through some accidental exposure to magical objects. They never become superheroes by going to school, studying, or working hard. They never, ever become Doctors or Professors.

  I personally know hundreds of scientists and other intellectuals. In my experience, they are not incompetent cretins. They are not any more lacking in common sense than average people. They don’t have evil plans to take over the world, or to perform hideous experiments on the innocent. The vast anti-intellectual conspiracy does incredible harm to our society when it portrays them as such.

  Most people recognize the names of hundreds, if not thousands of entertainers. Movie and TV stars and famous athletes fill up the pages of People magazine. In contrast, the average person will be hard pressed to come up with the names of more than a handful of living scientists, engineers, or intellectuals of any kind. This disparity also appears in a monetary form. Thousands of famous entertainers take home paychecks that are hundreds of times as much as most scientists can ever hope to make. Capitalism rewards everyone who works hard, but it chooses the wrong people to reward extravagantly. Our society would be just as well off if we didn’t have anyone who could hit 70 home runs in a season. We would be far worse off if we didn’t have anyone who could understand how cancer works.

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