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Lab coats in the dream factory: science and scientists in Hollywood

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Lab coats in the dream factory: science and scientists in Hollywood

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Content Copyright 2002 LAB COATS IN THE DREAM FACTORY: SCIENCE AND SCIENTISTS IN HOLLYWOOD by Scott Frank A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ANTHROPOLOGY) December 2002 Scott R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA The Graduate School University Park LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 900894695 This dissertation, w ritten b y S c o th U nder th e direction o f h.J.S D issertation Com m ittee, and approved b y a ll its m em bers, has been p resen ted to an d accepted b y The Graduate School, in p a rtia l fulfillm ent o f requirem ents fo r th e degree o f DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Dean o f Graduate Studies D zEC December 18. 2007__ DISSER TA TION COMMITTEE Chairperson R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Acknowledgments ii It apparently takes 25 years and several hundred thousand dollars worth of education to get to the point where one gets to write the acknowledgments for his dissertation. So where to begin? Actually, that’s easy; it begins with my family. The incredible and continuing support of my parents Steven and Ginny, and my sister Marcie, have been truly awe inspiring. When I told them I was majoring in anthropology, they choked back the “gainful employment” reflex and wished me well. Through the trials and tribulations of three universities and three degrees, their support was unwavering. They also put me in touch with the primary source of funding for this project, the Frank Foundation for Sociocultural Research. The extended family has also been amazing over the years, as they continue to feign interest in my work during Thanksgiving and other gatherings. Margot Schumm in particular has been helpful with this project. And Dad? I’m done now, meaning I can turn to finding a wife and having those grandkids, so stop whining. Next to the friends. Far, far too many to list them all here, so I can only hope that the ones not mentioned explicitly will forgive me. Ellen Goldberg and Julie James provided incredible love and support, sometimes drove me nuts, and put up with some serious crabbiness. Alana Berger, Karens Jackson and Eng, Lori Lovoy, Olya Oliker, Tonya Panion, the Wildermans, Meltzers, Follanders, Kaminskys, and Mossbergs all have been wonderful friends and companions over the years. Allyson Goldin was indescribably supportive and even more helpful through the intangibles-largely in that her own nuttiness finishing her project encouraged me to finish mine. The past few years would have seemed much longer without her. A 1 Schram has been not only a continuous friend, but an enduring compatriot who shared many a “Bad Movie Night” and barbeque together, the results of which can frequently be seen in this dissertation. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. I can understand his disbelief that it is actually finished. Nicole Fraser: before, I thought “Aristophanes’ Story” from Plato’s Symposium was just that— a story. Now I know better. My fencing students let me beat on them when I was frustrated, and laughed with me when I was not. Brian Bowen, Jason Evans, Ashanti Luke, Justin Rettke, and Mike Waitley-the fellow core members of Smacklayer’s Union Local 101— seriously helped me blow off steam. Other friends, colleagues, and fellows who made the path easier: Kalanit Baumhauft, Michelle Besaw, Marianne de Laet, John Donchig, Elan Glasser, Mike Hickey, Pensri Ho, Amy Huth, Sadie Moore, Courtney Mykytyn, Nikki Rousso, Steve Schindler, Lauras Schuetz and Johnson, and Charley Scull (The Insidious Dr.). And a final thanks to Gil Thoras, Dr. Daniel Jackson, Trevor Hale, Edward J. Stevens, Carol Vessey, John Crichton, and Aeryn Sun. Obviously, with this much education, teachers who have helped and inspired are incredibly important. Topping the list here is my thesis advisor, Nancy Lutkehaus, who has proved amazingly helpful, providing continual prodding and support over the duration of my tenure at USC, and in particular over the past two years. Wow— she’s just been amazing. Janet Hoskins, was the first person I taught under at USC (witchcraft!) and has also provided valuable guidance from throughout my entire tenure here. But to get this far, there has been a long litany of other teachers from other times and places: Ms. Kupperman, Ms. Steinkraus, Mr. Lewis, Dr. Carol Worthman, Dr. Bradd Shore, Dr. Ralph Faulkingham, Dr. Jeanne Forward, and Dr. Arthur Keene got me far enough to make it to Southern California. Once here, a group too numerous to mention made up the rest, but I’d be remiss not to mention Soo-Young Chin, Alexander Moore, Tara McPherson, Rita Jones, and Dennis Miranda. Charles Tashiro, in particular, foolishly took me in and taught me more about cinema and multimedia than it is probably healthy to know. I’d also like to thank my colleagues, particularly those from the CAST AC (Commitee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. iv computing) group of the American Anthropological Association. Even more important, the participants of the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Medicine seminars organized at CalTech by Marianne de Laet (the “Pasadena School”) provided invaluable comments and critiques that greatly helped shaped the final form of this dissertation. All of my informants, who were so helpful, go mostly unnamed herein. This in no way reflects how helpful they were; obviously, the dissertation literally couldn’t have been written without them. Lots of very, very busy people gave their time and energy to speaking with me, time they could have been devoting to more important responsibilities (like steering multimillion dollar spacecraft or predicting volcanic eruptions). Consultants, publicists, producers— all spoke openly about their work and their perceptions and ideas about the entertainment industry. Additional thanks to John Smith of JPL for putting me in touch with his colleagues there. A huge number of archivists also provided invaluable assistance; particularly Barbara Hall and the rest of the crew at the Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, Susan Hurlbert & Misha Schott of the Warner Research Collection, and the entire gang at the 20th Century Fox studio library. I’d also like to thank the anonymous 1940s Production Code censor responsible for my favorite PCA quote: ‘There must be no execessive gruesomeness in the shot where Lorenz lets the dead, limp body of the hag slump to the floor.” (and the runner-up; “Delete shot of Doctor smothering Pygmy’s face with cotton wool while Pygmy is in his hand.”) A final word to my 7th grade algebra teacher, Mr. Winkler, who said I was too stupid to go to college: your behavior all those years ago exhuasts my current supply of negative superlatives. I’m glad your prescience was as off the mark as your ability to judge students. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. And thanks to my role model, Kirk Douglas, who broke the blacklist in the 1950s, and after a stroke and a terrible helicopter crash, recovered to walk and talk again. To follow his path is to follow one of Peace and of Strength. It’s been a long road, but I’ve learned a lot. There are many people who I’ve no doubt neglected from this list, and I can only apologize. There are many others without whom it would have been much easier, and I don’t apologize, but it didn’t seem right to list ‘em, either. How to end this? What has writing the dissertation been like? Words fail me (luckily after the writing is done), but perhaps I can fall back on those of writer Neil Gaiman. “The experience,” he wrote, was “one of great interest and variety.” R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgments................................................................... ii Abstract....................................................................................................................... vii Chapter 1: Introduction.................................................................. 1 Chapter 2: Theoretical and Methodological Background............................................ 19 Chapter 3: Science and Science Studies......................................................................52 Chapter 4: The Two Models....................................................................................... 96 Chapter 5: Narrative and The Real............................................................................ 115 Chapter 6: Fiction, Science, and Entertainment........................................ 133 Chapter 7: Content Analysis: What We See, What it Means, and “How Real is the Science?”.......................................................................................................171 Chapter 8: Production Files and Sources.................................................................. 210 Chapter 9: Lab Coats in the Dream Factory: Science Consultants and Hollywood....241 Chapter 10: The Big Finish...................................................................................... 289 Bibliography..............................................................................................................307 Appendix: Film and Television Program list.............................................................328 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. ABSTRACT This dissertation is an investigation into the way that science is viewed, mobilized, and commodified in the production of entertainment-oriented movies and television programs. In seeking to understand the ways in which the production of images of science and scientists influences what those images are and how they inform public understanding of science, it utilizes ethnographic research, content analysis, and production document research. It draws upon Christopher Tourney’s theories about the existence of multiple models of science to posit that the images portrayed in major studio productions reify a specific method of viewing and understanding science that Tourney calls the “Useful Knowledge Model.” The suggestion made is that, aside from conscious choices made on the part of producers, directors, and others related to the production, certain inherent aspects fundamental to the medium force science to be portrayed in a certain way - the requirements of Narrative and Spectacle. The ethnographic portion of the research, conducted among those connected with the Hollywood production system, focuses especially on science consultants, and reveals the way that members of the Hollywood production hierarchy view the use of science in their pictures. The research details the way in which science consultants are recruited, the ways in which their expertise is used in a production, and their experiences working in Hollywood. By analyzing the way that science consultants, studio image libraries, and publicity kits operate, it suggests that all of these components combine to form a system whereby Hollywood commodifies science and scientific knowledge with the ultimate goal of making it into an element that can called upon and deployed or dispensed at will into a movie or television show. Further analysis of Hollywood’s treatment of science and scientists indicates that scientists are imbued with a certain amount of symbolic capital - a cachet, based around the respect and wonder over their knowledge and experience, that the producers and directors of R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. viii these products hope they can bring to a production. In fact, the final analysis suggests that the treatment of scientific knowledge in Hollywood is best described as a metaphorical form of mana - as a mystical substance that some people have (scientists, research librarians) and other people want (directors, production designers, the public). Like mana, some people and institutions have more than others, and if it can be properly mobilized, it has the magical power of increasing respect, efficacy and success. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Chapter 1: Introduction 1 “I don’t think you understand the science behind this.” “Jon, if I understood it, it wouldn’t be science.” -Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show. 12/14/99 This exchange played across the tube late one December eve, invading a head already dangerously preoccupied with recently read books on the social aspects of science. It was an immediate hook— “if I understood it, it wouldn’t be science.” What was the reporter saying? Where did a pronouncement like that come from, let alone one with enough complicity among the audience to prompt big laughs? The words hung in front of me for days. “If I understood it, it wouldn’t be science.” This was important. This meant something. Now to figure out what. The “what” started out with the understanding that this resonated with the audience because it was, indeed, how many of them felt. Science is something for them that is basically a black box; it tells us things that we find interesting, it solves problems and cures diseases, but generally speaking, for the lay public it does so in a fairly abstract way. Most people aren’t scientists, and for that matter, many people don’t even know any. This facet of the public understanding of science crops up routinely in surveys. People find science valuable, but generally beyond their understanding. Scientists produce useful things, but as individuals they are seen as cold, distant, and not attuned to the needs, wants, or feelings of “regular people” (NSF 8-13).1 The basic question addressed by the research in this dissertation is “why do people believe what they believe about science and society?” Why, in the 1940s, did R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 88% of Americans believe a cure for cancer would be found by the turn of the century? (LaFollette 170) What leads 7% of people surveyed to agree that astrology is “very scientific,” and an additional 29% to say it is “somewhat scientific?” (NSF 8-31). And why do people feel that the streets are more dangerous then ever before, despite the fact that violent crime has been decreasing for a decade? (Glassner 26). If the basic question is why do people believe what they believe, then the specific question is “why do people believe what they believe about science, and how do they come to believe it?” And, more specifically, what role does the media play in influencing the public’s perception of science and scientists? These are questions of legitimation-science mustering a faith in itself on behalf of people who do not participate in it, but view only its effects. The title of this dissertation is an homage to anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker’s classic 1950 book Hollywood: The Dream Factory, in which Powdermaker turned her penetrating ethnographic gaze on Golden Age Hollywood. Her goal was to examine “how the social system underlying the production of movies influences them,” that is, what impact the social environment of the entertainment industry had on the messages of films (9). Lab Coats in the Dream Factory seeks to trace the places where science and entertainment collide in the Hollywood of today: the aim is to investigate the ways in which the production of films and television programs encode certain images of science and scientists that affect the public’s understanding of scientific knowledge and practice, and scientists themselves. It also traces the way in which the entertainment industry fetishizes scientific knowledge (in other words, it endows those who posess it with a strange aura of power and efficacy), then commodifies it in order to systematically exploit that knowledge (and those who produce it) for its own ends. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Since the birth of the film industry, the public (often personified by politicians) has raised outcries against the deleterious effects of media on society. Already in the 1910s and ‘20s, people were concerned with “certain evils which seem to be attendant upon motion picture exhibitions” (Robert Bartholomew, 1913, in Austin 99). In 1934, Hollywood submitted to the voluntary censorship of the notorious Production Code, based on the idea that “the moral importance of entertainment is something which has been universally recognized...Wrong entertainment lowers the whole living conditions and moral ideals of a race” (Motion Picture Association of America 10; emphasis original). In the 1950s, it was the fear over the spread of international communism that led to the HUAC investigations into Hollywood and the implementation of the blacklist. Time progresses, however, even if attitudes do not, and by the 1990s worries that film and television were exerting an unsettling and undue influence on public behavior and belief were not focused on vague ideas of “morality” or an unseen red menace, but on specifics: Historians worried that fictionalized historical accounts would be taken for the real thing (Branigin B4); the American Jewish Committee reported that media portrayals of Jewish characters “may not— as the age-old saying goes— be good for the Jews” (Fingerhut 1); and the United States government actively encouraged positive portrayals of military personnel and postal workers as well as offering television networks financial incentives to slip anti-drug messages into prime-time programming (Lieberman Al). Of course, by the 1990s the Number One concern was the influence of violence in the media, the cause of national uproar for decades, but which by the dawn of the 21st century had become blamed for specific acts of aggression like the Columbine High School shootings in 1999. A 1999 U.S. Senate report makes the strangely authoritative statement that ‘Television alone is responsible for 10% of youth violence” (Senate l).2 The link between what people see in the media in their leisure time and what they believe all the time has R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 4 remained a staple of moral and political grandstanding against the mass media; because the scientific data is conflicting, the link is generally taken as a given by those crusading for a return to the allegedly halcyon days of wholesome, non-violent, “family” programming. The specific focus of this research is to figure out how the mass entertainment media influences people’s beliefs about science and scientists. Scientist characters and scientific-nbased plotlines are extremely common in the Hollywood of today: 11 out of the top 50 box-office films of all time have scientists as main characters; 6 of the top 50 have scientific themes as the basis of the films’ plot, and another 14 contain at least a grain of science in their plotlines. At the same time, theorizing about the ways in which media influence thoguhts and behaviors is an extremely complex endeavor. I do not claim that media images directly influence behavior; drawing a specific line of causality-as was done between the Columbine shootings and the film The Basketball Diaries— is ludicrous. It is extremely unlikely that specific media products cause specific behaviors. Nobody watched Jurassic Park II and subsequently believed that dinosaurs were going to run amok in San Diego; nor was it likely that audiences in the 1950s expected giant radioactive ants to devour teenagers after the release of the classic monster movie Them. Media do not cause specific behavior; they do inform us about the world, and shape the way we view it.3 To a certain extent, they have to; if not for the media, we would have no idea of current events we did not personally experience: the state of the environment in the Amazon basin, for example, or the latest round of Middle East violence. How many people have seen the inside of a jail in real life, versus those who have only seen it in on television? As Gregory & Miller suggest, “In a world divided into laypeople and experts, each group needs some point of contact with the other if they are to see the whites of their eyes. For the public and science, the mass media are often the only point of contact” (103). The mass entertainment media R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 of movies and television are an extremely powerful method for influencing public opinion; and they clearly are very effective at it; this is the entire basis of the advertising industry, which is mobilized to sell us not just floor cleaners and automobiles, but political candidates, conservation messages, and wars. Furthermore, it is important to clarify that I am not stating that media tells us all we know about the world; obviously, that isn’t true. In fact, it is reasonable to say that media doesn’t teach us most of what we know about the world; rather, these are things we learn from our parents, in classrooms, through friends, and daily experiences. These are the daily knowledges we use to make it through life, and they make up the vast majority of things that people know and understand. What media does is allow us to think we know things that are really far outside our daily experiences— our Miranda rights, what Paris looks like, the sound a lion makes when it roars. It seems almost obvious to suggest that media teaches us things not in our normal daily experience- after all, if it was in our daily experiences, we wouldn’t need to learn these things from television. When people who have previously “experienced” firearms discharging on television hear actual gunshots, they often disbelieve their newfound actual experience, since gunshots on TV are often much louder than ones in real life (Sue Hoskins, personal communication). And of course, science, scientific knowledge, and relationships with scientists are some of the things outside of most people’s immediate, everyday experience (or that they imagine to be). What is unclear is the precise mechanism, through which mass media influences our beliefs and teaches us about the world. However, even if that mechanism is a black box, we can still ask what messages are being transmitted through the mass media, and speculate on their affects. Investigating the idea that media influences behavior, and defending the argument that the mode of media production encourages and supports messages that influence R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 6 the public to believe certain things about science requires a number of premises which will be considered, each in their turn, through the dissertation. These are: 1.)Science, although a unique method of uncovering natural facts about the world, is also a belief system; and especially when investigating its interactions with society, it is best treated as such. 2.)Cultural narratives support the legitimation of institutions and belief systems, including science. For example, narratives of progress, individuality, and the public good. 3.)Generally speaking, scientists and the public at large often conceive of the pursuit, purposes, and object of science in different ways. These can be summarized by examining these contrasting views in light of different models though which people understand science. 4.)Much of what people know, or think they know, is learned from the mass media. 5.)Because of this, it is important to understand how that media is produced, with what motivations, messages, and intentions. 6.)For a number of reasons, but primarily because of the intentional conflation of science fact and fictional science, people’s experiences with the media image can become stronger than their experience with real science, and replace it. 7.)Thus the reality, and the presentation of these images as reality, is important. It is therefore vital to investigate the content of these images, and the system through which they are recruited and produced if we want to understand the public’s image of science and scientists. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 7 What Makes this Study Anthropology? Why is studying the production of movie images of science and scientists anthropological? It clearly lacks the traditional anthropological characteristics of a remote field site and distant culture. After all, anthropologists have spent the past few decades slowly weaning themselves of a reliance on these tropes, as they become increasingly morally troubling as well as more problematic in an ever-more transnational, globalized world. Images are cultural products. That said, the images examined herin are, in fact, specifically American ones. Though exported throughout the world, they are produced in the United States, and for the most part in Los Angeles. Their analysis takes place within a historical and social context specific to the United States, though some aspects of it may translate to other societies. More importantly, this dissertation actually deals with one of the classic themes of anthropological research— the formation of belief systems. When Malinowski first traveled to the Trobriand Islands, one of his premiere foci was on the magic-centered belief system of the islanders. E.E. Evans-Pritchard spent an entire book, Witchcraft. Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande (1976), detailing the oracular and witchcraft- based religion of the Azande. In the contemporary United States, however, science is the primary belief system, despite the continuing strength of religion; even religious fundamentalists live in a world informed by science. As Malinowski and Evans- Pritchard recognized, to understand a society, it is vitally important to examine what system of understanding informs the actions, thoughts, and behaviors of the population: not just what people believe, but why they believe it, and what effect that belief has in how they interact with the world at large. In a technological age, where modem technoscience informs issues of health, the environment, education, and R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 8 defense-as well as entertainment-it behooves us to better understand what people think about science, and how they come to understand it. This dissertation also has a disciplinary pedigree harking back almost fifty years, to the works of Hortense Powdermaker, Margaret Mead, and Rhoda Metreaux. It was Powdermaker’s late 1940s study of Hollywood that pioneered the idea of an ethnographic examination of the entertainment industry. Although in many ways the Hollywood of today is not the one she studied, the culture she describes in Hollywood: The Dream Factory is familiar to any denizen of modem Los Angeles and the entertainment industry: the cynicism, the belief that everybody is just one “break” away from success or failure, the jealously-guarded profit figures, the lack of respect for writers— and the phenonomenon whereby “schoolteachers, doctors, white-collar workers, and many others...spend their spare time writing movie scripts” (18). Powdermaker’s work is a blueprint for this project. It was, as she noted “a study of the locus of power and its exercise, in the taboos which circumscribe all production, in the values represented in goals, in historical and economic factors, and in the introduction of new technology and new ideas” (4). These words describe not only her undertaking but this one as well, and in fact, the methodologies for the two are strikingly similar, including a preference for semi-structured interviews conducted over lunch, an examination of the relations between different members of the production staff, and an analysis of the MPAA production code. Lab Coats is not an update of Powdermaker’s work, but an extension of her methodology to answer new questions. Powdermaker focused on production in general to make the point that the culture of Hollywood determined, to some extent, the messages contained in films. This dissertation focuses on a few aspects of production to illuminate the media’s treatment of science and to suggest how the media might influence the public’s understanding of it. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 9 Although in true California fashion this dissertation occasionally channels Powdermaker, its original intent was to follow in the footsteps of Margaret Mead. Specifically, the work that Mead did in the late 1950s with Rhoda Metreaux, with whom she conducted a massive study of the image of science among high-school students for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This was one of the first major anthropological studies dealing with science and the public, and without question still among the largest. Mead and Metreaux’s study surveyed 16,000 high school students from across the U.S. in the context of the perceived Cold War science gap. The object was to ascertain what teenagers thought about science, and to determine ways to encourage them to pursue it as a career. The findings were unsurprising, in that they seemed to reify the stereotype of the scientist, with listed characteristics including “intelligent,” “careful,” “patient,” “devoted,” and “courageous,” but also “dull,” “monotonous,” and “alone” (238). Amazingly enough, these are the same adjectives used by the public to describe scientists today (Gregory & Miller 3).4 Mead and Metreaux’s work influenced this project both by sparking an interest in the public image of science, and by suggesting the importance of the idea that how people think about science informs how they react to what science is and says, and to the scientists who seem so remote to the general public. Although the final product is focused not on the public image of science but the mass media that informs that image, the goal is the same: to better understand what causes people to react as they do towards science, scientific knowledge, and scientists. This dissertation also takes place within a wider context of the relatively new subfield of anthropological studies of science and technology (STS). It is arguable when the first anthropological work on science began, but extremely clear that a vast body of work has accumulated over the past twenty years. Some of the major works in anthropological STS are discussed in chapter 3 and used to lay a foundation for the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 10 dissertation; but briefly, anthropological STS covers a vast array of researchers investigating almost every location where culture, science, and technology intersect. These range from classic laboratory ethnographies (Traweek 1988) to studies of sonograms (Rapp 1997), virtual communities (Hakken 1999) and indigenous incorporation of modem technologies— for example, snowmobiles among the Inuit (Pelto 1973). These studies are delineated as anthropological partly because they are conducted by people (usually) trained as anthropologists, but more because of the theoretical standpoint and methodologies used.5 A second anthropological subfield that informs this dissertation is visual anthropology. Visual anthropology studies images (both still and moving) as ethnographic texts and investigates why people produce those particular images. This dissertation represents a confluence between anthropological STS and visual anthropology to illuminate an aspect of Western society. Lab Coats also draws upon two other disciplinary bodies of literature and research, those of media/communications studies, and film/cultural studies. Once again, while both will be discussed in detail in chapter 2, briefly there is a tradition in media and communication studies for investigating both the level of and mechanism through which public belief is influenced by the mass media. Gerbner et al. (1985), for example, studied how television images of science altered people’s reaction to it, and Comstock and Tully (1981) investigated the social context of innovation as portrayed in film. Film studies contributes a more audience-centered theoretical viewpoint and a theoretically-informed content analysis, like Ursini’s (1999) analysis of Science Fiction cinema as a noir style (with all the cultural connotations that implies) and Dana Polan’s (1993) article on the portrayal of the “professor” as a character in films. What separates these studies from each other— how we can tell a communications study paper from a film studies one-has to do with disciplinary background and R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 11 theoretical and methodological frameworks. The object of this dissertation is to unite the elements that each of these fields contribute through their investigations of science, media, and the public to form a more complete picture of both the specific mechanisms and overall social field in which these presentations of science occur. For example, there are two main types of evidence found in the dissertation for how people learn from media images of science. The first comes from communication studies, and involves cultivation studies (which try to measure changes in public perception), survey data on public opinion, and statistical analysis of media content— how often scientist characters die, the ratio of successful to failed scientific endeavors on television, etc. The second is ethnographic: interviewing those individuals involved with the production of films, for example, and scientists who react to the images of their profession that they see on the screen. Archival research and a review of original historical documents- -censorship files and the contents of production libraries— gives historical context to the ethnographic data. Combining these data with film studies-based audience theory and content analysis forms a more complete picture of the entire complex related to science and scientists in film and television than could be achieved by staying within the rigid boundaries of a single disciplinary investigation.6 Powdermaker’s study was broadly researched and well-argued, but, amazingly enough, the field of Hollywood ethnography has lain dormant since then, for over fifty years. This dissertation aims to reanimate Powdermaker’s ideas of investigating media production to understand media messages, while focusing on a more specific series of images than she did. While Powdermaker spoke to a tremendous number of people, she discounted an in-depth content analysis of the movies her informants created;7 this dissertation aims to include one, in the interests of trying to understand more clearly not “only” how images are produced and disseminated in Hollywood, but what those messages might be. It also broadens the reach of Science and Technology studies R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 12 within anthropology, by reaching into one of the primary areas where public ideas about science are definitely exhibited and most likely molded. While previous researchers have delved into other areas where the public interprets scientific knowledge and images— health clinics, fluoridation scares, creation science, alternative medical conferences, etc., this project aims to expand understanding of one of the important loci for the formation of public understanding of science. As Mead and Metreaux suggested in their 1957 study, “straight across the country there is a reflection of the mass media image of the scientist, which shares with the school materials the responsibility for the present image” (243). This dissertation aims to continue asking some of the same questions Mead, Metreaux, and Powdermaker did, while narrowing the topical focus slightly with the aim of making more specific analyses than they were able, and bringing those questions into a more modem historical context. Outline and Final Context This dissertation can be thought of as having two parts, which are somewhat separate but congment enough to strongly contribute both to each other and to reaching the most complete understanding of science in the context of mass entertainment media possible. The first section deals with the way in which the American public views science, theories about how the mass media may affect audiences, the images of science and scientists that are actually shown in films and on television (and thus which images may have an impact on people’s understanding of science). This section is dedicated to reviewing the image of science and scientists in the mass media, and determining how those images may affect public beliefs about science. The second section delves into the process of filmmaking, using a variety of research methods to uncover how R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 13 scientific knowledge and expertise is treated in Hollywood, and how the entertainment industry mobilizes and utilizes scientists and scientific knowledge in the production process. In other words, the first part of the dissertation is about the images, and the second examines how they are produced. The basic format of the dissertation progresses from a theoretical background, through the content analysis, then a document analysis, and finally to the ethnographic data. Chapter 2 provides the theoretical background underlying the basics of media research that are important to the arguments in the rest of the dissertation. This includes a summation of the two major oppositional schools of media analysis (the Frankfurt School and the Cultural Studies school), as well as an examination and explanation of the methodologies used to examine how science is engaged by the entertainment industry and how images of science may effect changes in beliefs and behavior. Chapter 3 examines what, exactly, we mean by “science” and establishes the place of this dissertation within the larger realm of Science and Technology Studies (STS), and particularly within the anthropological subsection of STS. This includes an interrogation of the concepts underlying science, including research, experimentation, and reproducibility, as well as social issues surrounding scientific research and the question of whether or not science is a truly objective way of viewing the world. Chapter 4 outlines the basic theoretical framework through which it is argued that media images of science can have an effect on the practice of science. The theorized framework occurs through a method posited by Christopher Tourney in his book Conjuring Science: Scientific Symbols and Cultural Meanings in American Life. Tourney’s revolutionary suggestion involves the existence of multiple models through which different members of American society understand and utilize scientific knowledge. While the general American public comprehends science according to Tourney’s “Philosophy of Useful Knowledge,” most scientists interact with it R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 14 according to the “European Scientific Research Ethos.” By reifying images of science that are in keeping with the public’s understanding of science, the mass media contributes to a separation between the public and scientists, with a range of effects suggested by Tourney an examined later in the dissertation. Chapter 5 examines two theoretical concepts that are vastly important for theorizing about the interactions between science, mass media, and the public: cultural narratives and “The Real.” It discusses the ways in which cultural narratives legitimate scientific endeavors, and how the media feeds into those narratives. Discussing the flexible concept of The Real is a way of investigating how people think about science in the mass media, as possessing more or less “reality” and how a media product’s verisimilitude may affect the way it is viewed by the public. Chapter 6 presents a brief history of science and science fiction in film and on television, tracing the historical appearance of scientist characters and science themes from their first appearance onscreen in the 1902 George Melies film Voyage dans la Lune. The chapter then goes on to detail the characteristics of the Science Blockbuster sub-genre of movies, and examines how two particular elemental aspects of visual entertainment— narrative and spectacle— force portrayals of science follow certain rules. The first section of the dissertation ends with Chapter 7, the content analysis chapter, which investigates in detail exactly what images of science and scientists are actually shown on the large and small screens. This includes both a review of other studies of film and television content and a discussion of the evolution of the portrayal of scientists in recent entertainment industry products. The chapter ends by discussing the inclusion of scientific material in these films and television shows, examining how scientific knowledge is worked into these (largely) fictional works of entertainment. The second portion of the dissertation, focusing on the system of production and how it affects the portrayal of science and scientists, begins with the analysis of several R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 15 sets of production-related documents in Chapter 8. The first of these are the censorship files of the Production Code Administration, which was responsible for censoring film content between 1930 and 1968. The PCA censors wielded a heavy hand when it came to the content of films, and their specific decisions, as well as the guiding principles of the Production Code, had an effect on the portrayal of science and scientists for nearly four decades. It is from these historical images that the modem ones examined in detail through the dissertation emerged. The second set of documents are the holdings of studio research libraries, tremendous vaults of information (both visual and textual) that influence to a surprising degree the content of films and television programs— everything from the way birds were seen flying in The Birds to the appearance of lava in Volcano. The final series of production documents are the press kits sent out by the studios; by analyzing the contents of these kits, we see how the studio publicity departments specifically pitch the scientific themes and verisimilitude of their productions. Chapter 9 contains the bulk of the ethnographic data: the interviews with the science consultants for most of the Science Blockbusters. These interviews detail the job of the science consultants, how they are chosen for a particularly project, the amount of input they have on a production and the (sometimes dramatic) effects of their involvement on the scientific content and portrayals of scientists in these films and television programs. Chapter 10 contains an analysis of the system of production, focusing on the methods through which Hollywood commodifies science and scientific knowledge, and applies concept of symbolic capital and mana towards a better understanding of the multiple places where science, scientists, the public, and the entertainment industry meet. There is a specific timeliness to this research, both in terms of the anthropological work of Powdermaker and Mead and a history of science studies that goes back to 1840 (Fuller. Philosophy 4).8 It takes place in the context of a world where science R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 16 and technology play an ever-increasing role in politics, policy, the environment, and American and global culture in general, at the same time that questions continue to be raised about the effectiveness and pervasive nature of media influences. It is also a world where more people speak the fictional Klingon language of Star Trek than Chickasaw Indian (Gaslin 1). This is a dissertation about belief, about conceptualizing science, and about reality. And yet at the same time, despite the weightiness of the questions being raised, it is important not to forget that as serious as their effects may be, the media under investigation here— fictional film and television produced by major studios— are, cynicism aside, really about entertainment; about enjoyment and (allegedly) about fun.9 This dissertation seeks to go beyond a simple analysis of movies and television. As stated by Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson: “we are not looking for a thing; we are seeking to understand processes by which things, persons, concepts, and events, become invested with meaning” (140). 1 A note on the form of NSF report page numbers: the report in question, Science and Engineering Indicators 2000. is not conventionally paginated; pages are numbered sequentially by chapter, and then by page. So “8-13” does not refer to pages 8 through 13, but rather to chapter 8, page 13. All NSF report citations in the dissertation follow this format. 2 This seemingly unsupportable statement was based upon testimony of Leonard Eron, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, on May 18,1999. More radically, anti violence crusader Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (ret.) claims that “every major medical and scientific body in the world has identified the fact that at least 50 percent of the responsibility for violent crime” lies on the shoulders of the mass media (Rhodes 1). 3 Thus comes the reasonable question: how can it be argued that media images do affect deep-seated beliefs about science or scientists, but don’t cause violent behavior? There are a vast number of answers to this, but one simple one not otherwise noted in the dissertation is the idea of a “response threshold” (Tan 194). This is basically an expression of how easy or difficult it is to go along with a belief or behavior, often based on how socially acceptable that behavior generally is. There is a much, much higher response threshold to committing an act of violence against another person than to expressing a socially acceptable idea of science or scientists. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 17 4 See NSF Chapter 8 and the data from the focus groups conducted for this dissertation for samples of current public images of scientists. The focus groups of college students produced images of scientists as “nerds” and “mad scientists” or people who “always seem to go too far” and “always have crazy hair.” The hardworking nature of scientists was appreciated, and the students recognize that these images that they themselves are re-presenting to me are stereotypes, not necessarily representing actual traits of scientists that they personally know. 5 Indeed, in a world where sociologists routinely use ethnographic methods, and anthropologists study Western culture, we often could wonder what difference remains between the two fields. In a discussion with sociologist Edward Park a number of years ago, we bandied this question about and came up with the final suggestion that more than a methodological difference, or one based on regional focus (although these clearly still exist, it is to a lesser degree than in the past), the difference between anthropology and sociology is theoretical-historical. As Park suggested, anthropologists continually slay their gods and reinvent the major paradigms of the discipline, where sociologists still continually cite theorists like Durkheim as if they were cutting edge (of course, anthropologists continue fieldwork in the tradition of Boas and Malinowski, but despite the strong debt we owe them, theoretically the discipline is in a siginificantly different place now than it was in their day). While this is a simplistic explanation, it is true that, when poring over the literature in anthropology, sociology, communications studies, and film studies, it is fairly easy to determine, without looking at the author attribution, from which discipline a given paper arises. 6 On a final disciplinary note, there is actually a small conjuncture between anthropology and science fiction: the anthology Apeman. Spaceman: Anthropological Science Fiction, edited by Leon Stover and Harry Harrison (New York: Doubleday, 1968). Additionally, the father of well-known science fiction writer Ursula K. LeGuin was the even more well-known anthropologist Alfred Kroeber. 7 In her more personal book Stranger and Friend, which recounts Powdermaker’s experiences throughout her career in the filed, she reveals that the original intent of her research was actually to do a content analysis of films rather than an ethnographic investigation, but in the end the granting organiation suggested a the ethnographic route instead (Stranger 210). 8 For an extremely detailed examination of the recent history of science and technology studies, including how it is expressed in different disciplines, see David Hess “If You’re Thinking of Living in STS: A Guide for the Perplexed” in Cyborgs and Citadels. Gary Lee Downey & Joseph Dumit, eds. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1997, pp.143-164. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 18 9 Not that this (saying “it’s just entertainment” means the other readings or cultural power of these things should be downplayed or taken as a joke, but that the goal of this enterprise is entertainment (and that is important to bear in mind). It is not, for most people, about money. As Carl Maida suggested (personal communication), it is a craft- -there are, after all, better ways to make money. Spielberg didn’t start out to make millions of dollars, but to do it making movies. Employment in the entertainment industry is not generally glamorous, and often comes with little pay and no recognition for the vast majority. One has only to reside in Los Angeles for a period of time and meet some of the masses of low-level entertainment industry functionaries to become convinced of this. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Chapter 2: Theoretical and Methodological Background 19 The question of how visual mass media influences the public is literally almost as old as the media itself— as early as 1913 the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio commissioned a study to investigate “certain evils” associated with motion picture viewing (Austin 99). Since then, a tremendous number of theories, explanations, and methodologies have been applied to the study of media influences. It may not be quite standing on the shoulders of giants, but the benefit of having this great mass of academic achievement and output is that it allows the current researcher to evaluate the previous work and select theories that seem most useful, applicable, and correct. This chapter is about engaging some of the important fundamental questions for a project such as this, considering the major theories and theoretical considerations appropriate to this study, and selecting the ones most appropriate for the proposition at hand. Problematizing “The Public” “Mass” and “Audience” In any major study of mass media and public communication, perhaps the first and biggest assumption made is what is meant by “the public.” This is true for research in Communication Studies (for example Tan 1981, DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach 1989, Gerbner 1985), Cinema/Media Studies (Sorlin 1994, Austin 1989, Butler 1994), and the Public Understanding of Science (Gregory and Miller 1995, Mead and Metreaux 1957, Conrad 1997). The question of the composition of the cultural entity known as “the public” is both a methodological and theoretical one. Methodologically, it becomes the question “who do we ask?” When seeking to poll or interview members of the public for such a study, to whom should the researchers turn? For Mead and R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 20 Metreaux’s (1957) research on the public view of science, it was 35,000 high school students; for Gerbner et al. (1985), investigating the effect of television viewing on attitudes towards science, it was a “multi-stage cluster design” random telephone sample of Americans over the age of 18. For the Nielson Research Company, supplier of the widely-used television ratings data, the public is 26,000 U.S. households fitted with monitoring meters, and an additional 1.6 million television viewing diaries collected each year.1 However, many academics studying media publics don’t actually speak to those publics, and so the question becomes a theoretical one as well: in a broader sense, what do we “mean” by the public, this great mass whose will we presume to know, and upon whose abilities to discern media messages academic wars have been fought?2 A number of researchers suggest that the public is an imagined community of the type Benedict Anderson writes about; the public in this elucidation is a notional group that scholars and advertising agents imagine to be collective or to have things in common. Anderson speaks of how groups of people come to believe themselves to be a community; how they construct their cohesiveness. The idea is that in any group larger than a small village, the community— city, nation, public, or audience~is imagined, because the vast majority of group members have never met face-to-face (6). Historically, the first binding social factor was language (46, 84), though eventually community became built on ideas that were political-imperial, educational or racial (109, 140, 145). Anderson was concerned with the birth of nations, however, and here we are concerned with a national public. To many media theorists, the media is what the public has in common. Michael Saenz, for example, suggests that television, in particular, has become “strategically important in audiences’ construction of their culture in general” (573). His idea is that watching television, particularly in a group setting with family or friends, provides one of the main avenues for the distribution of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21 cultural beliefs and conventions. Ethnographic evidence of this is provided in Pumima Mankekar’s Screening Culture. Viewing Politics, in which she investigates the relationship between women and television in India. Pierre Sorlin relates the ways in which communities informed (if not created) by media have resisted dominant political forces in the United States, Soviet Union, and 19th century Britain (34). He could easily have added the Chinese student movement in Tiannamen Square, “rave” culture from the late 1990’s, Franz Fanon’s Algerian radio community, and Camille Bacon- Smith’s science fiction fans as examples of groups whose use of media either binds them together or allows for their collective political and social action. In fact, Anderson suggests that print media was largely responsible for the emergence of national conciousness in Europe (44). Still, this doesn’t explain who the publicjs. Studies of “Mass Communication’’ indicate what communication researchers consider to be the public— the “mass” in mass communication is a group that is l.)heterogeneous, 2.)composed of members who do not know each other or are spatially separated, and 3.)have no leadership or formal organization (Tan 72). But is the mass the same as the public? If so, then who is that other vague group of individuals so often referred to in cinema and television studies, the “audience?” The audience for film and television did not spring whole from the head of Zeus. As Sorlin demonstrates, it evolved from the previous public of radio and newspaper audiences, who in turn arose from penny-paper and theatre/music hall audiences (44-49). There are a few significant trends to note here: the first is that when referring to a group of people, mass is generally considered negative or common (the masses, mass culture), where “public” has positive connotations (public interest, public life) (Gregory and Miller 95). Additionally, and interestingly enough, scholars who refer to the masses, or write about mass media tend to lean towards the Frankfurt school of media interpretation, analyzing the power of media to enforce a dominant Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 ideology or hegemony,3 whereas those with a “Cultural Studies” bent, who conceptualize public interaction with media messages in terms of the viewer’s agency, refer to those who watch as the “audience.”4 A number of people suggest that the public (or the audience) is just a theoretical construct rather than a real group. Eileen Meehan demands that an understanding of television’s place in culture requires an acceptance of the political economy of the system (566). Doing this— recognizing that the economics of media are its driving force— leads to the conclusion that the audience is essentially a marketing tool: a group created by publicists’ need to pitch and ratings organizations to measure. To some degree, this is clearly true: in the early years, major studios were resistant to audience research until marketing requirements necessitated them (Austin 4). In fact, Meehan seems to suggest that there is a strong argument that for all intents and purposes, the ratings audience is the public. Sorlin’s suggestion is that audiences are contrived as the objects not just of market research but, at least as importantly, of academic studies. Because of the mode of their creation, these studies run the danger of essentializing the audience, of imagining them as made up of generalized, abstract research units rather than individuals, who can distort research and interpretation (Sorlin 44). The statistical artifact known as the “Dad effect” for example, is a false interpretation of television viewing data, the result of the tendency of family viewing to be influenced by the father’s preference, leading to the counterintuitive finding that people often do not watch what they say they would like to watch (Ang 370). Ien Ang echoes many of Sorlin’s concerns, suggesting that it was the academic researchers who co-opted industry ratings methods to produce the essentialized viewer lacking agency or voice— literally people turned into statistics (369), something that occurs in Goodhart, Ehrenberg, and Collins’s book The Television Audience, wherein the “laws” of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23 audience behavior are arrived at through advanced statistical analysis, rather than any actual ethnographic contact with the viewers themselves.5 Those who consider all of these groups as scholarly or social creations are, in fact correct— the idea of “the public” is a construct, and “the audience” an even narrower one. The public is the unit of discussion for general discourse, and the audience that subset who are interested enough to explicitly pay attention to the messages offered them. But at the same time, the idea of the public is powerful— when asked about the public’s understanding of science, for the most part the informants for this project jumped right in. Very rarely did they question the existence of the group they spoke of. The public is not a fantasy, but a fiction— a constructed group of the great mass of people. John Hortley notes that television audiences, are, of course, a group of constructed fictions, but their fictionality does not disqualify their existence, but rather “demonstrates the social power of fictions” (84)— the fictive audience has extreme power in the entertainment industry, since they determine advertising fees and, through ratings systems, programming of mass-market television. When the news reports remark on what Mark Twain called “that awful power, the public opinion of this nation” and governments make tax cuts “in the public interest” or fund initiatives for the “public understanding of science” they are contributing to the idea of who and what the public is. The term “public” is imprecise, and the construct is never as monolithic as those who discuss it pretend. Nonetheless, it is indispensable for discussing the topic at hand, and it does share some characteristics; certainly those articulated by Tan above, and in addition a more subtle, consensual characteristic. Like Anderson’s imagined communities, there is clearly a shared, yet generally unarticulated view of what the public is, one by its very nature imprecise because it is an agglomeration of individuals and institutional views, desires, and understandings. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 4 Because it is an indispensable concept, every major treatment of mass media studies has to take its own definitions of the public into account. All note that it is a contested term, and each has its own specific meanings. Gregory and Miller state that differing conceptions of “the public” lead to differing strategies for addressing the public understanding of science (95). They are correct, of course, and it is important, especially in a project such as this one where the public’s conception of science is one of the pillars of the research, to delineate who the public addressed here is, and what led to the preference for that definition of the public. Hortley, who considers the public as constructed through mass media to be the best modem reflection of the classical public of the Greek agora, writes eloquently about media-construced “public” of the modem age as Something which, from one point of view, does not exist. Looked at another way, it is something so obvious that its existence is usually taken for granted. It cannot be interrogated, inspected, observed, or investigated directly, but it completely surrounds us socially and it permeates our personal identity. It has no bodily form, but it is powerful; by some reckonings it is the ultimate power, being the source of sovereignty. It is a place, but you can’t walk into it, and it is a group of people--a vast group of people— but they never meet. The place and the people are familiar figures, but although you know them well, you have never seen them and you never will, even though you’re one of them. What is it? Who are they? The place the public domain, and the people are the public (1). For this dissertation, the group under discussion is very broad— Westerners, specifically Americans, whose are consumers of mass media. Which means, thanks to the ubiquity of media, almost everybody. Even those who don’t watch television in general often go to movies, and even those who neither watch television or go to movies can’t escape the presence of their images on billboards, through fast-food advertising tie-ins, or simply in conversation with those who do. Television is not simply something one chooses to watch or to ignore in one’s own home, but an ambient, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25 inescapable feature of modem life found in bars, laundromats, airports, sporting events, and waiting rooms (McCarthy 1). This formulation of “the public” is why the content analysis (to be discussed later) focuses on the most popular films and television programs; they are those most likely to be encountered by the largest group of people. The public addressed here is specifically American, not because the media being considered are American products (after all, they are viewed the world over), but because the theoretical framework rests on a historical context specific to the United States. Two questions then arise: l.)how involved is that public with the media and 2.)how involved are they with science? There can be little doubt that in modem American society (and many others), the mass media is one of the prime social imaginaries; it is a principal source of information, understanding, and entertainment. It is through the news media that people know what is happening in the world outside their own experience; it is via the entertainment media that they see places and situations outside their own worlds. Obviously, media knowledge is only one portion of any individual’s cognitive environment, added to information and cultural mores derived from social interaction, education, and everyday life. Still, particularly for those aspects of life outside most people’s everyday experience, it is the media that informs what we know, and particularly what we know about the world: “most of what we know, or think we know, we have never personally experienced” (Shanhan and Morgan ix). John Peters even speculates that given the pervasive investigations of the news media and the subjective perception of our day-to-day experiences, it is possible that the media provides more accurate information about the world than what we directly experience through our own senses (Peters 81). Similarly, citizens of Western nations today five lives largely informed by scientific issues and information, even when the scientific nature of some activities is hidden. Science in modem society is not just about space shuttle launches Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 6 and particle accelerators; it influences what drugs are approved for use, energy production and efficiency (gas lines, anyone?), seismic building codes, computer use, etc. While religion, both organized and non, continues to play a large role in public and political life, there is little doubt that Americans today are living in a scientific society, albeit in ways they sometimes may not recognize or understand.6 Cultivation Theory In 1999, shootings at Columbine high school in Colorado led to an outcry against the film The Basketball Diaries, said to have influenced the shooters. The Postal Service tried to push for positive portrayals of its workers in Hollywood (Lieberman Al), and the University of Southern California held a literary and entertainment industry celebrity-packed discussion panel about the impact of media images of Jewish characters.7 In 2000 Jack Valenti, the President of the Motion Picture Association of America, was honored by the U.S. Secretary of Defense for his “efforts to encourage positive portrayal of the U.S. military” in films. And the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation underwrites a program of financial support at six major film schools “to influence the next generation of filmmakers to create more realistic and dramatic stories about science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers through the visual media.” The belief that mass media images affect personal beliefs and behavior is strong, and seems intuitive— so much exposure to any information must do something, right? Although theoretical explanations abound (and will be investigated later in this chapter), because attitudes and beliefs are difficult to quantify, there is very little evidence for how (or how much) mass media influences people’s understanding of the world. One of the few areas of academic research involved with answering these questions in an empirical way is the area of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 7 communication studies called cultivation research, and it is one of the prime research perspectives that informs this dissertation. Bom out of the public outcry over media violence in the 1960s, the origins of cultivation research are credited to George Gerbner and his colleagues at the Annenberg School of Communication of the University of Pennsylvania (DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach 262). To this day, Gerbner, his colleagues, and those he trained are still the predominant practitioners of this form of studies. Cultivation research is based on four assumptions: 1.television exposure dwarfs that of other media for most Americans, 2.)television exposure begins at a young age and continues through adulthood, 3.television in the U.S. is at least as, if not more available to people than other mass media, and 4.)television is produced by a very expensive, infrastructure-dependent centralized industry (Shanahan and Morgan 20). These premises are largely defensible, and have been supported by other research; it thus seems that the central conviction of cultivation theory might then also be tenable: that “watching a great deal of television will be associated with a tendency to hold specific and distinct conceptions of reality, conceptions that are congruent with the most consistent and pervasive image and values of the medium” (Shanahan and Morgan 3). That is, the influence of the media is not due to viewing specific instances of violence (or science), but rather the mass media asserts a subtle and continuous effect on its viewers. The reason the theory and method are called “cultivation,” rather than “capture” or “control” theory, is because the influence of the media slowly cultivates these attitudes over a long period of time. Cultivation also supports the idea that these images are part of a hegemonic process, with the result being that the values and behaviors reinforced are those that benefit the dominant media producers (Shanahan and Morgan 49). Cultivation research is one of the few methods that has been consistently used to quantify media effects on behavior or belief; thus it is invaluable when considering the topic at hand. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 Cultivation research has been applied to the study of a vast number of beliefs and behaviors-for example: violence (Gerbner and Gross, 1976), sex roles (Morgan, 1982), political orientation (Gerbner et. al, 1982), rebgious beliefs (Hoover, 1990), racism (Gross, 1984), and of course, science (Gerbner et. al, 1985,). The findings are highly suggestive, and supportive of the generalized belief that media viewing impacts audience beliefs. The change in belief through viewing television is expressed as the “cultivation differential” (Gerbner et al., Television Entertainment 15). A cultivation differential generally measures the difference between “heavy” and “light” viewers8 when asked questions relevant to the study, such as: “is science is making our lives healthier, easier, and more comfortable?” (Gerbner et al., Television Entertainment appendix IV). In 1999, James Shanahan and Michael Morgan published the results of their meta-analysis of 20 years of cultivation research. To generate their report, the two researchers analyzed 97 separate cultivation studies, with a combined total of 5,799 findings (123). They found a small but consistent statistical relationship between viewership and beliefs about the world; the average overall effect was .10 (that is, heavy viewers are 10% more likely to believe the real world is like the one portrayed on television than light viewers). Interestingly enough, Shanahan and Morgan’s meta analysis also illuminated the cultivation differential based on a number of different dependent variables; from this analysis they reveal that women have a slightly higher average cultivation differential, but that the range for men is greater; that is, the average woman is more affected by the media messages, but overall men are more extreme on both ends (some are extremely affected, others almost not at all) (128). Although sometimes the differential is small enough to be accounted for by the sampling margin of error, other statistical analyses of cultivation studies show that in their findings, older people (who did not grow up with television) are less affected, whites are markedly Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 more affected than non-whites, and those with higher educations, more college, and especially political liberals, are more susceptible to cultivation effects (129). More important to this project are the cultivation studies about public beliefs in science, scientists, and technology, the most comprehensive of which, “Television Entertainment and Viewers’ Conceptions of Science” was done by Gerbner and his associates Larry Gross, Michael Morgan, and Nancy Signorielli in 1985. From a sample size of 1,631, Gerbner et al. drew a number of interesting findings. The first is that heavy television viewing tends to cultivate a greater skepticism and less favorable orientation towards science (16). Furthermore, the study sample exhibited a trend called “mainstreaming” by the researchers: heavier viewers tended to exhibit a greater commonality of opinion regarding science than light viewers, independent of the other variables (race, gender, income, etc.), thus indicating that heavy viewing tends to mainstream the more radical viewers in the audience, pulling them slightly towards more moderate views (16). While reading and viewing nonfiction science media increased the positive attitudes towards science, it was not enough to overcome the negative beliefs of heavier viewers. In addition, greater television viewing correlated with a less positive view of scientists themselves. The more negative beliefs included the ideas that scientists are odd and unsociable, and that their work is dangerous and all-consuming (17). Also interesting is that these are some of the same sentiments towards scientists expressed by the high school students in Mead and Metreaux’s study 30 years earlier (1957). In the content analysis of chapter 6, we’ll see that these are precisely the images of scientists most often portrayed in the entertainment media. However, there are a number of critiques of cultivation research that bear keeping in mind. The first is the belief in polvsemv-that given a situation or image presented to them, different people will interpret it individually and uniquely (Butler 4; Newcomb in Shanahan and Morgan 60). What seems more likely to affect cultivation is the slight Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 0 variation of polysemy called polyvalence (Condit 430), which holds that audiences share understandings of the denotations of the text, but may disagree about the valuation. For example, in the classic anthropological piece “Shakespeare in the Bush,” the story of Hamlet that Laura Bohannon tells the Tiv is understood the same by everyone— Hamlet’s actions are not read differently; what is read differently is the meaning of those actions and their validity— the Tiv find Hamlet’s uncle’s marriage to his mother the morally correct thing to do, while Hamlet himself (and Bohannon) view it differently. Another obvious example of this phenomenon was the 1992 song “Cop Killer” by rap singer Ice-T: everyone heard the same lyrics, but African-American youths found the song one of empowerment, while police and other groups called for it to be banned. The effect of polyvalent explanations for audience reactions on cultivation research is less arguable; polyvalent interpretations refer to specific instances, whereas cultivation studies rely on long-term patterns and trends. On the other hand, a polyvalent explanation seems to be self-evident when confronted with the idea of different cultivation effects on different populations. If there was no disparity of understanding, than why, for example, would white audiences show stronger cultivation differentials than black ones? Why would liberals seem to be more susceptible to cultivation than political conservatives? A polyvalent explanation would suggest that liberals and conservatives view the same situations presented on television- -abortion, police sweeps, etc.— differently.9 The second major charge leveled against cultivation research is that of spuriousness— that it sometimes fails to correctly attribute causality. Doob and MacDonald suggest that the reason heavy television viewing is correlated with a greater fear of violent crime isn’t because watching TV makes viewers fearful, but rather because those who live in high crime areas and are justifiably fearful tend to stay inside more and thus watch more television (Shanahan and Morgan 63). Shanahan and Morgan contest this reading of the study under question, but even if Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31 Doob and MacDonald’s analysis is correct, it hardly accounts for the cultivation research on the image of science and scientists, unless greater television viewing can somehow be more strongly linked to another variable that would cause greater skepticism towards science. A final, more legitimate critique is that the hegemonic explanations propounded by cultivation researchers are sometimes weak. For example, Shanahan and Morgan suggest that the effect of television violence causing greater fear among viewers serves the ruling elite by causing the fearful viewers to call for more police. Police are symbols of authority and maintain control over the masses, thus serving the interests of the elite producers (48). While logically true, there are certainly other, likely more plausible explanations for why there is so much violence on television; perhaps people simply like to watch violence, or it provides more exciting visuals that play well on TV. The hegemonic push seems even more difficult to trace in the motivations behind showing scientists. Despite these critiques, however, cultivation data is fairly solid and reliable; while speculation is rampant, cultivation is one of the few theories that makes a strong empirical case for a link between media exposure and belief systems. Cultivation research provides several useful contributions to this dissertation. The most obvious is the data itself, specifically that relating to the portrayals of scientists and the beliefs those portrayals convey. The data by Gerbner et al. strongly suggests that there is at least some correlation between the image of scientists that people see presented by the media and the activities they see those scientists engaged in and what they believe actual scientists and the practice of science are like. In a broader sense, the meta-analysis performed by Shanahan and Morgan indicates that this link between media viewing and audience belief holds true across a number of different subjects, as well as across age, race, and gender lines. Perhaps most important, however, is the whole idea of cultivation— that viewer reactions to media images aren’t based on Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 32 specific instances that influence beliefs, but rather on long-term, continued viewing of the same patterns of depiction, portrayal, and behavior, an idea also supported by research by Donald Campbell (in 1963) and all the way back in 1931 by Peterson and Thurstone (Austin 95, 101). The idea that the important effect of media on behavior is a result of consistent portrayals and extended patterns recurs throughout this thesis; it seems fairly clear that the media’s influence on belief centers around subtle, long-term forms of indoctrination, rather than upon specific instances of viewing. Ideology vs. Audience: The Frankfurt School and Cultural Studies Any examination of mass media today needs to first examine the tensions between the two major models of media studies— those of the Frankfurt School and the (originally British) Cultural Studies model. In its simplest form, the contrast between the two schools is about where intent and power lie in the producer/consumer continuum. In its very, very simplest form that continuum looks like this: Ideological ramrod « ------------------------------------- » Audience picks what it hears (Frankfurt School) (Cultural Studies) The theories of the Frankfurt School emerged from researchers at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt. The school was founded in 1925, established in the U.S. after fleeing the Nazi regime in 1933, and then reestablished in Frankfurt in the 1950’s. Arguably the most important of the group to media studies are Theodor Adomo, Max Horkheimer, and (from the reestablished school) Jurgen Habermas. The concerns of the Frankfurt School were often focused on the effect of ideology on culture— unsurprising, given that these researchers witnessed the rise of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 3 Nazism and Stalinism. It is from this perspective that they approached the mass media, which were viewed with relative disdain compared to the institutions of high culture commonly associated with the academic gaze of the time (Poster 6; Kellner, “Communications vs.” 4). Frankfurt theorists wrote of how ideology is present in the very structure of media, and how it works to break down resistance to dominant forces (Adomo and Horkheimer 122). “The repetitiveness, the selfsameness, and the ubiquity of modem mass culture tend to make for automated reactions and to weaken the forces of individual resistance” Adomo wrote in 1954 (216). Mass media in these theoretical models was conceived of as a monolithic, ideological tool of a hegemonic political and cultural order, and the audience was conceived of essentially as a receptacle for these transmitted ideologies. In fact, even if the members of the audience started out as individuals, the very ubiquity of the media, and particularly its message, was considered a force that “turns all participants into listeners and authoritatively subjects them to broadcast programs which are all exactly the same” (Adomo and Horkheimer 122). To some extent, these were the ideas that guided Powdermaker in her desire to consider Hollywood. She notes early in The Dream Factory that she wanted to study the entertainment industry because she was concerned with “the unique trait of modem societies,” the manipulation of people through mass communication (11). Powdermaker agrees that most people do not notice the subtle agendas of each media outlet, but she takes a much softer line than Adomo and Horkheimer. While worried about “the capacity of these communications to manipulate the ideas, opinions, and emotions of vast audiences,” she also notes that they have made a positive contribution to society through the introduction of news and drama to the mass of the population (322). Similarly, Habermas, writing some years later than his colleagues, agrees with them that media is a strong ideological force, but suggests that the use of the “authoritarian potential” of mass media suggested by Adomo and Horkheimer may be Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34 countered by the “emancipatory potential” that is also built into the communications structures (Habermas 390). Mark Poster suggests that ironically the Frankfurt theorists shy away from media culture in order to preserve the idea of the autonomous subject, whose voice they seem to take away by denying the agency of the audience (9). Because they believed that one of the primary effects of the mass media was to bulldoze the public into a numbing sameness,1 0 and thus erase the individuality that allows for resistance to ideology in favor of the easy pleasure of group belonging, the Frankfurt researchers may have imagined that by condemning the production (and study) of mass culture, they were protecting people from becoming susceptible to the sort of government they had been forced to flee in 1933. Despite the problems of overemphasizing ideological abilities of media and downplaying audience agency and the validity of studying mass culture, the Frankfurt School theorists do have important ideas that contribute to the theoretical background of this dissertation. The primary addition is the notion that the process and structure of production forces create the messages mass media transmits. Secondly, the theorists contribute the understanding that because of the way in which these forces are structured, they tend to create certain types of messages. Frankfurt theorists are also correct when they say that mass media production is largely one-way: the networks and studios produce and the public consumes. Although this statement is problematic in many ways,1 1 it remains largely true despite the increasingly high profile of independent films and locally-produced cable television programs. Another important theoretical perspective, one related to Cultural Studies, can be drawn from reception theory. Reception theory takes its name from the work of Hans Robert Jauss, who in 1970 wrote about the concept he called rezeptionsasthetik (Jauss 8). Jauss argued that audience members (readers as opposed to moviegoers in the his Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35 original work) did not blindly accept the messages transmitted to them, but instead had their expectations informed by their previous knowledge and assumptions about literature and texts. The ideas behind reception theory later became a mainstay of critical film studies, particularly those informed by the Cultural Studies model. In analyzing the media, reception theory adds two main ideas to the mix: that the audience reads or receives media messages in their own way, and a problemetization of the Frankfurt School’s belief in the ideological power of media. Reception theorists contend that in a communications system, the role of the reader is central, and the audience is continually constructing and interpreting the “meaning” of the text.1 2 The concept of polysemy (along with its cousin, polyvalence), that single texts have multiple readings, is central to reception theory Readings can be influenced by the historical context of the viewing, the mode of viewing (theatre vs. home), or the expectations and background of the viewer, but the essential point is that no message reaches the mind of the audience unmediated. However, most of reception theorists seem to view the final message as the result of a tug-of-war between the message and the audience. Celeste Condit (1994), for example, calls on the concept of polysemy when suggesting that the audience’s participation in viewing is fairly active. But she also recognizes that the audience does not freely choose their reading; instead they negotiate the forces applied by the films, based on factors such as their access to oppositional codes (readings), the repertoire of available texts, and the historical situation of the viewing (420). Similarly, Jimmie Reeves (1994) notes that the original intent of the material is important, but that its reception is guided both by the audiences’ interpretations of that material, and by changing external situations that affect the production of the material itself (191). Take, for example, viewers who saw the 1997 film Wag the Dog, in which a president fakes a war to distract the media from a sex scandal. Those who saw the film when it was originally released probably had a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 6 different reaction to it than those who saw it after President Clinton had ordered Bosnian airstrikes following public revelations about his extramarital affair. Furthermore, those who had seen the movie before the airstrikes had a different context in which to interpret the strikes.1 3 Real world events can alter the cultural landscape in which viewers see a film: in the midst of the 1998 advertising campaigns for the asteroid-collision movies Armageddon and Deep Impact, an astronomer detected an asteroid that would pass close to the Earth in the year 2028; the studios quickly jumped on this windfall free publicity and appropriated the news reports to increase public interest in the two movies (Yam l).1 4 As part of their challenge to the uniform meaning of media images and their singular nature as tools to promote ideologies, reception theorists challenge the basic assumptions of the Frankfurt model— that the production of media is a monolithic endeavor, and that, even assuming the audiences are empty vessels waiting to be filled, the producers’ messages are transmitted unchanged to the viewers. In addition to unanticipated historical events like the discovery of an asteroid, Butler (1994) notes that media messages “do not automatically or literally ‘reflect’ the ideology of the society that produces them. Rather, they emphasize some factors while repressing or even inverting other elements” (211). Even in the unlikely event that the entire creative team of a motion picture or television program— producer, director, writers, production designers— shared the same ideological viewpoint, there are still the inputs of the network or studio executives, the sponsors, and finally the audience, who have shown they have no problem staying away from a film or program that does not suit their viewing pleasure. Furthermore, as with cultivation studies positing an ideological explanation for media messages, the critique of causality when applied to strict ideological explanations mentioned in the discussion of cultivation theory still holds: how does, say, the ideology of capitalism explain the study that found that scientists die Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 7 more frequently than members of any other profession in television programs? (Gerbner et al. Television. 11) Reception theories contribute two valuable ideas to this research project: the first is that the ability of the mass media to promote an ideology is constrained by both outside factors and the agency of the audience. The second is the agency of the audience, the understanding that the viewers can mobilize different, though still constrained, messages from the object of their spectatorship. That said, it is difficult to fully engage reception theories in the context of this project-after all, it is about the media producers. But as even the reception theorists point out, the messages— especially long term ones— do matter (Condit 426); even hard-core reception-ists admit that the intended message of the media is one of the factors the audience must take into account in their polysemic reading. Which theoretical position is better, the Frankfurt school or reception theory? Is either more valuable when looking at the representation of science by the media? Of course, both schools of thought are right— the producers are making a specific product, but the audience is at least partially active in its reception, and in determining what it wants to hear. This is especially true with film, where movies aren’t just made on what the producers want, but what the audience expects to see as well. Films get test- marketed, and if the test group doesn’t like the ending, it is often changed.1 5 Indeed, Douglas Kellner proposes that since both schools are essentially focusing on the same issues-ideology and culture, the role of mass media in cultural reproduction, hegemony, and resistance, the best investigations of mass media will take both perspectives into account. There are, of course, other theoretical positions used in media studies— semiotics, psychoanalysis, genre analysis, auteur theory. But these are the theoretical principles that best seem to inform the specific goals and issues of this project. Kellner also wrote that “the system of production often determines what sort Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 of artifacts will be produced, what structural limits there will be as to what can and cannot be said and shown, and what sort of audience expectations and usage the text may generate” (“Communications” 3). That is the aim of this project: to investigate the ways in which the production of films and television programs encodes certain images of science and scientists that reify the different models for understanding science. Methodologies Each of these theoretical frameworks is best for a specific kind of research project, and each requires a particular set of methods for investigating the public’s relationship with media: a study focusing only on media producers might favor the Frankfurt School, one that focuses on so-called low culture or public perceptions could utilize reception theories, and either of these might be used for a humanities-based approach to media studies, with cultivation theory reserved for a more positivistic social science approach. Kellner, campaigning for a cross-disciplinary media studies, wrote I have argued for the importance of including analysis of the production of culture and the ways that dominant systems of production structure and inhibit specific forms, content, and effect in cultural studies. On the other hand, there are reductionist and scientistic communications research approaches to culture and communication that would benefit from broadening their vistas and utilizing the methods of cultural studies (“Communications” 10). Each theoretical stance is also informed by a series of practices; this dissertation takes elements of all these theoretical and methodological approaches, because each has something to offer for the pursuit and final analysis of the question at hand. Because it is about the producers of media, its origins come from the Frankfurt School’s Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39 perspective. But the analytical viewpoint is ultimately closer to that of the Cultural Studies school (if not reception theory directly), because the final focus isn’t just on the producers and how they mobilize science to include it in their products, but also how those products influence the public’s perception of science through the creation of a simulacra of “real” science. The influence of the media is suggested to be a long term, continually subtle machination, and thus borrows from cultivation theory, while modifying the research conventions of communications studies to include an anthropological mode of personal interview and ethnography, combined with the cultural studies focus on textual analysis. Before detailing the specific methodologies, it is important to indicate what media products are examined in greater detail within the dissertation. A number of the academic works that study the reflection of science images and science fiction as indicators of cultural norms focus on great masses of minor works, many of which are good examples but were relatively obscure in their own time, let alone ours. To target one without malice, Rosalynn Haynes’ From Faust to Strangelove: Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature is a fine historical treatment of the subject. In it, she dredges up scores of minor short stories, poems, and novels to sustain her arguments. Although these points are well made, when she maintains that these works represent general cultural conceptions of science and scientists, their public popularity becomes an issue— they could, for all the reader knows, be merely a long list of fringe works read by few. While this may well not be the case— Haynes’ scholarship is solid— she seems willing to analyze almost anything as evidence for her conclusions. When choosing works of mass media to focus on for this project, the thesis was that while smaller works may be solid indicators of society’s attitudes, it is a steady stream of the most popular ones that is more likely to influence public perceptions as a whole. While in the science fiction publishing industry, 60,000 copies of a book is a very good Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40 showing, and 40,000 closer to average (Bacon-Smith 208), over 6.5 million people saw Jurassic Park in France alone. Though well short of the 10 million who bought Jurassic Park the book (internationally), that 10 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the worldwide theatre attendance of several hundred million (it took in $913.1 million worldwide). Following this rational, there is a series of films, which I term “Science Blockbusters,” that are, with the addition of several of the most popular science-oriented and science-fiction television programs, the focus of this dissertation. The concept of the Science Blockbuster and a detailed examination of the films and television programs can be found in Chapter 6, basically, they are the films and programs that have major scientist characters or strong scientific themes, and can be found at the top of the Neilson ratings or lists of top-grossing films. It is these media products that form the primary focus of this dissertation— from the press kits analyzed to the selection of science consultants interviewed. To begin to unravel how the often competing, and almost always separate, disciplinary methodologies utilized during this project fit together, the interviews will be discussed first. There were three major occupational groups interviewed: science consultants, who made up the bulk of the sample, practicing scientists, and non-scientist media production personnel. 15 scientists who had consulted on media projects were interviewed, representing 17 entertainment-oriented films and television programs and 3 educational television programs. In addition, 6 scientists who had not been involved with media production (except as spectators) were also interviewed before the research process began to turn more towards investigating the production aspect of these media. Finally, members of the media production community were interviewed; these included a publicist who specializes in locating consultants for science films; two producers who have worked on many of the most popular films in history to include scientist characters and scientific themes; a number of production coordinators and researchers, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 and an administrator of Sloan Foundation grants (awarded to student filmmakers to encourage accurate portrayals of scientists). All interviews were of the semi-structured format, where prepared questions led the way to a more open discussion, striving for the optimal balance between allowing the informants’ voice to be heard and keeping the interview on-topic. Despite the (correct) widespread assumption that Los Angeles is the general epicenter of the entertainment industry, not everyone lives within its environs, and while the preferred method involved face-to-face contact in about one- third of the cases distance proved an insurmountable issue and the interviews were conducted over the telephone and taped.1 6 Questions for the consultants focused on their experience working with filmmakers, their responsibilities and perspectives about being consultants, and their general experience with the public and science. Scientists (and some NASA engineers) were queried as to the general treatment of science in the media, specific films or programs they either liked or disliked, and their experiences with the public understanding of science. Production and related personnel shared their experiences on the structure of media production, the place of science and verisimilitude in general in these productions, and the impetus behind as well as the process of creation. Surprisingly or not, only two producers agreed to be interviewed. I contacted by letter and telephone the offices of the director or producer (sometimes both) of most of the films and programs on which the consultants had worked, as well as some of the actors who had portrayed scientists. None would speak with me, though two did have their secretaries call to explain that they were flattered by the interest, cared deeply about science, but unfortunately did not have time in their schedules to accommodate an interview request.1 7 Eventually, through wheedling, connections, and sheer luck, the two producers— who had both worked on signficant numbers of films that included science or scientists-granted me interviews. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 2 Another significant source of data were the special collections and archives of a number of institutions; primarily the Library of Congress, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the 20th Century Fox studio library, and the Warner Research Collection. Each of these archives provided access to information that was useful and unique, a supplementary piece of the puzzle, providing insight into an additional facet of the research question. The Library of Congress held information on older studies of the public understanding of science, particularly Mead and Metreaux’s, and on Mead’s experience being interviewed for Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Herrick library of the Academy contained extensive reserves of press kits, film- specific and genre-related clipping files, and the censorship files of the Motion Picture Association of America. The studio research libraries (the Warner Research Collection, Lillian Michelson Collection, and 20th Century Fox Studio Library), with their incredibly comprehensive reserves of photos, clippings, and other material used by media producers to inform their projects, provided a unique insight into the source of much of what we see on big and small screens. Though not in the same category as ethnographic or interview research, extensive archive-hunting presents its own problems: each of these locations contains an incredible amount of information, of which only a fraction is relevant to the project at hand; sorting through the chaff to find the wheat becomes a skill in and of itself. The raw data, while fascinating it its own right, needs to be fit into the context of the question at hand; recitation of censorship statistics means little without a framework for contextualizing and interpreting those figures. Access to these collections can also be a problem. The Library of Congress is, of course, a public institution and thus open to all. The Herrick library is accessible to those with a valid and demonstrable research interest, and the Warner Research Collection, though originally housed at the Warner Brothers’ Studio, was formerly hosted by the Burbank Public Library (though used only by industry people). The Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43 other studio libraries remain closed to the public— those at 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Francis Ford Coppolla’s Zoetrope, and Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic. In fact, the Warner Collection has been repatriated to the Warner Bros, studio and is now also off-limits to the public. The final major form of original data collection involved the content analysis of specific films and television programs. The term “content analysis” is a broad rubric, and includes everything from the viewing of specific films and television shows for purposes of textual analysis to numerical and statistical comparisons of (for example) the number of television programs with scientist characters or the mortality rate of scientists in films. Content analysis also covers the comparative historical analysis of the portrayal of scientists, the treatment of scientific realism, and the use of science as a plot device. In general, cultural studies and reception-based research projects tend to focus on a textual-analysis based form of content review,1 8 while communication studies approaches are often based on the systematic collection of numerical and statistical data. Some aspects of each approach are used in this dissertation. In addition to interviews, archival research, and content analysis, there is, of course, an extensive amount of literature review and research involved with this topic. While there are specific bodies of research covering some aspects of the theme in this project: science-fiction studies, cultivation communications studies, and public understanding of science research, for example, the more interesting point is that there is not one disciplinary literature at issue here but three— Anthropology (including Science and Technology Studies, or STS), Cinema/Television (and Cultural) Studies, and Communication Studies. Each brings a significantly different perspective to bear, and in a sense, this dissertation is about the congruence of these disciplinary boundaries as well as about science and media. The concept of polyvalence suggests that individual audience members read different meanings into the same media product; in the same Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 4 way, there is a disciplinary polyvalence at work; a comparison of the textual analysis of the film Rambo for example, is treated in a significantly different way in works by Douglas Kellner (cultural studies) and Elizabeth Traube (anthropology).1 9 In fact, the methodologies of these fields are different as well; if this was a communication studies project, it would more likely be a statistical analysis,2 0 or a large-scale attitude study; whereas a dissertation in the cinema school would likely involve deeper content analysis than is included here. This is, however, an anthropology dissertation, albeit one partially designed to test how an ethnographic study can be informed by the different aspects of media studies of other fields, and so the individual ethnographic data— the informant interviews— is as important as any other. Philip Marlowe, P.I./A. (Private Investigator/Anthropologist) Part of what informs the method in which this project was pursued is the geographic context in which it occurred: an anthropological project in Los Angeles should utilize different sources than one that takes place in rural Peru. Los Angeles as a fieldsite has a number of important qualities that impact the form and content of anthropological research done here. First of all, Los Angeles is large— at 469 square miles for the city, and over 4,000 for the County of L.A., it is far larger than many islands, and some entire regions, in which anthropologists have traditionally worked.2 1 Los Angeles is the second largest city in a highly industrialized nation, and is densely populated in comparison to the national average, if not by the standards of some other large international cities. The economy of Los Angeles is based on two major industries, aerospace engineering and construction and mass media production (often referred to as “The Industry”), and thus supports a vast and diverse number of workers in both these fields. The city is renowned for its transnational nature, and as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 5 of the 2000 census California was no longer a majority white state; taking this into consideration this project showcases the level to which race and class play a role in the media industries: all of the major informants are white, making this possibly one of the least politically correct anthropology projects ever.2 2 Perhaps it is the literary pedigree of Los Angeles, perhaps (appropriately) its image from cinema, but driving the mean streets of LA, burrowing deep into one of its primary industries, it becomes impossible not to feel a kinship with the other obtrusive research archetype of the City of Angels-the noir detective. Renato Rosaldo, in an analysis of E.E. Evans-Pritchard’s The Nuer. once suggested that anthropologists were as much like medieval inquisitors as scientists (78). Perhaps when viewing how a British anthropologist visits the tribal Nuer of the Sudan, this is the case. But when an ethnographer is “studying up”— when the view is not looking down from the Colonial gaze but up at those higher on the socio-economic and disciplinary ladder, the researcher has more in common with the lone, blue-collar detective than the authoritative power of the papal inquisitor. There is precedence for this: in 1982, Bradd Shore published his book Sala'ilua. a Samoan Mystery, and Gideon Oliver, a physical anthropologist and amateur sleuth is the hero of ten novels by Aaron J. Elkins. The activities associated with a project of this type— long hours spent burrowing through musty archives, uncountable phone calls tracking down publicists through the maze of industry functionaries, interviewing people that are even called “informants” by anthropologists, are methods also associated with detective work. In scenes that sometimes felt pulled from a dime-store pulp or written by Raymond Chandler himself, informants would frequently ask for the tape recorder to be silenced in order to tell tales of Hollywood players on the Q.T. While “feeling detective” probably has little impact on the content of the research, the affect on its flavor— at least while it was occurring— was profound. Investigating an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 6 industry so closed that reporters consider it a more difficult beat than Washington, DC (Shaw Al), it offered encouragement when fatigue set in, and a certain dogged determination to proceed despite the closed nature of much of the industry. Powdermaker also noted that it was difficult to do field research in Hollywood, calling it the “least successful and satisfying (to me) of my field projects” (Stranger 13). She also noted many of the same difficulties during the course of her research that I ran into: the lack of an ability to be a participant observer in the filmaking process, a large percentage of gossip in the interview data, and, partiuclarly, a general unwillingness of high-level production staff members to be interviewed (Stranger 216). The anthropologist— like the detective it seems— must sometimes stick his nose where it is not wanted. As with any field research, the language of the natives in an important guide to how they view the world. Obviously, the interviews in this project were conducted in English, but it was the dialect of a specific geographic and industrial subculture. In Witchcraft. Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande. Evans-Pritchard wrote that he decided to use native terminology for the concepts he discusses, rather than import outside terms, which would bring with them the external classificatory and interpretive influence (226). To some extent, I agree with his sentiment, but because the language used by my informants is a dialect of English, this often isn’t practical, and substitutions have to be used. For example, in the common parlance of Hollywood, members of a production staff refer to what they’re working on as a “show.” This is the case irrespective of whether they are working on a television program or a feature film. However, to most Americans— and likely most readers of this dissertation— a “show” means a television program. Thus the informants’ use of “show is replaced with the specific type of show they’re working on— network television program, feature film, made-for-tv movie. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 7 Some terms are fairly obvious abbreviations or homologies— like “picture” to refer to a movie, or “box office” as a term for the amount of money a film makes. “Hollywood” itself is such a term, of course, since almost none of the studios are located there,2 3 and much of the other work involved in production: location shots, special effects, etc.— aren’t even located in the city of Los Angeles at all. Other terms, however, are more problematic; for example, nothing is slipperier than (the word) truth in Hollywood— except perhaps the word “real.” The native semantics surrounding the commonly, sometimes strangely, occasionally bizzarely used term “real” are discussed in detail in chapter 4. For now, it should just be said that when someone tells you he wants his next movie, which is based on a comic book, to be as real as possible— a statement which sounds vaguely preposterous on the face of it— you have to understand that he absolutely means it, and takes the concepts of reality and a belief in science quite seriously. And furthermore, that this isn’t some facade— the informant really does take these things seriously, and within his concept of filmic reality and dramatic science, a movie based on a comic book absolutely can be based on real science and (for that matter) real life. Like Evans-Pritchard, while I will interrogate the natives’ terminology, when speaking with them and writing about their world, the issue isn’t (allegorically speaking) whether witches exist or not; only that the natives believe that they do, and shape their behavior accordingly. Aside from affording perhaps the greatest concentration of useful informants for a dissertation on the entertainment media, Los Angles has other resources that contributed to its suitability as a field site for this project. Because the media industry is one of the city’s prime economic pillars, there is an enormous amount of peripheral but associated material to be found within its environs, including perhaps the greatest concentration of media-specific archives anywhere, with the Herrick Library, Museum of Radio and Television, and the special collections of the University of Southern Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 California Cinema library within a ten-mile radius. In addition to media resources, the L.A. metro area is home to an incredible array of scientists, from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the halls of the California Institute of Technology, USC, and UCLA. There is a strange feeling associated with being this immersed in a place so taken with the topic of your research; as Joanne Passaro notes, when a native anthropologist lives and works in the place of their field site, they never leave it— work is not separate from home (145). This is something held in common with anthropologists who do their research in more “traditional” locations, and live in the village or region they are studying (but not with other researchers living at home; those who work in a lab, for example, or study rare art). And, of course, for those anthropologists living “in the field,” this is somehow “expected” of them, that they will be immersed in the culture to which they have dedicated their academic careers. When their fieldwork is done they usually return “home” to their own country. But because a native anthropologist in his home setting often doesn’t look as if he’s working, particularly in a society where the distinction between work and leisure is so strong, the appearance may persist that he is able to separate the two. But in a culture and city so saturated with science and media, for a research project involving the two, the ethnographer is always on call. 1 While large-scale research projects often try for a national telephone sample, for over seventy years one of the most common “publics” investigated by media researchers have been students (for example, 4th-12th grade students were used in Peterson and Thurstone’s 1931 study project on the movies’ affect on attitudes). Students are usd frequently presumably because they offer the researcher a captive audience that can fairly be said to be indicative of the social and economic make-up of the nation as a whole. 2 Here I refer to the conflict in understanding of audience agency between the Frankfurt School of thought and the more recent, British-originated Cultural Studies School. For more on this see pages 22 to 27 of this chapter. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 9 3 For example, Sorlin (1994), Tan (1981), Shanahan and Morgan (1999), and LaFollette (1990). 4 For example, Butler (1994), Condit (1994), and Meehan (1994). 5 as mentioned in Ang, 370. 6 While the percentage of the public directly involved with scientific issues may be small— those on funding committees, science educators, etc.; except for perhaps the Amish, every citizen of the United States is affected by the institution of science. Indeed, if one considers environmental issues, even the Amish deal with science. 7 Titled “Jews in Prime Time,” the panel and discussion took place February 26, 1999, and included addresses from Neal Gabler, Frank Rich, and Arthur Miller, as well as Norman Lear, Rob Reiner, Jason Alexander, and a number of other industry and community leaders. 8 The difference between “heavy” and “light” viewing is subjective and particular to each project. Shanahan and Morgan (25) state that when these categories are used, it is “using as close to a three-way split of hours of self-reported daily viewings possible.” For example, in Gerbner et. al’s (1985) study of science and television, light viewers were those who watched 1.5 hours or less per day, medium 2-3.75 hours/day, and heavy 4 or more hours per day (8). 9 As Shanahan and Morgan (123) do, without calling it polyvalent. Another explanation, of course, is that conservatives are more set in their thinking than liberals (thus the term “conservative” one would imagine). 1 0 Adomo wrote that television aimed at producing “the very smugness, intellectual passivity, and gullibility” that allows people to be dominated by authoritarian regimes (222). 1 1 There are some ways in which the public influences production: the studio and network use of focus groups and test audiences is one way. More obviously, the public influences the production of media by choosing what they will view— the awesome power of the Neilson ratings. 1 2 See Butler 5; Condit 426; Morley 478; Friedburg 143. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 0 1 3 Neal Gabler (Life: The Movie 113) has an even more disturbing thought: that the entire 1991 Gulf War was fought for extended “Wag the Dog” reasons associated with George Bush’s continuation of the entertainment presidency of Ronald Reagan. 1 4 See also “It’s the End of the World As We Know It,” Screen International. March 20,1998, 1 . 1 5 But not always— for example, the producers of Contact were worried that the public wouldn’t go for the portrayal of a female scientist as the protagonist (Davidson 405). But they took a risk and made it that way anyway, and the public bought it— to the tune of $100 million in domestic ticket sales. 1 6 Interviewees outside of Los Angeles resided in Newfoundland, Texas, Hawaii, Montana, New York, and a number of other locales. 1 7 Interestingly, both filmmakers who responded (even negatively) to my original request are associated in some way with the University of Southern California. 1 8 For example, Henry Jenkins III “Star Trek Rerun. Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching” ” Television: The Critical View ed. Horace Newcomb (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 448-473 and Janice Hocker Ruyshing and Thomas S. Frentz Projecting the Shadow: The Cyborg Hero in American Film (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). 1 9 The difference here is not so much in reading the message of Rambo— both to Traube (in Dreaming Identities. 39-66) and Kellner (“The Frankfurt School and British Cultural Studies”), it is an example of films portraying hypermasculanization as a valid, redeeming personal trait as well as exemplifying right-wing political discourse. Rather the two diverge in their use of the example of Rambo: for Traube, it is part of a cycle of films that spoke to public attitudes towards gender, race, and colonialism in Reagan-era America. Kellner (8) recognizes these readings, but uses Rambo to articulate his call for an interdisciplinary film studies, stating that to completely interpret the “cinematic text” of Rambo requires the use of a vast and disparate array of social theories and sciences. 2 0 For example, Gerbner, et. al., or George Comstock and Heather Tully, “Innovation in the Movies, 1939-1976.” Journal of Communication. Spring 1981,97-105. 2 1 For example, Schieffelin’s Gisaro people in The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers live in a region of 525 square miles (pp.5), and the island of Kiriwina in the Trobriand islands so famously covered by Malinowski and Weiner is 266 square miles. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51 2 2 Or perhaps an example of what Laura Nader refers to as “studying up” (1972). 2 3 In fact, only a single studio is really located anywhere near Hollywood: Paramount Pictures. The others are sprinkled throughout the greater L.A. metropolitan area— Dreamworks and NBC in the San Fernando Valley, CBS Television in the Fairfax district, Sony Pictures in Culver City, etc. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 3: Science and Science Studies 52 The previous chapter set up a framework through which methodologies for the study of media were integrated into this project. Now it is time to turn an eye towards the other aspect of science and the media: science. What does the lab coat in the title of this dissertation represent? Science, of course; but as strange as it sounds, “what is science” is an important question to ask. If media influences science and our perceptions of scientists, then what is it influencing? Well-known scientists like Richard Dawkins condemn films and television shows for portraying alteratives to science as viable or true— but what are they alternative to? Isn’t science a strong enough force to resist being altered by a few movies? This chapter tackles questions and issues regarding science, outlining the basic structure of science that allows it to be affected by cultural forces (like media) and interrogating in a general way the question “what is science” in order to set up a framework for viewing how science is understood among both scientists and the lay public. It then introduces Chris Toumey’s multiple models of understanding science (1996), and suggests that these models are a valuable way of explaining the expressions of science in the mass media. While not intended to be an exhaustive discussion of social studies of science, it does give an overview of the issues relevant to the dissertation. What is Science? So...what is science? As straightforward as it seems on the surface, the answer to that question is mercurial as a summer breeze. Ask a biologist, an anthropologist, a steelworker and a teacher, and they’ll all give you different answers, based on their Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53 education, encounters and experiences with science and scientific knowledge, interest in issues like space or the enviroment— perhaps even their state of health and religious background. Science is often treated as a number of things: a methodology, an ideology, and a belief system. Perhaps the most common is a methodology. Every schoolchild knows the “scientific method” is one of the prime hallmarks of science. The myth of a unitary scientific method is one of the most cherished in science, though numerous social studies of science show the myriad ways in which different scientific communities pursue disparate (though closely related) ways of creating and disseminating knowledge.1 Viewing science as a methodology (generally of experimentation) leads to the use of that experimentation as a commerical legitimating force: the “Superhear Electronic Hearing Device” is advertised as having a “scientific sound pick-up design” to increase its effectiveness and “Electrolyzer” soda is sold not by a soda company but by “NutriTonic Labs” in a bottle touting its biomedical- sounding ingredients (“electrolytes with vitamin C and COQIO”). These and other products hark back to the claims of patent medicines and snake-oil salesmen. In fact, marketing and pseudoscience claims of experimental or scientifically-proven efficacy derive their power precisely from the immensely strong public image of the Scientific Method as a legitimating force. When faith in that force becomes largely unquestioning or uncritical, science is often taken for an ideology. When scientific ways of knowing and understanding are accepted with such vehemence, or viewed as the singular path to redemption or revelation, they often seem as largely ideological as Marxism or Lenininism. Science as ideology is called “Scientism,” a charge that scientists often need to fend off, as if overwhelming belief in the value of science was a negative trait. Carl Sagan was freqeuntly criticized for his scientism, with a number of reviewers for Cosmos lambasting him not just for suggesting that religion doesn’t have all the answers, but Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54 for saying that science does (Davidson 336). Contact was the brant of similar attacks when it was published in 1985 (Davidson 351).2 A number of the scientists interviewed in the course of this research expressed a similar view of science as the one path to true understanding; as one noted “in the end, science wins, and that’s all there is to it. It is surprising that there is as much superstition still with us as there is.” If ideology is a system of representations that express the lived relation between individuals and their society, then scientism certainly fits the description. Unsurprisingly, however, it is not only “true” science that can become ideologized, but certain varieties as well— creation science, alternative medical belief systems, and New Age beliefs, for example. Taking scientific beliefs into account with some of these alternative, political, or religiously-informed systems leads to the idea of science as one belief system among many. Especially within the context of cultural relativism, it is easy to view science as merely one belief system that a society or individual may chose from amidst a range of options, placing it as a worldview alongside religion, athieism, New Age spirituality, philosophy, etc. A worldview is an explanatory framework used by a culture or individual) to explain how the world works. That is to say, it is a framework of beliefs and understandings into which specific events can be placed, providing a network for explaining why or how those events occur. In the extreme form of the view of science as ideology that adherants of scientism find particularly distressing, science is essentially considered indistinguishable from the others; when all beliefs systems are viewed as having equal validity, nothing sets science apart as a way of viewing and understanding the world. While in fact it is clearly true that science js one belief system among many, it is equally true that these systems are not all equivalent when it comes to interpreting data, and there are some factors that distinguish science’s Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55 relationship to the natural world from, say, Santeria or New Age crystal power; factors which will be discussed later. In certain ways, and to different people, science is all three things— methodology, ideology, and a singular belief system. The point is that there are multiple readings of what science means. These differences can be viewed as polyvalent-different meanings that are assigned to the same object (or in this case the same system of ideas: science). I propose a polysemic view of science: that there are, at a basic level, several differening understandings of science. Beyond the different readings of a singular homogenized idea of science, there are actually different understanding of what science, at its foundation, is. In his book Voodoo Science, physicist Robert Park cites E.O. Wilson’s definition that “Science is the systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the world and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories” (39). This is often viewed as the basis of science’s unique relation to the natural world. However, as Sandra Harding notes, the idea that science alone possess a systematic study of phenomenon is false (Science Question in Feminism 411: one need only to look at the chicken-based prognostication methods of the Azande documented by E.E. Evans- Pritchard to find an example of a native knowledge that proceeds from continued, systematic “experimentation” (the poisoning of chickens), and takes place within a rational, logical descriptive framework for another example. The classical view of science is that it possesses a number of characteristics that set it apart from other belief systems. Generally, these traits are l.)Use of Experimental Method: repeated collections of data, either in a laboratory or the field, are used as the basis for positing scientific ideas or theories. This also is the basis of the most common image of scientists, toiling away in test-tube filled laboratories or remote field sites. 2.)Universality: the findings of science are universal within limits. Planck’s constant, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 6 the second law of thermodynamics, and evolutionary processes act similarly, and are equally “true” in Paris, Jakarta, and on Jupiter. Universality enables internationalism in science, the creation of an international scientific community that exchanges ideas and information.3 3.)Falsifiability: As Richard Feyman said, “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”(187). More specifically, the belief that there is no core belief, that every theory can eventually be proven wrong, any doctrine punctured. Even the most deeply regarded of all scientific beliefs— the second law of thermodynamics for example-is technically speaking only extremely, extremely likely to be true, not absolutely true. This is what sets alternative sciences, like “creation science,” apart from mainstream science. Creation science rests on an unimpeachable belief: the Bible is literally true. A true science is willing to review evidence that even its most deeply held beliefs are wrong, and in fact, though some STS theorists (Harry Collins, Trevor Pinch, and Sandra Harding among them) question the scientific establishment’s willingness to face the falsifiability of core beliefs like “every physical event has a cause,” (SOIF 31 over the course of time, science has maintained a fairly good track record of killing its old gods— Quantum mechanics took over from pure Einsteinism, which took over from pure Newtonianism. And while scientists in the 19th century were certain that women were less intelligent, less active, and more intuitive than men, over time that belief has been replaced among reputable scientists. In 1986 an amicus curiae brief was filed in the Supreme Court by 72 Nobel Laureates, 17 state academies of science, and 7 other U.S. scientific organizations as evidence against a Lousiana state law guaranteeing equal classroom time to evolutionary biology and creation science. The brief focused on the reasons creation science was a religious conviction rather than a scientific one and in the process took great pains to define and distinguish the two. In characterizing science, the brief iterated most of the characteristics outlined above, including experimental discovery of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 7 facts, the creation of testable hypotheses, and the falsifiable nature of theories. The brief also contains what is arguably one of the most comprehensive definitions of science: “it is a process for systematically collecting and recording data about the physical world, then categorizing and studying the collected data in an effort to infer the principles of nature that best explain the observed phenomenon” (Shermer 167). From talks with scientists, the popular writings of well-known scientists (Park, Feynman, Lederman) and other literature, I would add two more characteristics of modem science: 4.)Peer Review: all data collected must not only be presented in an accepted professional journal, but must be made available upon request to scientific collegues and be replicable by them. This was the cardinal sin of Stanely Pons and Martin Fleischmann during the cold fusion fiasco that began in 1989. In addition to presenting their case to the mass media before publishing in a scientific journal, Pons and Fleishmann stonewalled requests for data, and when details of their experiment were released, it proved unreplicable (Park 21-26). 5.)Curiosity: all belief systems need a motive, be it redemption, explanation, or solution. The guiding motive behind science is supposedly curiosity (money and fame are almost never mentioned by scientists in this sample). The name alone of one of physicists Richard Feynman’s books-The Pleasure of Finding Things Out— speaks to the deep-seated conviction that curiosity about the natural world is the prime motivational factor behind scientific research, a conviction that will be examined in depth later in this chapter. Science is all of these things, but in a strange way, it is also both more and less. That is, science is universal, but there are a vast number of local knowledges, each treated as “correct” in another society as science is in the U.S. Science is open to the principle of falsifiability of data, and the idea that through this, false scientific ideas will be replaced by true ones; yet false scientific beliefs continue for decades hand-in-hand with social phenomena such as racism and sexism. For example, the legacy of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58 colonial-era science that “proved” blacks to be lower of the evolutionary scale than whites has still not been completely eradicated, though the 1994 outrage over The Bell Curve, with its argument for the racial heredity of intelligence, suggests that we’re getting close. Science is more complex than its description in high-school textbooks would lead us to believe, and it is the job of researchers in Science and Technology Studies (STS) to find out just how complex, and to divine the ways in which society affects scientific belief. The Challenge of STS Science and Technology studies do not question the belief of scientists in the qualities of science expressed above any more than a traditional anthropologist would question the Azande belief in the chicken oracle; the practioners of science are expected to comprehend it in the ways they themselves enumerate. But those who study the social aspects of science as well as other belief systems do seek to understand the social and behavioral context in which the practices of these belief systems— science, divination, crystal power, whatever— exist. How do issues of gender, class, and politics affect them? Can (for example), one chief use the chicken oracle against another? Can one scientist use the structures and practices of biology (such as publication and peer review) against another, or against a physicist? Science and Technology Studies (STS) is an interdisciplinary field of research concerned with the cultural and geographical areas where science, technology, and culture produce and reproduce each other. STS is a truly interdisciplinary field, drawing scholars from Sociology, Anthropology, History, Philosophy, Architecture, Economics, Education, and almost every other social science and branch of the humanities (and of course, some disciplines in science). One count by Sharon Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 Traweek lists 19 different major fields and innumerable subfields dealing with aspects of STS (“An Introduction” 4-5). Though for many years dominated by the philosophical, historical, and sociological fields, the anthropological movement within STS (and the STS movement within anthropology) has been gaining momentum over the past decade: AAA sessions increasingly embrace STS themes, growing numbers of anthropologists are studying STS-related subjects, and STS anthropologists have created their own organ of the AAA: the Committee for Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC). In anthropology STS covers everything from laboratory ethnographies (Traweek: 1988) to medical anthropology (Rapp 1997; Martin 1994), and engineering education (Downey and Lucena) to “creation science” (Tourney) and cyberspace (Ito 1994; Frank 1997). It concerns itself with a vast range of the social aspects of science and technology, from the construction of scientific belief systems to the effects of sonograms on families. Yet behind this disparate array of inquiries into scientific beliefs and technologies are two overarching theses that guide the work of almost all anthropological STSers: l)The practice of science is a cultural activity, and 2)The discourses of science are vastly important to modem societies. These discourses justify not only personal action, but also the policies enacted by politically complex state societies and policies which have long-lasting, extensive repercussions on these societies. These two foundational beliefs instruct the purpose and methods of STS as an field of anthropological inquiry, and the research into the points where science, technology, and cultural beliefs and practices intersect. In order to situate the dissertation within a broader academic context, this section will briefly treat the history of STS, both without and, more recently, within anthropology; discuss the major theoretical problems, viewpoints, and issues of the subdiscipline; cover the reactionary mid-1990s “Science Wars” backlash and critiques Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60 of the STS project, and discuss where anthropological STS is going. It looks, that is, at the current and future issues within the field. The History of Science and Technology Studies As scientific knowledge is built up gradually, so is a disciplinary history. To understand the current state of Science and Technology Studies, it is important to familiarize ourselves with the historical context from which it arose. A few scholars posit lone researchers and relatively early dates for the founders of STS. Steve Fuller (1993: 4) travels back the farthest in time, to 1840 and William Whewell, who apparently both coined the term “scientist” and founded the philosophical subdiscipline of Philosophy of Science. Whewell’s Philosophy of Science attempted to analyze great scientists and eras of scientific progress in the past in order to promote further grand scientific progress in the future. Sharon Traweek (“An Introduction” 3) similarly draws an early date of 1936 for George Sarton to begin the historical subdiscipline History of Science in the United States4. Early historians of science followed in the footsteps of the even earlier philosophers, focusing on either great men (very occasionally women) or great controversies of science— evolution, Copemican and Galilean cosmologies and the like. They possessed what now seems an optimistically naive notion that good science always wins in the end, and bad science and false ideas are always proven wrong (Traweek “An Introduction” 4). While these were the first scholars to study science socially, their methods and theoretical and cultural standpoints were far different from those of modem STS researchers. This said, most of the literature (Hess 1997; Star 1988; Tourney 1996; Knorr- Cetina and Mulkay 1983) agrees that the modem studies of science and technology can be traced to four figures and three works: Thomas Merton’s Science. Technology, and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 1 Society in 17th Century England (1938), Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970), and Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar’s Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts (1979). Merton suggested that knowledge was governed by certain norms (universalism, skepticism, communality, and the like), figuring knowledge was produced in a realm objective and asocial. Kuhn introduced the concept of paradigms as the major focus in which a field structures knowledge and more importantly, the idea that enough awkward data can produce a paradigm shift (an example being between Newtonian and Einsteinian physics), and Latour andWoolgar produced the first laboratory ethnography, seeking to understand the social activities accompanying the official production of knowledge.5 These early STS figures were either explicitly pro-science, (Merton and Kuhn) or neutral towards it (Latour and Woolgar). They were uncritical towards concepts of rationality and objectivity, possibly because they studied the history of scientific knowledge itself, which they considered outside the bounds of cultural context. In the 1970’s, on the backs of these tomes, emerged the so-called Edinburgh or “strong” school of science studies, which focused on the evolution of science as motivated by ideological interests of one kind or another. It articulated principles of causality, impartiality to true and false beliefs (that is, they were willing to analyze either to understand the production of both), symmetry (the idea that true and false beliefs can both be created by the same circumstances), and reflexivity (Hess “If You’re Thinking...” 147; Star 198). Following the Edinburgh school, the field began to finally open up to a series of simultaneously strong concurrent discourses and theories: the Bath school (focusing on empirical relativism— “facts” as agreed upon notions rather than implicitly true; ex. Collins), discourse analysis (studying scientist’s varying accounts of their own work; cf. Mulkay, Potter, and Yearly) and actor networks (truth and facts as the outcome of processes of social negotiation; cf. Callon). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 2 All of these various schools and theories are important, not least because they set up a variety of interpretive frameworks from which anthropologists could either choose or build upon when they finally entered the scene in the late 1980’s. Despite the fact that these were all technically schools of sociology, they were actually offshoots of British sociology, which, as Traweek suggests (“An Introduction” 11), at least as far as STS is concerned, is far more closely related to the American discipline of anthropology in methodology and concerns than it is to American sociology. The first anthropologist to truly enter the field in a major way was in fact Traweek with her laboratory ethnography Beamtimes and Lifetimes. Though Traweek’s study of high- energy physicists in the U.S. and Japan was essentially a continuation of the tradition of sociological laboratory ethnographies established by Latour and Woolgar, she added what has come to be seen as anthropology’s additions to STS knowledge, tackling issues of gendering in scientific disciplines, rudimentary structures of power, and cultural critique. Despite Traweek’s widely-praised book, STS in anthropology continued to straggle for recognition: in 1987 and 1988, STS sections were rejected from inclusion at the American Anthropological Association national conference on the grounds that “such work did not fit under the AAA umbrella” (Downey and Dumit 7). In Beamtimes and Lifetimes. Traweek presaged the three major contributions of American anthropologists to STS: l)The introduction of issues of power, class, gender, and race to STS discourse, 2)A movement to understand how knowledge is constructed and technology used outside the official corridors of the laboratory and university, and 3)The use of ethnography as a predominant research tool.6 Anthropologists have utilized their ability to perform ethnographic research to examine the myriad ways in which science and technology are produced and reproduced in everyday life. The most numerous examples include a very strong series of examinations of medical and reproductive technologies by Martin (1994), Rapp (1997), Hartouni (1991), and others. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63 These studies examine science and scientific knowledge production both inside and outside of the laboratory. Further research by STSers involves modem technology and the methods through which it both creates and is created by culture; examples include Hakken’s work on the acceptance of computer technology among working-class Britons (1993), Stone’s essays on the ability of technology to form, reform, and transform personal identity (1996), and Frank’s research on the forms of power which are utilized in online communities (1996). Finally, there is the study of the construction and use of knowledge as a belief system at the most basic level, of which Chris Toumey is perhaps the most well-known practitioner. Tourney (1996), along with Donna Haraway (1985) and non-anthropologists such as Burnham (1987) examine science as the predominant belief system of Western society, just as anthropologists investigate the nature of the native worldview in other societies. Currently, anthropological practitioners of STS have formed themselves into a subgroup of the AAA’s General Anthropology Division-the previously mentioned CASTAC, primarily a forum for corridor talk at conferences and a network of similarly concerned researchers. Perhaps because of the nature of a discipline in which the construction of knowledge is such a preoccupation, there is an abnormally high number of notably self-reflexive histories of anthropological STS given the youth of the field (Traweek 1993; Hess 1997; Downey and Dumit). These publications generally concern themselves with the history of and issues facing STS; the following section follows in that grand tradition. Major Distinctions, Issues, and Viewpoints in Anthropological STS The current prevailing paradigm among major researchers within anthropological STS is the Citadel and Rhizome model proposed by Emily Martin in 1996. In her Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 4 article “Citadels, Rhizomes, and String Figures” Martin makes a distinction between internal and external social/geographic centers of knowledge production and dissemination. “Citadels” are bastions of knowledge, locations of the professional creation of beliefs and facts; generally universities and laboratories. Researchers within the citadels often fail to recognize that their work is mediated by social factors, or believe scientific knowledge is neutral in value. They consider themselves to be, in Traweek’s now-famous term, “cultures of no culture” (Beamtimes 162). Within these citadels of knowledge, information is teased out of the maw of nature through experimentation and is shared with members of the scientific community in other citadels before being released to the lay public.7 The analogy of the “rhizome” comes from botany; rhizomes are subterranean plant organs that connect different portion of the plant to each other. Rhizomes flow underground, sprouting new linkages and regrowing when old ones are severed, and from them new plants can sprout from the ground in locations far removed from the “mother” organism. In STS, the rhizome metaphor describes knowledge that is constructed and used outside the citadel walls. Rhizomes see the linkages between the citadel and the outside world, and the feedback system through which scientists and laypersons co-construct the complete realm of any belief or scientifically or technologically-influenced behavior. If Traweek’s physics laboratories are citadels, then the circulation and mutations of scientific ideas described by Rayna Rapp (1997) throughout a network of laboratories, conferences, clinics, hospitals, and individuals are a rhizomatic relationship. There are furthermore three main areas of research within anthropological STS, each with their own field sites, problematics, and research goals. They are l)The construction of knowledge, 2) The diffusion of knowledge and belief systems, and 3)The utilization and effects of technology on culture and society. All three of these Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 5 display a belief that the discourses of science and technology are important parts of modem society, and that science and technology both construct culture and are in turn products of it. The first of these three— the construction of scientific knowledge, is very much a citadel-based portion of the discipline. It is where modem STS began, and to which it was largely limited until anthropologists came along to break out of the walls of the laboratory. Still, it was also here that anthropological STS began with Traweek’s seminal Beamtimes and Lifetimes (1988). Traweek was able to “get away with” studying STS when she did because her research was actually a cross-cultural study (i.e. it did not “merely” study science in Western society): it compared physicists at Tsukuba Science City in Japan and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California. But Traweek’s work examined the different laboratory cultures of the two societies, but not how the knowledge generated was taken outside the laboratory; she never did more than barely peer over the wall of the citadel. Still, laboratory studies are to this day (barely) the basis of STS. In addition to Traweek, and Latour and Woolgar’s (1978) studies, similar work was done by Knorr-Cetina (1983), Lynch, Livingston, and Garfinkel (1983), Callon (1986), and others. The basic issues these studies deal with are the construction of the practices through which scientific knowledge is created. Some study the methods through which scientists are indoctrinated into the world of science and the laboratory environment, or the methodologies used for securing data (Traweek, Latour and Woolgar, Latour, Lynch et. al., and Downey and Lucena). What these researchers found was that methods are not as uniform across disciplines as they were once thought to be. Even the much-vaunted “scientific method” varies in application from discipline to discipline. Instead, each science has its own standards of proof and approved methods for disseminating and discussing knowledge. Even within each discipline, it was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 discovered that there were significant differences between researchers functioning within different national cultures of science (Traweek Beamtimes: Hess Science and Technology 50). Other researchers studying the methods of dissemination— in particular Collins and Pinch (1993) and Deborah Heath (1997)— angered scientists by suggesting that compromise was the end adjudicator of what a scientific “fact” was. What these researchers have discovered is that the world of science is just as contested as any other aspect of society, and that just as with any other belief system, while the practices of each scientific discipline are internally logically consistent, each group in reality follows its own reasoning to justify its disparate range of individual practices. Moreover, belief in a unitary “scientific” method of producing, proving, and disseminating knowledge was shown to be false— a serious blow to the universalistic conception of science held by many scientists and laypeople. Studies and researchers that concentrate on the diffusion of knowledge and belief systems constitute the second major area of STS research. Though closely related to the studies of science just mentioned, this area of the field is also significantly different in its basic theoretical underpinnings, choice of field sites, and issues of concern. This is the area of the rhizome. Rhizomatic research seeks to understand knowledge production outside the realm of the citadel. Here we find, for example, Emily Martin investigating AIDS research and beliefs in the laboratory, but also in clinics and Baltimore homes (1994) and Rayna Rapp doing similar work with amniocentesis (1997). This area of research suggests the importance of “unofficial” forms of knowledge production. As Traweek notes, there can be objects such as a map, a practice such as vaccination, a technology like the telephone, or a concept such as germ theory or the Big Bang, but what happens to these once they leave the citadel? While researchers within the citadels try to make sense of the practices in the professional Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 7 world inside the bounded “culture of no culture,” rhizomatic investigations ask how the public and its culture adopts and adapts these products of the scientific endeavor. It is here amongst the rhizomes that we also find studies of media (Broghton; Delaney; Halleck) and education (Levidow; Fensham; Thomas; Burnham; Downey and Lucena). These seek to understand how the public ingests and interprets scientific principles, often to the puzzlement of scientists and engineers (“why don’t people want a videophone?” “How come African-Americans see AIDS or immunization as a government sterilization plot?”). While the seeming irrationality of the public apparently mystifies scientists unable to imagine social systems where logic is not the guiding factor, STS researchers often find ethnographic reasons specific to certain cultural milieu that can help explain these behaviors. That is one of the aims of this dissertation~to suggest one way in which the media contributes to a growing rift between the way scientists and the public view the scientific endeavor. The most comprehensive rhizomatic works, however— especially Martin’s (1994) and Tourney’s (1996) go significantly further. Martin’s Flexible Bodies (1994) examines the social construction of the AIDS epidemic, from the laboratory to the government office, in the street clinics, and local homes. She examines not only the creation of knowledge by the AIDS researchers and the dissemination of that knowledge by the clinics, but the interpretations made about AIDS by the patients and the public. She then takes the questions of immunological scientific knowledge even further by studying the evolving nature of the public understanding of immunology and immune system functioning over the last forty years, culminating in current “alternative” beliefs and the idea of the “flexible body” (143). She then takes the analysis another step further, and explains those beliefs not only in terms of the interpretation of biological scientific data, but the entire socio-historical context of the beliefs, and the other, external (to the scientific community) factors that shape those Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 beliefs. For example, in the 1950s as domesticity became increasingly valued and the international arena became increasingly hostile as a result of the cold war, metaphors of bounded, castle-like defensive immune systems became de rigeur (Flexible Bodies 32). With the introduction of the late capitalist term “flexible accumulation” in the 1980s, the idea of flexibility in all sorts of social and natural systems became routine knowledge, and the idea of the immune system as a series of limited but still flexible components came into being in the public imagination and popular media (Flexible Bodies 40). Chris Tourney’s Conjuring Science: Scientific Symbols and Cultural Meanings in American Life tackles the conflict in belief systems that characterizes the spread of scientific knowledge, and analyses the place of science in American culture along with the symbols used to “conjure” the irrefutable authority of scientific knowledge. Tourney takes as his subject the conflict over fluoridation of public water supplies, the arguments of “creation scientists,” Lyndon LaRouche’s campaign for Proposition 64 (classification of AIDS as a casually transmitted disease and mandatory testing of public workers), and the very public scientific fiasco of cold fusion. He uses these disparate examples of science in American life to examine how scientists and medical researchers struggle for the hearts and minds of the public, and how they go about establishing their authority as purveyors of what turns out to be one worldview (the “official” scientific one, which they see as unitary, though Traweek and others previous described have proven it was not) among many. Tourney discovers that certain symbols are used to generate and represent scientific authority (these symbols include everything from rational methodology to white lab coats), and examines the methods which scientists and other public purveyors of their knowledge must utilize in order to defend against their attackers— LaRouche, Creationists, anticommunist conspiracy antifloridation buffs, etc. Later in this chapter, a different aspect of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 9 Toumey’s argument— the existence of multiple models of belief in science— will be explained, and proposed as a theoretical framework for understanding how media images impact the existence (and thus the practice) of real-world science. Tourney and Martin, and indeed all of the STS researchers mentioned, recognize that scientific dogma and its acceptance into society are not as unproblematic as scientists would believe. The spread of scientific knowledge is a contested domain, and like any indigenous culture introduced to new, external ideas, those ideas are integrated into the society in a mediated way. Burnham (1987) suggests that science has “lost” the war for people’s minds because superstition is rampant and pseudoscience is allowed to exist. This would only really be the case if science was the singular belief option open to people; instead there are actually a myriad of belief systems. The interesting part is that though they appear to be mutually exclusive, they actually are not. A person can believe in germ theory or quantum mechanics, and still believe in angels and UFOs (a cynic would suggest this proves human behavior is irrational). Though scientists often are incredulous at this, there is still the interesting fact that many, many professional, practicing scientists are church-going, religious individuals (Shermer 132). Finally, there is the study of technology and society. Though this should be distinguished from STS investigations into science, aside from the fact that technology studies and science studies often (though not always) have the same general subject population— Westemized or industrial societies— the two are also linked because technology is seen as the material culture of scientific research, or as Hess describes it, “materially embodied knowledge about how to create effects with artifacts” (Science and Technology 1). In much the same way as citadel-based construction of knowledge research and rhizome-based diffusion and construction of knowledge research blend into each other, the latter often bleeds into technology studies, because it is often Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70 through technology that scientific ideas are materialized or transmitted, as illustrated in Rapp’s work on amniocentesis (1994) and sonograms (1997). Technology studies generally involve medical or reproductive technologies, communication media studies of one form or another, or examinations of indigenous societies and technology. Technologists, often taking their cues from Langdon Winner’s “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” (1986), study the manner in which cultural practices are created through and around technology, and the way technologies can embody certain political or ideological motivations. Though the gradations are not as severe as in other members of the STS community, there is a vague breakdown between these two approaches; the former leaning towards social determinism, and the latter towards a technologically deterministic viewpoint. Technologists often function through the paradigm of cyborg theory or anthropology (Downey, et. al, 1993), which suggests that examining technology is an important portion of understanding modem society (and culture in general), and that because humans are “really” cyborgs— hybrid creatures of biology and technology— through creations and recreations of technology, we have the opportunity to intervene in how we choose to construct ourselves. Medical technologists (often medical anthropologists) examine these issues from the standpoint of the impact, acceptance, and effects of biomedical technology. Martin’s Flexible Bodies touches on aspects of this, but perhaps the best exemplar of these researchers is Rayna Rapp, whose exhaustive studies of amniocentesis, sonograms, and DNA testing have examined an entire range of cultural practices centered on reproductive technologies. Rapp has viewed possible political or gendered influences on reproductive technology, as well as the differential acceptance and understanding of technologies among women of differing social and ethnic backgrounds. The method in which women conceptualize not only their own health and the ramifications of these procedures, but different methods of comprehending and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71 utilizing the same data sets, proves that culture acts as a filter for scientific data or “facts”. Technologists who study media often fall under the rubric of “cyber anthropologists,” studying the ways in which computers or other media and information technologies are loci for the production and reproduction of culture and community. The early work in this field by anthropologists was done by Turkle (1984), Hakken and Andrews (1993), and Bmckman (1993), but newer research has continued and occasionally expanded upon that work, including studies by Turkle (1995), Heikkila and Colnic (1998), Ito (1994), and Frank (1995, 1996,1998). Turkle, Hakken, Zuboff, Heikkila and Colnic, and Kling and Iacono examine the roles computers place in the “real” world; how they influence cultures of work and play (Hakken, Zuboff, Kling and Iacono), children’s socialization with technology (Turkle 1996; Daiute), and occasionally, as a method for organizing political or social change (Heikkila and Colnic, Ribeiro). In these studies, computers and technology are generally found to be altering some aspects of daily life and economic activity, but often not as radically as is frequently believed (by either pro-technology boosters) or feared (by Postmanian neo-Luddites). In fact, while none display a doubt that computers have significantly altered behavior and capabilities in some areas, several of these researchers doubt the very existence of a “computer revolution” (Hakken, Kling and Iacnono). Cyberanthropologists examine the way culture is produced and reproduced over and through computer networks. Early works concentrated on justifying the existence of ethnographically valid field sites in cyberspace (Rheingold 1993; Bruckman 1993; and Frank 1993); but current work focuses far more on the costs and benefits of participation in these systems, relationships between online and offline worlds and activities, and the deeper theoretical and methodological/disciplinary concerns that their Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72 existence raises. By focusing on the connections enabled by these technologies, cyberanthropologists often deal with the creation and roles of social networks, the origins of communal space, ideologies and ideas, and the flexible, interwoven fields of identity, cultural identity, and self. For example, Frank (1996) examined the advent and effects of power and authority in online social systems, questioning the structure of power in media communities and the “natives’” ability to use, abuse, and react to those structures. Finally, there are indigenous uses of modem technology, especially new forms of media. Early work focused purely on the material culture of native people, but more modem work deals with the effect of imported technologies on specific cultures and the use native cultures make of imported technologies. An early example of this sort of research can be found among the contributors of the volume Cultural Patterns and Technical Change, edited by Margaret Mead in 1955. Current research extends to the in-depth analysis of numerous “microtechnologies” on indigenous people and their uses as tools of oppression and resistance. Turner’s examination of Kayapo uses of video or Pfaffenberger’s on irrigation problems in Sri Lanka are additional examples. One particularly detailed study was Pertti Pelto’s excellent book The Snowmobile Revolution, detailing the impact of snowmobiles on Skolt Laps in Finland. Pelto’s work is a valiantly comprehensive look at the wide-ranging impact of the introduction of a new industrial technology to a group of traditionally low-tech herders. The book examines everything from the changes wrought to reindeer herds to the increasingly complex external ties needed to maintain the snowmobiles. Throughout, Pelto showcases the idea that technological changes invariably effect increasing portions of a society, as a single artifact becomes a foothold for others (for example, possessing a snowmobile also means possessing the infrastructure to refuel and repair it). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 3 Another superb example is Claudio Aporta’s (1999) work among the Inuit of Igloolik. Aporta’s ethnography focuses on the introduction of Global Positioning Technology (GPS) to the Inuit, the cultural separation that begins to develop between those who use the GPS systems to navigate, and those who retain the traditional oral tradition for learning navigation. Aporta’s work is notable for the steady anthropolgical gaze he is able to direct at both groups: while hardly triumphing the introduction of new technology, he refuses to simply demonize it, either; valiantly resisting the tendency of anthropologists to cheer for the failure of new technology in traditional settings.8 Often, these studies are relatively simplistically focused either on the problems that integration of foreign technologies brings, or heartwarming stories of indigenous people’s use of Western politics and technology to resist the further encroachment of outside politics and technology. The most important guiding concept for all these researchers, no matter whether they study physicists or Indians, locate their fieldwork in a laboratory, cyberspace, or a yam garden, is the principle that the production, diffusion, and utilization of scientific knowledge and technology are culturally influenced (and culturally constructed) activities and processes. Counter arguments and the “Science Wars” Unsurprisingly, there is not universal academic agreement or support for the project of Science and Technology Studies. The idea that science is a value-neutral endeavor— a “culture of no culture”— is a mainstay of the scientific disciplines. When this view is questioned, the subculture defends its practices and beliefs as any would, striking back at those who are deemed “anti-science” and more reactively, “the academic left” (Gross and Levitt 2); thus the so-called “Science Wars.” This Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 4 defensive posturing came to a head in the mid 1990’s, with the publication of Gross and Levitt’s Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (1994) in the U.S., and a public debate between historian of science H.M. Collins and biologist Lewis Wolpert at the 1994 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Rose 52; see also Wolpert). Many STS researchers pay scant attention to the debate, if only due to the ludicrous nature of some of the claims. But, aside from being an uncharacteristically vituperative stance on behalf of some scientists (ibid. 57), if we as anthropologists or STS researchers want the scientists who are in an important position to change their practices to do so, they must be engaged and understood, not counterattacked or ignored. As Hilary Rose suggests, the Science Wars do not characterize the view of all scientists towards STS (indeed, laboratory ethnographies by Traweek, Latour, and Knorr-Cetina are often endorsed by the scientists), nor even all STSers— early researchers, particularly Kuhn and Merton, seem explicitly “pro-science”— that is, taking the view that science is a positive force linked to inherent progress. Yet emnity still exists. What causes these defensive arguments? Why are some scientists so vehement about resisting the conclusions of STS? Partly, this can no doubt be attributed to an expected resistance to critiques of any deeply held disciplinary beliefs. Anthropology, too, is not without reactionary voices when its methods and subjects are interrogated. Rather, I would suggest it is because these studies go against the absolute root of the cultural beliefs that scientists hold about themselves: that their endeavor is universal, that it is the only demonstrative way of determining “true” facts about the world, and that as true, these facts— and thus the methods used to discover them— are value-neutral. As with any culture whose deepest held beliefs are challenged (or think they are— the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 5 misapprehensions of many of these critiques will be examined), the scientists go on an offensive defense. Though the voices of the science wars are numerous, the loudest belong to Gross and Levitt and Richard Dawkins.9 Each is an ardent defender of the other, and each specializes in one of the two main arguments of the “pro-science” side. Gross and Levitt speak out against the political nature and ideological stance of STS researchers, while Dawkins is a particularly vociferous opponent of the concept of relativism. In a pleasantly ironic twist, however, both of their arguments can be countermanded not only by the prevailing evidence in the field, but critique from a man each would likely assume to be an ally— Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic magazine and a skeptic who, in the grand tradition, is unwilling to let anybody— even scientists-get away with “thinking gone wrong” (45). In Why People Believe Weird Things (1997) Shermer outlines 25 flaws in common arguments used by scientists, psychologists, and most importantly (for him) pseudoscientists. Shermer calls this section “How Thinking Goes Wrong.”1 0 The attacks of Gross, Levitt, Dawkins, and others (Wolpert, for example) all come under the scrutiny of this litany of sloppy arguments. Gross and Levitt’s incredibly political Higher Superstition for example, bases many of its attacks on the fallacy of the ad hominem (Shermer 56). Ad hominem attacks involve discrediting claimants in order to discredit the claim. For example, Gross and Levitt’s “Academic Left” is a hodgepodge of “postmodernist” academics with a forceful political agenda— where feminism means “more than full juridical equality for women, more than income parity and equal access to careers, more than irrevocable ‘reproductive rights.’ It means, in fact, a complete overthrow of traditional gender categories” (1994: 3); racial justice “does not mean the peaceful assimilation of blacks into the dominant culture, but the forging of any entirely new culture, in which ‘black’ (or ‘African’) values...will have Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 6 at least equal standing with ‘white’ values” (ibid.), and environmentalism “extends far beyond concrete measures to eliminate pollution, or to avoid extinction of species and elimination of habitants. Rather it envisions a transcendence of the values of Western industrial society and the restoration of an imagined prelapsarian harmony to humanity’s relations with nature” (1997: 4). Aside from the painting of “leftists” in only the most extreme light, Gross and Levitt do not seem to object to the critiques or projects of STS so much for what they say or mean in and of themselves, but because they are tools for an attempted takeover of the academic order by fringe leftist revolutionaries. While making repeated side notes attempting to presume reflexive relativism on their own part (i.e., “there are countless academics who do excellent and penetrating work, in appropriate fields [italics mine] from a left-wing viewpoint” (9)), their critiques actually maintain a very strong essentializing and generalizing approach. Their analysis encompasses four sociologists to condemn STS, four feminists (or feminist anthropologists actually)~including Sandra Harding and Donna Haraway— to discredit feminist readings of science, and three environmentalists to stand trial for the entire movement.1 1 Gross and Levitt further attempt to discredit all non-scientists who discuss science with further ad hominem attacks. In a typical example, they note “tirades about the semiotic tyranny of DNA and molecular biology, from scholars who have never been inside a real laboratory, or asked how the drug they take lowers their blood pressure” (6). While it may not be the place of an anthropologist to question the logic of a mathemetician or biologist, it seems odd to suggest that a researcher must be an expert on human circulatory medicine in order to propose that the Human Genome Project has potentially wide-ranging social effects. However, Gross and Levitt, no matter what else they may be, are not sloppy. They do eventually engage some of the actual beliefs and publications of their “opponents.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 7 However, nearly all their conclusions come from obviously ideological misreadings of the texts they study; they are critiques by people who seem not to truly understand the nature or claims of what they are critiquing. As Higher Superstition is 257 pages long, it would take a prohibitive amount of time and space to detail even a tenth of these misreadings, so I shall choose one, and leave it to the reader to find others, if they wish. Gross and Levitt spend pages 126-130 deconstructing a quote from Sandra Harding’s The Science Question in Feminism. The excerpt is: Would not physics benefit from asking why a scientific world view with physics as its paradigm excludes the history of physics from its recommendation that we seek causal explanation of everything in the world around us? Only if we insist that science is analytically separate from social life can we maintain the fiction that explanation of irrational social belief and behavior could not ever, even in principle, increase our understanding of the world physics explains. Gross and Levitt’s reading draws the following conclusions about what Harding means: “lJWestem society is in some measure rooted in assumptions about the differences in worth and ability between men and women. 2.)These are irrational and harmful beliefs. 3.)Such beliefs permeate all our social institutions and all aspects of our belief systems. 4.)Therefore even physics is biased and distorted by the ineluctable influence of these irrational beliefs, and therefore 5.)Analysis of this root-and-branch unreason will lead eventually to clarification and rectification, even of the recondite world of physics” (1994: 129-130). However, a more reasoned reading (especially if one understands Harding’s work and other contextual material) is significantly less polemical and disturbing: (I now paraphrase) should not a discipline (physics) based upon seeking causal understanding be interested in understanding itself? It is only if we categorically renounce any ties between science and society that we can also deny that anthropology and other social sciences can ever help us understand the world.1 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78 While Gross and Levitt attack “the enemy’s” (34) politically motivated research, Richard Dawkins, sociobiologist, attacks the STS concept of relativism, which he clearly considers the basis of constructionist standpoints (I do not regard this as true, as will be noted later on). This does not come as a great surprise— as a sociobiologist to the Nth degree, Dawkins does not consider culture overly important in describing human behavior at all. If our genes can explain as complex a social behavior as altruism (Dawkins’ most famous sociobiological argument, from The Selfish GeneL then how can we possibly imagine that cultural behavior can influence science? The preceding sentence would sound like the exact kind of fallacy I am about to accuse Dawkins of, except that it isn’t— he seriously holds this viewpoint. Dawkins logical fallacy is of the type known as Reductio ad Absurdum. “Reductio ad Absurdum is the refutation of an argument by carrying the argument to it logical end and so reducing it to an absurd conclusion. Surely if an argument’s consequences are absurd, it must be false” (Shermer 58). In this case, I choose from among many example Dawkins’ most famous anti-relativist argument: “Show me a cultural relativist at thirty thousand feet and I will show you a hypocrite. Airplanes built according to scientific principles work” (1994: 17; cited from Franklin 1995). The witty retort comes from Sarah Franklin: “Show me a person who denies that airplane design is a highly organized human social activity and I’ll show you an unreconstructed objectivist” (173). As Franklin points out, any belief structure so absolute in its beliefs that it equates “airplanes work” with “I am right” is begging for critical cultural analysis. Obviously, relativism in STS does not literally indicate that the produced facts of scientific endeavor are, in and of themselves, false. It does not imply that scientific knowledge per se is essentially relative; the gravitational constant remains the same no matter who measures it. But the historical context in which that observation or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79 discovery was made, and what professionals and laypeople do with it, are subjects for anthropological inquiry. While it is true that some STS researchers conceive of science itself as a social problem (Restivo) and many problematize the type of knowledge that is produced, and the ideologies or cultural practices that knowledge supports, STS researchers do not deny the existence of objective facts that come about as a result of repetitive experimentation and demonstration. Perhaps the closest researchers to whom Dawkins’ extreme relativists bear resemblance are Collins and Pinch, whose book The Golem: What Everyone Should Know About Science takes the view that the facts that end up being produced are actually a carefully constructed compromise of the facts found by different researchers through scientific experimentation. In an effort to appease critics, STS researchers with ideological stances should not rescind those stances. About the best we can do is to recognize the nature of the reactionary “proscience” scholars and attempt to learn from their arguments better methods through which we can engage other scientists in the practice and results of our work. Methodological Problematics and Probable Futures in Anthro STS In “Science as Culture, Cultures of Science,” Sarah Franklin quotes Annette Weiner’s Presidential Address at the 1993 American Anthropological Association meetings (163). In her call for a refashioning of anthropology to better engage “postmodern culture,” Weiner suggested that the anthropology of science is a theoretical and methodological prototype for the future of the rest of the academy.1 3 The problematics in STS anthropological work arise from the particular nature of the subject under study. Since we are in a sense continuing a grand tradition of anthropological analysis— interrogating science as a belief system— it is tempting to say Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80 that we should treat our studies of it as we would any other anthropological exercise. But particle physics is not Maori shamanism, and the training of a chemical engineer does not embody the same practices as the training of a !Kung-san hunter. Studying science and technology incurs a number of effects: l.)the prospect of “studying up,” 2.)Native “interference”: as we study Western groups, our subjects read our works and begin their own interventions into our intervention; and 3.)Working with the problems encountered in studying our own society, or aspects of it. Opinions differ whether or not doing research in the anthropologist’s own society makes the researcher too close (Traweek 1988) or grants them further insight (Rapp 1994). Weiner’s point is that while these may be common problems within current STS research, they are problems that are growing within the rest of the anthropological academy as well. STS anthropology is in a sense a testing ground for anthropology in an increasingly transnational and industrialized world. This makes it important for all anthropologists to understand the methods through which STSers have engaged these problematics and to take a closer look at where the subdiscipline seems to be heading. Studying up One of the first problems we find in the literature, “studying up” was originally noted by Laura Nader (1972); STS anthropologists later appropriated it through Traweek and Martin (1996). Studying up involves taking as subjects a group that for whatever reason is in a stronger societal position than the researcher. This concept obviously plays on imperialist notions of past anthropologists, where it was assumed the Westernized researchers (as agents of the imperialistic society) were in a position of power vis-a-vis their subjects. In studying up, the question is more open: who is in the colonial role? (Traweek “Eliza Dolittle” 39). Traweek, for example, notes that the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 physicists she studies have more power than anthropologists in our society by almost every measure~“intellectually, financially, politically, and socially” (“Eliza Dolittle” 37). Though her definition of “power” deserves some scrutiny, there is little doubt that in American society, physicists earn more money than anthropologists, or that, aside from origins research, their work more popularly captures the public’s imagination and support. In any case, the subjects of most STS research do share one thing in common— as participants in the technoscientific world, they are perfectly capable of reacting to our work as it happens— or closely thereafter. In extreme cases, subjects, such as Traweek’s physicsts, can question if social scientists are doing “real” research at all; after all, unlike (they perceive) their physical sciences, our research is riddled with qualitative data and subjectivity (“Eliza Dolittle” 39). A more common “problem” is that our subjects are familiar with the results and uses of our work (we use it as a tool for promotions, prestige, to earn a Ph.D., etc.) which can influence their interactions with the researcher. Furthermore, especially given that many STS subjects work in academic or technologic fields, they can and do gain access to the written results— in journals, ethnographies, etc. (Downey et. al, 1997: 249). This fact has a number of discernible effects. The most prosaic is informants who act as reflexivity-meters; commenting on the researchers’ work, offering suggestions, encouragement, or condemnation. A more destructive result is when the subjects explicitly view our research as counter to their interests or the interests of “knowledge” and decide to intervene in our interventions. Intervention, as will be discussed later, is one of the most explicitly articulated goals of anthropological STS; it is the title of one of the first STS anthropology papers ever presented at the meetings of the American Anthropological Association, and a basis of the book Cyborgs and Citadels that came out of the 1993 SAR advanced seminar on STS in anthropology.1 4 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82 Briefly, intervention refers to the use of STS research to first analyze, then participate in (i.e. change), the structures of imperialism, domination, sexism, etc. that permeate technoscientific society (Downey and Dumit 10). Of course, what occurs is that these anthropologists run up against significantly well-informed— and defensive — subjects. Thus the Science Wars, a counter-intervention. This reaction should not be unexpected, as discussed earlier in the discussion of the Science Wars. It would be far more surprising if societies happily embraced a group of anthropologists attempting to engineer their belief systems for the anthropologists’ moral or political agenda. The “problem” of subjects reading and reacting to anthropologists’ works is hardly unheard of in the rest of the academy (see the cover photograph of Clifford, 1988 for a dramatic representation). However, it does not partake of the commonality of the problem within STS anthropology. I imagine (and apparently so did Annette Weiner) that soon, it will. As our work becomes more easily available to more people, and given the increasing technoscientific encroachment around the world, I imagine the prospect of dealing with subjects who read our work outside the control or knowledge of the anthropologist will become a common one throughout the academy, with the myriad of repercussions for the practice of our profession that entails. Studying in Our Own Society It is a common misconception that STSers are generally “native anthropologists”- -members of the society they study. This presupposes a number of false assumptions: l.)That all STSers study Western technoscientific societies. As we saw there are a number who deal with indigenous technologies or use of Western technology (in, for example, Hess, 1995 and Pelto, 1973), and 2.)That anthropologists are by default Western in background. This is an obviously untrue statement, and the problematics of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 studying anthropology as an Other have been intriguingly engaged by Lila Abu- Lughod (1991), Jose Limon (1991), Edward Said (1978) and Ganath Obeyesekere (1992). On the other hand, it is not a stretch to say that the majority of anthropological STS researchers are Westerners, and study societies with which they at some level share a familiar cultural bond. This breeds its own set of problems, both in prosaic terms like funding and teaching appointments, and in more private, serious ethical and theoretical problematics of objectivity/subjectivity, emic/etic research, and distancing. Some, both within and without the field, claim that many of the “cultures” being studied are not “strange” enough, and without cultural distance between the researcher and the researched, it is impossible to identify cultural assumptions within a community (Traweek Beamtimes). Kath Weston, a non-STS anthropologist studying American culture, notes that native ethnographers implicate their own culture in power relations, and relates the difficulty of the native anthropologist getting funding and appointments to biases and structures that limit the title of “real anthropology” to that which is sufficiently geographically or culturally distant. On the opposite end of the spectrum, others embrace the ability to be so fully emergent within the culture being studied and the deeper understanding it can bring (Rapp “Methodology”). However, even the latter academics understand the danger in allowing fieldwork to “bleed in” to what would be, if they were conducting fieldwork in a foreign land, daily “outside” life (ibid.). Anthropologists who are particularly concerned with this seem to be the ones who follow the Rhizome rather than Citadel approach to STS research, because these researchers investigate nodes of knowledge production not as explicitly separated from the layperson’s subjective, un-scientific world (i.e. “daily life”); they have greater difficulties separating fieldwork from home life. There are clearly methodological dangers inherent in studying even a distinct subset of one’s own culture. However, given current reflexively-generated understandings of anthropological research, there Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84 seems to be at least some truth to Joanne Passaro’s claim that “objectivity is not a function of distance, and otherness is not a geographical given but a theoretical stance” (153). A further difficulty arises because STS anthropology tends to deal with non- traditional subject groups. This includes western societies, corporations, hospitals, laboratories, virtual communities on the Internet— even universities. Calling these cultural spaces nontraditional interrogates what anthropologists generally mean by “traditional.” It is not too far a stretch to suggest that the “traditional” subject of ethnographic inquiry is conceived of as a village or group in a semi-industrial country, a group that is a discrete “population,” with its own “culture” that can be understood through protracted observation1 5 (See Clifford; Clifford and Marcus). Anthropologists involved in STS, then, are caught in either a new conception of who our subjects can be, or a tangled problematic of traditional disciplinary mores. Who is a “native” of the laboratory, or the Internet? STS ethnographic narratives rarely begin with Geertzian cockfight stories, or tales of four-day overland jungle treks. Traditional natives have not only a geographic tie to the title but a deeply embedded cultural one as well. I was bom in Washington, D.C., and will forever be a marked as a “native” of that city. Though to an ethnographer studying Los Angeles, because I live in L.A, I might seem a native of Los Angeles, to a person bom here, I am forever marked as an Other, an “East Coaster.” Though our conception of native is of course not simply tied to the tyranny of birthplace, in anthropology it is deeply embedded in our notions of “other’ and “self.” Home is where we (or I), the anthropologist live; the field is where the Other, our subjects, “the natives” live; in traditional disciplinary constructions, they cannot be the same. For STS anthropologists however, they are one and the same, or can be; granted most researchers do not physically live in a laboratory, on the Internet, or at an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85 AIDS clinic, but neither do their subjects. At the end of the day, these anthropologists return to homes or hovels, or perhaps join their subjects taking a cross-town bus in the opposite (or same) direction. Very often STSers live in the same society as their subjects, but not the same culture— for in order to study them the subjects must be bounded in some shroud that sets their lives apart from the researchers’. Ethnography is based on an us/them dichotomy, and it is necessary to separate how STS anthropologists can say they are studying anyone sufficiently different from themselves if they live in the same geographic area or at similar socio-economic strata. STS forces researchers to reconcile the geographic and part of the cultural nature of that split. To maintain the traditional sense of subject and native that is such an integral part of anthropology, STSers categorize their subjects as members of a larger Western, or American, or Japanese, or whatever society; and locate the settings in which they are found as subcultures, or groups located within but somehow apart from the mainstream of society. In any case, as more Others become anthropologists, transnational culture flows bring societies together in hybridized forms, and as anthropologists increasingly study Western technoscientific society, these problems will likely be transformed from peculiar theoretical and methodological conundrums to a standard part of the discipline-wide fieldwork experience. Wither STS? Prospects and Futures In 1993 the School of American Research sponsored an Advanced Seminar titled “Cyborg Anthropology,” which brought together most of the big names in current STS anthropology; the pioneers (Haraway, Rabinow), most cited (Haraway), and the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86 most active (Hess and Dumit, both of whom have severed as presidents of CASTAC), among others. One of the main themes around which the seminar was arranged was the concept of “intervention.” Writing on behalf of their fellow seminar participants in the book Cyborgs and Citadels (the published proceedings of the seminar), Joe Dumit and Gary Lee Downey wrote “We see a transition taking place in critical intellectual work, from opposing or praising techoscientific practices to intervention, from necessary entrenchment to ongoing participation” (10). In other words, mere analysis is not enough; as STS researchers who can both see and reveal the entrenched biases of power relations in science and technology, it is our duty to intervene— to participate in movements to change those practices, or formulate avenues of resistance to them. On the surface this may sound like a timeworn summons to activist anthropology, but a deeper analysis reveals a more subtle and revolutionary aspect that calls for a more careful examination of the meaning and ramifications encompassed by this concept. The first method of intervening involves the exposure of cultural boundaries of knowledge, of who and what can produce facts.1 6 By exposing boundaries, it is hoped that people enmeshed in them will understand where they stand, how they got there, and ways in which things could be reconstructed differently (i.e. more progressively) (Downey and Dumit 12). Martin’s (1994) work on AIDS is similarly identified, as should be Hess’ on alternative cancer therapies (1997) for articulating the existence of alternative theorizing— knowledge produced outside the accepted citadels. These interventions involve articulating those boundaries for the purpose (in theory) of dissolving or permeating them. A second form of intervention involves the refashioning of identity and self (Downey and Dumit 17). By examining methods through which self-identity is fashioned via science, technology, and medicine, one is supposedly empowered to re- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87 construct oneself in a more productive or positive way. These forms of intervention can influence how people’s self-images are constructed through medical technology (Dumit 1997), or how professional identity is performed, learned, and reified (Traweek 1997). Finally, Downey and Dumit suggest the ways in which interventions in the practice of anthropology itself are cmcial. Drawing upon Williams’ and Hess’ contributions, the suggestion of the need for a radical new interpretation of anthropology is made. “What if’ they wrote, “researchers devoted half their research time to theorizing and practicing interventions” (27). In this statement the seminar participants are at least practicing what they preach-if it is hue that “the pathway to intervention lie in identifying new patterns of conduct and then working to convince others of their value” (ibid.: 25) then the seminar participants have worked to see that the first part of the endeavor has certainly been achieved. The SAR seminar participants understand the nature of their position should the rest of the academy understand what they propose; throughout the seminar preceedings there are continual references to the “danger” of the endeavor (Downey and Dumit 12, 16, 18,24, 27). This is understood both as a theoretical danger— distancing oneself from the subjects, etc.— and an academic danger— critiquing one’s own colleagues, suggesting that their field is in need of revision. Of course, these interventions are being pursed with the purpose of counteracting existing informatics of domination (Haraway), and in this, it is an admirable endeavor. The methodologies through which this revolution in disciplinary consciousness will occur, however, seem tenuous at best. Many of these “interventions” seem to conclude (or conclude their analysis, anyway) at the level of consciousness-raising; it is assumed that if the mechanism of power is revealed, the intervention is successful. It is not made clear whether further action based on these revelations is required for an intervention to be considered Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88 fruitful. Generally, it seems that it isn’t. Perhaps we are to assume further action is at a later date; it is worth consideration that consciousness-raising is in and of itself, an activity that has a tremendous capability to enable conscious change, whether or not it actually does so or not. Perhaps the most intriguing active form of intervention is postulated by Downey and Lucena; “partner theorizing” (120). Partner theorizing seems to be a complex, flexible (ibid. 123) method for engaging academic debate while reducing agonistic content (ibid. 120). It involves seeking methods for factoring into one’s own thinking the views of others as legitimate (ibid. 123). The theory is that by doing this, we can move beyond a zero-sum academic game where one opinion or another is advanced in favor of “advancing or replacing the debate as a whole” (ibid. 125). Perhaps due to its theoretical pedigree, STS is a hyper-reflexive field; there is a surprisingly high number of comprehensive histories and introductions to the subdiscipline: Traweek (1993), Fuller (1993), Escobar (1994), Martin (1996), and Hess (1997) to name a few. STSers specialize in analyzing disciplines that construct knowledge; they rightfully feel it is negligent to exempt anthropology, or pretend that their discipline is not implicated in a similar endeavor (Downey and Dumit 26; Williams and Klemner 166; Hess “If you’re thinking” 163). The Future of STS Anthropology It is not surprising that each theorist conceives a different role for the future of the STS endeavor; the forms it should take and the problems it is to tackle. Looking at the sutures envisioned by Franklin, Fuller, and Hess, we see how each notes particular strengths and weaknesses, has particular concerns for the future, and that by synthesizing them all we gain a deeper understanding of the complexities inherent in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89 any academic discipline, especially a young one still seeking to discern its place in the world. Franklin supports the view that anthropology not only can intervene in scientific endeavors, but that permitting it to do so in the best interests of scientists, because it will eventually allow for “better science” (ibid. 179). It is not entirely clear what better science is, but given the flavor of the bulk of anthropological STS literature, it is most likely constructed as science stripped of the more aggregious modes of domination and exclusive power, while incorporating the STS-engendered discoveries on the dispersal of knowledge to make for a more directly effective science (that is, in terms of clearly relaying information directly to the public). Franklin empathizes with the resistance within the scientific community to STS scrutiny (ibid. 178), but clearly figures that eventually its members will succumb to the rational nature of the STS researcher’s recommendations. I have my doubts. In “If You’re thinking of Living in STS” David Hess states “I have...been constructing a vision of a field that not only theorizes but also does more about exclusion, marginalization, hierarchy, and difference [italics his] ” (“In you’re thinking” 163). Hess calls for investigations and interventions into the means through which science and technology embody inequalities of social difference and social justice (ibid. 9). Specifically citing his work as a departure from previous sociological literature which merely observed the process through which science constructs knowledge, Hess suggests (and by way of example demonstrates) how STSers can engage questions of power, politics, and non-western societies in studies of science and technology. Hess’ other major vision for the future of anthropological STS is the inclusion and examination of non-westem modes of scientific knowledge. Continuing with his activist intervention-based stance, Hess’ contention is that understanding the methods through which both Western and indigenous knowledges are constructed and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 0 enacted may help the members of those cultures resist Western imperialism and cultural domination (Science and Techologv 185). Fuller takes an exhaustive look at the many interwoven fields of STS in Philosophy. Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge. He suggests that STS is at a critical crossroads, with the potential to greatly influence the way science is practiced (24), but unable to answer the question: “what is STS good for?” (11). In other words, he believes that STS is unwilling to commit itself to taking a stand about the construction of knowledge. Downey and Dumbs’ intervention paradigm seems to be an answer to this call, but Fuller’s critical inquiry into the future of STS becomes more intense. Fuller’s book clearly considers analyzing different disciplines an important step in understanding the processes and findings of STS. Indeed, the subtitle of the book is “the coming of Science and Technology Studies.” Written in 1993, he suggested that STS must either become a discipline in its own right, or die. In fact what Fuller proposes is a discipline based on “ethnomethodology” and “social epistemology” (221). Fuller’s idea of ethnomethodology sounds intriguingly similar to the anthropologists’ convention of intervention— “intervening to improve the course of knowledge production” (6). Though Fuller’s view of anthropology seems somewhat limited to a discipline too concerned with internal problems to contribute to greater interdisciplinary endeavors (120), I think it is anthropological STS that best encompasses his vision for a prosperous STS discipline: an interventionist academy based on ethnological research. Earlier, the Citadel/Rhizome paradigm proposed by Emily Martin was discussed. However, ignored until this point has been the third term in what was originally a triumvirate of phrases that Martin proposed for conceptualizing STS research: “string figures” (“Citadels” 107). Whereas the citadels encompassed the sociological and early anthropological methods for conceptualizing STS research, and the rhizome Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 seems to be the predominating current model, Martin’s hope is that these string figures represent the future. A String Figure is more a metaphor for a process of discovering knowledge and working towards research than a metaphor that evokes the ways in which that research conceptualizes its findings. It is a call for a collaborative approach allowing for “strange bedfellows, odd combinations, discontinuous junctures” (ibid.). Martin suggests that it is only by allowing ourselves to submit to this postmodern academic condition that can we hope to understand the discontinuous and dynamically complex area where science and culture contend. Martin’s point is that this is the significant challenge for current anthropology dealing with STS concerns, and future anthropology engaged with the technoscientific world: is to understand the processes and practices through which diverse, dynamic and defragmented cultures are constituted (ibid.). Where does this lead Science and Technology Studies? Partly, STS anthropology will evolve with the interdisciplinary fields within which it is constructed: cultural anthropology, cultural studies, and critical theory. Within the subdiscipline, there is an undeniable theoretical swing towards engaging Martin’s rhizome model for conceptualizing knowledge and doing research, while Hess’ recent work points to the extension of STS beyond Western worlds, and into the ubiquitous cultural borderlands now being patrolled by anthropologists. The level to which this goes hand-in-hand with the posited imperative for intervention articulated by Downey, Dumit, Hess, Franklin, and Fuller remains to be seen. The success of the interventionist paradigm remains to be proven, and results— if they are apparent at all (no guarantees)— will not appear for some time to come: years certainly, decades perhaps. Some of the “simpler” forms of intervention— uncovering boundaries within knowledge production and dissemination, for example-are already being practiced, though it is difficult to tell where they will lead. The field of anthropological STS is, by almost any measure, still Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92 less than a decade old. Of the five proposed independent CAST AC meetings, three were successful, one preemptively canceled due to lack of participation, and the third semi-sucessfully concluded (low-attendence, low involvement); disciplinary trends are difficult to discern given so few data points. There are, however, clear trends towards increasing interest in STS within the academy (Franklin 168; Downey and Dumit 7). Aside from Weiner’s presidential AAA address, there are growing numbers of increasingly visible programs at a number of universities, including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech. “Corridor Talk” (Downey, Dumit, and Traweek) lists 28 American universities with interdisciplinary STS programs (261) and 35 departments of anthropology or sociology with an “interest” in the study of science, technology, and medicine1 7 (ibid.; see also Franklin 166). At the same time, new scientific paradigms and technologies will obviously have disciplinary repercussions. For example the increase in STS research into media technologies that coincides with the transnational spread of media technologies and the Internet. Within anthropology, STS has now almost become mainstream. Its basic ideas— that the practice of science is a cultural activity, and that the discourses of science are tremendously influential in society, have almost achieved the level of doxa; even many scientists, originally skeptical, now believe them. This dissertation is intended to fit within that movement towards uncovering the linkages between some of the most scrutinized public institutions (the mass media) and the belief system in which those institutions exist (science). If science is a cultural activity, how does culture affect it? If the discourses of science are so imporant, how do those discourses reach the general public, and what does the public do with them? While these questions are too broad to be answered in their entirety, it is hoped that by illuminating one aspect of science in American culture— how and where it appears in entertainment media— a deeper Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93 understanding of some of the culture forces and structures surrounding scientific knowledge can be revealed. Lessons from Science Studies The findings of STS researchers cited in this chapter force us to question the understanding of science shown at its beginning. Not abandoning it— in fact, these ideas make it more complex: science exists not just in the lab but everywhere in society; local knowledges contribute to science and vice-versa; science, protestations to the contrary (and counter to the best attempts of its practitioners) is not completely free of social values and biases— even good science. These are questions of relativism and belief systems, science as ideology (and reflecting ideologies), and of one of the prime competitors of science in America— pseudoscience (claims that have the appearence of science without actually being subjected to its hmitations— experiments, peer review, etc.) In the early 1990s proponents of scientism and relativism clashed in a series of vehement intellectual debates called “the Science Wars.” Sandra Harding was a favorite target of critics like Gross and Levitt, rooting out the “academic left” that was challenging science with “anti-science.” Geneticist Richard Dawkins became an outspoken proponent of a radical scientistic worldview, and questioned not just the findings but the mindset of STSers that could question the social neutrality of scientific facts. Contrariwise, STS researcher Sal Restivo called science “a social problem,” suggesting that as the product of an alienated human spirit, it was the cause of a number of modem social inequalities. At stake in these wars was the question “is science a (the) true way of looking at the world, or merely one belief system among many?” The best reponse, it seems likely, is along the lines that Sandra Harding or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 4 David Hess have suggested— science is indeed one belief system among many, but it does offer the possibility of a unique relationship with nature and whatever might be called “reality.” 1 See Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch, The Golem: What Everyone Should Know About Science. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) for an overview and Deborah Heath, “Bodies, Antibodies, and Modest Interventions.” Cyborgs and Citadels: Anthropological Interventions in Emerging Sciences and Technologies, in Gary Lee Downey and Joseph Dumit, eds. (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1997) 67-82 and Sharon Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High-Energy Physicists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988) for specific instances. 2 Cosmos is widely regarded as the most popular science program ever broadcast, having been seen by four hundred million people (Davidson 318). Contact was one of Sagan’s works of fiction, depicting the discovery of extraterrestrial life by a radioastronomer. It was later made into a successful film of the same name. 3 And in fact, it is this very universality of science (enabling internationalism) that often threatens governments, who frequently view the free exchange of scientific information as counter to national secutiry or interest. This happens both in totalitarian regimes (see Paul R. Josephson, Totalitarian Science and Technology (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1996) and democratic ones (Diana L.L. Hill “Trust But Verify: Science and Policy Negotiating Nuclear Testing Treaties— Interviews with Roger Eugene Hill” in Technoscientific Imaginaries: Conversations. Profiles, and Memoirs. George E. Marcus, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) 229-254. 4 In a field so concerned with the production of knowledge as a belief system, it is not surprising that so many researchers find its’ genesis in the founding of academic disciplines. 5 This is official as in “officially sanctioned scientific knowledge” as opposed to the production of knowledge in lay networks among the public, the study of which has only recently emerged. 6 Despite the title “laboratory ethnographies,” the earlier works of Latour, Woolgar, and other sociologists used a superficial form of ethnography lacking some of the deep interpersonal relationships and participant observation that classify anthropological ethnographies as such, though they sometimes claimed (as Woolgar did in 1991) that their form was superior, with Woolgar even doubting that “actual” anthropologists had anything positive to bring to the field of STS! Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95 7 Perhaps ironically, STS work often reinforces this separation of scientists in their Ivory tower citadels; laboratory ethnographies like Latour’s and Traweek’s emphasize the specialized, elite nature of laboratories. 8 This tendency was discussed in length among anthropologists of technology at the 2nd subdiciplinary conference for the CAST AC group (in 1998). Interestingly enough, it was noted that even among the STS anthropologists present, this tendency to root for technology’s failure was present and obvious (this followed a story told in Aporta’s work about a young Inuit using a GPS system who got lost). 9 A mathematician, biologist, and sociobiologist, respectively. 1 0 It is interesting to note that one of Dawkins’ most visible intellectual critics is Stephen Jay Gould, a politically liberal biologist who (perhaps) coincidentally penned the foreword to Shermer’s book. 1 1 In the interests of full disclosure and reflexivity, it is obvious that to some extent I am guilty of the same error here, though I hope my arguments through this section of the paper seem less essentializing than theirs. 1 2 While I normally decry the adulteration of library materials, it is of some relief to note that in the copy of Higher Superstition I procured from the USC library, someone (obviously a virulently leftist revolutionary) has taken the liberty of correcting, in pencil, many of the inaccurate readings Gross and Levitt commit up to page 120 (apparently the task of tackling all 270+ pages was too much even for this soul). 131 made a similar claim in Frank, 1997. 1 4 The subtitle of Cyborgs and Citadels is “Anthropological Interventions in Emerging Sciences and Technologies.” 1 5 One is put to mind the Tasaday, who when discovered in 1972 were the “perfect” subjects— pre-contact natives living in a remote jungle. 1 6 Downey and Dumit suggest Rapp 1997 as an example of this. 171 personally find the fist should be taken with a grain of salt; I am familiar with many of the departments in question and find that “an interest” is at least occasionally being interpreted as “one faculty member.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 4: The Two Models 9 6 In the previous two chapters, the context for studying the media used in this dissertation was outlined. And then, an examination of the history and major issues within STS provided a background information for understanding science studies. In this chapter we can begin to construct the main explanitory framework for viewing science in this project. One part of that framework rests on the writings of STS researcher Chris Tourney. Tourney’s book Conjuring Science: Scientific Symbols and Cultural Meanings in Amerian Life is about the way that symbols of science— lab coats, jargon, academic credentials, etc.— are “conjured” up to signify science in a variety of locations in American life-from aspirin commercials to anti-fluoridation campaigns. The public can be misled by these conjured symbols because the symbols have become divorced from what they signify— scientific authority and understanding. Worse, because people have come to believe in the symbols, this affects their reaction to the “original” science. Two terms that are relevant to discussing this phenomomen are drawn from the writings of Jean Baudrillard: simulacra and hvperrealitv (1994). A simulacra is a copy, or new representation, of an idea; in this case, the idea of what science is and means. The simulacra is not a fake, not just a copy of something real, but has power in and of itself because people believe it to be real— or have let it replace their experience of the original. A hyperreality is what occurs when that copy becomes more real to people than the original: in this case, the media’s images of science have become more real than the public’s actual experience of it. When this occurs, they mistake the simulacra for the original— the media image for the real one.1 For example, one informant, a NASA employee, related his experience with a media-induced hyperreality: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 I talk to kids in school sometimes...some of them are like “we already had a mission to Mars!” They see the movie and they’re like “yeah, we’ve seen these movies for a long time; we must have done that already.” In a sense, Tourney is arguing that science has fallen victim to a Baudrillardian hyperreality, where once a representation has been extracted from the object it signifies, the hyperreality is used as a standard to judge and shape the original object. This operates through a series of belief models of science that will be discussed momentarily. The thesis of this dissertation is that a number of factors-primarily the direct and intentional correlations between fictionally portrayed and real-world science, and the manipulation of science news and facts into entertainment-like narrative form, contribute to this dissociation. This simplification doesn’t quite do justice to Toumey’s work, and saying that the public has become “misled” is not really in the spirit of his argument. “Misled” implies that the public has been duped, or foolishly led down a garden path; what Tourney actually suggests is that the situation that has enabled the symbols to become divorced from the signified is the current state of a historical situation affecting the way Americans think about science: the evolution of a number of models of science that are concurrent but separate. For the past 50 or so years, most of the public has understood one model, and most scientists, another. In fact, Toumey posits three models of science that he feels are important, and traces their development historically, highlighting their origin and evolution. His concern is the method through which each model has emerged during a different period of American history, and how each model’s origin is reflected in its content and meaning. The first is what he terms “The Protestant Model of the Study of Nature.” This came into being in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and involved the way Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98 “many Protestant Americans appreciated the systematic study of nature in terms of a theology that held that God has revealed himself to us twice, in scripture and in nature” (12). Thus, the investigation of the natural world— “natural philosophy”— was viewed as a just curiosity by god-fearing Americans of the time. In fact, popularizing scientists of the day sought to bring the “moral benefit of knowledge” to the masses by revealing the hand of God in nature (Gregory and Miller 23). Though prevalent in the United States for almost a century, the Protestant Model eventually gave way to the two models that are important for this dissertation: the “Philosophy of Useful Knowledge” and the “European Scientific Research Ethos.” The Philosophy of Useful Knowledge is a relic of the mid-19th century, when manifest destiny decreed that the natural resources of the United States were there for the taking, and indeed, it was a patriotic duty to use them for the expansion of the American way of life (contested as we now view that concept to be). In 1835 de Tocqueville noted that “in America, the purely practical side of science is cultivated admirably...but hardly anyone in the United States devotes himself to the essentially theoretical and abstract side of human knowledge” (460). In fact, de Tocqueville believed that pure science required the individualism,2 drama, and aversion to practical matters found only in an aristocratic order, and was thus literally foreign to the American persona (462; also Rheingold, “Reflections” 10). The Useful Knowledge model led people “to equate [science] simply with engineering and technology. This way, that knowledge was nothing less than the key that would unlock the natural resources of a great continent” (Tourney 14). Where previously science was viewed as a way of coming closer to God, it was now becoming a way of making better the world of mortals. Historian Nathan Rheingold suggests that this view is not just a relic of historical hindsight; it was apparently common even at the time: intellectuals considered Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 Europeans to be inclined towards basic research, while the pioneer mentality and individualistic notions of progress inclined American science towards the practical.3 Over the years, this model came to structure a number of beliefs about the place, use, and origins of science, to wit: l.lUseful Knowledge made the individual prosperous, and through that also made the individual free. That is, if a farmer knows how to fix his own tractor, raise his own crops, etc., this knowledge enabled him to achieve greater independence (and in the narrative of American desires, individuality) 2.Y B v mass-producing commodities, technology improved the nations’ standard of living. Obviously, in a consumer culture, more objects=‘‘ progress’’ (and profit) another key American narrative. 3.1The fruits of useful knowledge enabled the exploitation of resources and knowledge that would make the United States economically independent of foreign nations. Given the United States’ current role as world policeman, we sometimes forget that for the larger portion of American history, general xenophobia was the norm (and probably still is on an individual level); the slothlike pace with which Americans allowed themselves to be dragged into both world wars-until Pearl Harbor-is partial testimony to this (Tourney 16). Tied to this concept of independence, both individually and as a nation, is 4.Y ‘ The spirit of useful knowledge would make the United States intellectually independent of foreign nations” (Toumev 17), imporant when contextualized in the legacy of the United States as a colony and the nation’s settlement by immigrants fleeing their homelands. Tourney’s point for the Philosophy of Useful Knowledge model is the same as for the Protestant Model: the reason it was embraced by most people as it was developing was because it was a way of conceptualizing (of “believing”) in science that fit in with generally accepted notions of the rest of American life. In this case, it was because it embodied values that jelled with the great American cultural myths of progress, democracy, and independence. Tourney contends that to this day the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100 Philosophy of Useful Knowledge paradigm remains the most publically prominent model of science in our society. The final model is termed the “European Scientific Research Ethos.” This model essentially is the form of science related at the beginning of this chapter, the model of science understood by professional scientists and specific portions of the public (i.e. those particularly drawn to science and scientific issues). The European Research model features “secular values, rationalist thinking, and naturalistic explanation combined to create the methods and knowledge we now call ‘science’” (18). Typical of this model for understanding science is the belief in continual experimentation, professionalization of science, and the idea that most separates this mode of thinking from others— that of science for its own sake, a curiosity that justifies itself about the natural world, irrespective of other purposes. This enlightenment ideal was later resurrected as it was imported to the U.S. from Europe, where the ideals of “modem” science were developing, particularly among the German universities— thus the “European” model. The European Research model is the legacy of the traditional Enlightenment vision of science, the one bound up in the now-contested “Scientific Revolution.” Far from the pervasive worldview generally attributed to the Enlightenment, America in the 1800s was a fairly boorish place (Gabler 13; Rheingold, “Reflections” 10; Tourney 15). By the middle of the 19th century, the Enlightenment view of moral progress had been “eclipsed by the simple view that progress consisted of material increase generated from technology and uncomplicated by philosophical baggage” (Toumey 15). It was into this barren philosophical milieu that the European Research Ethos model was imported to the United States, along with the European system of educating scientists. The reason that the symbols of science have become divorced from the European model of science that they originally signified (the European model of science), is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101 largely because of the professionalization of scientists that began in the 19th century and was completed by the first few decades of the 20th. With the increasing professionalization of science, the European model of science began to develop more fully within the American scientific community. Gregory and Miller suggest that as ideals of professionalism increased, scientists became more beholden to this third model of science, and began turning inwards to their peers. Thus, the popularization of science fell to the non-scientist journalists, writers, and entertainers, who became the ones to transfer scientific knowledge and ideas to the public (27). It should be noted that these models set forth by Toumey are not the same as C.P. Snow’s “Two Cultures,” laid out in his famous 1959 lecture at Cambridge. At a fundamental level Snow was positing that those individuals who practice science and those who don’t (whom he called “literary intellectuals”) occupied, in some ways, oppositional positions regarding the authority and value of science and the liberal arts (4). Characterizing the relationship between scientists and literary intellectuals, Snow said it was characterized by “a gulf of mutual incomprehension, sometimes (particularly among the young) hostility and dislike, but most of all lack of understanding” (4). He also stated that literary intellectuals possess a “total incomprehension of science” (11), a statement demonstrably untrue. Snow stressed an overly simplistic (and what I believe to be a false) dichotomy purposefully, with the intention of making his own positions clearer (as he noted in his short piece “The Two Cultures: A Second Look” (Two Cultures 61). However, despite the differences, there are some similarities between Snow’s two cultures and Tourney’s models: both posit that there is one group that misunderstands another. Both also take the stance that each is missing something that is vital to the understanding of how the other group thinks, not that either opposition group is wrong (Snow 13-14). Furthermore, both Snow and Toumey trace a historical path along which these divisions have evolved (Snow, 17). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102 Finally, in both ways of thinking, the continuing division between the two groups is considered to be bad for society. In Snow, it is because the division results in an inability to progress with socially-conscious (liberal) science and development policies, and for Toumey it is because continuing misunderstadings lead to the ability of pseudoscience and (worse) fraudulent science to entrap the public (Snow 64; Toumey 153). The main difference is that Tourney’s models represent how different groups concieve of science, whereas Snow pits one group for science and one group against it. The details of these models of the conception of science in American culture is crucial to understanding the argument made herein: just as Toumey suggests that the separation of the models leads to a hyperreality, this dissertation suggests that the media contributes to the perpetuation of two distinct model of science by portraying and reifying the Useful Knowledge (hereafter called the 2nd model), while scientists and the particularly science-literate conceptualize science along the lines of the European Research Ethos (hereafter called the 3rd model). Evidence of the Two Models of Science The treatment of the different models of scientific belief in this paper is generally the same as Toumey’s. Massive amounts of background STS literature suggest that science is a belief system; what’s most important to realize here is not only that it is one belief system among many, but that there are multiple ways to believe in science. The idea that there is a dissociation between the way that the general public and scientists believe in science is the basis for this work. So what? What difference does it make if scientists and members of society at large conceive of science in different ways? Marcel LaFollette, writing on the image of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 3 scientists portrayed in magazines through the 1950’s proposes that “what Americans believed about science determined what they expected of it. What they believed about scientists affected what they allowed scientists to do” and most importantly, “what they wanted from science eventually determined whether they paid for it” (1). Steve Fuller echoes the idea of a dissociation between the scientists and public’s view of what constitutes science, and suggests that this impacts the pursuit of expensive research projects like the Human Genome Project and the Superconducting Supercollider. Fuller’s point is that the problem of public involvement with science is twofold: not only is there a poor public understanding of science, but just as importantly, “the scientific community [itself] has misunderstood something significant about the social conditions that enable its continued existence” (Science 2). To Fuller, the public’s different idea of what science is, does, and is good for is often taken by scientists to mean ignorance. In addition, as Toumey suggests, the greater the dissociation between the public’s and scientists’ conceptions of science, the greater the ability of hucksters (literal and figurative) to “conjure science”~and thus mislead by utilizing the signifiers without the true authority of the signified. Finally, different people— scientists, doctors, patients, citizens— want different things from science. What they want, and what they believe about science, affects their interaction with it and the knowledge it produces. Beliefs shape practices, and those practices shape the form that science takes— from the public support for the space program to the demand for creationism in school curriculums. All this is well and good, but how can we be sure these different models exist? Toumey provides historical evidence, and while I have not yet located any scientists who say “Boy, I sure do love the European Research Ethos” or filmmakers who advocate “I can’t wait to portray the Useful Knowledge model in my next picture” there are a fair number of observations which can be explained satisfactorily by putting Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 4 them in the framework of the two models. In fact, it will be made clear that certain structual aspects of the entertainment media steer the portrayal of science towards the second model. Generally speaking, evidence for the existence of the Useful Knowledge model consists of suggestions that science should serve some concrete purpose, or that it fits into the previously suggested ideals of progress, democracy, and independence, while evidence for the European Research Ethos generally is that which supports the idea of empirical research to be conducted by trained professionals, and most importantly, the idea of knowledge for knowledge’s own sake and the existence of “scientific curiosity.” “The Philosophy of Useful Knowledge” The portrayals of the scientist as a purveyor of “useful” knowledge go back quite awhile— as Toumey indicates, back to the mid-19th century at least. Rosalyn Haynes suggests that in novels and early science fiction of the 1880s, the scientist as inventor— a creative scientist/engineer and creator of items that saved the day— was one of the prime fictional archetypes that people were introduced to. The other three achetypes she lists— World Savior, Detective, and Utopian Ruler— often utilized applied science or technological devices for practical ends (163). Marcel LaFollette’s extensive study of non-fiction magazine articles from the first half of the 20th century provides still more evidence. From her perusal of over 3300 issues of eleven of the most widely-read magazines of the early 20th century, LaFollette located 687 science-based articles, and came to the conclusion that “the popular magazines consistently approached science as a pragmatic and progressive national force, held up scientists as reliable authorities, and pointed to scientific knowledge as useful even when it seemed incomprehensible” (44, italics mine). Supporting Tourney’s idea that the task of popularizing science, left to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 5 journalists and writers, gives at best a symbolic image of science, LaFollette notes that in her sample, the “descriptions of research methods in 20th century popular magazines were uniformly inaccurate”— even when the writers actually were scientists! The unstated belief was that the Useful Knowledge model— backed by the trappings of scientific authority— was what people could understand, and wanted to read. Adding further support to the idea of the gradual separation of the models as correlated with the increasing professionalism of science, the very earliest articles in LaFolette’s sample portray a persistent idea that science, being the all-American, democratic process it was supposed to be, should be open to amateurs (120). Needless to say, as the century progressed, this gave way to the understanding of science as a professional, reflective, and cerebral endeavor, as opposed to a personal, active one (117). Finally, LaFollette notes that across her entire sample, no aspect of science received as much coverage and attention as the practical products— “the number and diversity of scientific accomplishments” (134). Science was portrayed as a force for continual (if undefineable) progress, one that enabled America to take its rightful place in the world, and allowed for increasing personal betterment through its products. As we’ll see later in the Content Analysis section, this trend continues into the mass entertainment media, where for a number of reasons, science is almost always portrayed in film and television as illustrating the idea of Useful Knowledge, from “how do we destroy the incoming asteroid” to “how can we clone dinosaurs?” As neatly as the findings of these literature reviews fit the models, is there any evidence that actual people believe these things about science? The answer, of course, is yes. For a number of reasons, the ethnographic portion of this dissertation focuses on the scientists and media producers, rather than the public at large. One reason for this is that “the public at large” is a ridiculously broad term— where does one find Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 6 them? How do you interview them? And what guarantee is there that they all believe the same thing, anyway? The answer, of course, is that they don’t . But, there are some themes, some beliefs, that are generalizeable about a society; if there weren’t, anthropology as an investigation of cultures larger than the individual would be pointless. A second reason is that over the years there have actually been a tremendous numbers of academic work-hours dedicated to figuring out what the public feels about science. The maven of American anthropology, Margaret Mead, conducted one of the best-known surveys of this issue in the 1950’s. Mead composed a composite image of science from the responses of the 35,000 high school students in her survey, in which the students state that “Science is natural science with little direct reference to man as a social being except as the products of science— medicine and bombs— affect his life” (Mead and Metreaux 236). More current work continues in this vein, and much of it has been collected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in their massive “Science and Engineering Indicators 2000.” It is from there, and from other published data on the public understanding of science (primarily from Gerbner et al., 1985), we find this evidence. NSF data collected on the public’s interest in specific scientific and technological issues suggests that the scientifically-related issues that rank the greatest public fascination are those that have direct, applicable results— specifically, those dealing with “new medical discoveries” and “environmental pollution.” In contrast, the first interest category dealing with basic research in the European Research Ethos tradition— “issues about new scientific discoveries” trails at fourth on the list of eleven, narrowly edging out the “use of new inventions and technologies” (NSF 8-4, figure 8-1). One of the most valuable aspects of the NSF figures is that with the massive resources at its disposal, the organization’s data goes far beyond that of any single researcher. Thus it is the best (and nearly the only) provider of longitudinal data on Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 107 this subject.4 The studies just cited are compiled from data points of five different surveys taken over a ten-year period. Interestingly enough, 82% of the people in one survey stated that they supported government funding of basic research, “even if it brings no immediate benefits” (8-15). However, when faced with the choice of applied or basic research, people expressed a marked preference for applied, with the specifications that such research should exhibit the Useful Knowledge model indicators of “having potential benefit for a broad number of people,” “improving people’s lives” and national independence— pursued partly because other countries are investing heavily in this kind of research, and people feared the U.S. getting left behind (8-17). Generally, surveys that attempt to gauge the public’s understanding of science question them on aspects of the European Research model. For example, the question “what does it mean to study something scientifically?” was used both by the NSF (8- 12) and in a British survey of the late 1980’s (Gregory and Miller 89). The “correct” answer in this case “includes responses describing scientific study as theory testing, experimentation, or rigorous, systematic comparison” (NSF 8-12). Not surprisingly, people tend to score low on these questions, which are after a very specific conception of science, and score higher on questions that apply scientific thinking or reasoning to specific hypothetical situations. In the NSF study, less than 30% of the public responded correctly to the questions with dictionary-definition answers on the nature of science. In the British study, it was 3%. However, in the British survey, when people were given situations with experimental evaluations and asked to work them out, the percentage correct skyrocketed to over 50% (Gregory and Miller 89). These studies indicate that the surveys don’t test how much the public understands science but rather how much they think like scientists. They also indicate that the public actually DOES have a decent grasp of what it means to work things out in a “scientific” way (if we Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 108 take that to mean rationally and experimentally) when faced with concrete situations rather than abstract ones— in other words, when the purpose is in the pursuit of Useful Knowledge. So what is the Useful Knowledge model? Does it imply that the public only understands science when filtered through engineering or technology? That they have no understanding of the value of basic research? That the concept of curiosity for its’ own sake is beyond them? Of course not. Among other things, when people are asked to name the characteristics they most associate with scientists, “curiosity” has topped the list at least since Mead and Metreaux asked the question almost 50 years ago. But suggesting that the general public understands science in this manner means that the public thinks the best science is science pursued for, and in the interest of, the betterment of people and nation, and science that works towards a concept of “progress” that has been one of the defining narratives of science in this model. “The European Scientific Research Ethos” The prime hallmarks of the European Scientific Research Ethos are deeply- imbedded rationalist thinking, a propensity for naturalistic explanation, a professionalization of the pursuit of this knowledge, the universality of science, and most important, the recurring idea of knowledge for its own sake, or the curiosity of the scientist being its own reward. One of the science consultants interviewed, a man at the top of his field, reflected this gap between the scientist’s curiosity and its conflict with the Useful Knowledge model: J: Well, I don’t know. One of the most frequently asked questions that I get from the press, and I had a interview earlier today and they Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109 asked the same question again, is “why should we care?” “Who cares about dinosaurs, and why should we care?” S: Um hm. J: And you know, that’s a hard question to answer. I mean, I can answer for myself, but I can’t answer it for someone else. I mean, the best thing you can say for paleontology is that it— if you’re— there’s only certain things we can know. There’s hardly anything about the future we can know. We can know a lot about the present; and we can know about the past. Most people, I would say, most people are interested in the present, and really don’t care too much about the past. Certainly not the distant past; they might be slightly interested by the near past. But those of us that study things millions of years ago obviously are interested in reconstructing history of the world, as far back as we can go. But why should you do that? Answering that question is just like trying to figure out why we should make a bigger telescope and look at a further star. I mean, it has to do with pure science, it has to do with how deep our curiosity goes...It is a degree of curiosity; I mean, some people have none. And there is no way in this world you’re gonna explain to them why you do what you’re doing right now. This conflict between the scientists’ conception of why knowledge should be pursued and the idea that knowledge should have a purpose is a recurring theme throughout the literature wherever scientists speak out. Paul Rabinow has published a number of articles reflecting his association with Tom White, a biochemist, in which White makes statements like “To me, curiosity is an extremely powerful motivating factor. You know, [like] food, sex, and shelter and stuff like that...there is something intensely gratifying about satisfying your curiosity.” (“American Modems,” 313). Hugh Gusterson interviewed a physicist who indicated the pleasure of engaging in atmospheric nuclear experiments: “I thought that sounded absolutely wonderful.” (“Becoming” 266). And Sandy Stone, writing about the rise and fall of the legendary Atari Research lab, notes that to the involved savants, “research meant innovation, taking risks, doing new things. To Atari, research meant duplication, slight changes on an accepted idea, but finding out how to duplicate their success better and cheaper.” (181, italics original). Anthropologist Diana Hill’s father (a physicist) specifically Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110 targeted the idea of universality when talking about his relationships with ex-Soviet counterparts: “It was wonderful to see— the notion that there is a universality of science is commonplace— but its really enlightening, uplifting, to see it in action.” (233) Another scientific consultant informant described the pursuit of science like this: “You know you read the paper, and you say ‘why can’t they do this?’ or ‘why can’t they do that?’ Well, usually you just dismiss those ideas but I guess I was just ready, and so I thought of something and I decided to go to a library and do a little research to see if my idea had any content.” In fact, a number of informants, in widely different disciplines from mathematics to space science, all expressed the idea of being led into science by curiosity-often a curiosity raised by reading and viewing science fiction. Other prominent scientists portray the European Research model in their writings: Nobel prize winner Leon Lederman’s book The God Particle is a paean to the idea of rationalist explanation for natural events, pursued through rigorous experimentation, to broaden our understanding of the origins of the universe. As mentioned earlier, the 3rd model is the prime mode of scientific understanding, with the concepts of falsifiability, experimental evidence, peer review, and universality. In his exploration of why people “believe” in pseudoscience, after Robert Park trots out Wilson’s definition of science, he then goes on to delineate the practice of science in a manner similar to Lederman— a way of uncovering increasingly closer truths (well, observations) about the natural world through experimentation and application of rational pursuit and research questions (39). It is fairly clear that the European Scientific Research Ethos is the model of science that is most consciously accepted in our society by scientists and laypeople who closely follow science. It is the one taught in science classes and depicted in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I l l popular science books of Lederman, Park, Feynman, Sagan, and others. Scientists, as the practitioners in question, no doubt have some justification for treating the European Research model as the “true” meaning of science. Anthropologists would hardly challenge a Voodou practitioner, for example, and say they weren’t practicing it the “right” or “true” way. On the other hand, irrespective of any objective demonstration of what science “truly” is, as long as a large and essential group of people (the public) think otherwise, the alternative models must be considered, if only to ask how the difference in comprehension affects the behavior of both groups. And acknowledging that there are several models of belief doesn’t imply that the scientists’ (or the public’s, for that matter) is wrong; but they are different. When the public talks about scientists as a bunch of emotionless eggheads with no relation to what “real people” want, need, or expect, and scientists describe the public’s understanding of science as “dismal” or at a “comic-book level”(as my informants did), each group is talking across each other— one is describing the apples of the Useful Knowledge model, the other the oranges of the European Research model; the important thing is to remember that, strange as it sounds, both these fruits come from the same tree.5 In fact, the way that each group talks at cross-purposes is, in my mind, the greatest evidence that the two models exist— clearly, each feels fairly confident that it knows what it is talking about, and they are talking about the same basic process, but each tends to think the other is way off base. Like a Lutheran arguing with a Muslim, the individual groups can have a clear understanding of their image of God, and even be speaking about the same one— and yet completely misunderstand where the other group is coming from. As useful as they are, the mobilization of these models as guides is not unproblematic, however. While extremely useful as guides, in reality interplay between actual individuals and the multiple beliefs in science is complex. This almost goes Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 without saying. No cultural model is ever monolithic, no belief system so discrete that its boundaries are impenetrable. For example, no scientist is an expert in every field: everybody is a layperson in something. Do scientists subscribe to the 3rd model for their own field of science, and the 2nd for others? For that matter, Toumey suggests that his 1st model- The Protestant Model of the Study of Nature— was prevalant through the 18th century and “well into” the 19th. Does this mean it no longer exerts a force? Clearly not. The relationship between God and science remains commonly articulated. As Nobelist Leon Lederman notes, to this day popular science books frequently end with a variation of the idea that science “lets us know the mind of God” or is part of His/Her plan (409).6 And keep in mind, the suggestion (and evidence) that people follow these models doesn’t mean that the public does not understand pure science, or that scientists don’t think about the practical applications of basic research. The boundaries are not impermeable. More reasonably, the models illustrate the knee- jerk reactions or general perceptions of science. In fact, survey data shows that people clearly do understand the need for basic research, and even some of the informant scientists who eloquently defended the European Model spoke in their next breath of how useful that knowledge can be. Finally, it is important to note (especially given the universality of science and the international reach of the American enterainment media establishment) that these models have developed and flourished in an American context; that the expressions of scientific understanding discussed here are particular to a specific geographic, temporal, and cultural locale. Not because this phenomenon is specifically American, or that the separation between scientists and the lay public is; it is just that the historical contextualization is important for these models, and they are articulated by Toumey in an American conext: obviously, the Protestant Model for the Study of Nature would not evolve in the same way in a heavily Catholic country, and the European Research Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 113 Model was expressed differently in Germany and France than it was in the United States. In fact, a similar set of models probably is useful for thinking about how people conceptualize science in other nations and cultures, but those models would need to be as culturally specific as the ones discussed here to be truly useful. Furthermore, their treatment here is as American models because, of course, the research was done in the United States. And though American mass media has a worldwide audience, it is unreasonable to assume that foreign audiences react to its products in the same way as a homegrown one does. Jean-Francois Lyotard suggested that science, like all beliefs, requires narratives for its legitimation (19,28). In science, these narratives are so strong— of objectivity, progress, and the uniqueness of scientific knowledge and endeavor, for example— that they legitimate science in our society more than the competing systems. This is why, for example, pseudoscience, New Age religions, and creation science hijack the symbols of science, to appropriate some of that legitimacy for themselves.7 What Toumey adds is the dramatically important point that not only is science one belief system among many, but that there are different ways to believe in science. The key to discerning and analyzing these different models lies in understanding how the mass media portrays images that reify certain narratives, which then serve to legitimate these differing views of science. 1 For deeper examinations of simulacra and hyperreality, see the cortex-withering chapters “A Precession of Simulacra” and “The Implosion of Meaning in the Media” in Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. 2 Yes, it seems ironic that de Tocqueville thought individualism was an aristocratic trait, while we generally regard it as an important element of the Amerian mass psyche. Here it seems that to de Tocqueville, Americans were part of a great mass of people, and thus despite personal differences were, at least in terms of in the temperament required for basic research, more defined by their mob roots than the more socially liberated aristocracy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 1 4 3 Rheingold, “Reflections” 10. Rheingold notes both the attitudes of de Tocqueville and Alexander von Humbodlt, as well as “many American scientists” who to this day “incline to the view that their society is indifferent, if not hostile, to basic science.” 4 For example, figure 8-9 charts the public confidence in the leadership of selected institutions (including the scientific and medical communities) over a 25-year period. 5 Yes, one of those apple/orange hybrid trees, something I’m sure the miracle workers of the American biotech industry will be bringing us soon. 6 For the record, his book does, too! 7 The “Church” of Scientology is an execellent example of this, with it’s pseudoscientific jargon and frequent use of a quack medical device (the “e-meter”). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 5: Narrative and the Real 115 Cultural Narratives and the Legitimacy of Science Between 1950 and 1969, private automobile ownership in West Germany skyrocketed from 1 to 50%. By 1985, 83% of West Germans owned their own automobiles. What does this have to do with science? John Bomeman argues that private ownership of a car, more than a simple reaction to a growing economy, became a tangible symbol of prosperity— “in nearly all the accounts of domestic life related to me, the purchase of the first automobile was used as a rhetorical device, a trope, to figure in a larger narrative about group identity” (106). West Germany was economically and politically strong, and in strong countries, everyone owned a car. Thus the purchase of an automobile was part of a symbolic act that enacted a cultural narrative— in this case, one of economic progress. Not to be confused with the literary use of the term “narrative” (which will be imporant in a later chapter), these same cultural narratives are what serve to legitimate the pursuit and expression of science. Cultural narratives often occur in a national context, as in West Germany. Immediately following independence, states often strive to protect their newfound sovereignty through aggressive use of nationalist rhetoric and symbolism (Gupta 191). Propaganda machines make use of stories about the nation’s past, its futures, its heroes, and nationalistic ideals: “a national narrative seeks to define the nation, to construct its (typically continuous and uninterrupted) narrative past in an assertion of legitimacy and precedent for the practices of the narrative present” (Mary Layoun, in Gupta 191). For example, Mary Crain demonstrates how following the restoration of Spanish democracy, the government actively encouraged pilgrimages to the shrine of El Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 16 Rocio, enabling “the state to lay claim to the lengthy history of this tradition, thereby underscoring ‘the eternal’ and the quasi-sacred nature of the Spanish nation.” (298). What all this demonstrates is that narratives legitimate action— both individual and national— in a cultural imperative of morality. Narratives can help the sick place their recovery in an acceptable social context (Mattingly 1998), or tell us about celebrity— why Julia Roberts is to be admired, but Joey Buttafuoco is not (Gabler 1998). And they influence the course and legitimacy of science. In The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, philosopher Jean- Francois Lyotard suggested that narratives are “the quintessential form of customary knowledge,” in that as stories, they either “bestow legitimacy upon social institutions, or represent positive, or negative models of integration into established institutions” (19). These narratives are cultural scripts, providing frameworks for action, and encoding cultural models about what constitutes normal behaviors and beliefs (Mattingly 13). For example, President G.W. Bush’s refusal to sign the Kyoto emissions treaty not because it is ecologically unsound, but because it interferes with American “competitiveness” is enacting a narrative. Competitiveness is a modem aspect of one of the most enduring and obvious of American cultural narratives, those of American free enterprise and democratic capitalism. Inextricably bound together with these are narratives of technological progress. Lyotard also states that the recourse of science to narrative is inevitable; that it cannot legitimate itself otherwise. By which, one assumes, he means that independent of general reasons of effectiveness and abstract reasons for the pursuit of science, these narratives help convince people of the truth and utility of science (and for Bush, policy decisions allegedly based on that science). This sounds somewhat suspicious; can’t science legitimate itself? Aren’t the facts and results it produces enough to show its connection to reality? Surprisingly enough, and to the consternation of scientists and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117 others, they are not; if they were, then scientific findings would be accepted and acted upon with more rigor, and beliefs that directly contradicted scientific evidence— astrology, for example, or magnetic healing bracelets, would find no audience. In his biography of Carl Sagan, Keay Davidson suggests that the objective pose of elite scientists, with their generally dignified, “judgelike and priestlike demeanor” inspires the public to view these scientists as they wish to be perceived, as objective, neutral, and intelligent. Moreover, Davidson suggests that perception accounts to some degree for the prestige accorded science (xv). These scientists are enacting behavior based upon cultural narratives that allegedly value these traits in those we trust--not only scientists, but politicians and journalists as well. The narratives serve science so well that as Sandra Harding notes “neither god nor tradition is privileged with the same credibility as scientific rationality in modem cultures” (SOIF 16). Cultural narratives legitimating science are often bound up with the political ideologies of the state: “the state spends large amounts of money to enable science to pass itself off as an epic: the state’s own credibility is based on that epic, which it uses to obtain the public consent its decision makers need” (Lyotard 28). To illustrate Lyotard’s point, think about the rise of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The millions of person-hours of work put in by NASA technicians, engineers, and scientists were portrayed as just that— a sweeping epic, in which the Conquest Of Space was intimately tied with the strength of the United States. It involved not just curiosity about what is out there, but the very pride of the nation itself, locked into a war to prove which was a better model for the future progress of the human race— American democracy or Soviet communism. Billions of dollars were poured into this epic, which clearly had great scientific merit, but was just as clearly concerned with contributing to the basic concept of the Cold War as a contest between Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 118 American and Soviet ideology, framed as a competition between American and Soviet know-how. Narratives are even strong enough to legitimate “bad” science; because cultural narratives are so specifically tied into the socio-political nature of a state, the possibility exists for these narratives to reinforce totalitarian, as well as democratic, science. National narratives of racial supremacy in Nazi Germany drove the development of a self-titled “Aryan Science,” for example. Beyond the more obviously disgusting acts of Nazi biological research— forced eugenic sterilizations, vivisectionist experiments, etc.— the narratives that drove Aryan Science led to complete biological and physical theories based on Nazi doctrine. Belief in biological (read: racial) heredity of behavior became a dominant ideology. Racial doctrines even gave rise to a “Nazi physics” which denied relativity and quantum mechanics, because as the product of obviously inferior non-Aryan minds, were inherently flawed (Josephson 60). In the Soviet Union, the political rise of scientist Trofim Lysenko was partly driven by his ability to conform his scientific findings to the needs and desires of the Soviet regime: the idea that heredity could transmit acquired characteristics (Larmarckian evolution) went hand-in-hand with the need for the government to transform large numbers of peasants into Marxists in a short time frame (Josephson 22).1 In fact, Lysenko survived the rise and fall of several Soviet leaders, and through continual appeals to the narratives of Marxism, political connections, and manipulation of state resources was able to bully the progress of entire fields of Soviet science.2 To Lyotard, these narratives are the guiding force behind the practice of science. He specifically focuses on two primary narratives: l.)Progress, and the right of all people to engage in the process through which they better themselves and the state, and 2.)Science dedicated to the health of the nation, where the object of science is to contribute to the constmction of a society based upon reason (32). Lyotard’s point in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 19 The Postmodern Condition is that science in modem times is undergoing a process of “delegitimation” where these cultural narratives are no longer believable, and thus are insufficient to legitimate the scientific endeavor (60). In his view, this is because the institutions of science have overreached themselves; they have claimed to represent more than they are able to do, and thus their “grand narrative” has failed— or rather, has illuminated its own limitations.3 However, while it is indeed true that these narratives have become widely questioned and increasingly problematized— the idea of continuous, beneficial technological progress in particular seems more questionable— science does not appear to be delegitimated at the dawn of the 21st century. Although the rise in perceived legitimacy of other institutions— alternative medicine, non-Westem local knowledge systems, etc.— may contribute to the view that western science has become somehow less powerful or legitimate to the public at large, the pronouncements of scientists still carry greater weight in society than those of almost any other profession. National Science Foundation data indicates that Americans have more confidence in the scientific community than in any other aside from medicine, and well above their confidence in the Supreme Court, the press, or the educational establishment (8-18, figure 8-9). Thus, science continues to be the most generally regarded source of reliable information about the natural world (among Americans, anyway). The Narratives of Science and Their Onscreen Portrayals What are the narratives that sustain science? Those suggested by Lyotard, of course, are perhaps the most general and broad. In fact, the idea of “progress” as a sustaining scientific narrative is one of the most common in related analytical literature (LaFollette 127; McCarthy 85; Downey 202). E. Doyle McCarthy, in her analysis of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 2 0 Western systems of knowledge, suggests four primary narratives that support the pursuit of science: l.)The perfectibility of the human race; 2.)Progress of society, and of the individual; 3.)The application of reason as the best method to find answers and solve problems (85); and 4.)The best knowledge is produced through neutral, egalitarian pursuit of understanding about universal, natural laws (86). It is these basic cultural ideals, along with related factors like the carefully cultivated stance of elder scientific statesmen that Davidson described, that shape the pursuit and legitimacy of science. They both fashion and guide public opinion and the public understanding of science. If this list seems familiar, it is because it bears a striking resemblence to the characteristics of science from the two models of scientific understanding described in the previous chapter. In fact, Tourney’s idea is that these models owe their emergence and continuing popularity to their close reflection of currently held cultural narratives (11-21). The Protestant Model of the Study of Nature was congruent with 18th century ideas of religious belief and the pursuit of knowledge as a reflection of God’s will; the Philosophy of Useful Knowledge was bom of the specific brand of progress engendered by the concepts of Manifest Destiny and the exploitation of frontier resources. The process whereby changing cultural values influence narratives and the pursit of science continues today, and it is illustrated in the works of Lyotard and Donna Haraway. Haraway (1991), for example, considers the transformation between the old system of modernist thought and the new, postmodern “informatics of domination” as characterized by a number of shifts in narrative, for example from an organic division of labor to a cybernetic one, and a switch from Representation to Simulation (161). The first pair of terms could refer to the former division of labor based on physicality (bodily strength and the associations between biology and socio economic class) and a new one based on information access and use, while the latter Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121 pair are Haraway’s terms denoting Baudrillard’s theorized shift to a society based on simulacra. Because cultural narratives go hand in hand with Tourney’s multiple models of understanding science, we would expect those narratives to inform each model differently. Three differences interest us here: 1.)“Useful” vs. “Pure” research and knowledge 2.)Discoveries occurring as a result of great moments versus a steady progression of knowledge 3.)Discoveries as made by Heroes of Science versus a large number of individuals working together. In each case, the latter trait is the one more closely associated with the European Research Model, the one generally associated with professional scientists: being interested in pure research, the steady progression of scientific understanding, and progress that is achieved through the cumulative efforts of numerous researchers. But media portrayals of science tend to reflect the former traits, thus reifying those associated with the Useful Knowledge model (applied research, eureka moments, and knowledge discovered and used by individuals). For example, in films science is almost always directly useful. Aside from those times when it is used to clone dinosaurs, practical knowledge rears its head in situations where everyone always looks to the scientist for guidance. In Disney’s recent Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), an entire pack of hardened explorers continually turns to the (surprise!) geeky, scrawny scientist character asking “What do we do now, Milo?” “All our hopes for survival lie with you, Milo” etc.— a situation duplicated in, among others, Stargate. Volcano, and War of the Worlds. In War of the Worlds, a soldier facing down a Martian invader guffly notes “You guys have to figure it out— you’re scientists. All I know is it’s as big as a house.” In addition, science in film and television is shown, with reason, as Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122 being made up of “Eureka” moments— sudden bursts of insight. The true path of science, involving long, steady progress, simply doesn’t film well.4 In Back to the Future, Dr. Emmett Brown hits his head on a toilet and suddenly has the idea for the Flux Capacitor, “which makes time travel possible!” In Twister, although there is clearly a long-term tornado research project underway, the film revolves around the delivery of single experimental apparatus (the “Dorothy” device), which will enable the meteorologists to “learn more in 30 seconds than in the past 30 years.” Despite Galileo’s statement that he stood on the shoulders of giants, classical history of science texts often presented scientific progress as resulting from the appearance of a series of solitary geniuses— Newton, Einstein, Watson and Crick, etc.— the Heroes of Science; thus obscuring the vast numbers of nameless researchers who contribute the overwhelming majority of research findings. This tendency is duplicated in movies and TV, where science is usually about a single scientist, who often either works alone or is a maverick in his or her chosen field until their crazy theory is proven true. For example, in Stargate. anthropologist Daniel Jackson is laughed at for his theory that the pyramids were built by aliens, and in Dante’s Peak volcanologist Harry Dalton fights an uphill battle against his colleagues and superiors to convince them that the volcano they’re sitting on will soon blow. Needless to say, both of them are proven correct. Thus we see that these media images reify the narratives of the Philosophy of Useful Knowledge model. For this to occur, the “reality”— or semblance of it— in these portrayals, and the media’s ability to convince the viewing public of that reality— becomes a dramatically important factor. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 123 Portraying “The Real” In the 1955 edition of the Production Code, the Motion Picture Association of America wrote that because of its value as entertainment and the “trust placed in it by the peoples of the world,” cinema had “special moral obligations” (11, emphasis original). The argument for accepting the censorship of the MPAA was that films deserved more censorship than books because they were more likely and able to mislead the public. This was because, as the Code stated, a.)A book describes; a film vividly presents. One presents on a cold page; the other by apparently living people. b.)A book reaches the mind through words merely; a film reaches the eyes and ears through the reproduction of actual events. c.)The reaction of a reader to a book depends largely on the keenness of the reader’s imagination; the reaction to a film depends on the vividness of presentation. (11) To the censors of the Production Code Administration, the danger was that film conjured a level of reality that could fool the public into believing it was real. The issue then, and now, is the conflation of what occurs onscreen and life outside of it. Animator Phil Tippet, who created the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park noted that “if you ever go into a meeting with the directors and producers and ask them what they want, they always say ‘I want it to be more real!”’(257) This section is not intended to treat in-depth the inclusion of “reality” in the entertainment media; rather its purpose is to give a background of why the inclusion of reality is so imporant. What do we mean by the Real? It is not the same thing as the Lacanian Real,5 but rather, it is “reality” as scientists might be looking for— a reflection of the objective outside world. Though some theorists (like Baudrillard, Lyotard, or Gabler) might argue that the boundary between reality and fantasy is so blurred we can Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 2 4 no longer tell the difference, there is some level at which it it is undeniably a useful concept: a television program that shows the surface of Mars to be covered in lush deciduous forests is not dealing with “reality;” nor is one that shows giant radioactive ants. The mobilization of what will here be referred to as the Real leads to the twin goals of authority and authenticity. This brief section offers an introduction to the Real, a concept which appears throughout the dissertation. It comes up in questions like “Do people like ‘real’ science?” “Can they tell the difference?” “Why put it in movies and TV shows?” and “What does its presence mean?” The answers to these questions can be found in promotional materials for the films that conflate science and fiction, the comments of science consultants and producers, directors, and other people who contribute to the production of entertainment media. Surprising as it may be to the viewers of, say. Star Trek or Armageddon, there is a common belief in Hollywood that the public likes, and indeed demands, a certain amount of authenticity and believability in their films and television programs. But how do people experience reality in media? Some researchers suggest that television and film fill in the blanks as it were, making us believe in things that are otherwise outside our experience. Marcel LaFollette proposes that “the mass media shape public beliefs and knowledge about all sorts of things, but they are most influential when describing places, people, and events outside their reader’s everyday experiences” (18). Michael Saenz suggests that the media in particular contributes to our awareness and understanding of social groups outside our immediate experience (575). Pierre Sorlin adds that “the media bring to our attention characteristics of objects/events which we normally do no attend to and also situations which we would never know for they are beyond our scope” (63). This point was also fundemantal to Powdermaker’s theory. She argued that “audiences tend to accept as true that part of a movie story that is beyond their experience” (13). This idea was illustrated during an interview I conducted with a NASA employee. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 125 After trashing the movie Space Cowboys for its sketchy portrayal of NASA and space missions, he suggested that it may come down to the fact that people are more critical of areas of knowledge that they’re familiar with, and more credulous of those they aren’t: I watched Jurassic Park with my sister, who’s a geneticist. And I was fine with it. They gave me a reason, like in the story, for how they could possibly come up with this genetic information; seemed plausible to me, I’m like okay, you sold me, okay, you got the DNA. And it’s fine, and I could go on with the movie. But my sister~my god, she went crazy! She was like, “There’s no way they could do that! That’s impossible! It’s so ridiculous, it’s just stupid!” The whole movie, she’s going off on how they wouldn’t be able to do this in real life, this genetics. And I was thinking like “Can’t you just accept it and move on?” And she couldn’t. And that’s partly because my sister’s that way, but so that was the experience where I was with another type of scientist, and something that I really didn’t know much about didn’t bother me, but it bothered the hell out of her. One study supporting this “media dependency theory” indicated that the media’s influence on people’s understanding of science and science-related issues was greater for those topics with which they had limited previous experience (Elliot and Rocenburg 185). All of this makes some sense: for example, how many people are familiar with their Miranda rights because they’ve seen them on TV, versus those who know them because they’ve been arrested, or are lawyers (or both)? There is also evidence that supports the idea that the more “real” something on TV appears to be, the more likely people are to believe it. For example, violence that is perceived as “more real” (as opposed to “more fantasylike”) elicits an increased number of aggressive responses in college students (Tan 218). Cultivation research suggests the strength of a “perceived reality” model— that the more the viewer believes in the veracity of what they are viewing, the more susceptible they are to the cultivation effect (Shanahan and Morgan 182). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 2 6 In fact, Shanahan and Morgan take this idea even farther with the concept of “presumed realism” (22). They posit that there is a background level of realism that audiences presume will be present even in a fictional work— that ER is what a hospital looks like, or NYPD Blue a police station. Viewers usually gloss over background details as they watch (even if filmmakers do not) as long as that background matches expectations. A hospital show that didn’t take place in a traditional hospital would seem very strange, or a cop show where the police wore clown suits; the popularity of either would be questionable.6 And as long as the background details seem to be correct, viewers can assume others are as well— in a sense, the background information acts as a Trojan horse to slip in fictional information in the guise of what is true. Baudrillard goes even further, and suggests that there is a presumed reality to real life— that expectations (taught to us by the fictional world) are so strong now that a criminal couldn’t try a non-traditional bank holdup, for example— because the situation would be so far from expectations that nobody would be sure of what to do (21). Sometimes the collision between expectations and real life get taken to absurd conclusions: during an interview with a journalist, an Israeli soldier, said “I prefer to deal with civilians. I know what war against an army means only from the movies...According to what I’ve seen on television, there are lots more casualties. It’s much harder” (Blau 24). Erez said these things despite the fact that he has actually been in combat. For some reason, his actual combat experience seemed inauthentic to him because it didn’t match what he’d seen in the mass media. People who make movies are quite aware of the presumed reality effect. Reportedly, because gunshot sounds are often magnified on television, witnesses to actual crimes are often skeptical about the little “pops” they hear when real guns go off (Sue Hoskins; personal communication). Production designer Terrence Marsh, speaking about designing the submarines in The Hunt for Red October, said that he had to design them to look less true to actual reality and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 127 more like the audience would expect: “If the audience were to be shown a real submarine control room like the Dallas, they would think ‘oh, they must have got a stock set of a World War II submarine and used it.’ The audience wouldn’t have believed it” (LoBrutto 137). And designer Wynn Thomas, working on School Daze. said that for the film “we went to a few offices of the presidents of the universities down there [in Atlanta], and we chose one that was an actual president’s office. We redressed it [sic] to make it look more like a president’s office” (LoBrutto 231). This presumed reality seems to hold true for beliefs about science as well: in LaFollette’s research on magazine articles, she reports that the messages in the articles studied concerning science in the first half of the 20th century had to fit not just with reader’s direct experience with science, which was usually limited, but with their beliefs about science, even if those beliefs were not accurate (22). The Real, of course, is dramatically important to Baudrillard’s ideas of simulacra and hyperreality. When the expectations that people have of the real world are informed more by their experience with the media (a simulacra) than their actual experiences, the era of hyperreality kicks in. The fact that the media often structure fictional and nonfictional events in a similar way (as a narrative story) contributes to this confusion. Once again, the power to confuse the Real and the false ends up having an important effect on society. Tourney suggests this confusion is what allows nonscientists and pseudoscientists to appropriate the symbols of science for their own ends. As he points out, the concept of “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV” would be ludicrous anywhere but in a society where it was generally accepted that there was little difference between the medical authority of an actual doctor and an actor who portrayed one (3).7 One informant, another NASA employee, worried about the effect on her agency’s activities of public confusion from repeated fictional but “realistic” portrayals of space Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 128 exploration: “I wonder sometimes if the public isn’t going to get frustrated now with NASA and JPL and space exploration because— ‘look at all these cool things in the movies! Why aren’t you doing that? Why aren’t you challenging yourself?”’ The Real is a central organizing concept in how people deal with science, fiction, and media. Producers argue over how much to put in, scientists argue over what is put in, theorists argue over how people accept it. One of Baudrillard’s points is that the importance of the simulacra has replaced that of the original. In a sense, reality is no longer important, it is what people believe reality to be that is. This explanation tends to sound weird or stupid to those of an empirical or positivist bent: after all, isn’t there an obvious, observable reality? And for some things, like the physical world for example, that is indeed true. But in the world of cultural and social imaginaries, ideas can be as real as any objective, outside world— sometimes stronger. For example, the idea of astrology is stronger than the reality that it doesn’t work. In addition, it appears that what seems real is relative, based on a number of external factors. Phil Tippett (1995) describes how believeable reality in film is temporally relative: I like to use the example of the 1925 fantasy film Lost World, which was about an expedition to South America to bring back prehistoric animals. It was created using stop-frame technology— the most advanced, most sophisticated use of the process at that time! If you read the reviews of Lost World, the critics back then were ecstatic— they couldn’t believe it! They thought the filmmakers must have gone into the South American plateaus to shoot real dinosaurs! My kids watch the movie today and say “My God!— it looks like they were made out of papier-mache and clay!” (256) In fact, “how real is the science” is often the yardstick by which media products are critically judged both in the popular media and scientific literature. For example, biologist Mark Glassy, in The Biology of Science Fiction Cinema analyzes films according to seven criteria: Synopsis, Screenplay [author], Biological Science Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 29 Principles Involved, What is Right with the Biological Science Presented, What is Wrong with the Biological Science Presented, What Biological Science is Necessary to Actually Achieve the Results in the Film, and Could it Actually Happen? That an entire book can be published in which the author merely reviews the scientific principles in hundreds of films is indicative of something— at the very least that a publishing house is betting on an audience of interested readers large enough to justify printing it. In fact, an entire genre of books has emerged since the 1993 release of Jurassic Park, with titles like The Physics of Star Trek and The Real Science Behind The X- Files. The Los Angeles Times routinely runs articles reviewing the scientific content of major films— a typical example being “With Mars Movies, at Least They Got the Color Right” (Monji). Since the beginning of science in cinema, the level of scientific verisimilitude has clearly been considered a valid critical measure of these films and shows. In fact, it is possible to trace how the science in fictional works reflects the state of the art in science at the time they are made. Early 20th century novels and films showed Mars as covered with canals and cities, for example, while 2001’s Mission to Mars and Red Planet show the audience an empty red desert (Caiden and Barbree). Adding another level of complexity to all of this is the use of the terms “reality” and “truth” in Hollywood. Take, for example, the sentence from the press kit for the vampire movie Blade II: “[Director] del Toro’s mandate was to realistically blend both the comic-book nature of the movie into the visual effects and makeup” (34). How can a film about vampires be “realistic?” Or one based on a comic book, for that matter? Even if philosophers, scientists, and anthropologists could state with absolute certainty what is ultimately “real,” inhabitants of Hollywood seem to toss the term about with reckless abandon, and their concept of what makes something real is perhaps better described as “something bearing an association to some aspect of reality.” The native use of the idea of the real gets even more confusing when some of its more flagrant Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13 0 applications collide with each other. What does it mean, for example, to spend millions of dollars getting the special effects of Pearl Harbor to look as real as possible, but fictionalize historical events in the film?8 Why did director Ron Howard care so much that the equations on the chalkboards of A Beautiful Mind be “reaT-written by a real mathematics professor— when significant other aspects of the film are notoriously fictionalized? One reason Ron Howard may have cared that everything else in A Beautiful Mind look real when the story was such a bowdlerized version of history is that having the rest of the film seem real-by looking authentic and by having the mathematics shown seem familiarly incomprehensible to the audience— may convince that audience to accept the fictionalized portions are real as well. Of course, it should be noted that Hollywood is an environment where “based on a true story” is a stamp seen on noticeably successful films-A Beautiful Mind. Erin Brockovich. Pearl Harbor, and others— and being noticeably successful is the only way to ensure a filmmaker’s career. There is even an apparent desire to retroactively ground classical works of fiction in Hollywood notions of reality. For example, in 2002, the Discovery Channel aired a program titled Moby Dick: The Tme Story.9 Amazingly, these twisted appropriations of the terms “true” and “real” are used apparently without irony by those who work in the entertainment industry. The Real, in native parlance, is something so specifically applied that equations on a blackboard can be the focus of an intense desire for realism, while the story that goes with those equations is completely fabricated. Indeed, when entertainment industry people use the term “real,” often what they mean is “believable” or more specifically, “visually believable.” The reasons aliens don’t physically show up in 2001: A Space Odyssey is not so Stanley Kubrick could maintain an aura of mystery (which is what occurred), but because his special effects team couldn’t create one that was visually real-that is to say, believable looking. In Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131 fact, extensive scenes about the aliens and their technology had to be cut for this very reason (Schwam 131). Said Douglas Trumbull, 2001’s special effects supervisor, said about the movie, “repeated attempts to create a truly believable-looking extraterrestrial constantly ran into the Coefficient of Difficulty. We had to ask ourselves for a definition of what was possible to depict— it may be there are many things that simply cannot be done to a certain standard” (Schwam 132-133). This is clearly what the maker of Blade II means when he uses the term “realistically,” and almost certainly what those who work on the Science Blockbusters mean as well-realistic looking lava, or dinosaurs, or Martian spacecraft landings. The concept of the Real fits hand-in-hand with that of cultural narratives in this examination of science and media. The narratives provide legitimation for a particular view of science by showing how it is congruent with deeper cultural beliefs about society, the nation, world, and ourselves. The concept of the Real, combined with those of the simulacra and hyperreality, allow us to investigate how what people see, hear, and understand gets integrated into their lives and influences their behavior and beliefs. Even were we to discount the more complex theoretical possibilities that in this day and age, reality and fantasy are so closely related as to be indistinguishable, or that people continually believe in a model with one set of narratives (the Philosophy of Useful Knowledge), there is no denying that films and television clearly reify a specific set of cultural narratives about science, and the production and promotion of these media products very often specifically and intentionally conflates and confuses the boundary between what is real and what is fiction. 1 Of course, the official Soviet party line and the beliefs of the mass of individual scientists were not always in accord: Kathryn Milun records Lithuanian scientsts who operated under the Soviet regime expressing disbelief in the narrative of Soviet science, and in fact suggesting that one could not be both a good communist and a good scientist (308). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 132 2 Lest we think this sort of thing only happens in totalitarian regimes, Edward Teller was able to exert an undue influence over American physics for decades based on his political connections and claims that he could accomplish science that served the political goals of the government— Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative being a prime example. 3 At least, this is what he seems to be saying; sometimes its difficult to be sure. In The Postmodern Condition. Lyotard’s general arguments seem sound, but the specifics are muddled by the fact that his writing is more confused than a pack of crazed weasels. 4 Occasionally, there is an attempt made to show that whatever amazing discovery is shown took place in a context of long-term research: the cloning of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, for example, or the long series of failed attempts to produce cold fusion in The Saint. 5 To Lacan, the Real is a sort of remnant of actual outside reality. Because our senses mediate any experience with reality, the best we can get is a residue or negotiated version— the Real. The Real is one of Lacan’s three “cognitive orders,” along with the Imaginary and Subjective. 6 An example of this would be the notorious failure of the critically hailed show Cop Rock which attempted to blend the genres of cop show and musical. Audiences apparently did not feel particularly drawn to a program in which members of a jury spontaneously exploded into song. 7 While if s unlikely that someone who was seriously ill would specifically seek out an actor to heal them, it is certainly believeable that they could be misled by an actor who pretended to be a doctor by acting like the ones they’d seen on TV. 8 Of course, the love story in the film is fictional, but other events depicted as historical- -from what is occurring in Hawaii during the time the attack took place (little league baseball games in full swing at 8:00 am?) to President Roosevelt rising from his chair and standing to demand a retaliatory strike— are clearly fictionalized. Screenwriter Randall Wallace said of such events “If it didn’t happen, it should have happened” (Thomas 55). 9 The description of the program reads “Herman Melville met a Tad of 16 or thereabouts,” who handed him the written narrative of his father, Owen Chase. In those pages, Melville would discover a powerful, tragic, and seemingly fantastical story. Inspired by this true story, Melville created his legendary novel— Mobv Dick.” The History Channel also aired a program based on the action movie The Scorpion King that it called “The Real Scorpion King.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 6: Fiction. Science, and Entertainment 133 James Bond’s enemies have always kept up with the times. In the 1960s Mr. Bond battled Soviet SMERSH agents and evil scientist-terrorists with nuclear capabilities (Dr. No. Thunderballl. In 1979, evil industrialist Hugo Drax hopped on the Star Wars bandwagon and decided to conquer the Earth from space (Moonrakef). With the arrival of the “Just Say No” 1980s, drug smugglers became Bond’s target (License to Kill ), and by the dawn of the 21st Century, in Tomorrow Never Dies. Bond’s nemesis had become a global media magnate, Eliot Carver. Carver’s plan for world domination? By manipulating news stories through his global media empire “I will have reached and influenced more people than anyone in the history of the planet save God Himself!” Carver’s diabolical plot was based on the idea that whoever controlled what people watch controls what they think and do. It is a dramatic oversimplification of how the global media system— and public opinion-operates, but a good metaphor for the method through which this dissertation seeks to discern the relationship between cinematic and televisual portrayals of science and scientists and the public understanding of science. In Hollywood: The Dream Factory. Powdermaker wrote “all art, whether popular, folk, or fine, is conditioned by its particular history and system of production” (3). With that in mind, she set out to determine how the cultural system of Hollywood functioned in the 1940s, to better understand the art that emerged from the studios and into the eyes, ears, and minds of America. This chapter investigates what Powdermaker called the “particular history” of scientists in cinema and television, in order to inform a better understanding of the origins and evolution of that images, and to show the continuity and change it has undergone from the past to today. It further defines the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 4 concept of the “Science Blockbuster” as a cinematic form that began with Jurassic Park: the science blockbuster is an indigenous designation that describes both the content of the films and their place within the social context of Hollywood production. Finally, the chapter also addresses some of Powdermaker’s “system of production” by interrogating the question of why science fiction (and scientist characters) are a popular cinematic form but relatively unpopular on television, and the ways in which two major elements guiding Hollywood production— the requirements of narrative and spectacle— influence the portrayals of science and scientists on screen. A Very Brief History of Science and Scientists on Screen1 In 1895, the Lumiere brothers successfully projected the first motion picture. That same year, they produced what is arguably the first science fiction film, Charcuterie Mechanique (“The Mechanical Butcher”). Two years later, George Melies presented the first movie featuring a scientist character. Les Rayons Roentgen (“[A Novice at] X- Rays”) a one-minute film in which Melies himself played the hapless administrator of an x-ray exam. In 1902, Melies produced the world’s first science fiction epic, the 22- minute long Voyage Dans La Lune (“A Trip to the Moon”). By far the longest film made to that point, it was in reality more a farcical comedy than anything that would today be recognized as science fiction, and once again featured Melies in the role of a scientist, the lunar expedition’s Professor Barbenfouillis. Voyage Dans La Lune has become a landmark of the artistry of early silent film, and is responsible for one of the most recognizeable and enduring images of early cinema— the man in the moon squinting as a lunar capsule protrades from his eye. Silent movies provided a welcoming venue for science fiction films; the speed with which films on X-rays and industrial machinery appeared (even as comedies) indicates Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135 that this may have been because the new technology of cinema was linked to other emerging discoveries of science and technology. In addition, the newfound visual expression of film-its ability to speed time up and slow it down, and its capacity for special effects of transformation and motion— also lent themselves to scientific and technological topics. 1910 saw the first of a long line of Frankenstein pictures when the Edison company brought Dr. Frankenstein and his creation to life in a strangely ghoulish version. That same year, Edison fielded its first space exploration movie, A Trip to Mars. Another milestone was reached in 1919, with the first production of a film based on an TLG.Wells novel, The First Men on the Moon. But it was 1926 that saw the most epochal, dramatic, and enduring science fiction film of the silent era— Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Metropolis is one of the most powerful films of its or any time; Lang’s messages about politics, class, technology, and progress remain as telling and important today as when the film opened over 75 years ago. And in the character of Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), it featured the appearance of one of the most persistant stock characters in cinematic history-the Mad Scientist. Rotwang is the apical ancestor of all mad scientists. The son of Albert Einstein and the father of Dr. Strangelove: Rotwang is the scientist with the crazed shock of white hair who chews through scenery with Dinoysian abandon. He is the Australopithecine of evil scientists, and set the standards to which his children aspire. Though titanic furnaces and the enslaving machinery of technological progress are demonized endlessly throughout the film, the scientist Rotwang is the personification of he who creates that evil— more so even than the capitalist who employs him. At the end of the movie, the tree of science yields bitter fruit indeed, for it is Rotwang who is killed, while his employer finds redemption from the masses.2 Metropolis’ influence is so strong that even today, when filmmakers try to parody the mad scientist they turn to the prototype of Rotwang; the bumbling Dr. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 6 Emmett Brown of Back to the Future, for example, in appearence is almost his twin. Metropolis also presaged what were to become common themes in the mass media treatment of science and innovation. In the industrial machinery of the subterranean city and Maria, the doppleganger robot, are embodied themes of the dangerous oppression technology can create, and the timeless vision of an evil machine run amok. Even the ending of Metropolis was a premonition of things to come, with Rotwang’s death fortelling the eventual fate of numberless mad scientists in the future annals of cinematic history. The end of the silent films marked a temporary lull in the production of science- oriented and science fiction films. Previous sci-fi had been epic in scope, with the space voyages of Melies and the gleaming skyscrapers of Metropolis. Early talkies on the other hand were mostly concerned with keeping actors near the now all-important microphones, and it was a few years before science fiction caught up (Brosnan, 38). The 1936 film Things to Come (William Menzies) brought back the future of Metropolis, but this time it was a bright future, whose genesis lay in the intervention of a cabal of enlightened scientists labeled “The Airmen” led by a genius named Cabal (get it?). As much as the benign future of Things to Come departed from that of Metropolis, so did Cabal from Rotwang. In fact, there is a strange congruence between the architecture and scientists of the two films. Both the buildings and the scientists look, oddly enough, very similar. The scientists are both striking white males with a large shock of white hair, and the buildings are towering cylinders, raised above teeming streets jammed with automobiles. But in Metropolis, the shining towers hide a dark underbelly, and the scientist was a lunatic helping to keep the workers oppressed. In Things to Come, the city is indeed a gleaming utopia, and it owes that enlightened existence to the benevolent interference of Cabal and the Airmen. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 137 The war years once again saw a lull in the production of science fiction films. After World War n, when the nation had learned of the destructive power of the atom bomb and with it, a concomitant change in the public image of scientists, came the first real heyday of American science fiction— the 1950s. The 1950s were the first of the two boom times for science fiction films (the second came after Star Wars in 1977). In the wake of the Manhattan Project, there seemed little science couldn’t do if it set its mind to it, and people had very little idea of how science actually functioned. Hand-in-hand with the strong national narrative of technological progress (enhanced by Cold War competitiveness), this led to a rash of films where scientific progress and knowledge either saved the day, or ran amok and destroyed it. 1951 saw the dawn of this era with three classic films that have become emblematic of the primary ‘50s science fiction subgenres. The Day the Earth Stood Still, even now considered one of the finest science fiction films ever made, is the strongest of the anti-nuclear alien-warning pictures, a template for a dozen later films in which denizens of outer space warn Earthlings to stop abusing atomic power. When Worlds Collide is not just a disaster movie, but the disaster movie, portraying nothing less than the destruction of the entire planet. In addition. When Worlds Collide also brought to the screen an excellent example of one of the most enduring of science fiction icons: the finned, streamlined rocket ship. The final film of this triumverate is The Thing, a classic monster movie in which a strange alien creature hunts and kills members of a small group. Here they are members of an Arctic science expedition, in later monster films generally a lone group of teenagers or a small town. The 1950s also saw the birth of television portrayals of science and science fiction. In 1953, the first episode of The Ouatermass Experiment, the BBC’s first program featuring scientists and science fiction, drew over 5 million viewers— well over 10% of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 8 the British population (Gregory and Miller 41). The 1950s also saw the television appearances of Buck Rogers. Flash Gordon. Tom Corbett. Space Cadet, and in 1959, The Twilight Zone. Scientists were never more than supporting characters in these (save some episodes of The Twilight Zone), and scientific verisimilitude was, at best, a tertiary consideration. Still, the kindly old scientist was a recurring character. With movie industry fears that the new technology of television was so similar to film that the studio production system was in jeopardy, it is interesting to note that it is here that science fiction cinema and television began their divergence to a situation where science fiction was incredibly popular in film, but achieved only very rare successes in television. This divergence, which is eaxmined later in the chapter, reveals something of the public’s social enagement with the differing mediums. It would be impossible (and unnecessary) to list all the films of the 1950s— mostly science fiction— that had scientists in them. Even listing the titles of a single sub-genre, like “Flying Saucer pics,” or “Radioactive Giant Monster pics,” is beyond the scope of this research. After all, this is a period where one could safely argue for the existence of an entire sub-genre titled “Scientists With Brains Kept in Jars.” However, in the flood of B-rated science fiction movies, a few stand out. Aside from The Thing, perhaps the best known Radioactive Monster film is Them!, a motion picture about gargantuan radioactive ants. Them! features what was to become the grand relationship triangle of ‘50s sci-fi movies: older, foreign scientist, scientist’s attractive daughter, and square-jawed hero. Aside from The Day The Earth Stood Still. perhaps the most enduring ‘50s science fiction film is War of the Worlds, a production of George Pal, one of the most respected sci-fi filmmakers of the 1950s. War of the Worlds is one of the few ‘50s alien invasion films to feature class-A production values. It highlights the efforts of a group of scientists who feverishly attempt to learn how to combat Martian invaders. Though the primary scientist character is also the square- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 3 9 jawed hero of the film (when he removes his glasses), his colleagues are the standard bevy of older, foreign researchers (though there is a woman scientist), and the love interest is the preacher’s daughter (who holds a degree in Library Science from USC). The scientists, amazingly enough, are shown actually engaging in rational scientific research, exploring and deducing coherent information about the Martians— a rarity of the time.3 Movies of the ‘50s tended to show scientists in a bad light; aside from frequently awakening slumbering monsters with nuclear tests (which wasn’t really the fault of the scientists in these films, but of the military), they were continuously testing dangerous serums on unsuspecting youths (I Was a Teenage Werewolf), experimenting with dangerous technology (The Fly), and making Faustian bargains with giant alien pickles (It Conquered the World, a film that tragically enough, actually exists). Like the products of the Manhattan Project, science was a black box— or worse yet, Pandora’s— which at best helped solve whatever crisis was at hand, but just as often caused it. These 1950s images of scientists-as older, white-haired men, often foreign, owed much to Einstein, the most recognizeable scientists of all time, and two groups of scientists prominent at the time: the foreigners who toiled on the atom bomb, and the German rocket scientists featured working in the space race. Although Metropolis may have given birth to the image of the white-haired mad scientist, it is these images and the films of the ‘50s that firmly implanted him in the American consciousness. No survey of 1950s science fiction movies would be complete without some mention of director Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959). Plan 9 is widely considered to be the worst film ever made, and those who consider it so are correct (Medved and Medved; Sauter 302). Vaguely throwing together aspects of alien invasion, alien nuclear warning, zombie, and vampire pictures in an incoherent mess, Plan 9 features science in the most bland, banal, and inscrutable form possible. It is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 0 arguably the epitome of the unthinking, black-box approach to technology and 50s screenwriter’s lackadaisical attitude towards science and scientific knowledge. Alien technology is almost never explained, and when the aliens finally do reveal the basics of their science, the explanation is so bizarre that any rational consideration of it causes headaches.4 In an era when implausible science ruled the screen. Plan 9 From Outer Space was in a class by itself. A product of its time (we hope), Plan 9 demonstrated modem fears of technological progress and mixed them up with classical horror elements like vampires and the living dead. The early 1960s marked another relative lull for science and sci-fi in the mass media. The decade, instead of hosting the vast number of B-pictures as the 1950s, instead is better viewed in light of a few, more important films. 1960 saw George Pal’s The Time Machine, which after War of the Worlds and Destination Moon cemented Pal’s reputation as the best-known producer of higher-profile (and budget) science fiction films. In 1963, one of the most memorable scientists in motion picture history— Dr. Strangelove-made his appearance in Stanley Kubrick’s eponymous film. Strangelove was the stereotype of the mad scientist taken to an extreme, down to the crazy hairstyle and thick German accent (once again, with echoes of Rotwang and Einstein). Oddly enough, despite what seems to be an obvious parody, in their Production Code report the censors at the MPAA’s Production Code Administration noted that Peter Sellars played the role of Strangelove “straight”— somehow not seeing enough satire to even relegate it to the “straight and comedic” category, leading one to wonder how many other viewers failed to recognize this brilliant comedic performance as a parody. In 1968, Kubrick followed up Dr. Strangelove with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Showcasing both the progress of special effects and scientific knowledge, 2001 was revolutionary for its portrayal of a more realistic future. Astronauts in 2001 had to deal Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 141 with zero gravity and weightlessness, while space travelers of the ‘50s mostly traveled in an earth-gravity environment where a silvered asbestos suit seemed to provide sufficient protection from the vacuum of space. Kubrick even attempted to bring a dose of science to the film by having an original prelude in which famous scientists of the time, including Freeman Dyson, B.F. Skinner, and Margaret Mead, hold forth on some of the themes of the film. Transcripts of the interviews with Mead show her giving her opinons on evolution, alien intelligence, and interstellar civilizations.5 The scientific content can probably be traced both to Kubrick’s personal desire to see it included and the fact that he chose as his screenwriting collaborator Sir Arthur Clarke, who is both a scientist and science-fiction writer. Sadly, while science takes a front- row seat, the scientist characters themselves don’t fare so well in 2001: the audience watches as they rest in hibernation pods and are systematically killed by the rogue computer HAL. The ‘60s also saw the debut of the James Bond film franchise with Dr. No (1962). Suitably, for a series that would eventually be packed with scientists both benevolent and malign, the first film featured a now-classic trope: a mad scientist with nuclear power. The Bond spy films were bom out of a reaction to cold war hysteria, and that anxiety was arguably a reaction to the fear of Soviet technology as well as Soviet ideology. It makes sense that the choice to combat this threat was a combination of Western gadgets and technology wielded by a man with a capitalistic (hedonistic) sensibility; it is also no surprise that in the 1960s, every Bond film featured scientists or a scientific theme: From Russia With Love (1963, cryptography), Goldfinger (1964, nuclear weapons), Thunderball (1965, nuclear device, again), You Only Live Twice (1967, space travel), and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969, killer vims). Television also had a few hits in the 1960s, primarily the continuing contribution of The Twilight Zone and the CBS series Lost In Space. Perhaps affected by Absent- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 142 Minded Professor Syndrome, television scientists of the ‘60s seemed to be continually misplacing people: Dr. Robinson gets his family Lost in Space, while the hapless scientists of The Time Tunnel somehow lose their test pilots in time. But television’s biggest contribution came in 1966, with a program that would have a profound impact on the American consciousness, on the space race, and on the public’s perception of science— Star Trek. Though these claims may seem exaggerated for a series famously unpopular during its initial ran, over the years Star Trek has resonated with the general public at a level unsurpassed by any other work of screen fiction, including Star Wars. Uncounted numbers of NASA scientists, technicians, and astronauts have traced their interest in space to Trek, and the space shuttle Enterprise was named after the ship in the program.6 The character of Mr. Spock, the phrases “Beam me up, Scotty” and “To boldly go where no man has gone before”— Star Trek is not just one of the most financially popular franchises ever, but has become integrated into mainstream American life and popular culture. As far as science and scientists go, the science in Star Trek is, to put it charitably, speculative; but it is also pretty obvious that most of the time, it is Mr. Spock-the science officer— who saves the day. Though it might be expected that the successful! Apollo missions would spur a wave of science fiction cinema and television, the early 1970s arguably saw few major films of note; perhaps the reality of seeing men walk on the moon momentarily eclipsed the excitement of science fiction. In any case, exceptions include A Clockwork Orange. Sovlent Green, and The Andromeda Strain. The Andromeda Strain (1971) in particular deserves mention here, as one of the first fictional films in which an extensive scientific investigation is essentially the entire topic of the picture. It was also the first film based on a book by Michael Crichton, who was destined to become the king of science-based and scientist-inclusive movies with his participation in the production of Terminal Man (1974. writer), Coma (1978, writer, director), Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 3 Jurassic Park (1993. writer), Twister (1996, writer, producer), and Sphere (1998, writer, producer). In the early 1970s, the small screen was particularly bereft of scientists. Aside from minor programs with scientist characters like Space: 1999. there was only one breakout show— The Six Million Dollar Man (1974). Enormously popular, The Six Million Dollar Man featured scientific topics like space flight and bionics, and more importantly, Dr. Rudy Wells, an affable scientist who developed the miracle of bionics and patiently patched the damaged Steve Austin back together each week, sprouting vague technobabble in his white lab coat. But science fiction’s shining moment of the Disco Age came in 1977, when the release of Star Wars, directed by George Lucas ushered in the second great boom of science fiction film. Star Wars also, alongside Jaws (which featured a scientist character), arguably led to the modem blockbuster-oriented Hollywood science films of today. While Star Wars itself essentially lacks even the pretense of science, it opened the door for innumerable films and television programs with science themes or scientist characters. Television’s Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and films like the James Bond space epic Moonraker took advantage of the public’s appetite for cool-looking space travel special effects. Perhaps the greatest effect of Star Wars, however, was to provide the impetus for relaunching the Star Trek franchise, which to date has produced five successive (and successful) television series and nine motion pictures. Intriguingly, this increased interest in fictional space travel took place during a gap in the actual American manned spaceflight program; from the Apollo- Soyuz Test Project in 1975 until the launch of the first space shuttle in 1981. The early portion of the 1980s largely continued these trends, with a distinctive Star Wars-inspired predilection for spaceflight films and cutesy robots.7 1950s-style invading reptile aliens in flying saucers made a comeback in the ratings-grabbing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 144 television miniseries V. V also featured scientists fighting as important members of a secret resistance movement, a theme that became popular in television series like War of the Worlds (a 1988 “sequel” to the movie) and Earth: Final Conflict (1997). In addition, there were numerous forgettable television shows with scientist characters (two of the “best:” Manimal and Automan), and in fact a short-lived scientist- dominated comedy series appeared, the oft-maligned Misfits of Science. These shows rarely stayed on the air long enough to make much of an impression, but they did include some notable departures from the run-of-the-mill portrayals of the time. Dr. Jonathan Chase of Manimal was a handsome, well-bred gentleman instead of an antisocial, labcoat-wearing outcast, while the scientists of the Yoyodyne Corporation in Misfits of Science were of that rare breed, the comedic but non-absent minded scientist. Comedic science got another boost in what surprisingly became one of the most successful comedies of all time, Ghostbusters (1986). directed by Ivan Reitman. The Ghostbusters are a trio of scientists (nerdy one, bumbling one, and smooth-talking one) who end up saving the world with parapsychology, pseudoscience, and proton beams. Of course, a number of other films also included prominent scientist characters, including David Cronenburg’s disturbing 1986 remake of The Fly.8 War Games. 2010: The Year We Make Contact, and the bizarre Young Einstein, with Australian comedian Yahoo Serious playing a hard-rocking, womanizing, maverick young version of the most famous physicist out to discover a way to carbonate beer. Steven Spielberg’s incredibly popular E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) showed scientists as nightmarish thugs who invade the home of a small boy and his cuddly alien in menacing sterile suits, then kidnap them to a clean white laboratory that in another setting (say, a hospital) might seem comforting, yet here exudes menace and fear. In fact, cutesy or attractive parazoological specimens had much to fear from cold, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 5 anonymous scientists in the early 1980s, as the denizens of Splash and Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend discovered. But the most memorable scientist character of the 1980s is, without a doubt, Dr. Emmett Brown from Back to the Future. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) looks like Rotwang but acts like the absent-minded professor. Although he posseses a house full of pseudoscientific inventions, it is only his time travel-enabling “flux capacitor” (discovered during an accidental Eureka moment in the bathroom) that ever actually works. Good at heart, erratically brilliant, and completely socially inept, Brown epitomizes the sterotypical image of the scientist— particularly the one Mead and Metreaux uncovered in the 1950s: he is absent-minded, socially maladjusted, and erratically brilliant. At a time when mainstream filmmakers were usually too sophisticated to seriously portray such stereotypes, Christopher Lloyd luxuriated in the role. Jurassic Park and the Emergence of the Science Blockbuster Although this brief historical overview has shown that science fiction and films or shows with scientists in them have been popular since the media developed, there was a distinct change in their treatment following the seminal year 1993, when Jurassic Park stomped into the box office. Jurassic Park was a landmark film, not because of the massive box office take or cutting-edge special effects, but because it marked a turning point in the use and treatment of science for major summer “event” films. In fact, apart from rare occurances such as Jaws, it arguably marked the appearance of scientists in these films in general. This dissertation focuses largely on films and television programs of this “science blockbuster” era. Obviously, in almost every decade since the 1950s, Hollywood had seen science fiction as a moneymaker. And Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 6 occasionally, the relationship of these movies to “real” science was trumpeted. In 1956, for example. The Hollywood Reporter ran an article entitled ‘‘Science-Factual Cycle Beginning” which noted that “motion pictures are swinging into a ‘science- factual’ cycle that is a sure bet to win the public fancy...you can combine and reduce heavy scientific facts into exciting film fare.”9 Although the category of the Blockbuster came into common use after Star Wars and Jaws, however, it is only since Jurassic Park that Hollywood has released a rash of films that combine the following four characteristics 1.)Being pitched by the studios as major blockbuster movies, 2.)Explicitly listing science consultants in press kits and articles, 3.)Having scientists appear as main characters, 4.)Specifically pitching the “science fact” of the films in question. Saying a film is pitched as a “blockbuster” means that it is specifically produced and promoted as a big “event” movie, under the post-Star Wars rationale that a movie with a big enough budget, expansive story, and good publicity can be released during the prime moviegoing periods (summer or, to a lesser extent, Christmas), and achieve the technical definition of a blockbuster— a film that brings in over $100 million in box office earnings. The use of science consultants is not unique to these films. Over the years many pictures have used technical consultants— from historical dramas like The Vikings to 2001. The prominence of these consultants, however, is greater than ever in the science blockbusters, a visibility that has to do with the place of The Real in modem cinema and (of course) marketing ploys. Jurassic Park, for example, was heralded not only by standard advertisements and billboards, but with a cover story in Newsweek, which Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 7 devoted four pages to the science behind the film, but only a single one to an actual review (Begley). During the press junket for Deep Impact. Viacom/Dreamworks trotted out the scientific and technical consultants for a moment in the media spotlight, hoping to highlight the verisimilitude of the picture and make their film more immediate, more newsworthy, and one could argue, more prestigious. Additionally, the grounding in “reality” these films feature is a commonly promoted angle. For example, director Michael Bay, when asked about his movie Armageddon, repeatedly noted that an asteroid colliding with the earth as depicted in the movie is not a matter of fictional “if,” but factual “when.” Some of the films disscussed fit the criterion of a science blockbuster more than others (Twister. Jurassic Park, and Deep Impact, are all poster-children for this type of movie), while some fit it less (Mission to Mars, which wasn’t pitched as a blockbuster- style movie, or Volcano, which has a barely perceptible scientific content). Other films and programs will also be discussed, but these are arguably the most important. The aspects of production and publicity involved in Science Blockbusters have a tremendous effect on the content of the films and their portrayal of scientists and scientific information. Evidence of this will come from press kits, content analysis, and the ethnographic data gleaned from science consultants and others involved in their production. Another aspect of the science blockbusters is the continual involvement of a certain group of people in their production, like Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg (who directed Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Juassic Park II. and executive produced Deep Impact. Twister, and SeaOuest DSV) and Gale Anne Hurd (who produced Dante’s Peak and Armageddon). For that matter, these films and shows have met with varying success in the marketplace-which is what technically defines a blockbuster and where, in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 148 entertainment industry, success is often measured. While Jurassic Park. The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2. Twister. Contact, and the asteroid movies Armageddon and Deep Impact all brought in over $100 million at the box office, and the television series The X-Files was one of the most consistently highly rated science fiction programs of all time, other movies like Red Planet and Volcano performed poorly or totally bombed, while a few— Dante’s Peak and Mission to Mars— fell somewhere in the middle. One of the telling oddities of the post-Jurassic Park science movie world that has a subtle but dramatic effect on the use and portrayal of science in these movies is how often competing pictures on the same basic subject appear. Six of the films considered in-depth here are twins: Armageddon with Deep Impact: Volcano with Dante’s Peak: and Mission to Mars with Red Planet. In fact, if made-for-TV movies are included, the field gets even more crowded: Asteroid becomes a triplet with Armageddon and Deep Impact, as does Fire on the Mountain with the volcano movies. Tornado! makes Twister into a twin, and B-movie king Roger Corman released Camosaur to cash in on the popularity of Jurassic Park. It seems that another characteristic of science blockbusters is their ability to spawn clones. What does this mean? Studio officials make halfhearted attempts to distinguish the different films, suggesting that, for example. Dante’s Peak is “character-oriented” while Volcano is “a Towering Inferno type of film” (Dutka, F8). To clarify the difference between the two Mars films, one of the producers of Red Planet noted “I don’t think they’re all that similar, their movie is about a second expedition to Mars. In ours, there’s only one expedition” (Tom King, Wl) a razor-sharp distinction no doubt appreciated by moviegoers. It is generally unclear what starts this phenomenon. On rare occasions, there is an obvious external trigger for these “double features.” The 1997 Sojourner mission got the ball rolling for the Mars pictures, for example, while the made-for-TV movies are clearly meant to ride the coattails of expensive studio advertising for the films they Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 9 mimic. Generally, two films simply seem to appear at different studios at a similar time; often, the scripts have been bandied about for years, and eventually they bubble to the surface of the production schedule. Although it would seem that one studio hears that another is making, say, a volcano movie, and decides to do the same thing, figuring the topic might be “hot,” in the end that equation doesn’t make much sense. There is an incredible tension among all parties involved when competing studios have similar films, because the possibility of saturating the marketplace means neither movie might do well. In fact, once two studios are making similar films, it seems that related projects at other studios get canned. For example, 20th Century Fox dropped a James Cameron asteroid movie, and both Paramount and Disney canceled volcano movies once Dante’s Peak and Volcano appeared on the horizon. In fact, Disney Studios head Joe Roth allegedly called the co-chairman of Warner Bros, during the production of Mission to Mars begging him to shelve plans for the production of Red Planet— even offering up to half the profits from the Disney movie (T. King Wl). The tension takes concrete form in the sudden addition of millions of dollars to budgets, curtailed production times, and increased advertising. Newspapers love this. They get to run articles with titles like “Who Will Be the First to Erupt” fL.A. Times') “Mars Wars” (Wall St. Journal), and “Battle of Cosmic Disasters” (Times— London), but production personnel hate it. Roth said, after fighting the Deep Impact/Armageddon battle, “It was not an experience that I wanted to repeat” (Tom King, W4). And Dante’s Peak director Roger Donaldson worked around the clock when the release date for his movie was moved from May to March 7, noting “I don’t want to put all this effort into a movie and see it written off because we don’t come out first. I’d be lying if I said that I’m not being pressured from marketing people to get the movie out” (Dutka FI). Of course, to counter Donaldson’s crew, Volcano Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 0 production personnel were incited to rush the completion of their movie to beat out Dante’s Peak. In fact, dueling release dates are the primary weapon in a battle of competing double movies. Despite comical denials by studio sources, the general idea is that the first film out of the can will win the race— “winning” of course, being defined as making more money. This occurs despite clear evidence that it simply isn’t true. Of the six twinned science movies, the earlier movie made more money in two out of three cases.1 0 And in those two cases— the volcano and Mars movies, both films were box office disappointments. But if these prove the oversaturation theory, than the asteroid movies contest it, since oddly enough, both did very well. The tendency for thematically-matched movies to come out in pairs does have to do with science. In addition to drawing more attention to a given scientific topic than the appearance of a single movie would, it at least one case, an informant noted that the inclusion of scientific reality in the film was a probable casualty of the frenetic schedule involved in getting the movie out first. It is unclear how the portrayal of science as a marketing tool is deployed differently when there are competing films, though both Paramount and Disney trotted out science consultants at the press junkets for their respective asteroid movies (Disney even held the Armageddon opening at the Kennedy Space Center). More generally, it is possible that the perceived increasing interest of the public in science is the reason that these movies get made at ah, as was evidently the case for the Mars movies. As should be clear by now, it is impossible to study science in film and television without taking into account science fiction film and television, though interestingly enough, they are not inseparable. Both Twister and Dante’s Peak, for example, are movies with scientists, who are depicted engaging in scientific study (and lots of running) that are outside the science fiction genre. The James Bond movies have over Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 151 the years contained an entire university of scientists, from the evil Dr. No to the helpful (and beautiful) Dr. Holly Goodhead . To confuse matters further, some science fiction has almost no science in it— Star Wars being a prime example. And occasionally historical scientists appear in films not of the science fiction genre: Einstein in I.O. and vaguely in Young Einstein: Marie Curie in Madame Curie, and again Young Einstein, and Richard Feynman in Infinity. These appearances are of course important, but given that they are portrayals of specific, clearly identified individuals, any cultivation effect of these films is more likely to inform people’s knowledge and beliefs about the specific individual scientists more than scientists in general. One final note regarding the science blockbusters: it is not clear whether their appearance signals a permanent change, or if they are just a “cycle” of films, one that may end either sooner or later. In other words, it is impossible to tell if their emergence marks a sea change in the treatment of science and scientists in television and film, or is merely a temporary blip whose progressive portrayals will soon disappear. The weight of history indicates that even if the science blockbusters end up being a temporary fad, the changes they initiated will continue; films tend to reflect the public’s attitudes and knowledge, and despite worries over the general level of scientific literacy, the viewing audience’s grasp of background science— the appearance of the surface of Mars, for example, or the indeterminate nature of some scientific research— is clearly increasing. The Narrative Form of Popular Media: Veritable and Dramatic Truth The use of a narrative structure is one of the most basic traits of most entertainment media, in fact, most media period, and is deeply important to understanding the portrayal of science and scientists in these media. The narrative Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 2 referred to here is not the “cultural narrative” mentioned in Chapter 4, but narrative in the literary sense— a linear storyline with a protagonist, antagonist, beginning, middle, and end.1 1 From The Tramp to Star Wars. Ozzie and Harriet to ER. the narrative is the basis of filmed and televised entertainment. During the production of the MGM’s 1946 movie The Beginning or the End, an internal memo from James McGuinness to Louis B. Mayer ended up being sent to Albert Einstein. In it, McGuinness said “it must be realized that dramatic truth is just as compelling a requirement on us as veritable truth is on a scientist” (Rheingold, “MGM” 232). Part of this “dramatic truth” was the studio’s attempt to force the sometimes messy and nonlinear activities of the Manhattan Project into a linear, filmable story. A fictional scientist character (“Matt Cochran,” played by Tom Drake) was introduced to stand in for the myriad of young scientists on the project. General Leslie Groves was given a nonexistant aide (“Jeff Nixon”), and certain historical events, like the Stagg Field fission experiment, contained fictionalized elements that served dramatic or political purposes.1 2 “Real” science— what McGuinness called “veritable truth,” sometimes unfolds like a story, but generally not. Of course, it is obvious that the entertainment industry dramatizes science, and in fact needs to— these aren’t documentaries after all (most of the time), and the operative word modifying “industry” is “entertainment.” While narratives aren’t the only way to structure entertainment, in our society it is certainly the predominant format. The need to fit science into a narrative form deeply affects the way science is portrayed. For example, the need for a protagonist reifies the “Heroes of Science” model of how science works. There is usually one brilliant scientist, like Dante’s Peak’s volcanologist Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan) or Stargate’s Daniel Jackson (James Spader), one of the rare heroic anthropologists to show up in film. If these scientists happen to be disciplinary mavericks or rugged individualists, so much the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 3 better. If there is an ensemble of scientists then one predominates, like paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill) in Jurassic Park or meteorologist Bill Harding (Bill Paxton) in Twister. Even when there is a long-term goal for the characters involved, i.e., finding the one armed man (The Fugitive), protecting the world from evil (James Bond), or returning home (Star Trek: Yovager). each episode of a TV series or individual film must have the requisite narrative elements. Because of the structure of narrative, that means that characters must have goals and conflicts— objects, situations, or people to be overcome in some way. Thus science is almost always portrayed in the service of these goals, in one of two forms: the use of specialist knowledge or problem-solving experimentation. In Volcano. Anne Heche’s vulcanologist is using her knowledge of eruptions to stop lava from destroying Beverly Hills; in Jurassic Park, knowledge of genetics is used to re create dinosaurs, then palentological knowledge is used to survive encountering them. In Deep Impact and Armageddon, scientists’ knowledge of astrophysics helps mankind destroy killer asteroids. Experimentation also crops up frequently in films and television series. In The X- Files. for example, science consultant Anne Simon related that series creator/writer Chris Carter would often ask her to design an experiment specifically to overcome the problem of a given episode: “What would a scientist do to show aliens were real?” for example. Experimental science overcomes viruses in The Andromeda Strain and Outbreak, among others. General, non-goal-oriented, pure science research in the European Research Model style is almost never shown. Why would it be? Pure research, and knowledge for its own sake, serves little narrative purpose and is not entertaining to watch. Twister is about doing basic science, but throughout the film the applications of this basic research are repeatedly stressed. Furthermore, during the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 4 movie, the long, arduous observations and experiments that make up most of actual science are replaced with dramatic discoveries and visually impressive experiments. Of course, most movies or television shows with science themes or subjects are easily able to fit into this basic narrative framework. Take the example of the asteroid movies. Deep Impact and Armageddon: (l)the asteroid/comet (antagonist) is plummeting towards Earth (conflict), (2)science must find a way to deflect or destroy it (goal), and (3)the asteroid/comet is destroyed (denouement). In episodes of The X- Files. the FBI agents are presented with a clear problem that requires a specific experiment, analysis, or assay to solve. Even when the cause of a scientific search is the object of the entire film, instead of just an object to move the plot along~as in The Andromeda Strain or Outbreak, the activity is dramatized and narrativized as much as possible. Hollywood can even make the placement of a piece of experimental equipment into an exciting screen event-as in Twister, where the intrepid meteorologists must drive their truck (loaded with instruments) directly into the path of a monstrous tornado. As important as narrative is in affecting the structure and particulars of these stories, at least as important is the observation that structuring information in a narrative form affects the ability or penchant of people to absorb that information. In Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots, anthropologist Cheryl Mattingly describes how putting the experience of illness into a narrative form helps patients to interact with their healers and get better themselves (3). In fact, Mattingly suggests, we are so conditioned to react to narrative, and so comfortable with it that we naturally tend to fit our experiences into narrative forms (19). Psychologist Jerome Bruner, discussing his “nine universals of narrative realities” similarly indicates that it is by fitting our experiences into narratives that we are better able to make sense of and absorb them (133). Furthermore, Shanahan and Morgan suggest that it is not merely the information we Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 155 receive from media that affects our understandings and beliefs, but the narrative context of that information— that the form in which information appears can be just as important for situating it and imbuing it “with meaning and values” (192). Additionally, they cite Richard Gerrig’s theory that there is essentially no “toggle” between how people process fictional and nonfictional information; when experience is narratively constructed, as Mattingly and Bruner suggest, our ability to distinguish knowledge gained by that experience and through viewing those narratives become even more blurred. Like Gerrig, Neal Gabler suggests that the American people today have a difficult time distinguishing between fact and fiction. But unlike Gerrig’s cognitive causality, to Gabler this is a result of our own desire to make life into entertainment. In Life: The Movie Gabler documents how completely entertainment-based narrativizing tendencies have taken over our lives. Not only do we conceptualize our own lives as occurring in a narrative format, but we take the grist of other people’s fives— like the OJ. Simpson case or the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal— and force it to become entertainment, too (5).1 3 In addition, some people are so in love with or indoctrinated by the media that they make their fives into literal performances, as when Timothy Leary webcast his death over the Internet, or criminals videotape themselves in the act of committing felonies. Gabler also notes that to further confuse matters, even the news becomes forced into “narrative contours” as the media narrativizes essentially nonnarrative situations like the SandL scandals or the fall of the Soviet Bloc (90). And of course, science reported in the media is no different. Steve Fuller writes that science journalists specifically tend to dramatize their reporting, making scientific discovery into at best an extended debate, punctuated by critical experiments (Philosophy 236). Tourney concurs, writing that science news has to be “entertaining, and, preferably, sensational. It also has to be fast breaking, as if each day’s scientific findings ought to renounce Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 6 those of the day before” (22). Suzanna Homig reports that even respected documentary shows like NOVA dramatize scientific endeavors, portray scientists as heroes, and in general report science in a narrative format (21). Furthermore, Gregory and Miller suggest that because of this need to narrativize science news stories, the true nature of science--the long-term research, the technical controversies, scientific research and results that don’t “look like” anything— gets deleted, leaving a simplified version of science that looks a lot like the fictional content that fills the rest of television time (123). Science as Spectacle The other prime structural factor that influences the way science and scientists appear in film and on TV is the requirements of visual spectacle. Perhaps the primary criteria for including something in any form of visual media like a film or television show is “how good does it look on screen?” Indeed, it is sometimes argued that spectacle has replaced narrative as the guiding criteria for what gets on screen (Geoff King 2). This observation is particularly true of the science blockbuster films like Twister and Armageddon, which were widely regarded as having sacrificed story for special effects (Ebert 7 and Burlinghame FI, respectively). As Gregory and Miller point out, science that shows up on screen has to “look like something” (122). That’s one reason topics like quantum mechanics do not make it onto TV frequently, while chemistry involving explosions or biology that creates freakish mutations does. One of the problems with portraying the realistic pursuit of science is that the routines of science are not viscerally spectacular, and thus from the standpoint of entertainment, are boring. As a result, the routine, mundane activities of science are usually glossed over. “What do scientists do on television? They talk to the camera or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 157 to the interviewer, and they go jogging, have lunch, get in and out of their cars, walk up and down corridors— but they do not actually do science” (Gregory and Miller 123). Again, Homing reports that on NOVA, scientists are almost never shown actually working (17), and Geoff King mentions that successful space missions are rather dull. That’s why Apollo 13, the one that went awry, is the only Apollo mission to have been made into a major motion picture (81). All of this means that what we get on screen is science that looks like something. It has either a dramatic origin (like the apparatus necessary to animate Frankenstein’s monster) or, more commonly, a dramatic effect— explosions, space travel, mutations, etc. Look at the films of the science blockbuster sub-genre: we have dinosaurs that come alive (Jurassic Park), catastrophic cosmic collisions (Deep Impact), destructive tornadoes (Twister), and volcanoes erupting in major population centers (Dante’s Peak. Volcano). Even in Contact, where the actual alien encounter at the end of the film is not much more visually exciting than an episode of Little House on the Prairie, the science itself— gigantic radio telescope arrays, the magnificent spinning spacecraft apparatus— is spectacular. In fact, the fetishization of technology in these films and television programs feeds directly into the need for spectacle. Though technically about humans overcoming adversity through pluck, luck, and cunning, the truth is that everyone in the science blockbusters depends on technology at some point. Even in pictures supposedly made to highlight “human drama” (like Deep Impact or Contact!, the camera pans longingly across the spacecraft, turning an immense machine built by the lowest bidder into a thing of beauty. This tendency is even more pronounced in a testosterone-driven film like Armageddon, with its super-macho armored space shuttles and machine-gun laden, tanklike rovers. In all five of the Star Trek television series, not a single actor is ever seen during the opening credits: instead, their names play across the screen as the ship Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 8 whooshes through space in front of the camera, or is slowly caressed as it passes in front of Hubble-inspired nebulae and other astral bodies. Requirements of both narrative and spectacle also force filmmakers to play around with time: when real science is slow, fictional science speeds up. Experiments that might take months in the real world take hours and days (and are shown on screen in a few minutes) Obviously, visual entertainment has a requirement to always show something, and when measured against the months or years of a scientific experiment, not a whole lot of time to do it in. Evolutionary processes speed up (see Mimic and Relic), while gestation and maturation times in particular become surprisingly rapid— the alien/human hybrid of Species completely matures in only a few years, and skips from pre-adolescence to adulthood in a few hours (as do the namesake creatures of the Alien series). In Species It. after the creature impregnates human females the alien babies gestate and disgustingly empt from their hosts in mere minutes. Archaeological discoveries often take years to come to fruition, spent not just in locating the site and excavating, but in mind-numbing amounts of lab time spent cataloging and analyzing artifacts and data. Indiana Jones and his spiritual children Lara Croft (Tomb Raider). and.Evelyn Carnahan (The Mummy), of course, accomplish all this effortlessly and quickly, and dispense entirely with the boring elements of lab work. The need for visual spectacle affects the portrayals of science in much the same way as the requirements of narrative do. Just as narrative requires a goal to be overcome, spectacle requires some sort of concrete, visual avatar of science— e.g. dinosaurs (in Jurassic Park), aliens (in Species), giant bugs (in Them!. Mimic), etc. The producers of The Hollow Man faced the problem that the object of their science was literally invisible. Solution? Make the process of turning invisible (and turning back) visually stunning. These objects fill the need of spectacle and narrative by Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 159 providing the double benefit of being visually exciting, and giving the protagonists a concrete object to overcome or defeat This analysis of the requirements and affects of both narrative and spectacle is not intended as a value judgment, but as an observation. Although one could say these requirements have a deleterious effect on the veracity of science as portrayed in films and on television, it is not per se good or bad the way that these things mold science and scientists into a format more amenable to filming. It is simply a requirement (or convention) of mass entertainment media. But because these structural elements have such a dramatic impact on content, it is important to take these requirements and their effects into account when considering the representation of science in these visual media. Motion Pictures versus Television: What Gets Made There is also an irony to discuss: while six of the top-grossing films of all time are science-based or science-fiction films, the most popular television shows by comparison are situation comedies and dramas. Science fiction on TV is relegated to the absolute bottom of ratings and critical respect. In a list of the top 100 television series between 1946 and 1999 that ranked programs based on number of seasons telecast and audience size rankings, the highest ranked show that featured even the most tangentially-identified scientist character was Friends, at #42. In that same ranking, not a single science fiction program made it into the top 100 (Brooks and Marsh 1263). In a survey of 814 primetime television programs between 1969 and 1979, Gerbner et al. found that scientists accounted for less than one percent of professional characters— under half their actual percentage of the American labor force (“Scientists” 42). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 0 Why fictional science (and science fiction) does well in movie theatres but poorly on TV is something of a mystery. By the late 1990s, Friends was the only show routinely in the top ten with a character even marginally described as a scientist (a paleontologist) and The X-Files the only sci-fi show with consistently decent ratings. In 2001, as The X-Files ratings slipped, the non sci-fi (but scientist-loaded) C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation cracked the top ten shows barrier. Aside fromC.S.I. however, and amazingly enough, scientists are almost completely absent from prime time television in the year 2001, something Kubrick and Clarke definitely missed. In one sample week of prime-time programming (2/18-2/24 2001), out of 122 programs on six networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, UPN, and WB), only SIX had main characters who are scientists— The X-Files. 3rd Rock from the Sun. Dark Angel, 7 Days. Friends, and C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation. On some of these, the scientist’s occupation is secondary— for example, it is very rarely mentioned that Friends’ Ross is a paleontologist, and it certainly never impacts the storyline (once, another character taunted him by saying “Jurassic Park could happen!” and another time that “evolution is only a theory”). On the other hand, that’s pretty much the only time in major network TV that a character’s background occupation is a scientist. Television is populated by hordes of doctors, lawyers, teachers, and vaguely blue- and white-collar workers, but characters are almost never scientists, even as a throwaway background story. Science appears on television occasionally, but hardly ever as a primary occupation. This trend has even reached the hallowed halls of the most widely-known science fiction series of all time. On the original Star Trek Mr. Spock was chief science officer; but in one of the recent incarnations of the series, Star Trek: Voyager. scientific expertise is spread among the crew, who seem to get along just fine without an officer dedicated to the task. Either a scientist was considered a superfluous Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 161 character by the show’s creators, or there is an assumption the all crew members are so scientifically literate that it doesn’t really matter.1 4 Interestingly enough, however, sci-fi flourishes in the world of non-network, lower budget syndicated and cable television. A single weekend afternoon provides almost as many scientists in syndication as a week of all the network programs combined, and cable supports the Sci-Fi Channel, an entire network packed with scientist characters of almost every discipline. In the same week networks offered only five shows (2/18-24, 2001), cable and syndicated programs included Stargate SG-1. The Invisible Man. Earth: Final Conflict. Andromeda. PSI Factor. Farscape. Babylon 5. and a host of others. It isn’t entirely clear what process accounts for this, but it likely has to do with the political economy of syndicated versus network television. Syndicated shows are generally cheaper to produce than network ones, and are often made by smaller production houses. Thus they need less of an audience to be profitable, and can focus on a genre like science fiction that is either neglected or looked down upon by major networks. By pursuing niche audiences and associating themselves with a “pay” service (as opposed to networks, which are “free”), cable channels can once again afford to show less popular (and thus profitable) programming. Another explanation for the proliferation of syndicated and cable sci-fi can perhaps be found in the recent advent of cheap computer-generated special effects that are able to mimic, if not replicate, those seen in major motion pictures. With visual science fiction being so dependent upon spectacle, the ability to inexpensively produce that spectacle in an important limitation on televised sci-fi. Although the popularity of science fiction films is frequently discussed, few scholars have addressed the lack of science fiction programs on the small screen, or questioned why it is so popular in one medium and reviled in the other. Science fiction Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 162 author Thomas Disch attributed sci-fi’s lack of success on television to the fact that it “ranges from rather to very dumb”- a feature he attributes to the mode of production, where television programs are produced by networks who must program for the lowest common denominator (98). For Disch the success of shows like Star Trek (which came decades after originally airing) is due to modestly good visuals and blandness: “one major component of Star Trek’s success is that it’s pizza for lunch, every day of the week” (100). Partially this rings true; it is rare that a thought-provoking program elicits high ratings, though ones that are “pizza” often do (The X-Files being a rare sci-fi exception, and there are many who would claim that to the contrary, it dulls scientific and critical thinking skills).1 5 But films are also the product of a studio out to woo the biggest audience, and they largely succeed. Banks and Tankell suggest that television networks won’t commit to serious science fiction on television because it has a crummy advertising demographic “deemed undesirable by prime time television advertisers” (27). The demographic they imply isn’t clear, though given the context, one assumes it to be adolescent males— which is precisely the demographic advertisers want. Even this presupposition may not be correct: Bonnie Hammer, president of the cable Sci Fi Channel, says “most people assume wrongly that science fiction is a male-based genre, when in fact there are more women who tune into sci-fi than anyone expects.” This statement statement is bolstered by data that 41% of the viewers of the channel’s prime night of original programming are female (S. King 3). Banks and Tankell’s theory also doesn’t take into account the popularity of sci-fi films; some other explanation must be in order. The explanation may liessomewhere in the basic differences between film and television. The two mediums are structurally different-TV shows, for example, have an episodic nature, while theatrically screened films are far more immersive than TV programs. Furthermore, they are also socially different. Each medium fulfills different Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 163 roles in our society, and has a separate social mileu: television viewing is usually done in the home, while going to the movies is a more explicitly social event. It is possible that through an as-yet undiscovered mechanism, a combination of these differences has a positive effect in science fiction films and a deleterious one on television programs. Two other explanations spring to mind. The first is that, while literary science fiction is often known for its deep engagement with complex social issues, on screen, how something looks remains a vitally important part of how it is received. Because science fiction often takes place far from familiar settings and worlds, it often depends on the realm of spectacle, as discussed earlier. This is important because the stunning special effects-laden visuals of most science fiction don’t translate as well to the small screen; their impact, both visually and as a contribution to the storyline, is reduced along with their size. The second reason has to do with cost. The production costs of big science and science-fiction films are immense; Terminator 2: Judgement day was the first film with a production cost over $100 million, and its descendants continue to set spending records. Their small-screen counterparts often retain this quality— SeaOuest DSY was the first program to cost $1 million an episode, the miniseries V cost $14 million, and Battlestar Galactica was canceled not because of poor ratings but high cost. Cost-benefit is directly related to the willingness of a network to continue producing a program. As Richard Kostyra, director of media services for the rating company J. Walter Thompson once said, his company’s rating mechanism “underrepresents people who are less affluent. What do I care how much TV poor people watch?” (“Off Camera” 11). With inflated budgets, a program must deliver a comparatively higher number of viewers than a low cost program to be profitable for the network that produces it. There are holes in both these arguments, of course. Compelling science fiction doesn’t have to rely on special effects for its impact (see the Twilight Zone or the X- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 4 Files), and both the quality and cost of those effects can be controlled thanks to modem digital editing and effects technology— one reason for the proliferation of syndicated science fiction. Perhaps there is no one good reason, and the entire issue comes down to the vagaries of human preference. About all that can be said for certain is that the public treats their relationship with films and television differently, and that given the structural effects of mass media content, perhaps Marshall McLuhan was right— the medium is the message. The Production of Ideology A final issue relates to the ideological influences of what gets made; specifically, the extent to which ideological and hegemonic messages are included in the products of the entertainment industry. Powdermaker noted that the creation of the 1930s Production Code was in the interests of maintaining the status quo, personified in the stance of “reformist” or morality groups like the Legion of Decency and the Catholic Church (55) and the businessmen running the studios who made movies for profit (316). For years, fictional media showed married couples sleeping in separate beds, and the Code insured that all criminals in films would be punished— as if movies and television could encourage a specific moral behavior regarding chastity and crime by these portrayals. Like members of the Frankfurt School, who viewed mass media as a tool of indoctrination through which the masses could be kept in line, Shanahan and Morgan see a more sinister hand at work within the media to maintain social institutions and structures that benefit the elite. Their argument runs as follows: 1 ^Institutions of mass communication are owned by social, cultural, and economic elites; 2.)These elites codify messages in media which serve elite aims (such as maintaining order and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 5 institutions that support social inequality); 3.)These hegemonic tendencies can be revealed through empirical study; 4.)Audiences absorb these hegemonic messages; and 5.)Audience members who are more “committed” to media will hold these hegemonic beliefs more strongly. For example, counterculture and literary elites who are against television are almost often against popular sentiments) (16-18). Of course, Powdermaker’s idea of the forces behind media production are much different. To her, the content of major Hollywood films is explained by two factors: l.)The desire of the studios to make as much money as possible, generally without regard to artistry, and 2.)The input of morality groups, who affect the content but whose input is only heeded because they can exert their own economic power through boycotts. Shanahan and Morgan consider the powers behind media content to be a much more remote group, the vaguely defined “social elites,” who they define “not [as] a mysterious cabal...simply as the ‘ haves’ of global, industrialized society who enjoy its benefits disproportionately” (15). While there is no doubt such a group exists, and indeed that a hegemonic framework influences society and its products (like mass media) in their favor, bringing such a distant group into an analysis of media presents problems. It is fairly easy to detect how Powdermaker’s Hollywood elites influence a production, and she does so in The Dream Factory. But the mechanisms through which Shanahan and Morgan’s elites act are so byzantine and subtle that it is difficult to tell if they even exist, let alone uncover them in a meaningful way in an ethnography. For example, although there is clear evidence that media affects people’s beliefs and opinions about science and science-related issues (Elliot and Rosenberg; Gerbner et. al. 1985), applying Shanahan and Morgan’s causal logic does not really make a lot of sense. Or rather, they present a strong and logical theoretical argument, but viewed through the lens of practice, it seems specious. The tenuous nature of these claims Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 6 becomes more clear when viewed in light of the type of data appearing in the next chapter’s content analysis that examines in detail how scientists are portrayed. For instance, on television, scientists are shown as more likely to die than members of other professions (Gerbner et al., Television Entertainment 11); how does this ideologically benefit the “haves” of global, industrialized society? Or of having scientists appear as a smaller percentage of the workforce than they actually are? Often in film and television, scientists who work for corporate or governmental entities are portrayed negatively. Does this help the global media elites? How? By encouraging mistrust in science and technology? That doesn’t ring true, if these same technocrats seek to influence or control the masses through media and technology. Of course, if the vectors through which hegemony delivered its message were obvious, than it wouldn’t be working very well, and it is also ignorant to ignore the idea that these portrayals do somehow support the status quo. Subtle but possibly tautological arguments for the ideological influence of global social elites could include l.)by pandering to popular sentiment and “giving the public what they want,” the media producers encourage intellectual (and physical) lethargy instead of thought-provoking, controversial programming, 2.)they portray scientists as dangerous people who need to be controlled by the government,1 6 or 3.)by alienating the public from scientists and other knowledge producers, they encourage willful disbelief of some of the conclusions of modem science— such as the existence of global warming or that a ballistic missile shield isn’t likely to work. Shanahan and Morgan come at the issue from the classic cultivation theory stance of violence in the mass media. One of the original ideological arguments of cultivation theorists was that continual portrayals of violence in the mass media cause people to become more fearful of crime than is really warranted, thus causing a demand for more police, which serves the needs and desires of the elite by increasing their ability to keep Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 7 order (49).1 7 Even if the hypothesis is true, this kind of analysis does not make any sense as an explanatory framework of the portrayals of scientists and scientific knowledge. Far more likely as the basic motivational factors behind the entertainment industry are those Powdermaker pointed out a half century ago: money, power, and sex. For Powdermaker, some combination of these three elements provided an explanation for almost anything that occurred or was produced in Hollywood. While other factors obviously are important on an immediate level (artistic preferences, political climate, etc.) or at an ultimate level (hegemonic forces), she probably wasn’t too far off the mark. The drive to keep cranking out profitable properties at the expense of other considerations, and thus the motivation to conform movies and television programs to reflect the broadest possible public appeal, seems at least as important as uncovering deep-seated ideological motives when analyzing the forces that shape modem media images. 1 This is an extremely brief and cursory history, focusing on a few specific portrayals and a very few films and TV shows. In-depth coverage of the history of science fiction in Hollywood can be found in the following sources: l.YDie Great Science Fiction Pictures by James Robert Parrish and Michael Pitts, Metuchen, NJ: Scorecard Press, 1977. 2.1 Overlook Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited by Phil Hardy, New York: Overlook Press, 1995. 3.)Future Tense: The Cinema of Science Fiction by John Brosnan, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978. 2 In his monograph on Metropolis. Thomas Elsaesser also makes note of the anti- semetic interpretation of the film’s ending, where Rotwang is dressed like an East European Jew, or the rabbi from 1920’s The Golem, and is forced to watch the robot Maria (his golem) bum at the stake (56). This is an even stronger argument for seeing Rotwang’s ancestor in Einstein, of course. 3 In Son of the Golden Turkey Awards, critics Michael and Harry Medved include the category “Least Convincing Scientific Explanation in Motion Picture History.” Most the the films “nominated’ are from the 1950s and illustrate the casual approach to scientific veracity common at the time. Their nominees are Elvsia. the Valiev of the Nude (1933), Maniac (1934), Glen or Glenda (1953), Bride of the Monster (1955), The Giant Claw (19571. Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958), The Bride and the Beast Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 168 (1958), She Demons (1958), Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959). Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966), and The Astro-Zombies (1968). Their winner? The Bride and the Beast, for suggesting that hypnosis can not only lead people to recall past lives, but that those lives can include ones spent as apes, and (amazingly enough, there’s more), having spent a past life as an ape leads one to prefer soft, furlike clothing materials— particularly angora. 4 With that build-up, it would be remiss not to share this. From the mouth of alien leader Eros: “Your scientists stumbled upon the atom bomb— split the atom! Then the hydrogen bomb, where you actually explode the air itself. Now you bring the total destruction of the entire universe, served by our sun. The only explosion left is the solaronite....your scientists will stumble upon it as they have all the others...the solaronite is a way to explode the actual particles of sunlight! [now things get really bad] Take a can of your gasoline. Say this can of gasoline is the Sun. Now you spread a thin line of it to a ball representing the Earth. Now the gasoline represents the sunlight, the Sun particles. Here we saturate the ball with the gasoline— the sunlight- then we put a flame to the ball. The flame will speedily travel around the Earth, back along the line of gasoline to the can— or the Sun itself. It will explode this source, and spread to every place the gasoline— our sunlight— touches. Explode the sunlight here, gentlemen, you explode the universe. Explode the sunlight here and a chain reaction will occur direct to the sun itself and to all the planets that sunlight touches. To every planet in the universe.” 5 Reading the transcript of the interview (found in the Library of Congress’ Margaret Mead manuscript collection), it is clear that Mead found the questions increasingly stupid, but didn’t want to put off the interviewers by telling them so. The text of this interview is dealt with in detail in Chapter 8. 6 During a conference on “Science and Literature” held at the Library of Congress in 1985, science fiction writer Jerry Poumelle stated flatly that “you go out to JPL [NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory]: about 30 percent of the people who are on staff out there made their career choice largely as a result of having read the novels of Robert A. Heinlein in their youth...I think Gene Roddenberry’s ‘Star Trek’ has had more influence over the world than every one of us in this room put together.” (Library of Congress. Science and Literature: A Conference. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1985, pp.79) 7 After Star Wars, the cute little beeping robot (based on R2D2) was such a part of the sci-fi/fantasy filmmaking world that MGM included one in the Greek mythology- inspired Clash of the Titans. Zeus orders Athena to send the young hero (Perseus, on loan from a different myth than the one in the film, presumably because the producers didn’t think the audience could say “Belleraphon”) a mechanical owl named Bupo that, just like R2D2, beeps, whirrs, and spins its head. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 9 8 At the time of the original film, the fly was pretty much limited to a man with a fly’s head attached. By the 1980s, however, special effects had advanced to a place where Cronenberg could make an incredibly graphic, vicerally disgusting and disturbing human/fly hybrid. The sequel (1989) is even worse. 9 Clearly the anonymous author of this article was remarkably prescient. Some of the “science-factual” movies release immedately after this article appeared included The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), The Fly (1957), and It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958). 1 0 Other recent twinned-topic movies confuse the matter even further: The Truman Show was released first and beats the pants off Edtv at the box office, but in the battle of the computer-generated insects Ante, released first, was buried by A Bug’s Life. 1 1 There is a relationship between the two sorts of narrative, however. Literary narratives often express cultural ones; for example, the storyline (narrative) of Star Wars reflects cultural narratives of heroism, sacrifice, and the concepts of good and evil. The story narratives of Horatio Alger are so tied to culturally-valued narratives that there is an annual award given to the person who most exemplifies those traits. 1 2 As Rheingold uncovered, the Stagg Field experiment in particular became seriously altered: to portray the internationalism of the effort (and appeal to British viewers), Commonwealth observers were shown at the experiment (they were not there in real life). In addition, all of the scientists who had ever expressed hesitation about the work appeared at Stagg Field, withdrawing after the experiment succeeded. Once again, this was not how things occured in the “real” life (Rheingold “MGM” 233). 1 3 Which leads to the question: who does the forcing? The media clearly are the ones who place these events in a narrative format, but only because the public is now used to viewing public events in that way. It seems less a matter of one group choosing, but a dialectic between the media (who say they’re just giving the public what they want), and the audience (who either eats it up or complains about it, but apparently still watches). 1 4 It may seem odd to consider that a show which takes its use of consultants so seriously might not care for a scientist character, but as one informant suggested, Star Trek is rarely about the science— it seems to prefer being a character-driven program that simply happens to take place in a science-fiction world. 1 5 Brooks and Marsh’s “top 100 series” ranking lists the top ten shows between 1948 and 1999 as (in order) 60 Minutes. Gunsmoke. The Red Skelton Show. Bonanza. All in the Family. Walt Disney. The Ed Sullivan Show. The Lucy Show. Murder. She Wrote, and M*A*S*H. Though 60 Minutes contains occasionally thought-provoking journalism and rare interviews with scientists, and M*A*S*H raised some serious Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 7 0 issues about war, overall, Disch’s contention that audiences like the television version of junk food may not be so far off the mark. 1 6 Of course, this presupposes that people trust the government to keep scientists reined in, a touchy proposition in a national climate where people seem to continually believe the government is hiding something. According to NSF-reported survey data, the public trusts the scientific community more than the military, supreme court, and other governmental institutions (8-18). Then again, post Sept. 11, people allegedly have more faith in big government, so this could be changing. Of course, the films and television programs under discussion here were made in a pre- Sept. 11 context. 1 7 In fact, Shanahan and Morgan report that this was the hypothesis of Gerbner and Gross in their early violence/cultivation study “Living with Television: The Violence Profile” Journal of Communication, vol.26, no.2, 1976, pp. 173-99. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 7: Content Analysis: What We See. What it Means. 171 and “How Real is the science?” In “Feature Films as Cultural Documents,” John Weakland notes that the cultural content of films will become amenable to analysis if the anthropologist: l.)searches for regular, repetitive elements of content and 2.)repetitive interrelations between these, especially formal ones, at increasingly general levels, and also 3.)seeks to connect up with major regularities even apparent discrepancies or contradictions— usually as special cases, differing according to particular circumstances (243). For the topic of science in mass entertainment media, that means l.)looking at how scientists and scientific knowledge are portrayed in films and on television, 2.)searching for patterns of similarity between those portrayals, and 3.)attempting to explain any exceptions to the general run of portrayals. To do that, we turn a critical eye towards content analysis. Content analysis is a vital part of this research. If the thesis is that people’s beliefs are influenced by the mass entertainment media, it is dramatically important to examine the images that media transmits. This chapter includes both original analyses and those conducted by other researchers in communications and cinema studies. Althought there is a vast body of documentary and educational broadcast media dealing with science, the products covered in this dissertation are fictional works. Why? Aside from the fact that much has been written about educational science programs and the public understanding of science, the truth is, just as even the most popular science museums in the world attracts fewer visitors per year than the audience of a single episode of the educational programs Nova or Horizon (Gregory and Miller 211), more Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 172 people saw the movies Twister or Armageddon than the number of people who watched an entire season of Nova combined. Moreover, a broader range of people saw those movies; people who might otherwise turn off an educational program like Nova. Scientists are more common than might be imagined in the world of film: my analysis of the top 50 box office grossing films of all time shows that 11 of them had scientists as major characters, and an additional 9 as minor ones— that means that 40% of these films had scientists appearing in them at all, and 22% had scientists appearing as a primary focus of the film’s action. 6 of the top 50 films had a scientific discovery or activity based on scientific knowledge as the main impetus of the plot (for example Twister): an additional 14 showed scientific knowledge in at least a tangential way (for example Independence Day). Chapter 9 includes ethnographic data from producers, publicists, and others in Hollywood who suggest that scientific themes are popular with the public; given these figures, they seem to be correct. Although all instances of film and TV portrayals of science and scientists are open for consideration and inclusion here, there is a focus on the science blockbusters and other extremely popular media products. When choosing works of mass media to focus on for this project, the sorting criteria were based on the general thesis that while smaller works may be solid indicators of society’s attitudes, it is a steady stream of the most popular ones that is more likely to influence public perceptions as a whole. In other words, to find out what the public picture of a mad scientists is, it is fine to watch Night of the Lepus or Re-Animator H: Bride of Re-Animator, but to locate the images that influence that picture, it is better to watch Twister. The audience for science fiction films and entertainment television programs dwarfs that of documentary TV and literary science fiction.1 In addition, though many films or television shows with scientists in them are marketed to appeal to science fiction or horror fans, the science blockbusters in general Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 173 are designed, produced, and marketed with the broadest possible audience in mind. While science fiction/horror movies like Hollow Man and Species are popular, they simply aren’t in the same category of mass-market appeal as, say. Twister. While it may seem cmde to use numbers to justify the focus of an academic project, it is a telling figure of public exposure that the films of the consultants interviewed grossed almost $3 billion in ticket sales alone (and this excludes video rentals and television viewing). In fact, with the exception of a number of works examined specifically for historical contextualization, this section focuses completely on media products created after 1993, the year Jurassic Park roared into the box office. Because these films and television series in particular are so significant to this research, it is important to provide an abridged outline of some of the basic elements of plot, scientific content, and reactions to the most important films and television programs. A brief treatment of each will assist the reader in understanding some of what is said about them in the rest of the dissertation. Jurassic Park (1993, dir. Steven Spielberg). Far and away the most successful of the science blockbusters, “Jurassic Park” is the name of an amusement park featuring dinosaurs that have been cloned from fossilized DNA extracted from amber-locked mosquitoes. Before the insurance company will sign off on a policy for the park, it requires that the owner provide independent scientific opinions as to the safety and viability of the park. This requirement paves the way for the arrival of three scientists- paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), paleobotanist Ellie Satler (Laura Dem) and mathematician/chaos theorist Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum). Needless to say, the chaos theorist is proven correct, everything starts to go wrong, and the dinosaurs escape their enclosures. The characters spend the rest of the movie trying to survive encounters with the dinosaurs and restore power to the island, thus enabling their escape. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 174 Despite massive media coverage of the film which often pointed to the scientific veracity of the dinosaurs and future possibilities of cloning (3 years before Dolly the sheep), it contains only a modicum of scientific content: there is a rational scientific explanation of the cloning of the dinosaurs, and a sizable amount of factual science in the short animated “Mr. DNA” segment at the amusement park. The paleontologists use their knowledge of dinosaurs to survive, and the calamities that befall the park are explained by Chaos Theory. Jurassic Park was followed by The Lost World: Jurassic Parkl! and Jurassic Park III, both of which contain even less scientific information than the original, though each does feature the return of one of the scientists from the first movie, Ian Malcom and Alan Grant, respectively. Deep Impact (1996, dir. Mimi Leder). The first of the two “asteroid” movies released, Deep Impact is technically speaking actually a comet movie. An amateur astronomer discovers a comet plummeting towards Earth, and the government covers it up for a year while preparing a space mission to destroy the intruder, which is repeatedly referred to as “Ellie” (or E.L.E.), short for Extinction Level Event. Eventually word of the comet leaks out, the government holds a lottery to determine who will be admitted to special survival caves dug under the Appalachian mountains, and the world waits while the Messiah space mission attempts to destroy the comet. It partially succeeds, thus saving humanity, but still allowing enough of the comet to survive for there to be a sequence of incredible special effects showing the impact of the comet in the Atlantic Ocean. Aside from the astronomer, there are very few scientists in this film, and most scientific information is delivered by the President (Morgan Freeman) in a televised speech to the American public, and as information unearthed by a reporter examining the government cover-up. Other scientific information on space flight (like the time delay in communications), is also usually explained to the audience through an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 175 onscreen character. The treatment of science and scientific content in Peep Impact was frequently praised by NASA employees and other scientist informants. Armageddon (1996, dir. Michael Bay). The second asteroid movie, Armageddon opens with a sequence showing the impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. A “Texas-sized” asteroid is discovered heading towards Earth (as opposed to the smaller “Manhattan-sized” comet of Deep Impact). It is determined that to destroy the asteroid, nuclear devices must be detonated from deep within it, so the government recruits a bunch of hard-drinkin’, hard-drivin’, maverick oil drillers to be flown to the asteroid in specially-equipped (armored and beweaponed) space shuttles for the task. After a “wrong stuff’ training sequence, everyone goes to the asteroid, predictable sacrifices are made, and the Earth is saved. Once again, of course, there’s not much point in having a disaster movie without the disaster, so enough of the asteroid survives to impact spectacularly in the center of Paris. Armageddon features a number of scientists, all of whom are earthbound but working for NASA, one of whom is described as “just about the smartest person on the planet.” On the other hand, the oil drillers are shown to be more intelligent, clever, and correct than the scientists in almost every case. In other words, the working-class heroes triumph over the intellectuals, and basic engineering knowledge is more valuable than fancy astrophysics. Science is limited to the absolute basics necessary to make the audience understand just how terrifying the incoming asteroid is, and some vague rudimentaries of space travel. Armageddon was universally derided by consultants and NASA employees, not for its lack of scientific veracity but for portraying false science as true and pointlessly ignoring real aspects of space travel and astrophysics. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 176 Twister (1996, dir. Jan du Bont). The second most popular of the science blockbusters, Twister is, of course, about tornadoes; more specifically, about the scientists who study them. Jo Hardin (Helen Hunt) leads a team of university researchers called “The Storm Chasers” trying to deploy a revolutionary new sensor pallet (“Dorothy”) into the center of a tornado. Hardin’s soon-to-be-ex-husband Bill Hardin (Bill Paxton) is lured out of his impending sellout job as a television meteorologist to help his old team. Twister is jam-packed with scientists, including Jo Hardin, Bill Hardin, and the Storm Chasers as well as the evil Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes) and his team of corporate flunkies. Miller and his team are competing with the Storm Chasers to deploy their own sensor device, a direct copy of Dorothy; the dramatic tension in the film arises from the quest to deploy Dorothy and the competition with Miller. The contrast between the university-funded, thrift-shop dressing hipster Storm Chasers and Miller’s slickly-uniformed, corporate-sponsored team is amusing, particularly when comparing the Storm Chasers’ battered cars and trucks to the corporation’s fleet of matching, evil black mini vans. Twister contains a fair amount of scientific data related to tornadoes, and includes explanations of both the value and the limits of scientific knowledge: after the home of Jo’s beloved Aunt Meg is destroyed, Meg tells the distraught university team that only the scientists can make sure the same tragedy does not befall others.2 Dante’s Peak (1996, dir. Roger Donaldson). Dante’s Peak is by far the more popular of the two volcano movies. Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan) is a volcanologist for the U.S. Geological Survey Cascades Volcano Observatory (a real-world installation). Investigating seismograph readings that indicate a possible disturbance in a long- dormant volcano, Dalton is sent to investigate. He befriends mayor Rachel Wando (Linda Hamilton) of the Aspen-like town built on the slopes of the volcano (Dante’s Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177 Peak), and becomes convinced a major emption is immanent. Five colleagues from the USGS (including Dalton’s supervisor) arrive to investigate his findings and are skeptical; his boss in particular is worried about prematurely causing a panic, and cautions that political and economic considerations need to be taken into account. Of course, Dalton is correct, the volcano blows, and massive destruction is rained upon the unsuspecting town. Dalton and the mayor must go up the volcano during the eruption to save her children and recalcitrant mother-in-law. They escape down the mountain across a lake of acid and through a flurry of ash and special effects. A number of the geological aspects of volcanoes are explained during the course of the film, including the instruments, assays, and biological signals that volcanologists use to predict eruptions. Dante’s Peak shows a variety of real-life effects of volcanic eruptions, including ash storms, carbon dioxide emissions, flash flooding, and the awe-inspiring pyroclastic cloud. The movie is generally praised by geologists, and has been used in both university geology courses and outreach programs to at-risk villages in Ecucador. Volcano (1996, dir. Mick Jackson). Volcano, with the tagline “the coast is toast!” features a volcano, later dubbed Mt. Wilshire, erupting out of the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles. Mike Roark (Tommy Lee Jones) plays the head of the Los Angeles Emergency Management Office, who has to deal with increasingly severe earthquakes that gradually build towards a spectacular eruption. After shouting “Find me a scientist! A geologist! Someone who can tell me what the hell is going on!” Amy Barnes (Ann Heche) arrives on the scene, providing him with the scientific information necessary to predict where the lava will flow and how the eruption will play out. Roark does his best to coordinate city efforts to prevent the destruction of as much of the city as possible. As lava spews its way down Wilshire Boulevard towards Beverly Hills, the city’s emergency services personnel finally manage to erect a barrier and divert the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178 lava safely into a series of storm culverts and eventually to the sea. Volcano does feature Barnes giving some scientific information on volcanoes and lava, but also contains a wildly inaccurate application of geologic processes, and is generally mocked by geologists. Contact (1997, dir. Robert Zemeckis). Based on the novel by Carl Sagan, Contact begins with astronomer Ellie Arroway’s (Jodie Foster) formative childhood years, when at the age of nine she rejects religion and embraces science in the wake of her father’s death. As an adult Ellie is found working for the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program when the SETI dish receives an alien transmission. The transmission includes information on building a space vehicle. After numerous debates on the import of the message and the information it contains, the decision to build the vehicle is made. The religious implications of the transmission are treated in-depth, particularly in the character of pop-preacher Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey); in fact, a suicidal religious fanatic destroys the space vehicle, along with its chosen pilot, the head of the NSF. Ellie is chosen as the pilot of a backup vehicle, and she is whisked away to a vaguely surreal encounter with the aliens, who explain the intergalactic network of societies and appear to her in the person of her dead father. After she returns to Earth, external observers reveal that from the relativistic perspective of the earthbound audience, the vehicle didn’t go anywhere, and Ellie is dragged in front of a doubting Congress to prove her trip was real. As befits a movie based on Sagan’s ideas, Contact is packed with science— perhaps more than any other mass market film in recent history. Extensive information on the SETI program, radio astronomy, and mathematics is included, and arguably the entire theme of the movie is the pursuit of science and the conflict between science and religion, two of Sagan’s favorite subjects. This film is incredibly highly regarded by scientists and NASA Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 7 9 employees, which is ironic considering the problems Sagan had with the scientific establishment during his lifetime. Mission to Mars (2000, dir. Brian de Palma). An expedition is sent to Mars; as astronauts scan a rock formation, a gigantic dust storm appears and swallows them up. A planned second expedition is hastily assembled and sent off as a rescue mission. They arrive on Mars to find only one of the original astronauts has survived, and that the first team had uncovered a giant alien artifact. The second group decodes an alien puzzle based on the human DNA double helix, then enters the artifact, which gives them an impressive holographic lesson on the evolution of life on Earth. Most of the astronauts then leave for home in their emergency evacuation ship. Mission to Mars actually has a fair bit of scientific content: problems of a real mission to Mars are discussed (social strain of long-term spaceflight, climatological issues, time delay of communications), and portrays the missions as being launched from what is clearly the International Space Station Alpha, which is crewed by a multinational task force.3 All the astronauts are portrayed as scientists as well as explorers, and in fact their academic credentials are mentioned (one wrote a dissertation on colonizing Mars, another “read a lot of science fiction”). The evolution sequence in the artifact is visually stunning, and mixes in fiction (aliens seeding the Earth) with real scientific questions (what caused the “Permian Explosion?”). At the time interviews for this project were conducted, the Mars movies were too recent to have been viewed by most scientist informants. Red Planet (2000, dir. Antony Hoffman) In 2050, Earth’s environment is so depleted of resources and oxygen that the only option left for human survival is to terraform Mars with oxygen-producing algae and then colonize it. After losing touch with the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180 automated terraforming stations, a group of five astronauts (three scientists, two military pilot/commanders, and an engineer) is sent to investigate. Repeated tragedies befall the mission, leaving five of the team stranded on Mars. It is discovered that an unexpected species of arthropods has evolved in the algae mats and is destroying them. Further human-based tragedies (anger, psychosis) continue to reduce their numbers until only the engineer is left. He salvages an old Russian space probe, blasts off, reunites with the mission commander in orbit, and heads for home. Science is portrayed on a seemingly random basis: some aspects of spaceflight are accurately portrayed (time delay in communications, some weightlessness), though the only mention of reduced Martian gravity occurs when the astronauts go to the bathroom. As scientific topics are almost never explained, the movie seems to assume an audience that is either extremely science-literate or has seen other movies that provide those explanations. In fact, one astronaut observes that when the Mars habitat was tested it “stood up to an F5 in tornado alley”— a comment largely meaningful only to meterologists or those who had seen the movie Twister. Of the films mentioned here, this has the fewest hallmarks of science blockbuster, and it bombed horrifyingly at the box office. The X-Files (1993-2002, created by Chris Carter). One of the longest-running science fiction series ever. The X-Files refers to a series of FBI case files with unexplained or inexplicable causes or solutions. The program teams superstitious Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), who believes the government has been covering up evidence of alien abductions, visits, etc. with scientifically-trained partner Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Though the program initially focused on discrete weird cases, eventually broader story arcs of government conspiracy, cover ups, and alien visits to Earth became predominant. Science and scientists crop up frequently on the program, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 181 not least in the person of Agent Scully, who usually provides the rational, scientific explanation that is countered by Agent Mulder’s speculation on aliens, mutants, and the paranormal. The existence of the antagonists faced by the agents is often explained scientifically, usually involving some form of biology— radioactive mutations and other forms of genetic alteration, virology, and ecology for example. And of course, speculation on aliens requires some vague mention of astrophysics, at the very least. The reaction of the scientific community to The X-Files has been mixed. Many scientists are fans, and cheer to see the weekly presentation of science in a popular television series; however, a number (including famed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins) decry the fact that each week, Mulder and Scully present both a scientific explanation and a paranormal one, and generally, the show’s viewpoint suggests that the paranormal response is correct— or at least as likely as the scientific one. Star Trek (5 television series: Star Trek (1967-1969), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994), Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (1993-1999), Star Trek: Vovager (1995-2001), and Enterprise (2001-) as well as nine films. Originally created by Gene Roddenberry; Deep Space 9. Voyager and Enterprise created by Rick Berman with the assistance of Michael Piller, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor, and Brannon Braga, respectively). The grand dame of science fiction television, over the years the plot of the original 1960s series has varied slightly. In Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, the crew flies a starship around on a mission of exploration and alien diplomacy. Deep Space 9 takes place (generally) on a space station, and tends to focus on interstellar politics and diplomacy more than exploration or science. The poor crew of the Voyager gets stranded 70,000 light years from Earth, and their trek is intended to take them home. The newest program. Enterprise, is the story of Earth’s first exploratory starship. Explaining the content of a franchise with so many permutations and characters is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 8 2 impossible in this short space; suffice it to say that scientific topics are often a part of the various programs, covering such diverse fields as biology, physics, geology, anthropology, and a number of fictional subfields like subspace physics and phaser engineering. Issues revolving around the social sciences are more prevalent in the Star Trek series than probably anywhere else in mass media science fiction. The first three series featured a specific crew member assigned as the science officer; by Voyager this specialization had become passe. In all series, even general crew members are portrayed as extremely scientifically literate. While the producers have trumpeted the veracity of the science from the late 1960s to today, what is shown is at best considered extremely conjectural as much as anything else. Scientists generally love Star Trek: complaints, when uttered, tend to do with the wildly speculative nature of what is shown, and compared to series that show a more “realistic” treatment of space travel and habitation, like Babylon 5. Content Analysis A tremendous amount of time, effort, and money is invested in the production of a major motion picture or series television program. Often, literally hundreds of people and millions of dollars go towards producing several hours of entertainment that are presented to the public. So for all that time, money, and energy, what do we get? What are the images of science and scientists that emerge from the dream factory to flit across screens both big and small? Feature films have been presented since the early portion of the century, and television programs began reaching mass audiences in the last fifty years; in that time, the portrayal of scientists has changed somewhat, reflecting the values and attitudes of society at large (for example, there are more female scientists than ever before). But of course, the older images still have considerable staying Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 8 3 power, and in the minds of many, the classic movie scientist is still the image of a scientist that first comes to mind. A recent focus group of college students, asked what came to mind when they thought of movie scientists, came up with phrases like “nerd” “mad scientist” “always seem to go too far” “they always have crazy hair” and “they have dogs named after an inventor.” (Focus group: 4/18/00). All the qualities mentioned have their anteceedents in what are perhaps the two primary classic media scientist types: the Maniacal Mad Scientist /Island of Dr. Moreau. Bovs from Brazil. Hollow Man. innumerable 50’s films like The Brain That Wouldn’t Die) and the Absent-Minded Professor (Back to the Future. The Absent-Minded Professor. Rubber, Honey. I Shrunk the Kids'). Of course, these images are the extreme in terms of stereotyped, generalized portrayals— the scientists in almost all the films mentioned have a little more personality than is implied-but importantly, these are the images that people carry away: not the beautiful home of Dr. Brown from Back to the Future, but his wild hair and forgetfulness; not the motives of Dr. Moreau, but his repulsive experiments. Of course, this project is, once again, not about specific instances but about patterns— continual, repetitive portrayals that influence the viewers’ understandings and beliefs in a more subtle manner. A number of researchers have analyzed these patterns, the scientific contents of film and television series. Among these are George Comstock and Heather Tully’s study of innovation (1981) and Steve Goldman’s review of technology in movies (1989), M.Z. Ribalow’s and Spencer Weart’s on cinematic scientists (1998 and 1988, respectively), Dana Polan’s on movie professors (1993), and the research team of George Gerbner, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan, and Nancy Signorielli, who investigated television portrayals of science and scientists (1981,1985). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 184 What do these studies show us? Unfortunately, they demonstrate that scientists, generally speaking, have a rough time of it in the movies and on TV. Though often shown as important authorities, they generally work alone, and while smart, they are often insane (Shanahan and Morgan 101). Scientists are often depicted as servants— witting or unwitting— of larger corporate, governmental, or military institutions “committed to executing the at best misguided, and frequently insidious, agendas of those institutions” shown in films like The China Syndrome. Short Circuit, and Project X (Goldman 276). Goldman also notes that frequently the knowledge generated by scientists is good, but becomes corrupted by corporate and governmental entities (286), as exemplified by the films Short Circuit and Real Genius. Polan suggests that professors in general are shown as wishy-washy and open to outside influence (86). The message, according to Goldman, is that as far as scientific knowledge goes “the concentration of wealth and power overwhelms the public interest” (289)~something clearly the case for example, in The Lost World: Jurassic Park II. but as we’ll see, generally no longer as defensible in the age of the science blockbuster. Historian Spenser Weart seems to capture the essence of the stereotypical scientist when he says that “scientists had always been seen as queer, single-minded, powerful beings working outside normal society” (37). M.Z. Ribalow suggests that “the image of scientists projected at the movies is that of the best and brightest minds tempted into catastrophe by overwhelming ambition, twisted emotions (and sex lives), and by a refusal to acknowledge that, however brilliant they may be, there is always something they do not know” (27). According to Ribalow, the only unifying factors in the portrayals of movie scientists, both good and evil, are “obsessive natures and brilliant minds” (27). He should have added social maladjustment. Even when the scientist in question is good (The Absent-Minded Professor) or married (Honey. I Shmnk the Kids. Frankenstein4) they are shown as socially awkward, and their marriages are Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 185 troubled (sometimes tragically). These problems in interacting with the rest of society are a pervasive aspect of media scientists; while Star Trek’s Mr. Spock is perhaps the most extreme example of the emotionless facade attributed to scientists, more maniacal sociopathic behavior is also fairly common; a good example is the standard mad scientist creed, “They laughed at me! But I will show them. One day it will be I who laughs at them instead!” Even in the more enlightened ‘90s, Dr. Harry Dalton of Dante’s Peak says “I’ve always been better at feeling out volcanoes than people or politics.” Current depictions of female scientists show them immune to some of these stereotypes, but as will be discussed shortly, they fall prey to some others. In fact, science and scientists are often treated so darkly in Hollywood that James Ursini, writing in a book about film noir, claims that many of the classic portrayals of scientists can be characterized in that genre. Indeed, science fiction films often contain hallmarks of film noir: conflicted, angst-ridden protagonists ( Metropolis. Blade Runner): dark, moody lighting (used to dramatize the mysterious nature of research, as in Frankenstein) and a moral ambivalence of activity. Timothy Ferris writes that scientific knowledge in movies is often kept secret (even titanic discoveries like the impending destruction of the Earth by a comet), while in the real world, science “is a white hole that gushes information” (4).5 Ursini notes that noir-like characteristics are the underpinning of television shows like The X-Files. which focuses on double- crossing governments, murky psychological aspects and gloomy settings. These settings pervade the series, even into the laboratories where scientists (including Agent Scully) often work alone, and frequently seem prone to revealing their findings only in darkened rooms and laboratories. Responding to Ribalow’s article, Michael Crichton took issue with the idea that Hollywood has a problem with scientists. “All professions look bad in the movies” Crichton wrote, “Movies don’t portray career paths, they conscript interesting life Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 186 styles 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” (1461). Unfortunately, not only is this obviously untrue (many popular television shows have benign lawyers— The Practice. Ally McBeal. and Law and Order for example), but demonstrably so. In their massive study of televisions programs between 1973 and 1983, Gerbner et al. found that scientists on TV are statistically more likely to be villainous than members of any other profession: 1 out of 5 scientists were bad seeds, as opposed to 1 out of every 19 doctors, and 1 out of every 40 law-enforcement agents (Television Entertainment 11). In fact, Gerbner and his team found a number of unpleasant statistics about scientists on television. In addition to their penchant for evil, scientists have a proportionally higher casualty rate than members of any other profession-including soldiers and police: 10% of the scientists in their sample were killed, while only 2.8% of military characters died. Even worse, scientists also seem more likely to kill than members of any other profession— 5% as opposed to the mere 3.7% of military characters actually killed anyone (Television Entertainment 11). In their study, scientist characters (male and female) were among the oldest characters of identifiable professions: average age across professions was 37, of scientists 42 (1985 table 4); they were overwhelmingly (84%) white, and as major characters, more likely to be foreign (16.7%) than members of any other profession (to be fair, minor military characters were twice as likely to be foreign) (1985 table 5). Scientists were also less likely to be married than members of almost any other profession (1985 table 12), and they scored low on indices of warmth and sociability, though high on ones of strength, power, smartness, rationality, stability, efficiency, and affluence (1985 table 13). Finally, scientists on television were shown as more likely to fail in their endeavors than members of other professions. Gerbner et al. (Television Entertainment) noted that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 8 7 scientists were more likely to fail than any other character type, a finding borne out by Comstock and Tully in their study of innovation in films between 1939 and 1976. Defining innovation as “invention, experimentation, research, design, development- intended to alter the existing state of affairs” (97), Comstock and Tully made a number of discoveries. Among them were that twice as many endeavors undertaken by scientists in feature films had harmful consequences rather than benign ones (for doctors it was half and half) and while 34% of endeavors in science fiction films (and 46.46% in all genres) were undertaken with specifically benign intent, over 57% ended up having negative consequences (36.6% in all genres) (105). 40% of the time, innovation of any kind resulted in negative consequences, generally injury or death for the innovator and surrounding characters (103). The innovators were spread among disciplines, but were most frequently (40% of the time) scientists.6 Interestingly enough Comstock and Tully’s analysis also noted cycles of innovation in film: dividing the time period under examination into four segments, they noted that innovation was a more popular theme in films “in the Sputnik era and the [late] sixties” and less frequent during the World War II era (before, after, and during) and in the 1970s. They considered these trends to indicative of “a relationship between national purpose, mood, and malaise, the various genres of entertainment films, and the treatment of innovation” (100). The two researchers speculate that the 1960s, as an era of “political unrest, social turmoil, and conflict” correlated with an era when innovation in film was also shown as chaotic, uncontrollable, and malevolent (105). Furthermore, the genre of film in which innovation was most likely to appear also seemed to vary: while drama was originally the primary vector for innovation, it was overtaken by science fiction in the 1950s and ‘60s, then returned to dominance in the 1970s; for a brief period in the 1960s, even comedies portrayed more innovation than dramatic films (101). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 188 These are fascinating studies, and their results are revealing, but there is a problem of timeliness: the films and television programs studied in the statistical analyses are old; even Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, and Signorielli’s, the most recent, ends with the television schedule of 1983— almost 20 years ago. Newer studies are hard to come by because of the sheer time and money involved in a research effort of this type. Gerbner and his colleagues viewed 836 television programs and interviewed 1,631 people. Comstock and Tully took a sample of 4,541 films, of which they found 3.6% (162) featured the themes of innovation they sought. Specifically for this dissertation, I have viewed about 20 films (and innumerable episodes of television series), in addition to the vast number seen outside the context of research over the years. Most of these films and programs are newer than the ones analyzed by Gerbner, Comstock, and Tully. So the question is, in the allegedly different era of the post-Jurassic Park science blockbuster, has any of this changed? Surprisingly, yes. The most obvious cosmetic change is a transformation of scientists from wild-haired, lab coat wearing geeks to far more standard movie-star types (female characters more than any others). While old-style scientists like Rotwang or Frankenstein followed the Einstein or Edison mold (with exceptions like Dr. Clayton Forrester from War of the Worlds') in the late ‘90s they are played by sex- symbol actors like Sam Neill, Sharon Stone, Samuel Jackson, and Elizabeth Shue. In fact, the list of actors who have played scientists since Jurassic Park is a Hollywood A- list: Helen Hunt, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Bacon, Pierce Brosnan, Jodie Foster, Tim Robbins, and innumerable others. Some actors seem to be picking scientist roles: Jeff Goldblum has appeared as a scientist in four films (The Fly. Jurassic Park. The Lost World: Jurassic Park U. and Independence Davl. Dustin Hoffman as a psychologist and an epidemeologist in Sphere and Outbreak, respectively, and Elizabeth Shue is carving a niche as the gorgeous blonde scientist with her roles in The Saint and Hollow Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 8 9 Man. Even the mad scientists are better-looking: the scientist villains of the abysmal fourth Batman movie (Batman and Robin) are played by Uma Thurman and Arnold Schwarzenegger; Kevin Bacon is a Porsche-driving, leather-jacket wearing baddie in Hollow Man. and Cary Elwes is the well-groomed villain of Twister. While generally the attractive scientists are virtuous, we see the desires of Schwarzenegger (revenge), Bacon (sex) and Elwes (money) when Polan compares modem appearence to old- school mad scientists motivations: “the flashy look for today’s [cinematic] academic may not signal a new relation to knowledge but may run the risk of saying the same old thing in public representation: namely, that the professor’s relation to knowledge is perhaps inauthentic and an alibi for suspicious desires” (83). In the science blockbuster age, lab coats are verboten except for supporting- character scientists, such as the second-string lab scientists in Jurassic Park and the renegade resistance members of Johnny Mnemonic. Old-style scientists (think “The Professor” from Gilligan’s Island) were stock intellectuals, and seeming masters of ANY field of science; today most people know the difference between genetics and astronomy, and the differences are portrayed by the screenwriters.7 As opposed to this older, generalized science, the specialty of major characters is nearly always mentioned- -Laura Dem plays an paleobotanist, Bill Paxton a meteorologist, etc. When the mayor of small town Dante’s Peak introduces Dr. Henry Dalton as “a geologist,” he is quick to correct her: “volcanologist, actually.” Furthermore, scientists are generally positively portrayed in big-budget modern films. Science saves the day in Deep Impact and Armageddon. The benefits of scientific research are highlighted in Twister, and scientific knowledge proves necessary for triumph in Volcano and Jurassic Park. On the other hand, supporting the idea of the model of Useful Knowledge, science is often shown as motivated by funding or corporate greed; in Twister, the “evil” corporate-funded scientific team Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 0 “are in it for the money, not the science” (the motivation of the “good” scientists is to help save lives with better early-warning systems). In Jurassic Park, the massive scientific endeavor portrayed is undertaken to build a better amusement park, of all things. The perennial restrictions of government research budgets appear in Armageddon. When the President asks why NASA hadn’t identified the incoming asteroid sooner, NASA chief Dan Truman tells him “our object-collision budget’s about a million dollars— that allows us to track about 3% of the sky. And begging your pardon sir, but that’s a big [expletive] sky.” This nod towards the reality of modem science is actually becoming fairly common: funding issues also surface in Relic. The Saint, and Contact, in which desperate for funding, Ellie Arroway cries, “Try begging for some of that Hollywood money! Why not, they’ve been making money off aliens for years, right?” (life imitating art: the real-life SETI program got a funding boost from Paramount to promote the release of Star Trek: Insurrection). In fact, the Twister admonition that money is bad for science is ironic, given that the scientists in all three Jurassic Park movies are lured to the dino-infested islands with promises of cash for research. This current focus on the funding issues of modem science may feed into the public perception that scientific expertise can be bought and sold; a perception that among other things can be traced back to tobacco and pharmaceutical companies that fund scientific research.8 Possibly the predominant change from the classical depiction of scientists in film and television is the ascendance of female scientists. Since the beginning of cinema, scientists were almost always portrayed as male, in keeping with the general public’s perception that in fact, most scientists were male (see Mead and Metreaux 1957, for example). Gerbner et al. report that by the time of their study (1973-83), 25% of all scientist characters, and 31% of major scientist characters, were women (1985 table 2). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 191 By the mid-late 90’s, female scientists were prominent characters— Twister. Jurassic Park, and Volcano all feature female scientists in major roles, and in The X-Files. classic gender roles are reversed when Agent Dana Scully plays the hard-headed, scientifically-minded foil to credulous male Agent Fox Mulder. Generally, these are strong, capable characters with the same personalities as male scientists-very intelligent, somewhat aloof or separate from their emotions, using obscure knowledge for the betterment of mankind. However, Hollywood is still Hollywood, and thus along with the emergence of the female scientist, we see the advent of its daughter category— the “babe scientist” (Internet Movie Database) or “brainy babe” (Ribalow). The film Sphere gave us the ultimate sex symbol of the early 90s— Sharon Stone— as a biochemist. Stone joined the august ranks of Penelope Anne Miller (Relief Mira Sorvino ( Mimicl. and Elizabeth Shue (The Saint. Hollow Man) as a gorgeous yet brilliant scientist. James Bond arguably pioneered this category with the 1979 appearance of Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles), and continues to support it with Denise Richards’ portrayal of the suprisingly young and underdressed nuclear scientist Christmas Jones in The World is Not Enough. These characters seem to fall prey as much as any other female characters to the classic Hollywood stereotypes of women. As Ribalow notes “[Shue] seems more high school cheerleader than world-famous scientist: she wears kneesocks, tucks scraps of paper on which cold-fusion formulas have been scribbled into her black lace bra, and reads Byron” (30). He neglects to mention that Shue (in The Saint), along with Richards, Stone and Sorvino, needs to be rescued by a male character (in Relic, to her credit, Miller saves the day herself, as does Shue in Hollow Man). Even the strongest female scientist characters— Helen Hunt in Twister and Laura Dem in Jurassic Park— are shown exhibiting classic feminine traits— Hunt is emotionally unable to let go of her marriage to Bill Paxton, and Dem’s desire for and ability to relate to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 2 children is sharply (and deliberately) contrasted with Sam Neill’s nervousness when faced with same. In fact, by Jurassic Park HI, Dem’s character has left Neill’s for marriage to a non-scientist, a stable home life, and children. On the positive side, these traits (caring for children, overwrought emotion) are used to humanize the scientist characters, an issue not of concern to previous generations of screenwriters, for whom humanizing scientists meant giving the widowed old physicist a beautiful daughter for the hero to save. It should be noted that all these changes do not appear in all current films and series. In fact, the farther a film veers from the criteria of the science blockbuster, the fewer progressive characteristics appear; especially if it is geared towards a science fiction/horror audience rather than a general one. Science in Hollow Man and Event Horizon, for example, is flat out bad, and the scientists in Hollow Man have an old- style mortality rate of 70%! In Red Planet, scientists are mostly egotistical or psychologically unstable, and suffer an incredible 100% mortality rate (though the engineer survives). This is a far cry from the kind, useful scientists of Jurassic Park, all of whom make it to the end of the movie. Once again this observation suggests that while all media portrayals of scientists have not improved, the biggies— those in the most popular films and shows— have, and in a manner positive towards science. It is not entirely clear why this might be the case. Perhaps Hollywood is catching up with changing popular attitudes. Perhaps it reflects a preference for more complex characters in today’s film and television programs. Or maybe it is because of the perception that science is a poplar theme, so there is a desire to make scientists more appealing by making them more pleasant, better to look at, and more “human.” How Real Is the Science? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 193 During a crucial meeting at NASA headquarters in the movie Armageddon, the agency’s top minds are brainstorming about plans to stop a killer asteroid hurtling towards Earth. After fielding one ludicrous plan after another, Agency Director Dan Truman snaps “C’mon guys— we gotta come up with something realistic here!” With that directive, they go out and do what the real NASA almost certainly would given a similar situation— recruit Bruce Willis to fly into outer space and nuke the asteroid to dust. The imperative to come up with something realistic is especially ironic in a film that, in the words of one scientist informant, “Lost me literally in the first 30 seconds...there were so many things that were wrong with [it].” How much of the science shown in these movies and television programs is real? How is real (or unreal) science incorporated into them? Does anyone seem to notice? Perhaps one of the best ways to view the inclusion of science in entertainment media is through the twin concepts of “veritable” and “dramatic” truth unwittingly introduced by John McGuinness in his memo during the 1946 filming of The Beginning or the End and cunningly appropriated by Nathan Rheingold in his discussion of that film (“MGM” 233). If veritable truth is that revealed by real scientists, dramatic truth is the version of that truth that is commercially viable-in other words, the veritable truth that appears on screen once it is mutated through the requirements of narrative and spectacle. Rather than ask if a given appearence of science is true or false, it is more productive-and more correct— to view the science in these films and shows as presenting veritable truth that is affected to differing degrees (in each) by the requirements of dramatic truth. Sharon Begley suggests that “all great science fiction must be science first and fiction second” (57). But over the years what has counted as “real” science has changed. Amazingly enough, in 1936 the press kit for Universal Studio’s The Invisible Ray drew a clear correlation between real science and the plot of the movie, in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 4 which Boris Karloff plays a scientist who becomes infected with “Radium X.” An element “a thousand times more powerful than radium,” Radium X, when gathered as it emanates from heavenly bodies, unfortunately turns Karloff into a glowing human time bomb. As ludicrous as this sounds today, the studio trumpeted the movie as including “accomplishments on the very threshold of which science finds itself at the present moment.” To support this they included information that “within a week after the picture entered production, telegraphic dispatches in the newspapers told of a report which had just been published in Science...telling of the harnessing of so-called ‘black light’ from the sun.” The powerful and deadly forces of black light are then predictably compared to Radium X (Invisible Ray press book 2). In case the press was ignorant enough to forgo printing these stories in their papers, the movie spoke directly to the audience with the prologue ‘That which you are now to see is a theory whispered in the cloisters of science. Tomorrow these theories may startle the universe as a fact.” What qualifies as this truthful core of science in these films thus clearly changes through time, and the science is rooted in whatever level of scientific knowledge is basically understood by the public at the time of given film is released. Movie biology, for example, in the 1930s-‘40s meant glands, in the 1950s radiation, and in the 1990s DNA (Glassy 4). Though the various incarnations of Star Trek treat science in a notably speculative fashion, when Gene Roddenbeny was creating the original series in 1966, he worked with the Rand Corporation in designing the starship Enterprise, then ran the sketches past scientists at CalTech. The science of Star Trek was allegedly so real and cutting- edge that Roddenberry claimed that his original use of lasers in the series was changed because “Rand told us laser guns would be in use by the time we got on the air, so we went back to physics, found a phaser gun that’s 50 years away. That’s what we’re using” (Kaufman 9). In 1993, Steven Spielberg said of the kernel of scientific reality Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 5 at the core of Jurassic Park: “the credibility of the premise— that dinosaurs could come back to life through cloning of the DNA found in prehistoric mosquitoes tapper in amber— is what allowed the movie to be made” (Begley 57).9 This idea of extrapolating from current or given knowledge appears to be extremely popular in Hollywood, and one of the prime methods through which media producers believe themselves to include science and scientific knowledge in their work. Roddenberry, did it with Star Trek in the 60s, and it continues today. Kathleen Kennedy related her experience working as a producer on E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial: I found a person, in Houston, who’s actual job it was to evaluate maps to find out where we were gonna land on Mars...And he’s the one that suggested that scientists would come from all over. And that they probably wouldn’t want to move the alien; and that they’d want to create a clean room environment. And so he showed me what a clean room environment would look like, with robot technology and all that sort of thing, and in fact the tenting of the house, and all the tubing going into the house and the technology that was in the house at the time— that was all suggested to us, via people at NASA, who were saying “well, here’s a theory— here’s what might happen.” And there’s a perfect example where it went beyond anything we might be able to imagine, because it was grounded in something that already existed. There isn’t a thing in there that we created, the suits everybody has on, all of that existed. Timothy Ferris, writing in The New Yorker, said that audiences are told less about “how scientific facts are arrived at than Victorian youngsters were told about where babies come from” (5) Is this true? If so, the question then is which shows and films just keep the kernel, and which go deeper— or how do they pretend to go deeper if they don’t? Entire books could be written to address these questions; and in fact, entire books have. Works like Anne Simon’s The Real Science Behind the X-Files address the scientific veracity contained within a single movie or TV series. This section will Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 6 not be a laundry list of what’s true and what’s false in recent Hollywood releases; instead, it examines the ways in which reality-real science— is treated in them. There are two major ways in which science and scientific knowledge are incorporated into mass entertainment media: as explicit information and background treatment. The former is direct, lecture-style delivery of scientific information; the latter is how much real science informs what occurs and what audiences see in the final product. Explicit information is often delivered as a lecture, one character to another, as when Dr. Harry Dalton explains details of volcanology to mayor Rachel Wando in Dante’s Peak. This narrative trick allows the screenwriter to deliver important background scientific (or pseudoscientific) information in the narrative context of the film. The audience/character-directed lecture is a very common ploy for inserting science into films; explicit information is also delivered in a lecture or rhetorical style in Contact (mathematics, radio astronomy). Dante’s Peak (volcanic formation), Relic (evolution), Twister (the limits of meteorological knowledge), and Volcano (plate tectonics, fault lines), among others. Two excellent examples of this occur in Deep Impact and Jurassic Park. Midway through Deep Impact. President Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman) broadcasts a televised message to the American people about the incoming comet that provides much of the explicit scientific information in the film. Prefacing his remarks with “It’s a bit complicated....” Beck proceeds to lecture on the frequency of planetary impacts, on comets in general, and extinction-level events. The scene is more effective because the writers are able to incorporate real science the audience has likely heard of in school or the news media (dinosaur extinctions, collision dangers, etc.) and because it seems like exactly what would happen in this situation in real life— the President would give a press conference (though after one segement, the teenage astronomer protagonist notes "The President didn't explain this very well."). In fact, a similar sequence in Contact Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 7 intercuts actual footage of President Clinton during press briefings and appearances with shots of characters in the movie to add an additional level of “fictional reality” to the film. Zemeckis’ decision to use real news footage in a fictional context caused an uproar at the time, as did Contact’s use of real CNN reporters and broadcasters— ostensibly because Clinton’s image was used without his consent, but really because of concerns that using a real president and actual reporters would blur the line between fact and fiction; precisely the effect the filmmaker desired.1 0 Jurassic Park also slips in a lecture on science under a familiar guise: an amusement park ride. Before entering the fictional park, the characters sit in a darkened theater, and as the lights go down we (and they) are introduced to “Mr. DNA,” a happy, go-lucky animated piece of protein that explains basic genetic and recombinant information and techniques in a pleasant, informal way. A brilliant method for transmitting the scientific knowledge critical to the film’s premise, having an animated character allowed Spielberg and co. to pitch the science as if it had to be at a child’s level— which indeed it did, to be understood by the broadest audience possible. Explicit delivery of scientific information also shows up in spontaneous utterances, usually reflecting how the knowledge is useful for overcoming some obstacle or escaping a dangerous situation. Dr. Amy Barnes describes the characteristics of lava flow to emergency services personnel trying to save a Beverly Hills mall in Volcano. In Armageddon, the problem of maneuvering in zero-gravity is mentioned, which seems odd as gravity seems to arbitrarily appear and disappear during the rest of the film. And perhaps the most famous of throwaway science lines occurs in Jurassic Park: as a Tyrannosaurs Rex bears down on the helpless humans, Dr. Alan Grant whispers a directive to “Keep absolutely still— its vision is based on movement.”1 1 Frequently, it is this explicit scientific knowledge of how dinosaurs/volcanoes/tornadoes work that saves the protagonists from an otherwise certain demise. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 198 These scientific one-liners seem to generally have less validity than the lectures and speeches, probably because the speeches give background information, while the one-liners are needed to explain a specific narrative plot point or character action. One- offs also seem to be more prone to fake scientific jargon, from Star Trek (“You used proto matter in the Genesis Matrix!”) to Hollow Man (where “phase shifting” invisibility is countered by “quantum reversion”). “Background information” is the actual treatment of scientific phenomena within the world of the film or program. This includes everything from weightlessness in space and volcanoes that erupt in the middle of population centers to the appearance of the surface of Mars. The verisimilitude of background science is incredibly varied— sometimes even within the same movie or television program. Take a basic scientific phenomena like gravity, for example. In Deep Impact and Mission to Mars, the effects of weightlessness during space travel are portrayed; characters float around and inertia has an actual effect on the movement of objects. The television show Babylon 5 portrays issues of weightlessness in space, but because requirements of story and budget necessitate that most action take place in an Earthlike gravity environment, care is taken to show that the space station rotates to produce artificial gravity through centripetal force, a gimmick replicated by the Leonov spacecraft in 2010: The Year We Make Contact. In fact, this is how NASA plans to replicate gravity when the time comes. In addition, Babylon 5 displays enough verisimilitude that the gravity is not constant, but ranges from full strength on the outer radius of the spinning station to a weightless environment in the center. Red Planet ostensibly uses the same method for producing artificial gravity, but the allegedly rotating habitat rings on the Mars I spacecraft are more often shown as stationary, and the gravity of Mars is nearly indistinguishable from Earth. Armageddon also shows remarkable inconsistency in its treatment of gravity. Astronauts are lectured on weightlessness, then told that their Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 9 spacesuits have miniature jets that will compensate, so the filmmakers’ do not have to deal with it anymore. Artificial gravity is generated by the rotating Russian Space Station, but instead of increasing with distance from the station’s core, it is uniform throughout. Even further removed from reality, Star Trek utilizes an oft-invoked but never really explained artificial gravity to keep people on the ground, and gravity- defeating “inertial dampers” to prevent them from being squashed flat by the high- velocity maneuvers and dramatic accelerations they routinely undergo. Different films take different stances towards background science, and to some extent these can be viewed as indicators of the film’s style. The twinned-subject films (asteroid and volcano movies) provide excellent comparative examples. Despite their plot similarities, Deep Impact and Armageddon are significantly different movies. Deep Impact is the (intentionally) softer, human-drama version, at least as big on Earthbound reactions as outer space heroics. Armageddon is a flashy action movie directed by Michael Bay, generally known for his testosterone-aggrandizing shoot-em- ups. The verdict of the scientists and engineers I spoke with (many at NASA’s JPL) was unanimous: Deep Impact adhered far more closely to scientific realism, whereas Armageddon veered so far from reality that in the words of one space scientist “I cringed.” The volcano movies follow a similar pattern: Dante’s Peak is classed as the human drama, while Volcano is the exciting, “Towering Infemo-stvle disaster movie.” Dante’s Peak also lays a far greater claim to scientific verisimilitude: it is widely acclaimed by geologists, in direct contrast to their near-universal condemnation of Volcano (Reich ‘Taking License” FI). When scientists criticize these movies, what they often criticize is the background science: lava does not flow like that, space capsules do not fly that way, tornadoes would not move in that direction. Of course, since these are the only audience members who notice, it is not surprising that when a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 200 script calls for action that contradicts real science— “dramatic truth” at the expense of “veritable truth”-Hollywood chooses the drama. In fact, infotainment articles where journalists ask scientists to comment on the scientific veracity of movies have become a common feature of the science blockbuster era, appearing in publications from Scientific American (Yam, “Making a Deep Impact”) and the Hartford Courant (Weiss, “In X-Files. Scientific Truth can be as Strange as the Plots”) to The Independent (London! (Kohn, “Nice Legs, Pity About the Genes”) and The New Yorker (Ferris, “Not Rocket Science”). In fact, the Los Angeles Times seems to have a policy of publishing a scientist response article almost every time a science-oriented movie comes to the box office. This tradition started in 1968, when the paper ran “Scientist’s Evaluation of ‘2001’ Saga of Things to Come” (Lee), wherein a Hughes Aircraft-employed physicist commented on 2001: A Space Odyssey. More recently, the volcano movies saw the appearance of “Volcanologists Survey Dante’s Peak” (Reich) and “Taking License with the Lava” (Reich), while “With Mars Movies, at Least They Got the Color Right” (Monji) was the response to 2000’s big-budget Mars movies. The unfortunate tendency towards bad puns and headline humor reached an apogee in “Dinologists Aren’t Saur, but ‘Jurassic Park’ Gets DNA Docs’ Amber Up” (Maugh II). These articles interview scientists whose reaction is mixed: there are parts of the films they agree with, but in cases where dramatic truth seriously eclipses veritable truth, they are mocking towards the filmmakers. Perhaps in the interest of fairness in reporting, even the most scientifically illiterate films are given a passing grade on some aspects, where films that are more scientifically accurate than average get taken down a peg or two. Most of the scientists interviewed at some point express their understanding that dramatic truth must rale in the end: “This is entertainment. I would like to leave it at that and let Hollywood have its entertainment” (Reich “Taking License” FI). Oddly enough, the scientific and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 201 technical consultants for these films are almost never interviewed in the articles; perhaps they are considered too close to the project, or--more worrysome— their attachment to a film or television program begins to bring them into the realm of the much-maligned popularizer.1 2 In a similar vein to the infotainment articles (and speaking of popularizing), we find the cottage industry of books devoted to tying real science to what is seen in movies and on TV. The progenitor of these was The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss. Since then, it seems almost every major science-oriented or sci-fi movie has to have a “Science behind....” tie in. Recent additions to the genre include The Science of Jurassic Park and The Lost World by Rob Desalle and David Lindley; Science of the X-Men by Link Yaco and Karen Haber; Titan A.E.: The Real Science Behind the Science Fiction by Q. L. Pearce; The Science of Star Wars by Jeanne Cavelos; and The Real Science Behind The X-Files. by Anne Simon. These cover films and shows jammed with science (Jurassic Park), tenuously linked to science (X- Men) and with no science in them at all (Star Wars). The books related to Star Trek could support a publishing house by themselves: To Seek Out New Life : The Biology of Star Trek by Athena Andreadis, The Computers of Star Trek by Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg, and Star Trek on the Brain: Alien Minds. Human Minds by Robert Sekuler and Randolph Blake, not to mention the original book by Krauss. Shelved in the “science” section of the bookstore, these are actually popular educational texts rather than simple movie tie-ins. The Hollywood connection is obviously more effective as a way to entice audience members to read about science than to get science-literate readers interested in movies. In fact, these books often tend to be penned by highly regarded scientists and journalists: Anne Simon is a respected virologist, and Keay Davidson, a science writer responsible among other things for the biography Carl Sagan: A Life wrote Twister: The Science of Tornadoes and the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 202 Making of an Adventure Movie. Davidson’s book is actually unusual among the genre. Rather than being a pure science education book, it is a surreal blend of science journalism and “making the movie” propaganda. Simon’s book is more typical. It outlines scientific concepts like natural selection, cloning, bacteriology, cryonics, and a host of other topics. She mentions how each concept is the basis for an episode of the program, then gives a detailed scientific explanation of what it means, how it affects science in the real world, and how much veritable truth contributed to the dramatic truth shown in each episode. These books have a questionable relationship to the films and shows they represent. Though obviously the combined readers of this publishing genre probably do not even approach the viewing audience of one of the major films they cover, each does serve as an important reminder that many people do take the kernel of scientific truth presented in entertainment media seriously, and that these fictional portrayals of science and scientists can be a stepping stone for deeper scientific literacy and understanding, let alone eventual careers in science. Unfortunately for deeper understanding, as Geoff King points out, cinematic scientific explanations often are made during lulls in dramatic action in order to clear away the limitations of reality that might tie down the characters unnecessarily during the rest of the film. For example, Armageddon’s explanation of the effect of weightlessness is instantly made irrelevant with the introduction of the Directional Accelerant Thruster spacesuit, which has jets to keep the occupant firmly on the ground (84). Similarly, in Mission to Mars, a brief explanation on the use of green plants to terraform the atmosphere of Mars allows the actors to later appear without their helmets during a crucial dramatic scene. If that is the case, what are the motivations for including science at all? Why bother incorporating any veritable truth in the dramatic truth? This is a question that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 0 3 reveals itself throughout the dissertation--in this chapter, and in subsequent chapters that analyze studio press kits, and in the interviews with science consultants. The individual motivations behind the inclusion of real science vary for each film and television program, but there are some discernible general trends. One of the most interesting is the widespread belief in Hollywood that the audience really cares, that scientific truth matters to them. Publicist Warren Betts said, “The audience today is very sophisticated, and they like to go see a picture that is believable. They know it’s fiction, but they like to know it’s possible.” This Hollywood sentiment seems common: people involved in the production of a major sci-fi television program said that scientific veracity was important because the fans “are very discerning people.” Additionally, they have a nice budget, so why not use some of it on a consultant to make the science more accurate? One producer interviewed suggested that scientific veracity helps a film by making it more believeable, and thus engaging: “It’s the fact that if it can happen, and we can show the viewers that it’s not...we are not asking you to make a blind leap of faith, but a leap of faith nevertheless, that is backed by enough information that it makes sense.” Another producer who has worked on several of the science blockbusters echoed this view: I think, you know, the audience smells right away if something is absurd or preposterous, and it doesn’t make the experience as enjoyable as something that approaches either wish fulfillment or encompasses a narrative where you say “wow, maybe that could happen!”...I think the audience proves, because those movies have become quite successful, that that’s of interest to them. Unfortunately, few of the science blockbuster producers/directors would agree to an interview, and so their voices only come through the press releases, books, and articles in which they speak, in which they generally express the same sentiment mentioned earlier— the idea that by blending as much reality as possible into the fantasy, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 0 4 the audience’s engagement with the film becomes more intense. Of course, this makes sense— the more real and immediate something is, the more likely we are to pay attention to it, and there is evidence that how “real” an image is perceived to be influences how much it is absorbed by the viewer (Tan, 218). Shanhan and Morgan cite studies that indicate that people often confuse the source of information they have leamed-and the blunder the boundary between reality and fantasy, the more likely that is to occur (287). Furthermore, by drawing close parallels between veritable truth and their dramatic truth, filmakers feel they are improving the quality and immediacy of their work. Director Robert Zemeckis, commenting on his movie Contact, said “What I find compelling about the story is that it’s about what would really happen here on Earth...the extraterrestrial intelligence talks to the Earth in the truly realistic language of science and that’s what makes it most credible” (Thompson 52). The X-Files’ Chris Carter wrote “I wanted to build my extended storyline [on aliens] on accepted theories and fact” and “I would tell the writers and directors ad nauseam that the show was only as scary as it seemed believable, and only as believable as it seemed plausible” (Simon 14). Spielberg said of Jurassic Park “This movie depends on credibility, not just the special effects. The credibility of the premise— that dinosaurs could come back to life through a cloning of the DNA found in prehistoric mosquitoes trapped in Amber” (Begley 57). A number of the films are based on the activities of real scientists, like Contact’s SETI and the Storm Chasers of Twister. In fact, the central scientific instrument of Twister— the “Dorothy” sensor— is based on a real world “Toto” device operated by the National Severe Storms Laboratory.1 3 A number of people I spoke to in the industry expressed the belief that linking films and television programs more closely to scientific fact plays better to today’s “sophisticated” audiences, who prefer— for believabihty— to have science fiction strongly laced with science fact. This seems to be Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 0 5 the dominant belief among those who produce these media products, although other than the “market research” vaguely alluded to by one informant, I have been unable to uncover any hard evidence for this alleged preference, despite a few cases where directors or producers specifically ignore scientific credibility. Box office figures offer a mixed message: in the three cases where there have been two films in the same basic scientific-theme category, twice the “more realistic” (as identified by scientists interviewed) film performed better at the box office, and once the lesser did— though films that ignore science fact completely consistently tend to do worse. Blending the two together also clearly helps films and television shows get public attention, especially from journalists. Still, evidence aside, whether audiences actually prefer more realistic science or not— or even if they can tell the difference— is not at issue here. What’s important as we investigate the production of these images is that the producers think the public cares. The goal of including real science is NOT to have people literally believe these films, but that more reality increases believability, and thus entertainment value. In addition, there is a degree of prestige attached to pictures with more scientific or serious credibility. Contact is this sort of prestige film, with a serious actress and Carl Sagan’s name attached, which addresses deep issues like religion and our place in the cosmos. For the same reasons, Gattaca can also be considered a prestige film— certainly in terms of the general mn of widely released and science fiction pictures. The correlation between veracity and status can be attributed to two factors. The first is that, generally speaking, films with more realistic science place a greater emphasis on drama and human interest, while those that allow the forces of dramatic truth greater reign are more often action pictures which have less prestige (when was the last time an action movie won a Best Picture Oscar?). Note that this is a relative measure— though Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 0 6 Armageddon is more bang-’em-up action oriented, both Deep Impact and Armageddon are clearly action-adventure movies. The second reason, of course, is that these films and shows draw some of that prestige from the credibility of science itself; especially in the case of Contact, where Carl Sagan’s name was prominently attached. Though Sagan was frequently disregarded among the scientific community as a popularizer, that very public popularity lent credibility to the movie. Though it is rare for a Hollywood project to have as big a name as Sagan’s attached, studios frequently trumpet their use of scientific and technical consultants (as will be shown in Chapters 7 and 8), and occasionally even trot them out on press junkets. The desire to demonstrate the scientific content as a path to credibility reached its apex (so far, anyway), with the premiere of Disney’s Armageddon at the Kennedy Space Center, the capstone of a celebrated collaboration (by both parties) of which director Michael Bay said “Our biggest challenge was to get NASA’s approval. If we didn’t get it, this movie would not have worked” (Armageddon press kit 11). The essence of the matter is that, today, science matters. “Real” science, that is, or veritable truth (that is to say, the professional consensus of what scientists consider to be science or scientific knowledge). If it didn’t, producers and directors would not invest vast amounts of time and money into hiring science consultants, listening to them, and creating the convincing illusion of reality. The Martian surface used in Mission to Mars was built on a 45-acre, 2 million square foot sand dune, and used 15,000 gallons of paint (Archerd 2). But saying “science matters” begs the question “to whom?” Partly it is assumed that the reality matters to the audience, and partly it matters very much to certain filmmakers. Today’s films and television programs show that what Powdermaker said about Hollywood and audiences 50 years ago is still true: “Movies have a surface realism Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 0 7 which tends to disguise fantasy and make it seem true” and “Audiences tend to accept as true that part of a movie story which is beyond their experience” (13-14). As the consultants (and outside scientists I spoke with) suggested, movies and television shows are very good at blending truth and fiction together in a mix that is often difficult for the lay public to separate. One producer suggested that scientific veracity helps a film by making it more believeable: “It’s the fact that if it can happen, and we can show the viewers that it’s not...we are not asking you to make a blind leap of faith, but a leap of faith nevertheless, that is backed by enough information that it makes sense.” The image being portrayed to the public of scientists is indeed more realistic than it has been in the past, but “more realistic” is a long way from “true to life.” Of course, the truth is that individuals— of any profession— are so complex that no media image can ever truly capture their complexity. There are scientists of all genders, races and creeds, some who are parents, some who are not; many who probably are socially aloof, and just as many who are party animals. The best that can be said of modem media portrayals is that, by increasing the number of female and minority scientists, and giving all scientist characters more humanizing traits and characteristics, the media is encouraging a more balanced view of scientists as people. Of course, this view is still fairly constrained by the public (including screenwriters!) conception of what science is about (the Useful Knowledge model) as well as the timeless requirements of dramatic truth-narrative and spectacle— examined in the previous chapter. 1 As noted earlier, simply compare what is considered a good print run of a moderately popular science fiction writer— which Bacon-Smith (208) pegs at between 40-60,000 copies, with the attendence of even an unpopular science fiction film. 2 The stated goal of the team’s research in the film is not to prevent tornadoes from occuring, but to eventually produce superior early-warning systems. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 0 8 3 Though portrayed as being staffed with an international crew (identified by arm patches with the crewmembers’ national flag), the head of the station is American— albeit a non-white American with a foriegn accent. And, as a brief in-joke, among the geeky looking scientists there is one gorgeous blonde woman in an extra-tight crew outfit, with the Swedish flag on her shoulder. 4 Yes, technically Dr. Frankenstein was not married but only engaged. Or rather, he finally was married, but the monster killed his bride on their wedding night. 5 This is definitely an overstatement. There is plenty of science that is done in secrecy under governmental or corporate aegis. But it is true that science is best-more effective, more rapid in its progress, and more useful— when it is open, and scientists can share their data and experiences. 6 The other percentages: Doctors, 13%; Engineers, 5%, Academics 4%, and independent innovators like businessmen or artists, 35%. 7 In a favorite scene from Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Movie, the cynical film- watching critics make fun of the generalized nature of scientific endeavor portrayed in the 1954 film This Island Earth. Remarking on the seemingly random beeping machines and vague research occurring in the laboratory scenes, they joke, “This was before science had to have an actual purpose.” and suggest some added dialogue for the chief researcher: “Increase the Flash Gordon noise and put some more science stuff around!” 8 Focus group 4/18/00 9 The Newsweek article in which Spielberg is quoted on the “kernels” of scientific truth (which appeared in “The Arts” section) devoted a full page to a review of the movie-and FOUR pages to the related science. 1 0 Contact was not the first time this ploy appeared in a science fiction film. In The Day the Earth Stood Still, three media figures of the time (NBC’s Hans Von Kaltenbom, radio personality Elmer Davis, and news reporter Drew Peterson) report on the appearance of the film’s flying saucer as it lands in Washington, DC (Greenfield 62). 1 1 It should be mentioned that I fully belived this to be a real scientific fact until informed otherwise; so much of the rest of the movie seemed real, and so much had been made of the verisimilitude of the dinosaurs, that I just assumed it was true. It isn’t true, of course, and a moment’s thought makes it obvious: Tyrannosaurs were as much scavengers as hunters, and as such would quickly go hungry if they could only Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 0 9 scavenge corpses that were moving. For that matter, how could a creature only able to see mobile objects maneuver though a forest? 1 2 The possibility that the science consultants will not speak to these journalists does not seem to be the reason for their exclusion— many of them related to me their willingness to give media interviews, and stories of having done so. 1 3 Both the original and movie sensor pallets are, of course, named after characters from The Wizard of Oz. itself an interesting conjunction between scientists and film, as well as proof that real-life scientists have a sense of whimsy (and popular culture), too. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 8: Production Files and Sources 210 People who live in Los Angeles call Hollywood “The Industry,” speaking as though there were no others. Fascinating as this indigenous perception may be, there is a grain of truth within it; for the purpose of this chapter the significant keyword in “entertainment industry” is the second one. The production of cinema and television is an industry, employing hundreds of thousands of people in Los Angeles County alone. It takes several hundred to bring a major motion picture from development to the big screen, and 80-100 for a network television program. No matter how lowly, each of these people has some impact on the final product, if only by affecting the placement of a test tube or the utterance of a background line. Unfortunately, in this dissertation the contributions of many must go unacknowledged, and we now focus on the most visible of the production staff: producers, directors, production designers, and publicists. Directors are the figures most recognizable to the general public; it is their artistic vision that is generally most closely associated with a film in its final form. The director is in charge of the filming process, at the absolute bare minimum by envisioning a scene and working with the actors to perform that vision. Depending on the inclinations of the studio, producer, and director, his or her duties may also include casting, script editing, film editing, and some aspects of cinematography. The Producer is responsible for securing funding, locating a distributor, and whatever creative aspects the director is not— usually selecting and hiring key personnel like the screenwriter, production designer, and others. The Production Designer is responsible for the overall visual appearance of a production— the sets, props, and to a large degree, the visual “feel” of a film or television show. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211 The Publicist (or Publicity Department) is responsible for promoting a movie: advertising, press junkets, and getting the stars on Letterman. This chapter is about three sets of documents relating to production in The Industry, documents that involve all of these people. They are l.)Press kits and promotional materials for the science blockbusters, 2.)The contents of three of the studio production libraries, detailing one in particular (the Warner Research Collection) and 3.)The censorship files of the Production Code Authority (PCA). The tie that binds these bodies of data together is that all of them either have a direct input into what finally appears on the screen, or reveal the voices of those who do. The press kits contain the words of the producers and directors, circumscribed by the desires of the studio as created by the publicists, and reveal the way in which a movie is presented to the public. This is important. While the public of course makes it own choice to accept or reject a movie, the way the studio presents the film does make a difference in the public’s perception and reaction to it. The material from the studio research libraries (Warner, 20th Century Fox, and the Lillian Michelson Collection) is the primordial source material for screenwriters, production designers, costumers, and all those who work with them— decorators, prop masters, etc. The Production Code files of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) represent the only place in this dissertation where an in-depth treatment of older material occurs, the Production Code having been in effect between 1930 and 1968.1 While the Production Code censorship is a thing of the past, the material is relevant for the same reason the histories were in Chapter 5; the Production Code directly affected the progenitors of today’s films, and the ancestors of modem representations. Furthermore, Powdermaker suggested that the Code was really a representation of American cultural taboos— taboos that are still with us today, particularly those involving sexuality (55). The PCA files reveal to us society’s taboos because in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 212 end, sometimes what does not make it on screen is as important as what does. In addition, the Code files reveal how some of the early “advocacy” (propaganda?) groups of the U.S. were concerned with hyperreality, though needless to say they did not call it that. The reason the code came into being was because the self-declared moral arbitrators of American society were worried that cinema had a unique power to influence people’s minds, and to make them believe things that were false. All these materials serve one additional purpose: they broaden our understanding of the production process that generates the images of science and scientists in modem film and television. A number of the theorists mentioned in earlier chapters weigh in on the importance of production. Those who reflect a theoretical stance descended from the Frankfurt School suggest that it is during the production process that the hegemonic messages of the broadcast media are inserted (such as Shanahan and Morgan 15). Newcomb suggests that the influence of commercialism in the entertainment industry demands that it attempt to reify existing power relationships (9). And arguably, the entire point of Powdermaker’s Dream Factory was to investigate how the people who make movies affect what gets made, and what those movies say. While it still seems false to place too great an emphasis on the hegemonic power of the producers at the expense of the interpretive response of the audience, even those who adhere to a polysemic viewpoint of media interpretation cannot deny that the mass media does not present all meanings equally. Television and film present a “structured polysemy” (Butler 8) wherein the messages transmitted by producers, directors, studios, and all the others involved in production affect the public’s interpretation. Pierre Sorlin wrote that in order to fully analyze mass media, “we must try to understand where the media gather their information from, how to [sic] display it, and what are the social settings and situations typically associated with their use” (97). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 1 3 The studio research libraries and science consultants are where production personnel gather their information, the content analysis and press kits illustrate how they display it, and the Production Code is one of the elements from the social setting that qualifies their use. In the goal of reaching the most complete understanding possible of the portrayals of science and the messages transmitted about it in the mass media, these documents are important pieces of the puzzle. They are part of a survey of how science is incorporated, treated, and marketed in modem Hollywood. The Censorship Files of the Production Code Administration The Production Code Administration of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) operated from 1934-1968. The censorship arm of the MPAA (an industry lobbying group), it was originally founded by Will Hayes, whom the MPAA had hired in 1922, ironically to combat boycotts and censorship (Leff and Simmons 3). In 1934, rising public outcry over the content of movies (and the support of William Hearst for federal censorship) lead an increasingly worried MPAA to rename Hayes’ office the Production Code Administration, and set up a policy of fining any movie released without Code approval $25,000, as well as banning it from member theatres— which essentially meant all theatres (Leff and Simmons 52). The purpose of the Code, nominally, was to provide and enforce a moral compass for Hollywood, but in reality it was to shield the industry from incurring the wrath of groups like the National Legion of Decency, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and the Catholic church. The twisted irony is that to combat boycotts and federal censorship, the PCA instituted a self-imposed censorship as bad or likely worse as any which would have been forced upon them by the government.2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 1 4 Perhaps most interesting is that the Production Code was really about the intentional creation of a simulacra through direction of the media. The reasons given in the Code for its existence are “it [cinema] enters intimately into the lives of men and women and affects them closely; it occupies their minds and addictions during leisure hours; and ultimately touches the whole of their lives. A man may be judged by his standard of entertainment as easily as by the standard of his work” (Production Code 10). This attitude echoes the writings of a man the Code Administration almost certainly would not have considered a congment ideologue, Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard, comparatively, suggested that “we are all Louds doomed not to invasion, to pressure, to violence and blackmail by the media and the models, but to their induction, to their infiltration, to their illegible violence” (30).3 Baudrillard also wrote that “one could still expect to manipulate the medium in its form and to transform the real by using the impact of the medium as form” (82). By this he in essence argues the same thing the morality groups did: that by manipulating media one could manipulate people’s view of the world. Examining the Code reports opens a window into the way that the PCA shaped films with science and scientists, and thus made its contribution to the simulacra of those ideas informed by films. The Production Code had three “General Principles”: 1.)No picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrong-doing, evil, or sin. 2.)Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented. 3.)Law, natural and human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation. (1955 edition, pp.2) To enforce standards of morality and in pursuit of these principles, the PCA reserved the right to legislate images of crime, sex, vulgarity, costuming (including nudity), dance, religion, and ethnicity, among others. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 1 5 To Powdermaker, the Production Code seemed like a Melanesian taboo; a set of prescriptions that if followed, could wield off an evil occurrence— in this case, official censorship or the boycotting power of morality groups (56). The difference was, in her mind, that belief and reaction were confused; Trobrianders, she noted, truly believe in the taboo rituals, while the denizens of Hollywood pay only lip-service to theirs. Nobody at the studios thought an open-mouthed kiss or a criminal’s escape would lead moviegoers toward a life of crime and easy virtue. On the other hand, the evil spells the Trobrianders feared existed only in their imagination, while the threat of censorship to Hollywood was quite real (56). It is interesting to note that in the wake of modem tragedies like the Columbine school slayings, these threats of government censorship continue today, and the industry’s reaction is the same, voluntary restraint and assurances of self-censorship. Powdermaker hated the Code. To her it was ineffective, idiotic, poorly-conceived, and most damning of all, completely useless. By her reasoning, if an audience sees 85 minutes of two criminals enjoying themselves, is that balanced by the Code’s insistence that in the last five minutes they go to jail? Does not showing married couples consummating their love really lead people to believe it does not happen? And would any of this lead audiences to live a more moral life? Powdermaker believed that the entire rationale displayed a disregard for the intelligence of the audience (74). She also disapproved of Hollywood knuckling under to the pressure or interest groups and the threat of boycotts (70). Powdermaker criticized the fact that nobody— “producer, director, or publicity man— believes in the Code or takes seriously the values underlying the taboos” (65), while they all paid hypocritical lip service to it by removing sex from pictures while publicizing the sexiness of their stars. However, while Powdermaker and the Hollywood insiders she interviewed may not have believed in the morals of the code, there is evidence that its mores had a broader public support. A survey of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 1 6 moviegoers conducted by the Allied States Association of Motion Picture Exhibitors in 1949 showed that the top excesses of major motion pictures the public found objectionable included “brutality and horror” (#1), “over-emphasis on sex” (#2), and “drinking scenes” (#4) (Assoc, of Motion Picture Exhibitors 30). But, far more than an irrational taboo or a historical oddity, the Production Code had a profound affect on many of the most important films in the history of cinema, including those that helped root the classical stereotype of scientists in film, like Frankenstein. War of the Worlds, and Dr. Strangelove. The documents analyzed in this section are from the files of the PCA, currently housed in the Margaret Herrick library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. They primarily consist of the forms (called the “Analysis Chart” in the 1940s and the “Analysis of Film Content” in the ‘50s and ‘60s) required for any film seeking Code approval between the 1940s and 1968.4 These were forms filled out by the PCA censors, and they contain an incredible amount of detail: a complete six-page set of forms from the 50s has one page devoted to general information (title, studio, settings, themes), one for the portrayals of professions and races, one for the appearance of liquor (yes, an entire page), one for crime, and two for “sociological factors”— gambling, marriage/divorce, family relationships, and motivations. It is interesting to note that to monitor something as broadly defined as “morality,” the PCA needed to enact such thorough standards. Those six pages of forms contain 90 separate questions. The PCA documents reflect the treatment of science and scientists in fdm in a number of ways: by their direct analytical treatment (in the analysis forms), in the suggestions Code censors sent to producers on how to have their films meet official approval, and in release restrictions for science and science fiction films. To begin with, the analysis documents had to list the themes (“Angles” in PCA terminology) of each movie under review. The number of themes listed on the forms varied over the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 1 7 years, eventually reaching a grand total of twelve; these included the original six, “Foreign” “Political” “Racial” “Religious” “Scientific” and “Military.”5 The Day The Earth Stood Still, for example, contained the story elements Military, Political, and Scientific, and Frankenstein 1970 (made in 1958), the elements Foreign and Scientific. It is interesting to note what the PCA considered a film with “Scientific” elements to be. The Absent-Minded Professor. War of the Worlds, and Forbidden Planet all made the cut; Dr. Strangelove did not. Unfortunately, as with many of the questions on the PCA forms, the criteria for classifying the angles of a film are not apparent. Why Dr. No is considered scientific, while Dr. Strangelove is not remains a mystery. The portrayal of professions is also treated in detail by the censors. Each character’s profession was listed, leading to forms reading, for example “Yo[ung] Nuclear Physicist” “Scientists 2.)Gene Barry” and “Famous Polish Scientist.” Each of these in mm was ranked according to a list of criteria (7 in the 1940s, 12 by the ‘50s) addressing prominence, seriousness of portrayal, sympathy, nationality, and honesty in performance of professional duties. Dr. Clayton Forrester of War of the Worlds for example, was listed as a prominent, straight,6 sympathetic character, while the unfortunate Dr. Strangelove came off as a minor, straight, unsympathetic man. Once again, it is unclear what led a censor to label Strangelove as a non-comic character (or a minor one, given that the film is named after him).7 Powdermaker claimed that the code decreed a uniformity of portrayals; if an evil lawyer was shown, it was necessary to counterbalance him with a good lawyer. The copies of the code I have reviewed make no reference to this requirement, but it is also clear that many of the restraints and criteria used to judge a film were not explicitly listed in the Code itself, and depended on the topic of the film and the temperament of the censors. However, an analysis of Code documents relating to six films containing scientists from the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 1 8 heyday of the Production Code indicates this was not a requirement that was enforced by the censors: Dr. Cyclops ('19391 had one evil scientist, and two good ones. The Corpse Vanishes (1942), one evil scientist, and no good ones. Bride of the Atom (1955), two evil scientists, no good ones. Forbidden Planet (1955), one scientist who is at turns both evil and good. I was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) had two evil scientists and no good ones. And The Unearthly (1957) had three evil scientists, but no good ones. Sometimes it is difficult to judge if there is a balance between good and evil scientists, because the Code’s imperative that all crimes must be punished frequently led to mad scientists who repented or accepted punishment in the end, like Dr. Frankenstein.8 The requirements of the code could also have had an effect on some of the characteristics of scientists seen in the content analysis of Chapter 6— the high mortality rate, for example. Since the Code demanded that all evildoers be punished and mad scientists are by definition evil, their punishment is, literally, inevitable. And since merely handcuffing an evil professor did not have the same panache as dropping him into a vat of liquid Nitrogen, that punishment was often expressed in his death. Thus the ignoble demise of such scientific luminaries as Dr. No (Dr. Not. Dr. Morbius (Forbidden Planef). and Dr. Cyclops (Dr. Cyclops). Sometimes more interesting than the cut-and-dry analysis of the censorship forms are specific prescriptions made by the PCA office before granting approval to a film. Generally, a script would be sent to the Production Code office, and they would comment upon inappropriate lines, or return a letter noting how pleased they were that the basic story was acceptable, then add a “but...” The “but” tended to consist of specific script changes that the PCA required before okaying a picture for release. Occasionally these had to do with the science in the film: the PCA repeatedly suggested that the line “is it true if you fool around with that stuff [Uranium] you don’t like girls Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 1 9 anymore?” be deleted from The Beginning or the End, a suggestion that MGM, for reasons unknown, continually refused. During one scene in Marie Curie, the chemist and her husband are discussing an experiment, but the Code office felt certain that “the following lines...will undoubtedly prove offensively sexually suggestive” to audiences. The dialogue in question? “Are you sure the insulation was dry?” “Did you check the ground connection?” “Why no— I thought you gave it to me in good shape.” One of the most interesting prescriptions has to do with the 1931 Universal Pictures’ Frankenstein. After bringing his monster to life, the exultant Dr. Victor Frankenstein cries out, “God! Now I know how it feels to be God!” The PCA office, of course, strongly recommended that this reference-and all others like it— be removed before state censor boards forced the issue. As far as the PCA was concerned, science may be progressive, but it had no place interfering in God’s domain. What is interesting in these cases is that science itself was not at issue— only offenses against sexual or religious morality which science in the films unwittingly bumped up against. In fact, science is the only one of the original six plot angles that was not specifically analyzed in the rest of a Code report-putting it not just outside the categories of sex and religion, but politics and race as well. Perhaps science was considered in and of itself inherently moral, or more likely outside the realm or morality. Perhaps the censors did not feel qualified to pass judgement upon the treatment of scientific topics; though that never stopped them from removing anything else. The final, indirect way in which the Production Code effected the images of science and scientists was through release restrictions on movies. The most obvious of these were age restrictions— Forbidden Planet was not for children under 10, and, more surprisingly, The Nutty Professor for children under 12. Neither of these films was to be shown on “holy days” (Sundays, Christmas, etc.), although Frankenstein 1970 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 220 could. A number of films were altogether prohibited from certain locales, or allowed only with changes. The 1931 Frankenstein was banned from release in Sweden, Australia, Italy, or Czechoslovakia, despite the fact that according to materials in the PCA files, the Atlanta Better Film Committee gave the movie an “A” for Educational Value and for Moral Effect (one wonders what the educational value was). The sensitivities of the public were often involved. Apparently fearing the reaction of a terrified audience. Forbidden Planet could not be released in Australia until the filmmakers would “eliminate all shots of Alleged Nuclear Monster.” It is difficult to point to a direct effect that the Code had on the protrayal of science and scientists in film, but its presence permeated the production of movies in Hollywood until the late 1960s. Studios were only allowed to make certain kinds of movies, and screenwriters to create certain types of situations and characters, contributing to the rise of formulaic movies and their stock denizens. The prescriptions and restrictions arguably had a limited affect on the portrayal of science. After all, except for the possible directive that all professions be shown balanced between good and evil, science per se was not a target of the Code. But the humanizing aspects of it were— things like Marie Curie’s marriage, small talk about radiation, and the excitement of Frankenstein’s discovery— and the dehumanization of scientists was one of the biggest elements of the stock character stereotype of the classic scientist. Of course, the Code in a sense dehumanized everyone, but for a character like the scientist, already assumed to be an outsider, the effect was exacerbated. The PCA also affected the public image by limiting where and to whom the movies could be shown, arguably placing movies with scientists into the category of films with adult or amoral themes. The Code was an early attempt to control the power of the media to create a simulacra. In this case, the morality groups wanted films to show a world that was like the real one, but where a certain moral code was not merely suggested, it was literally Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221 written into the fabric of the universe as natural law. Criminals were not possibly punished-they always were. Marriage was literally inevitable for people who were in love and wanted babies. Criminals never used machine guns,9 and obscene words literally did not exist in English. In a sense, the objective was to use a power that they feared— that of the cinema to influence the minds of an audience— to make an endrun around their pre-Baudrilliard fear of hyperreality. Instead of letting cinema create a licentious, morally loose hyperreality in its audience, the Code sought to create a wholesome one. Of course, because the relationship between audience viewing of mass media and the formation of their understandings about society is more complex than those who created the Code understood or were willing to deal with, it was probably about as effective as the other great morality drive of the early 20th century, Prohibition. Eventually, due to a combination of increasing audience sophistication, more progressive social mores, disgruntled filmmakers, and the decline in power of the groups whose pressure was originally responsible for its formation, the Code was replaced in 1968 by the now-familiar G, PG, R, and X rating system.1 0 The Studio Libraries— Where They Find What We See Studio libraries are the uncelebrated, and often unknown, source of many of the classic scenes in motion picture history— from the avian flight patterns in The Birds to the interior of NORAD from Wargames. According to the research librarians, much of the information on genetics in Jurassic Park came from a studio library. On a single day at the Warner Research Library, current projects included the television shows Resurrection Blvd.. The X-Files. and The West Wing, and the films Hannibal. A L L and The Omega Code II. The libraries are where set designers go when they want to find out what a NASA control panel looks like, art directors to find out how the furniture in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222 the Oval Office is laid out, and costumers to find illustrations of 18th century hussars. In the current environment of Hollywood, where stressing how “real” a production is has new impetus in the post- A Beautiful Mind. Erin Brockvich world, studio libraries play an incredibly important role in establishing the visual reality. They contribute to the look that tells viewers that what they are seeing is real or could be, or even if it could not, that it appears to take place in a world where it could. The studio libraries have value in two arenas that are covered in this dissertation: they directly influence the content of the material (both visual and informational) that appears onscreen in almost all films and television programs involving science and scientists, and they have a dramatic impact on the ability of cinema and television to show the audience an image that is as realistic in appearance as possible. As such, they have an impact on the ability of the mass media to promote a simulacra of the outside world, and to contribute to media-influence hypotheses like cultivation theory. I spoke with the researchers of three studio research libraries, the 20th Century Fox studio library, the Lillian Michelson Collection, and the Warner Research Collection. The first studio research library was founded at Universal Pictures in 1916. The idea then was largely the same as it is now: in a situation where shooting on location was not always feasible, the studio wanted a set of reference materials for creating realistic-looking sets, or at least sets that could evoke the exotic settings desired. Warner Bros, began their collection in the 1920s, and Samuel Goldwyn started his in the 1930s. By the 1940s every studio had a research collection, often staffed by up to a dozen researchers. Unfortunately, the collapse of the studio system led to circumstances antithetical to the existence of studio libraries: the demise of the “everything on one lot” mentality, and an economic climate in which frivolous amenities— as the libraries appear to be to cost-conscious executives— began to be disbanded. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 2 3 In 1969, the Goldwyn Library was bought by one of its librarians, Lillian Michelson, who borrowed on her husband’s (production designer Harold Michelson) life insurance policy to purchase it. This type of individual desire to conserve these resources became an imporant factor in the history of nearly all the libraries. The Paramount collection was bought by George Lucas in 1987 and resides at his ranch in Marin County. Joining it in Northern California is the former RKO library, now owned by Francis Ford Coppola as part of his Zoetrope Studios. Coppola clearly understands the desirability of having a research library: previously, Michelson had actually brought her collection to the earlier incarnation of Zoetrope in the early 1980’s— until it went bankrupt, forcing the exodus of the collection (which was then temporarily housed by the Los Angeles County Library). Such byzantine histories are common among the library collections. For example, Warner Bros, began their collection in the 1920s, but by 1975 had decided it was a liability, and sold it to the Burbank Public Library system. Burbank kept it open as the only research collection open to the public, until September 2000, when the collection was closed for budgetary reasons and to make space for other library needs. In the meantime, Warner Bros, had realized that it did need a library after all, and purchased the remains of MGM’s. The Burbank Public Library, unable to find a buyer, ended up donating the Warner Research Collection back to the studio. The 20th Century Fox library has a similarly labyrinthine story. It was begun in the early 1920s, when George Ingleton brought his personal collection of reference materials to the studio. The library continued its expansion for years, and at its height employed 16 research librarians. However, when the film Cleopatra almost bankrupted the studio, it forced a series of cutbacks that eventually reduced the staff to one researcher and his assistant by 1970. In 1992, the library was almost shut down— to the point where many of the materials were put in boxes. After a petition drive saved the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 2 4 collection, 1995 saw a renaissance of the Fox library. The materials were de-boxed, three more staff members were hired, and they began to once again expand the collection. Today it acts almost as a community library for the studio, including a lending library of videos and DVDs (which the staff refers to as “Foxbuster”), terminals for accessing the Internet and Lexis-Nexis, and fresh-brewed coffee always on tap. How important are these libraries? As one former librarian noted “if you talk to a production designer, when they need that picture, they’d give their firstborn. But if you talk to a studio exec., they probably look at it as a bunch of old books” (Wallace 2). Possibly the most precious resources of the libraries are their gargantuan newspaper and magazine clipping files. The Universal and Warner Research Collections each claimed to have over 5 million clippings, and Michaelson’s 1.5 million. These files are the most used, and probably most important resources the libraries have. They are also the elements that primarily influence the production process. The laboratories seen in Jurassic Park, for example, were designed based on clippings from the Universal library (Wallace 3), and the information on genetics in the movie came from the Warner Collection. The clippings are used both by production designers, who use them to inform visual aspects of the production, and screenwriters, who incorporate information from the files into the screenplays. In fact, the Warner Research Collection has had an important impact on the look (and occasionally, the content) of a vast number of science-oriented films and television programs— The X-Files. Jurassic Park. Contact. SeaOuest DSV. The Nutty Professor (original and 1996 versions), Outbreak, the Alien films, and innumerable others. There are over 100 separate categories in their clipping files on science, scientists, and laboratories. Each has its own folder, and is further subdivided by sub-subfield (ex: “Science-Physics-Fusion”) time period (ex: “Electronics-Computers-Miscel- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 2 5 1960/69”) or individual (ex: “Anthropology-Primitive Man-Leakey”). The organization of the fdes themselves reveals something about the nature of their contents, and the way in which production personnel who use them categorize the subjects, based on topics most important to them. Take biology, for example, the files for which are organized as: “Science— Biology Biosphere Biology Biotechnology Biology Evolution Biology Genetics Cloning Biology Genetics DNA Biology Genetics Heredity Biology Genetics Misc. Biology Human Physiology Biology Microbiology Viruses Biology Microbiology Bacteria Biology Miscel.” The library also hosts individual fdes on prominent scientists, forming a nifty benchmark for rating their popularity: Albert Einstein’s, for example, is far and away the thickest file with several hundred items. Marie Curie is pleasantly plump with a hundred items or so. Poor Carl Sagan, however, one of the most publicly prominent scientists of the ‘80s and ‘90s, has a paltry eight items. Others who rate individual files include Niels Bohr, Michael Crichton, Andrei Sakharov, Jonas Salk, Albert Schweitzer, Francis Bacon, Franz Boas, and Margaret Mead. Reading the contents of these folders communicates the impression that researchers utilizing the file would get of the scientist. The materials in Marie Curie’s focus on her contributions to science, love for her husband, stubbornness, and extreme work ethic. Albert Einstein’s includes Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 2 6 articles on his personality, personal, and public life (very little on his professional contributions). Carl Sagan’s file mostly talks about his work popularizing science. The gist of the content in these files is what is important, as it is often what comes through in the final product (alongside specific visual elements). The clipping file titled “Types-Scientists” at the Warner Research Collection is the primary source for images about scientists. Containing just over 100 items, the file contains pictures of Astrophysicists, Ecologists, Mathematicians, Archaeologists, Astronomers, Chemists, an Ichthyologist, and almost every other specialty— even a Mycologist.1 1 The full range of scientists is very well represented— there are men and women of all ages, races, and nationalities. There is a clear slant towards Caucasians, and a milder one towards men, but otherwise the only obvious inclination is an overrepresentation of field researchers. The number of Archaeologists, Paleontologists, and field Biologists far outweighs the depiction of other fields. Scientists in the file are generally not seen in labs, but in the field wearing t-shirts and jeans. Almost all of them are represented with some tool of the trade-Anthropologists carry hominid skulls, biologists have sample jars, astronomers pose in front of telescopes. The files present an incredible picture of the range of science, both its practitioners and investigative scope. The clippings themselves offer a good glimpse into the presentation of scientists in the popular print media. After all, these are the images that many members of the public come in contact with— the clippings are from the Los Angeles Times. Newsweek. Natural History. Scientific American. People Magazine. Biblical Archaeology Review, and a dozen other sources. The method through which these images find their way into the final product, however, is complex. It involves not only the person doing the actual research, but a convoluted hierarchy of production staff going all the way up to the director. An Art Director informant described the process: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 227 It all starts with the Director of the film. He/She has a visual idea of what they are looking for in their movie. From there, they interview Production Designers (after they read the script), who design/illustrate picture boards of what they think the movie should looks like. Most designers will do research at the [production] Library before going into the meeting. If the director likes their ideas, they are hired...once the Production Designer is hired, they begin the process of research. The Designer will hire an Art Department Coordinator. With the Designers, they break down each set for research. As an example, she suggested the research and process involved in designing a set of a small-town American jail of the 1940s: [the] Art Department Coordinator calls up the Library, requesting [information on] the above. Once pulled, the Coordinator or assistant goes to the Library and sifts through the materials. Finds picture for the above (looking for the materials used to build the cell, design, signage, decoration, and color (if it’s in color). Once the material is shown to the Designers, they in turn hire an illustrator who will conceptualize the set for the Designer. The Designer will show it to the Director. The Director will either OK or make changes. Once the design is approved, the Designer takes the drawing along with the research to his Art Director (who oversees budget, executes the designs for the P.D. and manages the set designers). Both Art and Designer hand all the research to a Set Designer...the Production Designers in the meantime has hired a Decorator and a Prop person. The Designer shows his research to them, what the cell should have (cot, light, toilet, etc.). From there they got out and do the same research but expanding on their departments. They each bring back their research and show them to the Designer, who along with the Director approves everything. The key thing to note here is that everytime “research” is mentioned in the above description, that research is likely to have been down at one of the studio libraries. Almost everyone involved in this process has some research to do in the collections— Director, Production Designer, Art Director, Props Manager, Costumer, and the rest. With that in mind, it becomes obvious the great effect the content of the libraries has on a production. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 2 8 Much of the research at the 20th Century Fox collection operates somewhat differently. Aside from simply researching images, like the ones above, the researchers at Fox are occasionally called upon to make “Concept Books”— 3-ring binders of materials that relate to a particular film that has yet to be made, and can be used to pitch the movie. To create a concept book, the library staff takes a script, then breaks it down into all the possible sorts of images they’ll need, then collects that information into a single binder. This information generally includes fashion of the time, locations, background information, etc. These books are then used as reference materials during the production. Three copies are made of each of these books— one for the library archives, one for the creative executive (usually the producer), who uses it to shop the picture around, and one for the art director. The Fox library has contributed information to a number of recent science-related movies and television programs, including Volcano. The X-Files. and X-Men. How much of what’s seen on screen comes from a library like 20th Century Fox or Warner Collection? The librarians suggested that the anwer to that question largely depends on the individual director and production designer, though some specific individuals were tagged as either more or less concerned with “getting it right.” One researcher modestly said “How much of what we actually do shows up there? And there are times when we can save people millions of dollars, say ‘Shoot it this way,’ or ‘It wouldn’t look like that’ or ‘We can make this out of this’...but we feel that a lot of our work actually shows up on screen.” A more cynical art director suggested that “I would say 90% of research ends up on film. Even though most Production Designers wouldn’t like to admit [it]. Nothing is original anymore.” Why are these libraries important to the topic at hand? There are two reasons: firstly, they contribute a lot of the information and visuals seen in science blockbusters. In addition to the laboratories from Jurassic Park, studio research librarians at the 20th Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 2 9 Century Fox library claim that it was their input that made the visual distinction between the volcano movies Volcano and Dante’s Peak: the eruption in the former looked more like a lava-spewing Hawaiian volcano, while Dante’s Peak appeared as a Mount St. Helens-like explosion of dust and ash. The files themselves make no statements save by the materials within them, which generally mirror their origins in popular newspaper and magazines, and thus reflect the widespread popularized view of their subjects.1 2 Because of this, it is possible to argue that to some degree the research libraries deserve credit for the current, more realistic portrayals of scientists, laboratories, and the like discussed in the previous chapter. Comparing contents of the files on laboratories of the 1930s and the sets of movies made at that time clearly shows the libraries’ influences; the same holds true for modem films. Biologist Mark Glassy wrote that a number of movies made in the 1990s “have outstanding lab sets that are not only visually stunning but amazingly accurate...As a professional scientist, I would be quite happy to work in any one of them” (274). There is little doubt that the templates for these movies came from what the Art Department staff saw in the studio research libraries The second reason for examining them is that the libraries contribute to the visual authenticity of a film or television program. By doing this, they affect the perceived reality of what the audience sees— thus contributing to both the possibility of cultivation and the construction of a hyperreality. Studio libraries come in where the details are important. Charles and Mirella Affron call this the “Reality Effect,” the idea that sets must look real enough that people who have been to the actual location they replicate might think the films were shot on location. This is the case, they claim, in those productions which “seek to produce a strong reality effect, which is to say the vast majority of feature films” (41). Interestingly enough, research librarians, production designers, directors, and cinema theorists all seem to believe in an almost subconscious Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 3 0 ability of the audience to sniff out the inauthentic, based on the smallest pieces of visual reality. The devil may, indeed, be in the details. As William Mitchell suggests, it is the small details in photographs that tell us they evoke reality, “Since photographs are rich in such details, they always connote the real” (27). Charles Tashiro, in his study of production design in films, writes about the importance of everyday objects as part of set design. Tashiro suggests that objects can add their own socially-constructed meaning to a film narratives, and adds “it is important to note that in order to achieve this added value, the image can never veer entirely from the realist pole. Value accmes only if, as Barsacq would have said, the film seems to have photographed real objects” (7). Tashiro, aligning his ideas with the Afffons, suggests that this is particularly the case in historical films: “Clearly The Leopard saturates the image with objects for the same reason as Nicholas and Alexandra: to convince that the past has been created through details that evoke period through appearance” (88). Though obviously far from the only contributing factor— plot, dialogue, acting, and other factors come immediately to mind— the importance of visual believability and the truth that lies in details should be obviously apparent. Imagine if a dramatic moment in a science blockbuster was supposedly taking place on Mars, but the background shown onscreen was clearly Central Park in New York city; context influences the action, and that moment would be significantly different. Or more importantly for this argument, what if the environment shown was more obviously Mars, but was missing the details that the audience has come to expect that mark it as such— a red tint to everything (especially the soil), a desertlike landscape, people in spacesuits. The moment would still be there, but the audience’s ability to focus on the acting and dialogue would most likely be compromised by the disjunction between their expectations of what they should be seeing and the actual image. When we’re considering the possibility that people’s ideas about science, scientists, and scientific knowledge can be constructed by Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 3 1 what they see onscreen, the reality effect becomes dramatically important. Especially if, as Tashiro, Mitchell, and the Affrons suggest, the visual authenticity of a film influences how much the audience will believe in the entirety of what is presented to them, what the science they see looks like, the information about it that is being stated, the whole package. The Real is a supporting player in visual entertainment media, but a dramatically important one. And it is the studio libraries that often deliver the necessary goods to make those images seem real. Press Kits— Selling the Image of Legitimacy Anyone who has been enticed by an exciting preview into seeing a terrible movie knows the power of publicity and its ability to shape audience perceptions of a Hollywood product. One of the primary vectors through which a studio promotes a specific image of a movie is through press kits. Press kits are publicity materials that are distributed by the studios to members of the media. This usually means entertainment reporters, but if a science or technology reporter covers a film— as for the newspaper articles mentioned in the previous chapter— they get one, too. The kits are often also sent to magazine journalists, newspaper editors, and television program and news producers. They usually consist of a folder with several enclosures; generally one is a complete listing of the credits for the movie, and another is a booklet titled “Production Information.” It is the production information booklets that are of primary interest here. These are what contain detailed accounts of the production process on a given film, often covering everything from the original pitch meeting to the final cut. The information booklets are where the producers, directors, production designers, and other members of the production staff get to speak their piece. And significantly, they are where substantial amounts of science are found, all in the service Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 3 2 of the gods of Madison Avenue. There is actually a surprisingly large amount of scientific information in these booklets. The press kit for Paramount’s Deep Impact. for example, devotes one-third (!) of the production information booklet to explanations of “Extinction Level Events,” general space science, the quality of contributions of its science consultants, and justification of their credentials. Touchstone Pictures’ competing Armageddon devotes a little less than one-fifth; still a fairly astounding amount, especially for a picture in which the science was not particularly well-regarded. What scientific content is contained in these booklets? Gattaca’s contains two pages “About Genetic Engineering” with basic information on what a gene is, the human genome project, the structure of DNA strands (including the nucleotides guanine, thymine, cystosine, and adenine— or G T C A), along with the eugenic possibilities and ethical dilemmas of genetic engineering that are the basis for the film. “The basis for the film” is probably a good way to judge the choice of scientific content. The science in the press kits always has to do with the kernel of reality that justifies the existence of the movie, but it is select enough to only give enough information to make the film seem plausible. The science (and the films) weigh towards the speculative end of current knowledge-as in Armageddon, which takes the existence of killer asteroids and then positing that the dangers are more immanent than reality warrants. Dante’s Peak’s kit talks not just about volcanoes in general but repeatedly mentions those that, like the one in the movie, erupted near population centers. The science in the booklets is essentially the minimum necessary to construe the level of realism that supposedly makes the rest of the film more dramatic. For Twister, it is not the existence of tornadoes, which are real enough without resorting to speculative science, but the existence of the storm chasers in the VORTEX (Verification of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 3 3 Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment) program at the National Severe Storms Laboratory. The sheer volume of low-level scientific information is fairly impressive. The booklet for Dante’s Peak contains a 5-page section (of a 31-page total) of volcano information— divided into sections titled “Dante’s Peak/Volcano Facts,” “Well- Known Volcanoes and Eruptions,” ‘Theory of Volcano Creation,” “The Process of Volcano Creation,” and a 2-page glossary of geological terminology. The press kit for Red Planet includes a 3-page article titled “Mars: Science or Survival” reprinted with the note “the following article appears in the November 2000 issue of the science magazine Mercury.” The Mission to Mars press kit contains pages and pages of basic information on NASA plans for future Mars missions, space travel, even spacesuits. Typically, a fair amount of the educational content is hidden between the lines, such as information on the physiological rigors of long-term spaceflight, the atmosphere of Mars, even the use of the International Space Station. After justifying their foundation in the basic science behind the movie— asteroid collisions, volcanic eruptions, genetic engineering, Mars missions— the production information booklets next seek to validate the films’ claims to that science, personified by the scientific and technical consultants. The materials in the press kits focus on the consultants’ authority and depth of knowledge, including credentials, past and present positions, and notable accomplishments. A typical blurb from the Jurassic Park production notes says that Jack Homer “heads the largest dinosaur research team in the country,” lists his principal historic finds (the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton recovered and a herd of 10,000 duckbills), and quotes a Time article stating that Homer’s theories have over the past decade become generally accepted in the palentological community (42). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 3 4 Dante’s Peak boasted three volcanologist consultants, and the press booklet cites factoids about each of them: Jack Lockwood is listed as “one of the world’s most respected volcanologists,” David Harlow’s experience with eruptions in population centers is noted, and Norman McLeod talks about his employment at the Cascades Volcano Observatory, the base location of the movie. The Deep Impact production information booklet trumpets the accomplishments of Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker, and reminds the reader of their discovery of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, whose collision with Jupiter in 1994 was one of the biggest space science stories of the 1990s. Gerry Griffin is identified not only as the former director of the Johnson Space Center, but also one of the flight controllers for the Apollo 13 mission, further validating his participation by linking him with the enormously popular film of the same name. Mission to Mars not only spends three pages detailing the resumes of its consultants, but mentions their contributions throughout, and repeatedly stresses how much they enjoyed the script, not just as astronauts and physicists but as regular moviegoing guys. Consultant Matt Golombek is quoted saying “It was hard, because I was hired to be a scientist on the project, but I was having so much fun reading it, I just wanted to see what would happen next. I actually had to go back and study it, for the technical parts” (Mission to Mars 19). The hands-down winner for irony, however, is a series of fake press kits titled “Jurassic News” and distributed by Universal several months before Jurassic Park hit the theaters. “Jurassic News” purports to be an advance press release for the opening of the amusement park from the movie, aping the conventions of the actual press kits, including a “science fact” section eerily close to that for the real movie, and a fake credential-authenticating article refering to the films’ fictional scientists titled “World-Renowned Team of Consultants in Place at Jurassic Park.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 3 5 To humanize the experience of the scientists, the kits often invoke educational lessons the production staff learned from working on the film. “There’s not really much we can do” says Armageddon director/producer Michael Bay, “the experts at NASA told us that the Earth gets wiped out every 10 million years or so. Four years ago a Global Killer about three miles long passed us, between us and the moon, and we did not know it until days later’” (Armageddon 22). The Twister crew almost became meterologists by the end of the shoot. “As the actors and filmmakers immersed themselves in their research about tornadoes, they became increasingly fascinated with the nature and history of their on-screen enemy” (Twister 9), and “The ‘Twister’ team discovered that it takes a special kind of person to jump in a van and drive dead- on toward a tornado” (Twister 10). Deep Impact is one of several productions where the crew prepared for fallback jobs at NASA: “While the advanced technology that will eventually allow for space contact with comets is still very much in the future, the director and writers were able to learn how this kind of an operation would work” (Deep Impact 14). Former physics major and Mission to Mars director Brian De Palma’s film-related education was also a personal growth experience: “By working on the film, I reacquainted myself with my own interest in this area. I started out reading science fiction, building computers, and being fascinated by the exploration of other planets in out solar system. And everything like this has been forgotten for a couple of decades which, for me, is a great tragedy” (Mission to Mars 14). Even the actors weigh in on their valuable learning experiences: “I began to see tornadoes as a kind of rogue murderer, very different from other natural disasters” said Twister’s Bill Paxton (Twister 9). While working on Red Planet. Tom Sizemore learned that astronauts are “modem day pioneers. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to play an astronaut. They’re the men and women who risk their lives so that we can have a better place on Earth” (Red Planet 4). Billy Bob Thornton also reportedly received a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 3 6 startling education about NASA during the filming of Armageddon: “I found out that NASA’s not a military entity; it’s a civilian organization. They don’t have to abide by military rules” ( Armageddon 12). If you believe the studio publicity mills, it is apparently impossible to work on a major film without coming away with a better grasp of and appreciation for science. This may be true; anybody involved with Jurassic Park who did not know what DNA was when they started sure had an idea of it when the shoot was finished. Of course, this knowledge is mostly skewed towards dramatic rather than veritable truth, but since science literacy advocates tend towards a “take it where you can get it” attitude, maybe that is good enough. The upshot of all of this— particularly the sections on science background and the science consultants— is that these portions of the press kits show how the studio is specifically selling the product as being as “realistic” as possible; more factual drama than fictional adventure. The Armageddon press kit notes “this type of detail and verisimilitude was of the utmost importance to producers Bruckheimer and Hurd, as well as the other filmmakers who consulted with a wide variety of technical advisors” (16). Mission to Mars director De Palma says “What we’re tried to do is make Mission to Mars as authentic as possible, and it’s what we’ve realized.” The information booklet for the film devotes two pages to the concept of being “NASA- real.” The kits continually draw explicit connections between the films and their real- life inspiration: “Although Deep Impact is science fiction, it is rooted firmly in fact” (Deep Impact 4). Citing Armageddon producer Gale Anne Hurd: “In all the research we did, it was so clear that a Global Killer is going to impact the planet again. It’s just a question of when.” (Armageddon 11). The Twister kit notes that “The [real-life] VORTEX team has 13 metallic ‘turtles’— a variation on the ‘Dorothy’ equipment pack in the film...” (10) which almost seems to indicate that the movie had the idea first, a statement which, in a bizzare quirk of fate, may end up having an element of truth to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 237 it.1 3 And, of course, there is Steven Spielberg’s famous introduction to Jurassic Park: “This is not science fiction; it’s science eventuality.” Once again, the relation to “real” life--the idea that an asteroid could hit the Earth, a volcano erupt in your town, or a tornado slam into the local movie theatre--in theory makes the film more immediate to viewers. Brian De Palma notes that Mission to Mars “is all the more exciting because you feel like it’s extremely real.” The Red Planet booklet suggests that “realism in all details was key for the filmmakers and for director Antony Hoffman” (Red Planet 2), despite the lack of a science consultant for the movie (in fact, one informant suggested that the director specifically poo-pooed NASA involvement). Val Kilmer is quoted saying “This is the best Mars movie, because it’s science fact. It feels true even though the circumstances are extraordinary” (Red Planet 3). Even the inspiration for science blockbusters is rooted in a preoccupation with vertiable truth: Volcano is described as the result of the screenwriter’s reading an article in Scientific American (Volcano 2), and Mission to Mars on the public popularity of the Mars Pathfinder mission. Why do this? One reason may have to do with the idea of film as an immersive medium. Despite the pressures of money and fame, it should again be noted that these people work hard, and that they really do care about what they make, and they try to provide the best product for the benefit of the audience. “The overwhelming rash of t adrenaline that these storm chasers experience in the violent, turbulent springtimes of Tornado Alley is what director Jan De Bont wanted to evoke in audiences around the world” (Twister 11). Dante’s Peak producer Gale Ann Hurd says “we will take the audience to a place that none of them have ever been before— simply because man cannot get this close to a volcano and survive” unless that audience also went to see Volcano, which producer Answer David promised “to present the true experience of a volcanic eruption— something that’s never been done before in a studio film. We want Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 3 8 audiences to believe they’re seeing the real thing” (Volcano 4). Similarly, the producer of Red Planet pledged that “the feeling you’ll have on Mars will be unlike anything you’ve ever seen” (2), which may have been hue, had you skipped seeing the “dramatic, realistic, and contemporary” Mission to Mars eight months earlier. But perhaps more importantly, this continuous focus on alleged realism and scientific fact exists for the reasons covered in previous chapters: the perceived popularity of realistic science movies, and the idea that a film is more dramatic if the action seems tied to real science because it increases audience identification with the characters. Plus, plausability just sounds better: would Jurassic Park have the same feel if the opening quote in its press booklet read: “Reality is for those who can’t handle fantasy; I strive for the inauthentic— Steven Spielberg,” instead of the dramatically terse actual quote “This is not science fiction; it’s science eventuality”? In the world of the press kit, everyone involved with a production is interested only in verisimilitude: Twister director Jan De Bont’s “dedication to realism put him directly in the path of the production.” On Red Planet, “realism was key for the filmmakers,” while on Dante’s Peak “for [director] Donaldson, making sure Dante’s Peak is grounded in fact was the key to unlocking the movies’ dramatic potential” and in Contact, “the goal for [director] Zemeckis was, as he puts it, ‘to create an absolutely realistic representation of a fantastic event’.”1 4 In this context, it seems fitting to remind ourselves that, as Joel Black wrote, “For most of Western history, the arts were not valued for their graphic depiction of reality” (25). Perhaps, then, these directors feel they are making up for lost time. Press kits present a sanitized version of the production process; clean, everything on schedule, no arguments or creative differences, the vision of the film the publicity department wants the press to promote. Because the relationship between scientific reality and the final product is considered so vital, the kits peddle the films as not just Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 3 9 based on cutting-edge scientific research like cloning or space travel, but as being jam- packed with science as well. This is not surprising, nor is it implicitly wrong or bad- just possibly misleading. Films intentionally conflate veritable and dramatic truth, mixing together fact and fantasy. If the press kits were taken at face value, one would almost imagine these were documentaries, not big-budget action movies. But the truth is, whatever the personal desire for realism, the filmmakers are not scientists. And since they cannot by themselves provide the reality they seek, they have to turn to others who can— the science consultants. 1 The dates during which the Production Code was in effect are arguable due to the sometimes confusing history of the PCA office. Hayes’ “Studio Relations Office” was founded in 1922; the Code was approved for use by the studios in February 1930, and the renamed Production Code Administration issued its first certificate in 1934. 2 As one goes through a series of Production Code Administration files that range over a long period of time, changes in the stance and purpose of the PCA become apparent. Early on (in the 1930s), the PCA office would send memos to filmmakers suggesting ways to change their pictures so that the private morality groups and state censorship boards would allow them to pass. But as time goes by, the wording and tone of PCA correspondence changes: by the 1950s, the censors are not merely assisting filmmakers in dealing with outside censorship; they are strictly enforcing their own. 3 The Loud family was the subject of the 1973 television series An American Family. An attempt to film the ordinary life of an ordinary American family, the Louds, during the course of the filming, turn extraordinary, undergoing major familiar traumas that are sometimes (as by Baudrillard) seen as a response to the cameras’ presence. 4 The exact date at which these forms became standardized for use by the PCA is unknown to me; all I can report is that they were not in any of the files I looked at for films made in the 1930s, but were present in those from the 1940s onward. 5 Later added were the angles “Historical” “Juvenile” “Medical” “Educational” “Psychological” and “Family Life.” 6 “Straight” in this context does not indicate sexual orientation, and is opposed (by the censors anyway) to “comedic” and indicated how serious the character was played. There were three options that could be checked off by the PCA reviewer: “straight” “comedic” or “straight and comedic.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 4 0 7 One gets the impression from reading a large volume of PCA files that by the time the film was released, the Code was staggering towards its final demise, and perhaps the censors were not quite as on-the-ball as they used to be. 8 Of course, Frankenstein is drawn from a fictional work in which his literary progenitor also sought repentance at the end. 9 This was an actual Code prescription: “There must be no display, at any time, of machine guns, submachine guns, or other weapons generally classified as illegal weapons in the hands of gangsters, or other criminals”— 1955 edition, pp.7 1 0 Which was later additionally amended; the grusomeness of some scenes in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom influenced the creation of the PG-13 rating, and eventually the X designation was replaced with NC-17. 1 1 A biologist who studies fungi. 1 2 In Making Science Our Own. Marcel LaFollette makes a persuasive argument in favor of the idea that in a “marketplace of ideas” the images that show up in popular media are indicative of the public’s beliefs about the subject of those images. This argument is based on economic reasoning (popularity=increased revenue), and the idea that there is a direct relationship between how well these images match the public’s beliefs about their subject, and how popular those beliefs (and thus images) are— so only materials containing images that match public perceptions and resonate with the audience are purchased (4). 1 3 The full story is related in Chapter 9, but briefly, after Twister came out, some of the NSSL scientists were contacted by U.S. Air Force researchers who said they had technology that could help make the film’s sensor pallet a reality. 1 4 These quotes represent some of the more semantically interesting in the kits. What makes something a “realistic representation of a fantastic event” as opposed to a non- realistic one? And where, one wonders, would Twister’s director be, if he was not “directly in the path of the production?” Sitting at home directing himself? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 241 Chapter 9: Lab Coats in the Dream Factory: Science Consultants and Hollywood The depth of involvement and higher public profile of science consultants are two more factors that distinguish science films of the science blockbuster type from those of previous eras. The experiences of the consultants interviewed for this dissertation are fascinating in their variety. The group itself is professionally diverse, as are the circumstances of their employment in the productions. However, their experiences with the cast, crew, and the rest of the production system bear remarkable similarities. The Historical Treatment of Science Advisors The use of scientific and technical consultants in the entertainment industry is a long-standing practice. Advertisements in the 1950s for Destination Moon proclaimed that it was “produced under the supervision of Physicists, Engineers, Rocket Experts, and Astronomers.” A 1966 article in Daily Variety characterized the careful use of consultants by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Roddenberry apparently designed the starship Enterprise in conjunction with the Rand Corporation, and had the design reviewed by faculty at the California Institute of Technology.1 The show’s weapon concepts were also reviewed by Rand, and when told laser guns would exist by the time the series aired, Roddenberry reported that, “We went back to physics, found a phaser gun that’s 50 years away. That’s what we’re using” (Kaufman 9). In the personal papers of Margaret Mead at the Library of Congress, I found an inteview with Mead done by Stanley Kubrick’s staff prior to the production of 2001: A Space Odyssey. During the interview, they asked her about the possibility of intelligent life Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 4 2 on other planets, the likelihood that it had anything to do with evolution here on Earth, and the likely worldwide reaction to first contact.2 These are exceedingly rare cases, however. It is painfully clear that the vast majority of science fiction films of the last 90 years were not particularly concerned with scientific veracity. Seemingly more frequent was the use of technical advisors in historical films, with varying effects. The press kit for Madame Curie (1943) bore the statement, “Fidelity to the scientific steps which led to the discovery of Radium was assured by Dr. Rudolph M. Langer, California Institute of Technology physicist.” In The Ragman’s Son, producer Kirk Douglas details his experience with The Vikings (1958). Douglas writes “I employed experts from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark to give me an exact historical feeling about the period of the Vikings, the exact dimensions of the boats they used, how the houses and the mead hall were built, etc. The experts disagreed, so I had to make the decisions myself’ (283).3 It seems that limited input may have been a common experience with consultants prior to the science blockbuster era. In her single mention of them, Powdermaker wrote The position of the “expert” who is called in for temporary consultation on a picture is frequently like that of the artist. He is usually paid a high fee, and then very little or no attention is paid to his opinion. A psychoanalyst used as a consultant on a picture with a psychiatric theme is disturbed because his name appears in the list of “credits” for the picture, and contrary to his previous understanding with the studio. After seeing the picture, it is easy to understand this psychoanalyst’s anxiety about his professional reputation (27). In fact, Margaret Mead’s experience may well be illustrative. Throughout the interview between Mead and Kubrick’s people, the interviewer continually asks questions related to the plot points of the film (as should be expected), but when Mead’s answer does not match the mythology of the film, he keeps pressing, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 4 3 attempting to lead her into uttering an appropriate sound bite. The interview begins with the question: Dr. Mead, there have been a lot of published materials lately— popular level material, particularly from Russia-describing ancient finds...cave drawings; rock carvings; that seemed to depict men with space helmets. In all your experience, is there any evidence at all, anywhere, that either a culture has been influenced by an extra-terrestrial visitation, or that there has been anything that even resembles an artifact? To which Mead responds No, we don’t think so. Of course, it has been popular in anthropology at times to think of one culture, somewhere, that invented practically everything This was very popular in the twenties— Elliot Smith and Perry traced everything to Egypt— all over the world. Once you make that sort of assumption which is not justified, you could say, of course, that somebody landed in Egypt and taught them everything, but we neither think that everything originated in one spot nor, at present, do we see any reason for believing that there was any extra-terrestrial evidence or visitor, or anything of the sort. Apparently slightly put-off by Mead’s negative reaction to the Chariots of the Gods hypothesis, the interviewer tries again, asking “On the subject of extra-terrestrial life. Do you believe in it? Most scientists today seem to, in most disciplines.” Mead replies I think there is a high probability; a high probability does not mean it is there. I’m more interested in the fact that we are going to look for it than I am, in a sense, in whether it is there or not. Once again, this response fails to give the interviewer the quote he’s looking for, so he tries a third time: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 4 4 At the beginning, I am afraid you didn’t mention extra-terrestrial life. I am sorry, I was hoping that you would, so I didn’t stop you. Would you re-phrase that and make reference to extra-terrestrial life as there is no reference? Mead then re-states her previous few answers, going into even more detail as to why it is incredibly unlikely that aliens have ever been to Earth, but inserting the word extra terrestrial once or twice. After covering the general concept of aliens influencing cultures directly, the interview turns to two specific plot points from the film. The first involves the spark of human intelligence being triggered by an alien artifact, shown in the movie through the adoption of tools by a group of hominids. The interviewer asks, “If an evolutionary sequence was launched, or was triggered— would intelligence be the inevitable result- given enough time? [emphasis mine]” Mead’s answer is once again negative. “That,” she says, “assumes some unidirectional factor in evolution that I don’t think we have any justification for believing or disbelieveing today.” At this point, the transcript notes “tape ends” and when it re-starts, the interviewer has moved on. Another trope to which the film continually alludes is the idea that the existence of the discovered alien artifact must be kept secret since it would cause “culture shock” around the world if news of the discovery was leaked “without proper conditioning.” To that end, the interviewer asks Mead: Dr., civilizations the world over down through the years have withstood terrible impact— terrible shocks. But what would the cultural shock be to various types of civilization, from sophisticated to crude— if crude is a moderate word; once it were established that there was extra-terrestrial Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 4 5 life, particularly intelligent life if that should be; and if there should be radio contact, what kind of reactions might we expect? Mead answers If it ever should be established that there is extra-terrestrial life somewhere in this Universe that we can communicate with, even if we could only communicate by radio contact as many people feel is the most likely today, many people feel, of course, this would be a dreadful shock to human beings on this planet. I am not so sure it would be. When we look at the way they have adjusted to the whole idea of satellites in space, how rapidly satellites became everyday events, so that children today are absolutely accustomed to satellites, and it’s only the people over forty who feel that satellites are something strange or unusual-so, for every marvel, and it is the marvels of course that will make it possible for us— possibly to explore outer space-for every marvel that occurs, human beings adjust a little more rapidly to the expectation of the next marvel, which in turn becomes less marvelous. In the end, the content of the film directly contradicts Mead’s responses on every subject. It shows aliens coming to Earth, it shows their intercession sparking human evolution, and it makes a big deal of the necessity of keeping knowledge of the alien artifact secret in the year 2001— both from the public, and it should be noted, from the scientists on the space mission sent to investigate it.4 Things are different today. Consultants are still hired on a temporary basis, but unlike Powdermaker’s psychoanalyst, the ones I spoke with occasionally rejected a fee, and were almost always heeded, at a level of input that surprised even them. In 1943, Madame Curies’s consultant rated a small paragraph on the back of the press booklet, and Mead’s contribution (if she made one) to 2001 is unrecorded in the film’s credits. Today, consultants are not just brought on board to answer questions of scientific veracity, but have become an important part of selling the picture. They are drawn into the carefully choreographed publicity machine of the studios. One reported doing fulltime duty on a press junket alongside the film’s stars, and several remarked that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 4 6 they had been interviewed by CNN. Consultants are employed by studios and filmmakers chasing after the elusive property of “realism” that they expect will magically enhance their film or program— and hopefully, its box office take. Of course, the motivations behind the consultants’ involvement with a picture are much more complicated than a simple financial calculation: most informants reported that they were brought in specifically by a filmmaker— producer, director, or other— who personally cared for realism. Talking to Consultants A specific choice was made to focus on finding the voices of the consultants. Why document those experiences? What can a consultant tell us that, say, the director- -or even the cameraman for that matter-cannot? Why speak to the science consultants at all? In the first place, frequently the consultant serves as the basis for characters in the production for whom they are advising. For instance, paleontologist Jack Homer was the “inspiration” for Dr. Alan Grant, the main protagonist of Jurassic Park. Prior to the film’s release, Universal Pictures had sent a series of fake “press releases” out, simulating a publicity drive leading up to opening of the theme park from the film. In one issue of this Jurassic News Grant is described as being “responsible for a series of extraordinary finds that have enabled laymen to view the mysterious dinosaur as a real animal.” This neatly mimics a description of Homer from Time magazine (quoted in the actual Jurassic Park [the film] press kit): “Homer’s ideas on this subject, based on a series of extraordinary finds, have helped rescue dinosaurs from the abstract realm of monsters, enabling them to be seen as real animals.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 4 7 Jodie Foster’s character in Contact (Dr. Ellie Arroway) was allegedly a combination of her creator, Carl Sagan, and astronomer Jill Tarter (Davidson 349; Millar 74). Like Sagan, Arroway was a fervent believer in life beyond earth; like Tarter, she is the female lead of the SETT program and struggled to keep the project alive after the government cut its funding. Information from the Twister press kit and suggestions by consultants indicate that the film’s “Storm Chasers” are modeled after the real ones in the VORTEX (Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment) project at the National Severe Storms Laboratory. Even when characters aren’t based directly upon the personality or achievements of specific consultants, the very nature of a consultant’s work means that scientists appearing on screen are to some extent their progeny, characters whose actions and knowledge are based on the consultants’ input, and informed by the filmmakers’ experiences talking and working with them. More importantly, the consultants have an impact— of varying degree— on how science, scientists, and situations involving science and scientists are portrayed. As we’ll see, scientific and technical consultants have had a decisive input into everything from how movies show the pursuit of experimental science to the color of lava and the hero’s scientific technobabble. Because of the nature of their job, consultants are closer to the production than any other outsider can be, but they are always wearing two hats— one as a member of the production staff, and the second as a professional scientist (or occasionally, engineer). Science consultants are the mediators between dramatic and veritable truth. They, more than anyone else— producer, screenwriter, or outside scientist— have an informed perspective on the inclusion of science in films, and the way “real” science is manipulated to fit into them. They arguably possess the greatest understanding of exactly how much veritable science is in a film or television show, what got put in, and what got left out. Aside from perhaps anyone except the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 248 director, science consultants have an understanding of the decision process that led to the treatment of science and scientists as it finally appears on screen. Furthermore, as liminal figures on a set, they can view the process of filmmaking as an inside outsider, much as an anthropologist would. Informants noted that their position granted access to the upper echelon of the production staff; while their outsider status put them in the unique position of knowing that they are not beholden to those individuals for their future career success. Interviewing the science consultants was a way to answer some basic, but very important, questions about the treatment of science in Hollywood today. These include - why are consultants hired and how does their presence affect the final product? - which member of the production hierarchy is the prime motivator to make scientific verisimilitude to be important and why does that person consider it so? - what were the consultants’ impression of the public effect of these films and television shows? - what are their experiences working as scientist-outsiders in the close-knit world of Hollywood? Answering these questions will grant us a deeper insight into the process through which science is incorporated into mass entertainment media, the way in which scientific knowledge is commodified and utilized in the (modem) studio system, and of course the image of science and scientists that ends up on screen, which are, if the argument holds, the ones that impact public reaction to science. The motivations of those who employ consultants, the experiences of those consultants, and the relationship of their scientific knowledge to other studio concerns like budget and filming time tell us about the place of scientific knowledge in Hollywood— how it is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 4 9 treated, if it is respected, and its assigned importance in the litany of ingredients that make up a mass media production. I spoke with 14 consultants, 10 of whom worked on a fictional or entertainment- oriented product, and 5 on educational programs. The consultants interviewed worked on a total of 20 projects, 17 of them Hollywood entertainment productions. The remaining 3 were documentaries or educational programs.5 These ranged from minor television movies to major network shows and some of the most widely-viewed films ever made. The combined viewership of the projects these consultants worked on easily reaches into the billions. Additionally, I can contribute my own brief experience working as the anthropological/archaeological consultant for an (ultimately unproduced) cable television program. There are three generalizations that can be made about the group of consultants. The first is they are mostly male; only two of the ten Hollywood consultants were female. This gender ratio is actually fairly representative of the U.S. science and engineering workforce. National Science Foundation statistics show that women make up 23% of the science labor pool (NSF 3-2). Second, all of the consultants were white. This fact reflects the ethnic makeup of the entertainment industry more than that of the science workforce, which is composed of 17% ethnic minorities (NSF 3-12). The third general characteristic is that they are all well-regarded professionals of one kind or another. The consultants range from people at the top of their field to those with only a few years of working experience. They are federal employees (four), university professors (seven), and private consultants (two). A single consultant works in the entertainment industry professionally, and the group includes the editor of a respected journal and a museum curator. Their range of personal experiences is awe-inspiring: one has cooked his dinner over lava; another steered Apollo astronauts on their course from the Johnson Space Center in Houston; a third is the creator of the “DNA Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 5 0 computer” and the man who coined the term “computer virus.” All of them cared deeply for their work, and the pursuit of science, and almost all of them had an overwhelmingly pleasurable experience working on the set— often to their own surprise. One note before continuing. The names of the consultants themselves are rarely mentioned in this chapter. Though only small portions of their interviews were related in confidence (and those parts, of course, are never used here), identifying the consultants does not seem relevant for most of the questions under consideration, while name-dropping might deduct from viewing their experiences and responses in a more analytical light. Occasionally, it is obvious what film or television program is being discussed. When this is the case, the policy has been to leave names intact if the quotation is positive, but substitute positions or titles in brackets when it is neutral or negative. Why They Get Hired During one episode of The X-Files. Hollywood comes knocking on the FBI’s door to make a movie version of the exploits of Agents Mulder and Scully. The screenwriter tells the agents that he might take creative liberties with the material: “After all,” he says, “fiction is quicker than truth and cheaper.” Given this statement, why are consultants hired? Getting it “right”— scientifically truthful— is indeed more expensive and time-consuming than simply making everything up. Say a producer really wants to make their volcano movie “real.” They will need to have someone do the research on volcanoes, eruptions, and other related material at the studio research library, hire a consultant, wait for the consultant’s advice, make changes based on that advice, then build the sets and special effects as realistically as possible based on the library research and consultant input, and perhaps even make plot Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 251 changes to reflect the scientific verisimilitude. If, on the other hand, they do not care, they can have the set crew slap together whatever looks closest to what they think a volcano looks like, toss in some pyrotechnics, paint it red, and go with that.6 Consultants are brought in for a number of reasons. Consultants and other entertainment industry informants state those as reasons falling into the following broad categories: 1.)Scientific realism is an artistic goal of the producer/director 2.)The director/producer is a perfectionist and considers verisimilitude part of that perfectionism. 3.)The actors care (for similar reasons to the director/producers) 4.)Audiences prefer it. Or more specifically, there is a general belief in the Industry that they care, and indicate that preference at the box office. In the section that follows, consultant’s relationships with producers, directors, and actors will be detailed, and we will see how the personal vision of the production staff delineates the influence a consultant has on a set. However, it must be kept in mind that a variety of factors outside the desires of the filmmakers also impact the amount of input a consultant has. The Golden Rule says that whoever has the gold makes the rules, and it is studio executives who hold the pursestrings. For both immediate financial reasons (lower costs mean higher profits) and marketing ones (the belief that the first film released on a given topic will make more money), the desires of the filmmakers are often curtailed. Jack Lockwood related how competition affected the production and scientific content of Dante’s Peak, which became rushed when a competing studio decided to release a similar movie: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 5 2 Their problem was, they were in this war with [20th Century] Fox, and Fox had Volcano coming out, and Dante’s Peak had to be first. Because if the schlock film came out, if Volcano came out first. Dante’s Peak would be buried!...Volcano was originally a summer film, and so Dante’s Peak they decided to release in June...so Fox just kept pushing Volcano up...brilliant tactics— further and further, into the Spring...And so we had some really good marketing plans that— we were going to go ahead and establish the film’s veracity in an orderly fashion [in the publicity and marketing], and they fell by the wayside. Within the Hollywood system, a few individuals are powerful enough to make their own rules, or at least beild them into a position more to their liking. These are the Steven Speilbergs, Mimi Leders, and Michael Crichtons of the Industry-people whose ability to continually create popular works is so great that they have certain leeway to produce what they want. Coincidentally, a number of them are involved in the production of Science Blockbusters, and have shown an abiding interest in science and science-fiction themes. When speaking with science consultants, almost every one of them praised the personal desire of the filmmakers to “get it right” scientifically, and these personal artistic desires clearly play an important role in the creation of these science-related films. However, it is also disingenuous to discount what publicist Warren Betts told me: Science and technology have become two of the most sought-after themes by movie producers. They’re desperately looking for material with those subjects. Because right now, among ages 18-34, that’s the top thing they’re interested in. Science and scientific knowledge are valuable to Hollywood, and when something is valued in a capitalist system, the people operating in that system will find a way to commodify it. That is, they’ll make it into something they can recruit and use at will, and control to fit their needs and wants. We can begin to see the process through Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 5 3 which this occurs by looking at who hires science consultants, and the experience those consultants have with the people in the production system. Producers, Directors, and Consultants— Who Hires Whom The consultants reported a wide variety of experiences regarding their initial introduction to Hollywood. The few scientists who are at the top of their fields and are most widely known were approached directly and specifically by the filmmakers. Jack Homer, for example, was a natural choice for Jurassic Park as the lead character in the film is based on him. Sometimes it is fairly obvious where a studio should go for consultants: e.g., to the National Severe Storms Laboratory for Twister or NASA for Armageddon. A number of consultants were conscripted by publicist Warren Betts, who specializes in recruiting science consultants for movie productions. And occasionally, they just fall into it. For example, Anne Simon, consultant for TheX- Files. was first contacted by series creator Chris Carter because he was a friend of her mother’s. Another informant became a consultant simply by being at work— literally at her desk at eight a.m. on a Monday morning when the director showed up at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, looking for someone to show him around and explain things. But no matter who originally brings them in— producer, publicist, or (in one case) special effects house, the presence of science consultants is effective only to the extent that the director— and to a lesser extent, the producer-want it to be. The question remains: Why? Why have a science consultant at all? Who brings these people in and chooses what to listen to and what to ignore? The answer here is the same for any project: it is always a highly-placed person on the production staff— usually the producer or director. If the director/producer does not care— as was the case in two films referenced by informants— then the best a consultant can hope for is some minor Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 5 4 impact on the visual aspects and look of the film. The two cases in which this occurred were considered rare; in one, the director was coming from an MTV/video background, rather than being an experienced film director, and in the other there was an explicit focus on the entertainment aspect of the film, rather than the scientific aspect. As the science consultant said, “I think that was really due to the attitude of the producer, the director. The director for [the film] was looking for an entertainment film. And had a very clear vision that way.” And indeed, that is what he got— a frenetic film containing a vaguely scientific theme and some window dressing science jargon, in which veritable truth was completely sacrificed on the altar of dramatic truth. Far more common was the sort of experience described by Gerry Griffin while working on Apollo 13: Ron Howard said “I want you glued to my hip.” And that’s really the way I was. For the shooting of that film, I was kind of glued to Ron’s hip, and he said “If you see anything that you don’t like in what we’re setting up, or what we’re about to do--you tell me.” He said “I will probably throughout this film overrule you once or twice— but not very often.” And as it turns out, that was exactly the way it was; and all three directors I’ve worked with were the same way. This creative tension between veritable and dramatic truth is apparent in the experiences of a number of informants. The important thing to note is that with very, very rare exceptions, they viewed this as a positive aspect of their relationship with the filmmakers. In fact, the consultants are nearly unanimous in their praise for the dedication of their employers to scientific accuracy: Ron Howard and Tom Hanks and the rest of that bunch— they really wanted to get it right. It was clear that Jodie Foster and Zemeckis really, kind of like Ron Howard and Tom Hanks had been on Apollo 13. really wanted to do this story and do it right. And Mimi jumped into this thing with both feet... I think it’s their desire to make— to get it as close to right as they can. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 5 5 Roger and her [the producer] together were the two key people that really were dedicated to reality. And I guess that’s a good way to pick someone if you want to look at it, is to look at Gale [Anne Hurd]’s various films...she is an absolute, when you talk about deep, she asks penetrating questions about detail and she wants to get it right. And really, she was the one that introduced-we would have been left out fairly well in the cold, I think. Or relatively in the cold, but it was Gale that really sees them as...and her commitment, I mean, it’s a fervent passion. She feels that for her, any film she produces, the audience has to believe is real...she and Roger together, they both made a commitment to make Dante’s Peak as realistic as possible. One consultant told a story about a scene in her film where the main characters are going to talk about astronomy, and the director needed last minute input: They called me at 3 a.m. because they were doing that shoot where they [the characters] were going to run out, and they take a look at the sun rising on the solar panel fields. So they were doing that shoot, and I guess they just had to know, at 3 in the morning, what the answer was. So I told them, and the next day, I got this really pretty bouquet of flowers as a thanks for waking me up. These experiences speak directly to the reasons most consultants are hired in the first place. These reasons have a lot to do with the intangible concept of The Real, and a little to do with all of the things that contribute to it-the filmmaker’s attitudes towards art, commerce, prestige, and their own intellect; the relationship of the audience to these media, and cultural attitudes towards the division between fact and fiction. Why do the producers and directors care, however? Informants generally interpret the producers’ and directors’ desire for veracity as simply a character trait: as exceptional filmmakers, they are perfectionists, and their desire to get the science “right” is another aspect of that perfectionism, to make their product the best it can be. Informants sometimes cited specific idiosyncrasies to explain or describe this preference. One screenwriter/producer was the grandson of a famous medical research patron, and the consultant suggested that “he sort of has this intellectual and scientific Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 256 background. So he wants verisimilitude.” The Mission to Mars press kit talks about the concept of “NASA-real,” a more personal version of which was expressed by the informant of a different film who noted that for her director, “his phrase was, he wanted things to ‘pass the JPL laugh test.’ And he didn’t want JPL engineers snickering, like we have at other movies.” As commercialized as the entertainment industry is, these personal, or even artistic, motives should not be ignored. As Newcomb and Hirsch suggest, “The goal of many producers, the most successful and powerful ones, is also to include personal ideas in their work, to use television as all artists use their media, as means of personal expression” (510). Many of those involved with the science blockbusters— Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Robert Zemeckis, Brian De Palma, Gale Anne Hurd— are among the most powerful people in Hollywood. They choose to make these types of films, and to give the consultants the roles they play. Established actors similarly pick and choose among their roles. Tom Hanks did not have to appear in Apollo 13. or Robert Duvall in Deep Impact: both had relatively secure reputations already and could be selective about their work. Despite the common image of Hollywood as being driven by power and money- hungry executives who care nothing for art, those who work on these films and television programs expressed quite serious artistic preferences relating to the sort of projects they work on, and the content of those projects. A producer with a long and extremely successful career related her partiality for reality- and science-based pictures: “When I start to get involved in something and I feel the science fall apart, I’m much less interested...I will often drift away from a movie if I feel that it don’t seem to have any grounded scientific credibility. If it starts to really get preposterous— that interests me much less.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 5 7 The consultants quoted above made it clear that they believe the desire for veracity to be a personal choice for each filmmaker, and a choice that they respect. One time, an informant actually called back after the interview was over— all the way from Hawaii-to gush again about the producer on whose film he had worked, and her fantastic personal commitment to realism. “It can’t be just total fantasy,” he told me, “and that’s what she’s dedicated to, and so she’s my hero on that one. And she’s really good. She’s a missionary for real-scientific realism.” Producers and directors are not the only ones who are missionaries for scientific realism, however. Actors were also concerned that their portrayals be as accurate as possible. A number of actors spent time in the relevant government agencies-NASA for Armageddon, the NSSL for Twister— preparing for their roles. One consultant told stories of the time he spent on an actor’s ranch helping him prepare for the role, where “I saw again how a real pro does it. He was down to the detail of how do I hold my hands, when I’m doing this.” At a more prosaic level, actors frequently sought out the consultants to review their dialogue, mannerisms, and character’s behavior prior to filming. Sometimes their actions were expressed as a desire similar to that of the directors and producers— an artistic decision the actors were making in favor of authenticity. One actor, who not only asked the consultant to review his dialogue but flew out a month before the shoot and “just sat around in my office [and] in the library” asked for the informant’s pardon if artistic license overrode scientific probity, saying “although I really tried during this shoot to be as realistic as possible, there are some things that are beyond my control.” Of course, several consultants remarked that actors had come to them with the simple directive “Don’t let me do anything dumb!” In trying to determine the full set of reasons consultants are hired, however, we must look beyond personal desires for authenticity, and once again return to the alleged fact that the public cares. One, (more cynical?) consultant suggested that “I was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 5 8 originally asked to work on [the film] as a technical advisor for [the director]. Basically so that sixth graders wouldn’t write him nasty letters.” Industry informants who work on one of the major science fiction television programs echoed this sentiment. Despite saying that “[we] pride ourselves on trying to be science fact” they admitted that mostly, it is for the fans-both in a general way (producing the best product for the viewers, who they believe care about this) and because it is the only way to avoid massive negative fan response. One of those informants reported that even in a good week— when the show has been fairly accurate scientifically and consistant with previous storylines— they get up to five fans calling in per hour with comments and critiques. A producer suggested that “people are going to the movies, and in addition to the story, they want locations that they haven’t been to, that you cannot get to, they want information that is new and exciting.” Part of this relationship with public desires, and thus the tendency to hire scientific consultants, can be traced to this common entertainment industry belief that the public prefers films with realistic science in them, and that they make this preference known at the box office— a powerful incentive in an industry where, as the saying goes, you are only as good as your last picture. Producers and directors repeatedly state this belief in their movie press kits and other interviews (for example Robert Zemeckis in Thompson 1997 and Goldstein 1997; and Steven Spielberg in Begley 1993). Publicist Betts told me Over the years, [in] Hollywood, a lot of studios commissioned major funding for doing market research, and we’ve found out that science and technology has become such a big thing now...more young people are interested in those subjects than ever before...so if you can make your movie scientifically credible— in other words, the plot is fiction but the science the movie is based on the real things— that’s the best way to grab a market, to make people interested in your movie. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 5 9 It is a bit crude to suggest that producers and directors hire consultants (or direct them to be hired) because of what they might gain, personally or economically; but in a sense, that is what it boils down to, a question of determining the strategy of the filmmakers that leads to the consultant’s presence. The explicit reasons for hiring science consultants are stated above. The analytical reasons~the legitimating power of science, the symbolic capital consultants bring to a production, and the fetishization of scientific knowledge they represent— will be examined in detail later in this chapter. These are all important concepts, of course, but it will be more valuable to examine them at the end of the chapter, once a more complete picture of who consultants are, what they do, and what they believe has emerged. What a Science Consultant Does The responsibilities of each consultant varied according to the circumstances of the individual production. Informants agreed overwhelmingly that the controlling variable is the consent and desires of the director. If the director (or producer) is concerned with scientific veracity, the consultant is an important member of the production staff. They hang out with the director, are continually consulted, and even have an impact on the plot and characterizations of the film or television program. If they are not, the scientists have less impact on the final product than the caterers. As mentioned earlier, the other prime factors that have an effect on the science content are studio requirements, including time constraints and budgetary limitations. These usually have a negative impact on scientific verisimilitude. The first requirement of almost all consultants is to go over the script. The minimum a consultant is generally expected to do is review dialogue and basic plot, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 6 0 checking for blatant errors and glaring mistakes. A typical experience as described by Gerry Griffin: [the studio says] “Well, we’ve got a draft of the script.” They will generally send that right away to the technical advisor; in every case that’s what’s happened with me. I got the script, it was before it was— well in an early stage. And they would ask you “please review this and give us any comments you have.” Well, that’s a page by page review and that’s the only way I knew how to do it, and it’s very detailed. And if I saw something that a.)was not said right I would comment on that, if it was not...if the whole premise was bad, I’d say that. Jack Lockwood reported a more emphatic directive from his director, who was particularly concerned about the content and believability of Dante’s Peak: We’d never seen the script. Which had already been written, it was finalized. And he says “Hey, I want you guys to look over— stay here as long as you want, but— can you go over, I’ll get you a copy of the script tomorrow morning, I want you to go over it. No holds barred. I want you to look at every single word, every single scene. If something’s wrong, I want to know about it. If something’s wrong— rewrite it! If you think a scene shouldn’t be there, if you think we’re missing scenes...” He gave us carte blanche to do anything. Norm and I worked through the night, didn’t sleep, and I guess, he somehow or other he got us a copy of the script that night. I’ve forgotten the details; I knew we had the script. In any event, we went through the script and came out with about a 15 pager [commentary], and you know, there were some scenes that were just wrong. The director proceeded to implement the changes, some of which went far beyond dialogue corrections to the portrayal and characterization of certain roles. The relationship between the protagonist scientist and his supervisor was altered, and the process of science was changed so that, in the consultant’s words, it “show[ed] the fallibility of our profession.” Said Lockwood, “it turned out in the final film, virtually everything, every comment that we made was inserted into the film.” What’s interesting is that these were not atypical experiences. Far more rare was the consultant Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 261 who didn’t have an input into the script— in fourteen major Hollywood productions,7 this occurred only once— on a film where the science was considered very weak, and the consultant thinks he would have had script input had the filmmakers not been “sloppy and in a hurry.” Often, the consultant is first called upon to verify, modify, or insert technical language into dialogue. Typical experiences include the following, each from a different production: I had one woman that called and asked about— or I talked to and said ‘does this line make any sense?’ And I said nobody would ever say that, ‘cause that’s something, it implied a visual that implied she could see something happening that you can’t actually see. We were writing a sequence of the landing, the Mars mission going to land, and [the Producer] just asked me ‘give me 5 or 6 lines of technobabble that sounds good,’ that would be reasonable, that would [be] something people would say when they’re about to land on Mars. The technical advisor ends up, particularly in the space business, or in the scientific setting, I suspect of any kind, you kind of end up rewriting or reworking a lot of the script. Because the writers, while they’ve got the notions, and the idea[s]— they’re not used to saying it the way they’re really said. And that’s particularly true in space missions. Writers tend to put it in a very stilted tone and actually it’s much more chatty than that, as you know— you’ve listened to the ground conversations probably heard some conversation inside a control center, it’s disciplined, but it’s not stiff. The production of a television series is different from that of a film; by almost any comparison, television involves less money (per episode) and a much shorter timeframe than a motion picture production. The experience of consulting for a continuing television program is different as well. Instead of locating a new consultant for each episode, television series tend to have one on staff (or at least on call): Andre Bormanis for Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and Star Trek: Voyager: Robert Ballard for SeaOuest Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 262 DSV: and Anne Simon, who works on The X-Files. In an interview, Simon revealed that instead of the onetime, intensive effort of a film consultant, she experienced a more episodic approach to her work: the series creator will contact her, asking for a scientific procedure or rationale to support a specific plot point. “He’ll sort of tell me, he wants her [Agent Scully] to be able to figure something out, or he wants to have this as the point.” The few interviews conducted with those involved in consulting on continuing network programs seem to indicate that this slightly different pattern is more common in television, where a consultant’s opinion is needed week after week, often on widely varying topics.8 The importance of visual elements of science in establishing the serious scientific nature of an image can be traced back to the 18th century, when portraits of gentlemen frequently included scientific props or instruments such as telescopes, chemical flasks, and electrical apparatus. These scientific symbols legitimated the sitter’s status by telling the viewer that he was a bona fide Man of Science (Fortune and Warner 97). The importance of showing visual manifestations of science has not changed in the intervening 200 years, and consultants are frequently called upon to advise on aspects of “background science,” both visual and technical, for the production. Advisors reported changing rocket plumes, laboratory designs, and faux classroom lecture slides. They had input into how dinosaurs moved, lava flowed, and tornadoes were formed. Often they were responsible for background props, like the slides or the images that appeared on computer screens. Some informants have amusing experiences attached to their prop duties: one informant recalled searching through garbage cans to find suitable computer printouts that could be scattered around behind the actors. Another, who had been asked to prepare “lecture slides” for use by a character in a movie, related the following story: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 6 3 I want the slides to look really good, so I had an Apple at that time, this was early, and there wasn’t really Powerpoint, and good technology. So it was really tough for me to prepare these really pretty overhead slides— these nice images and stuff that I would— you know, I’m thinking cinematically as best I can; I want them to look cool. Though normally if I did a talk, I’d just write them out by hand, I want them to look cool for Lasker’s movie...[when] I get there [to the set], and the slides are now handwritten, right? And copies of what I had made, that took me hours. And what Lasker said [is] that it didn’t look realistic the way I’d done it, which of course is right, because I would have actually done it by hand, right? And so he had gotten somebody on the crew, to just copy it by hand. Perhaps illuminating what we mean by “authentic,” the rougher, hand-drawn slides seemed more suited to the director’s idea of what academic presentations should look like. And in fact, his instinct was right on. In “Iconic Devices: Toward an Ethnography of Physics Images,” Sharon Traweek argues that graphs and charts found in physics labs around the world serve an important function in delineating and enshrining fundamentals of disciplinary knowledge. Here, in the world of the dream factory, they serve as symbols, abstractions that indicate “laboratory.” They are present in onscreen laboratories because they are found in real-life ones. In a real-world laboratory, they represent basic knowledge. Here, they represent people’s expectation of the trappings of scientists’ labs— indicating “this is a place where knowledge is created.” Because of this, while it is important that these charts, graphs, etc. exist on the set, their actual content isn’t really important at all— as noted by the Twister consultant who related the following story: We had given them some software to simulate, not to simulate, but actually to display some hurricanes...funny enough, what they ended up using was one of the artifacts that the Doppler radar, one of the characteristics is it shows where targets, what we call ground targets [are]. The radar sends out a signal, but it’s not like a laser, it’s a broader-band energy signal that happens to hit things like trees and buildings on the ground...what we call a ground clutter pattern, which Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 6 4 happens to be very colorful, and they ended up using that instead...so when you see in the movie, you see the colorful radar images, what you’re really seeing is nothing more than a ground clutter pattern [instead of a tornado], but it made— it did what they needed to do, and no one was the wiser unless you were a radar meteorologist. Because almost nobody but a professional scientist would notice, in the cases where the director demands authentic material in their background science, as with the lecture slides in the anecdote above, it is probably reasonable to assume that these are instances where the personal artistic desires of the filmmakers for accuracy are coming in to play. However, when it comes to background science, this adherance to veracity is mercurial. It appears to be fairly rare, and the consistent use of real science (as opposed to real- looking science) is not a necessary constituent of the Science Blockbuster. In fact, a director’s use of real background science can be inconsistent even within a single film. One consultant was actually worried that this casual attitude towards the background science might affect her reputation. During a scene in which a character is at a control panel, doing calculations, talking about how they’re coming up to Titan in the simulations. Well, in the actual filming what they used was Venus. They used Magellan [spacecraft images] of Venus. And I saw that, [and said] “No! You can’t use that! It’s the wrong planet, everybody’s gonna know!” And they said “well, we already shot it!” And I was like “but you can’t use that! It’s NOT Titan!” You know, people are gonna know! Well, it turned out when they cut the film, they were far enough away that you couldn’t really see what was on screen. This consultant was particularly worried because “I used to work on the Cassini mission which was heading towards Saturn and Titan as we speak. So, [it would have been like] I don’t even know my own planet!” Later in the same movie, however, the consultant appealed to the director to change some visual elements relating to rocket launches: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 265 They had the plumes going off at these weird, canted angles. But rockets don’t launch like that...and the production assistant said “oh, but [the director]’s a very visual person, he’s obviously seen them launch like this.” And I said “Well, can you find out from him which launch it was?...And he said “it was this launch, from like, a jungle.” And I said “was it in China?” And he said “yeah, yeah! China!” That’s the Long March. The Long March crashed into a hillside, killed six people. Rocket plumes need to go uuuuuup, and they kind of curve and arch. In the end, the director changed the plumes to reflect his consultant’s advice. In fact, most consultants (all but one) had some impact on the visual appearance of the film or television program in one of two ways: set design or background material. Most often, the consultants are called upon to produce minor background props— charts, graphs, blackboard equations, lecture slides. Given the importance of spectacle, set design is the most necessary portion of some films. It has become the minimal level of scientific veracity filmmakers are forced to include. While few people know the technical language surrounding a planetary spacecraft landing, because of news media coverage large portions of the public know (at least superficially) what the surface of Mars looks like, how big dinosaurs were, or the destruction a tornado can cause. Unless there is an awfully good explanation— or the production is an obvious fantasy, the public won’t buy astronauts walking around outside with no helmets on, or bright pink lava. Thus the title of a recent L.A. Times article “With Mars Movies, at Least They Got the Color Right” (Monji). In the rare case where only one area of a film is scientifically accurate, the one that gets chosen is the visual, as attested to by consultants and a number of other Industry people. For example, in one film that was widely considered scientifically terrible, a consultant stated that “the only thing that I could do was simply tell the director and the writers, the animators, ‘This is what it would look like if somebody were to [die in a horrible way]’.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 266 When I was asked to be an archaeological consultant by a television production company, all the producer really wanted was an accurate picture of what a “real” archaeological dig looked like. He wanted the dig site to look authentic, but within the bounds of his idea of a dig site’s appearence. This included lots of shovels and pith helmets, and local natives doing the digging work while the archaeologist watched; basically, a low-budget, scaled-down version of the excavation site from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The producer seemed disappointed when I informed him that archaeologists almost always do the digging work themselves.9 The alleged facts the television project was going to suggest were preposterous, and one would hope anybody watching would recognize this, but the producer was convinced it would be okay if everything looked real. Most of the time, consultants seem to have a moderate effect on a production— that is to say, they are not ignored, but neither are they as influential as the screenwriter or other major creative personnel (and it would be very odd if they were). But though mere script revisions or visual consultation may have been the original intent behind their employment, many advisors end up making greater contributions. A number of consultants were asked to comment on the premise of a film or plausibility of key plot points. One consultant let a job slip through his fingers because he told the studio flat out that the film’s premise was “kind of dumb.” The film (Space Cowboys) got made anyway— with a different consultant, of course. Another informant noted that one original scenario for Twister called for a single tornado that lasted several days, until the consultants pointed out that no twister could last more than a few hours, and the producers decided on the concept of an outbreak scenario of numerous tornadoes. Consultants generally noted that they were brought on board during the pre- production stage, but often after the filmmakers already have a strong vision of what they want from the picture. For example, Gerry Griffin related that during one of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 267 pre-production meetings before Contact. “Rob Zemeckis, who directed Forrest Gump. just prior to this one, said ‘I need someone who knows something about NASA, I’ve got to have a technical advisor to this.’” A person who had worked on a previous movie with Griffin (Apollo 13) then suggested his name to Zemeckis, and he was hired. The basics of a film or television show— plot and characterization as well as infrastructure factors like budget and timeframe— already exist prior to the recruitment of the consultants. Because of this, the difference they can make, while sometimes surprisingly significant, is usually limited. Consultants tend to be brought in during the “pre-production” phase of the process, after these aspects of the production are already in place. The precise moment in a production when consultants were brought in varied, and it is impossible to pin down a single decisive time when it happens. One consultant said that the experience of a scientific advisor begins like this: They will contact you and say, particularly when they know a little bit about you, ‘would you be willing to be a technical advisor?’ ‘Yeah’ and they say ‘okay, what stage are we? Well, we’ve got a draft of the script.’ They will generally send that right away to the technical advisor; in every case that’s what’s happened with me. This seems fairly typical, though most consultants didn’t relate the exact stage of the script at the time they were brought on board. Looking at it from the other side, a producer described her approach to the early stages of consultant recruitment like this: The first thing we’ll do is we’ll access scientific journals and we’ll try to identify people who are working in the field, and then we’ll often contact them. We’ll tell them what we’re doing. In some cases, people immediately want to get involved, in other cases, people think what we’re doing is frivolous, so they don’t necessarily want to get involved. So, the first challenge is to find people who are creatively stimulated in the same way we are, and are comfortable using their imagination. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 6 8 On one occasion, a consultant’s involvement occurred much later, and he felt this limited his input: “It was personally frustrating to me, because I really didn’t have much control over the production...I was pulled into the project largely after the scripts were written and committed.” For the archaeology television program, I was clearly contacted by the production company at the very end of the pre-production process, when it seemed everything had been finalized except the dig location shot.1 0 On the other hand, it should be noted that having a script written and completed (though not “committed”) did not prevent other consultants from having an impact on their productions. In rare cases, the consultants are able to considerably alter the plot, portrayal, or characterization of people in the film. Two examples, from Dante’s Peak (Jack Lockwood,) and Twister (Kevin Kelleher): Dr. somebody, observatory director, and he was cast as the evil guy. Here Pierce Brosnan, Dr. Dalton, you know him, he’s out there. He’s the kind of geologist, obviously a hero kind of a guy, and this evil director was representing big science and bureaucracy and wouldn’t pay any attention to him, and he was basically cast as an evil character. He was absolutely WRONG. You know, he was wrong with his stupid bureaucratic viewpoint. Well, we pointed out in our rewrites of all those scenes that that isn’t the way it is. I mean, there was never enough emphasis on how limited our knowledge is, how much guesswork is involved... And so we cast him as a much more...we changed the scripts to make him a much more credible person in terms of voicing his concerns and the doubts that all volcanologists have during eruptions. Which hadn’t been present before. And so we instead...we basically showed the fallibility of our profession. We [the National Severe Storms Laboratory] were supposed to be the corporate, evil...the bad guys. We were supposed to be them.1 1 And in terms of well-funded, all the latest equipment, you know, that was supposed to be the Severe Storms Lab. As we— when we sat down and talked to them ahead of time, and this is to the credit of Kathleen Kennedy, when she came down and talked to us and said, you know “What do you think? Can you help us out?” and we said we had seen part of the script and this portrays us incorrectly; let us walk you around. We showed her how our stuff is held together with wire wrap and duct tape, and we said, you know, this is a seat-of-the-pants, scrape- money-together operation, and so she, right then on the spot, said “We Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 6 9 will change that” and so she did. And we ended up being, in the movie, more of an advisory capacity group, which was really quite a change from the original portrayal of the NSSL. Interestingly enough, in both these cases it was the portrayal of the profession of science itself that was changed— and changed because the filmmakers were willing to do so based on the consultants’ convictions, in the direction of a more honest depiction.1 2 If anything speaks to the cachet granted consultants in the age of the science blockbuster, it is this. It is almost unimaginable to consider the technical advisor for an older production-even one that trumpeted its use of consultants like Destination Moon or Star Trek— to tell the director to change the storyline of the film; certainly not to show science as more fallible and uncertain. These portrayals of science are in keeping with the times; as is often the case, what is seen on screen is a reflection of current social trends. The public image of science, while still quite positive, is a long way from the image of the infallible, all-knowing scientists of the early Cold War era. The new portrayals more closely fit the current perception of science as a contested claimant to truth. But even now, these more realistic images of scientists were not on the minds of the filmmakers originally. They had to be brought to their attention by the consultants, and would not make it to the screen otherwise.1 3 Science Consultants’ Attitudes The consultants were fairly unanimous in their agreement that filmmakers and actors actively care for scientific verisimilitude. But their attitudes towards the public were deeply ambiguous; they were split in their opinions as to whether the public at large really cared, or if they even noticed. One optimistic consultant suggested, with reference to Deep Impact Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 270 I think they do, and the reason I think they do is because, it’s amazing how many, if you make a mistake, [chuckles] It’s amazing how much input you get from out there. You know, places where you might make a minor error, it may be intentionally even...it’s funny how people will catch those and say “you know, that’s not right, you can’t predict the trajectory of a comet!” On the other hand, another informant, talking about the same asteroid films, said “Problem is, no, I don’t think they noticed the difference [between Deep Impact, which was considered good science by scientists, and Armageddon, considered very bad]. Some people would. Some people would notice a few things.” The consultants ventured a cautious optimism that the public notices the inclusion of real science. Said one, “Well obviously the storylines aren’t real. But the science at least looks real, and I think that they definitely do appreciate that.” However, opinions were split on whether the public can tell the difference between veritable and dramatic truth. Most consultants say it is a difficult question to answer, to which my favorite response was: “I hope so— but I don’t know. Do I know? I don’t know.” One consultant noted that filmmakers are so good at blending fact and fiction that “you have to be basically an expert before you’d know what is true and what isn’t.” This is the idea that is at the base of the Science Blockbusters: to make a film that has such great elements of realism that it seems more immediate to the viewer, and thus more appealing. Of course, as many scholars suggest (LaFollette 18; Saenz 575; Sorlin 63) people seem more apt to believe things outside their experience, and Shanahan and Morgan specifically note the difficult-to-prove concept of “perceived reality” (182)— that “a greater belief in the veracity of television should render one more ‘susceptible’ to cultivation.” In other words, the more real you think what you see is, the more likely it is to affect your belief in that information. If this is indeed the case, of course, then “fooling” people into believing fictional science in a film or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 271 television program by blending it with facts and making it look real, could have a significant impact on the absorption of scientific information— true or false— by viewers. The consultants generally were hopeful, but not trusting. This is the sentiment expressed by the NASA employee who said, “I’ve gotta feel that most of the folks probably have a gut feeling like ‘Wow, that’s really cool, but we haven’t seen that from NASA so maybe it’s not possible yet.’” In addition, most of these same consultants, along with other scientists interviewed, had an extremely low regard for the public understanding of science. One said the public understanding was “Dismal. Totally and completely dismal.” Another added that the public’s understanding was “pretty much at a comic-book level.” More moderate responses were still damning: “It’s very poor” and “I think it’s pretty low...I think science is almost viewed as mysticism.” Various factors were blamed for this sorry state of affairs. Some consultants lay blame on the treatment of science by the news media: The press plays a vital role in setting priorities— in how people view the world. They’re good about satisfying curiosity in terms of addressing short-term events, but have a great weakness in either discussing or attracting people to be concerned about longer-range trends and phenomenon. Another suggested unspecified deficiencies in the American educational system: “I think truly that students are getting very very little from science in high school, I’m not absolutely certain why. But they’re getting very, very little.” A few indicated the public’s inability to discern true science from pseudoscience as an issue, like the informant who complained I mean, there’s a show called Roswell. It’s a whole show! Called Roswell. Based on an event that’s supposed to have happened in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 7 2 Roswell, New Mexico. And I’m not saying that the people who write the show and create the show literally believe this; but it’s not unreasonable to many people that there’s an event in Roswell, New Mexico, where the government knows about aliens that are living among us and won’t say anything. One consultant suggested that science itself bore some responsibility: Scientists are part of the problem, because they’ll say things like “Well, we can’t explain it— it’s too difficult to explain.” And nothing’s too difficult to explain, if you take the time. And people don’t want to be told that— then they think that scientists are hiding something. Perhaps this explains some of the popularity of Richard Feynman, both among the scientific community (Traweek 1997, 112) and the wider public (Matthew Broderick made a biopic of Feynman as a personal project, and Feynman’s books are widely read by the public).1 4 Feynman, who gloriously lived the life of a “regular” non-scientist- like guy,1 5 was renowned for his ability to explain complex concepts in clear language- -an ability epitomized by his famous on-air stunt of dipping a plastic o-ring into a glass of ice water to show how an o-ring tragedy might have caused the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy. Of course, if the scientific community treated popularizers a bit better,1 6 perhaps more scientists would be willing to step forward and become public figures. Two interesting trends became clear in the consultants’ responses about the public. The first is that the most negative reports were from those who have the most frequent professional contact with the public— professors, curators, and one informant who, in addition to his scientific duties, is the Chief Information Officer at his lab. Secondly, two consultants suggested unequivocally that public scientific literacy was pretty good, and getting better. Both of these people are involved with NASA and the space industry. In fact, of all areas of science, people probably are best informed about Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 7 3 space and space travel, as they receive more media coverage than any other aspect of science. In a study by the Pew Research Center for Public and the Press, 10 of the top 39 science-related stories of the past fifteen years have been about space flight and exploration (including the number one story, the Space Shuttle Challenger), making space topics second in popularity only to weather-based disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods (NSF 8-8). This documented public interest may be an indication of the widespread entertainment industry belief that the movie and television audience is more scientifically literate than they have been in the past (in contrast to the majority of the consultant’s views). Overall, the consultants had a difficult time making specific pronouncements about the public’s experiences relating to science in general and the mass media in particular. Some felt public knowledge was solid; most did not. While a couple felt that mass media exposure was responsible for an increase in quality popular science, most suggested that the media had a difficult time communicating useful scientific information. The one who said, commenting on a CNN interview he had done, “The sound bites were too brief to really be substantial. Which is the frustrating thing about a lot of television news,” was not particularly unusual. This ambiguity is not surprising. Scientists discussing these issues confront the same difficulties everyone else does: the problem that only the broadest generalizations can be made about what a group as heterogeneous and loosely defined as “the public” thinks or understands, particularly in an area as complex as their knowledge of science and its portrayal in the media. While consultants were generally positive about their experience with Hollywood, their encounters with the news media were more mixed. One said I just don’t think— they just don’t devote the time to it that they used to. And understandably so, I’m not complaining about that, it’s just a change, it’s a new way of doing business. And so I think as a result Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 7 4 sometimes science coverage, or technical coverage of technical subjects, gets the short shrift. On the other hand, another noted how difficult it was for both the newscasters and the interviewee: You know, the interviews, that was kind of scary to me. Not because I’m afraid of talking to people, but I’m afraid of giving the wrong impression. You always have to kind of walk a fine line between not pissing of JPL [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory]; you know, not giving my opinion but the opinion of— sanctioned by NASA and JPL and Caltech, but still making the interview interesting.1 7 And one consultant, a Nobel-prize winner who had worked on an educational television series, suggested that news reporters suffer from simply not having time to prepare, as when a reporter (who the consultant charitably suggested was probably under time pressure) asked how it felt to win the Nobel Peace Prize— as opposed to the Chemistry prize he had actually received. These attitudes reflect data reported by the National Science Foundation in which 91% of scientists interviewed agreed with the statement “Few members of the news media understand the nature of science and technology, such as the tentativeness of most scientific discovery and the complexities of results” and 80% agreed with the statement that “Most members of the public do not understand the importance of government funding for research in science and technology” (NSF figure 8-22). It appears that while scientists are guardedly hopeful about the scientific literacy of the populace, they do not quite seem ready to believe that the news media holds the key. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 275 Consultants on the set Science consultants occupy an interesting social niche on a production: because they are outside the normal hierarchy of personnel, they are liminal figures on a set. Liminal status means an individual is outside some normal rules of social boundaries. While the production staff usually operates according to a strict hierarchy (for example, a production assistant better go to the production director with a problem, rather than immediately addressing the director), a liminal figure is outside the austere norms that guide Hollywood business and social interaction. Combined with the authority of science that follows them to Hollywood, this liminal status allows consultants unusual access to the top levels of the production staff. Although they normally exist in a different social mileu, consultants clearly understand how a Hollywood production operates. As one said about his relationsip with the director: Within a film scene, the director is god--he or she is very important people [sic]. And normally, it’s like the President of the United States; it’s hard to have a private meal— you’re usually having a ceremonial dinner with somebody for some work thing. In this case, we just got together and drank a bunch of wine and talked stories and had a great time. Another reflected upon his easy friendships with some of the top people on the Hollywood power list: “I got along well with these folks. And they kind of took me into their confidence, and made me kind of a piece of the upper echelon.” This easy association with the top levels of production clearly has an impact on the films— especially when this access allows the consultants to press for a more realistic (or less stereotyped) portrayal of science and scientists, as it often does. Many of the consultants shared stories of informal time spent with the actors, occasionally requesting that the tape recorder be turned off to protect their (the actors’) image and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 276 privacy. This relationship goes both ways, and filmmakers often get a chance to see portions of the scientific world closed to the general public. As one of the producers told me: I’ve done things that most people would never get an opportunity to do...I think that’s what I think is so much fun, is you get immersed, and you often get immersed at the top level, immediately. Because there’s a fascination a lot of people within the world of academics have with the movie business, and so it’s kind of and instantaneous college course you get dropped into. And it makes it fun! For, I think, for both sides. Another producer excitedly echoed this sentiment as he related some of the research he had done for a film: “I’m a toy inventor, and an engineer, so I’m really interested in that part of life. I find it fascinating!...It was totally fascinating to go to San Francisco and find a gamma reactor.” Like anyone exposed to the bright lights of Hollywood, consultants seemed pleased with their brush with the institution of celebrity. The entertainment industry has a seductive aspect, and people often seem elated with even the most tangential contact with it. Furthermore, being asked to become a consultant can be considered flattering for the scientist involved (though none of the ones I spoke to explicitly indicated this). It is possible that the high-status associations consultants were privy to, along with the pleasure at being a party to the perceived glamour that is Hollywood, are some of the reasons so many of them enjoyed their time on the set. The issue of remuneration is also a subject of disparate experiences. Sometimes, consultants were paid outright. Sometimes, other perks came with the job— the consultant who received flowers from the director is one example, as is the one who mentioned the studio that released his film as his biggest research donor. One consultant appeared onscreen briefly in the three productions he consulted for, thus Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ill qualifying for his Screen Actor’s Guild membership and the resulting residual checks. On other occasions, consultants turn down their fees. One said I didn’t want to be paid. Because I didn’t want people to feel I had been bought by— commercialized by this project. There’s in science, which has this sort of moralistic self-image, there’s a, I think a certain disparaging attitude towards scientists who get involved with advertising. It’s prudish, it’s Prussian, it’s silly, but it’s there. And in any case, I didn’t want people who were interviewing me to think that they were getting an attitude that reflected my having been bought by the project. For his work on the movie Sneakers. Len Adleman picked an alternative form of payment: So he [the director] says that he would pay me to do this, and I decline saying that rather what I would want, since Robert Redford is starring in this movie, that my wife Lori be able to meet Redford. So we agree to that...so I produce these slides, and I produce the words, and on the day of the filming, Lasker invites my wife Lori and I to the film, where we’ll get to meet Redford. This makes sense given what can happen to a consultant if the film does not turn out well. One NASA engineer talked about the experience of a co-worker as a consultant on one of the Science Blockbusters: He was paid, apparently big bucks, to be the science consultant for [the film], and that’s a fact of which I think he’s quite ashamed, given the way the movie turned out. And one of his cohorts introduced him at a major science conference as the science consultant for [the film], and I heard his face turned bright red, and people were laughing at him, and he just despised that. During the self-reflexive episode of The X-Files mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, a representative from a Hollywood studio approaches Agents Mulder and Scully to make a movie based (loosely) on their exploits. Having secured their Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 7 8 cooperation as technical advisors for the film, the screenwriter admits that he may ignore them. The writer is a sleazy, brash, annoying yes-man; and the film made of the agents’ exploits is an ultra-violent, night-of-the-living-dead special effects bonanza, complete with cheesy Hollywood love story for the two agents— exactly the opposite of the actual tone of The X-Files. It’s a clever episode, and watching it raises an issue the consultants themselves brought up: just as movie and television shows influence the public’s conceptions of science, they also influence their perception of the entertainment industry. Consultants reported that few real-life filmmakers expressed the fictional screenwriter’s sentiment— or if they did, they did not care that fiction was quicker and cheaper, they were generally willing to pay and wait. A number of consultants related how their experiences as technical advisors changed their opinion of Hollywood. Two informants from radically different backgrounds, working on dissimilar films, noted similar experiences: I had always thought it [Hollywood] was fairly glitzy, kind of a— I’d say not too deep— not too interested in “getting it right,” quote unquote. But the fact is, that these, in many ways, that experience on Apollo 13 was very much like the space business. I found myself working with a lot of real professionals, that would go to any extreme to get the job done, and worked extremely long hours. Being involved with those guys, the production guys, I was so impressed. I was just— I mean, my— if you talk about the impressions the public gets of science, well the impression the public gets of Hollywood, and filmmaking, is bogus too! Because it’s put on by, you know, the marketing folks, and the tabloids that want to talk about the kinky sex or whatever. The outrageous things they can pick out about the stars, the big secret life of the stars...You get on the set, and it’s a totally changed thing. It’s a closed world; the outsiders are not welcome in it. And it’s, at least on this particular film, maybe its atypical, but the teamwork that was involved from the lowliest grip to the major stars, the director— everybody was on a first-name basis. Everybody knows everybody, and everybody’s got a job to do and they’re working their butts off really hard. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 7 9 Even the one consultant who was dissatisfied with his involvement and the use of science in the film he worked on said,“I stayed with the project because it was fun and interesting, and I liked the director quite a bit.” “Not a scientific documentary” The consultants also ended up with an appreciation for the necessities of dramatic truth in a work of fictionalized entertainment. One said “Basically, the rules were, if I knew for sure that something was true or false [the director] would listen, and it, I just-- if it was just my opinion, or just something we really didn’t know, then he had free rein with it.” Another consultant who had been overridden on a point of scientific veracity quoted an actor from the film, who told him “I know we’re stretching it in terms of time, but hey...remember our job, we gotta sell some popcorn!” One even noted that in a major science fiction TV series, the producers specifically avoid including too much science— their intention is not a primarily sci-fi show, but a character-driven program that happens to take place in the future. Most informants said that their advice had almost always been heeded— often on all but one or two minor points— and on those rare occasions, the director had overridden them for an understandable dramatic or visual reason. A consultant who had previously expressed pleasure at his participation did note that when viewing the final scene of the film, he was somewhat disappointed: “Cinematically, of course, the goal is compromise between this desire to have it be realistic and have cinematic impact, so I understand why they did that. But at least in my perception, they had taken away some of the realistic parts.” Perhaps the most tolerant sentiment was voiced by a consultant who said “No, it doesn’t bother me. I mean, I guess it doesn’t bother me because I just sort of understand why movies are made the way they are. Movies are made to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 8 0 entertain. Sometimes to teach, sometimes to give a message.” Another said, “I was realistic about it— about the amount of scientific input we were able to get in; it’s one of those thing that I recognize artistic license and all of that. I do not expect them to be scientifically— this wasn’t meant to be a scientific documentary.” Conclusions Coming from a wide variety of backgrounds, working under a disparate array of conditions and filmmakers, the consultants’ interviews provided a fairly cohesive picture of what their role in the Dream Factory is. Like most positions in Hollywood, their job descriptions are flexible; they are outsiders, but consultants are usually more than just the average hired guns. They had a good time on the set, and were generally pleased— sometimes very pleased-with their contributions and the projects they worked on. Even the single consultant frustrated with his lack of input expressed a personal liking for his director. It is interesting to frame the consultants’ participation as a tangible expression of the power of the “reality” that they purvey. Filmmakers are looking for Real Science to spice up their projects, for whatever reason— personal preference, box office take, what have you. To do this, they hire real scientists and engineers. These consultants come to Hollywood to tender their opinions, allowing the studios and filmmakers to stake some claim to the power of The Real. As will be discussed later, reality in this situation can almost be viewed as if it were mana— a spiritual power that scientists have by virtue of their professional expertise and filmmakers hire them to get a piece of through proximity. In describing the “pre-capitalist” economic system of the Kabyle people of Algeria, Pierre Bourdieu proposed the idea of “symbolic capital” as a concept with an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 8 1 essential connection to “real” capital. Especially in difficult, complex, or extremely high-value transactions like marriage, Kabyle “bring in prestigious kinsmen or affines as ‘guarantors’” (“Structures, Habitus, Power” 170). Having these high-prestige kinsmen— the symbolic capital here being their honor or renown-is a sort of credit, guaranteeing a certain return and adding to the attractiveness of making a deal (“Structures, Habitus, Power” 175). In the entertainment industry, science consultants possess this symbolic capital, and producers and directors court it. The prestige of the consultants derives from their presumed intelligence and education (possibly as compared with the stereotype of Hollywood denizens as shallow and base) and particularly as those qualities reflect their close relationship to The Real— to “authentic”— as opposed to cinematic— science. Bourdieu suggests that one of the functions of symbolic capital is to disguise the fact that what is truly being discussed is real capital. Kabyle might say they are simply happy to be marrying into a prestigious family, but what that really means is they are happy to be marrying into a rich one (“Structures, Habitus, Power” 176). This same attitude may be reflected in the stated reasons producers and directors hire consultants; while there is no doubt that many sincerely do care about veracity in their films and television programs, the belief that real science in a production can bring in real capital no doubt accounts for the consultants’ participation in some features. This may be especially true of films like Volcano, where the producer states (in the press kit), that “We hope to present the true experience of a volcanic eruption— something that’s never been done before in a studio film. We want audiences to believe that they’re seeing the real thing” (Volcano press kit 4), while a scientist informant dismisses the science in the movie as “a joke” and labels the picture “a schlock film.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 8 2 Bourdieu suggests that scientific authority itself “is a form of capital, which can be accumulated, transmitted, and even reconverted into other kinds of capital under certain conditions” (“Specificity of the Scientific Field” 34). If this is true, then those “certain conditions” are clearly found in Hollywood; the consultants spend their lives and careers accumulating scientific authority, and the production staff, seeing a direct correlation between that authority and box office capital, recruits them to transmit it (watered down through several meliorating layers) to the public. Science consultants are, in a sense, avatars of the fetishization of science by the entertainment industry. That is, they personify the cachet, knowledge, and box-office possibility of “real” science that filmmakers strive so hard to include. Because consultants bring symbolic capital-and the perception of real capital— to a production, their participation and knowledge gets commodified by the entertainment industry: turned into filmmaking elements that can be used at will, like lighting or costumes, sprinkled in to add a bit of mana-like efficacious power to the mix. At the start of this chapter, Gene Roddenberry was quoted as saying during the conception of Star Trek that “we went back to physics, found a phaser guns that’s 50 years away. That’s what we’re using.” Roddenberry used the term “went back to physics” the way he might say “we went back to costuming”— physics to him is just another resource (at least in this case), providing something he wants; in this instance, a neat-o sounding weapon that he can claim has the endorsement of having “real” science behind it. This is not to say that Roddenberry did not care about science except as a plot element, but that is how he used it. Anytime something is perceived as having an economic value— as science and scientific knowledge in Hollywood clearly are— it is going to get commodified to some level. At this point, it is almost inconceivable to have a major motion picture (and to a lesser degree, television program) that features scientists or scientific themes without hiring a consultant— if purely for P.R. purposes Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 8 3 (as some consultants— like the one who worked on Volcano— appear to be). At the dawn of the 21st century, even films that seem to have at most a tenuous relationship to “real” science, such as Spider-Man. have science consultants. Producers and directors do not just use science consultants, they do it publicly-trotting them out at press conferences and devoting pages of press kits and releases to their participation. If the choice to use scientists was based purely on a deep personal need to “get things right,” could not they use consultants without making a hullabaloo about it? The entertainment industry production system has created an environment where scientific knowledge from the consultants is essentially put on tap. When a producer, director, or screenwriter wants some, they just turn on the tap by calling the consultant. This analogy seems particularly clear among television consultants,1 8 but it is true for the larger group as well. Witness how several consultants have worked on numerous productions— up to three for several of those interviewed. Notice that there is a publicist who specializes in recruiting science consultants, and to some extent in managing their relations to the press, arranging their interview appearances and presence on press junkets. Science (or scientific knowledge) and those who posses it (scientists) are a resource as far as filmmakers are concerned, and are treated as such. Of course, this academic assessment belies some of the personal relationships science consultants build with members of the production staff; these affinities should not be discounted. Things have clearly changed a great deal since Powdermaker’s (and Douglas’) day, when consultants were hired and ignored.1 9 This experience was largely unknown to the informants in this sample, who often had a surprisingly powerful effect on the portrayal of science in the movies and on TV. Informants clearly play a significant role in the world of the science blockbuster— often hired just to review scripts and dialogue, they frequently end up having an even greater effect on the production, bringing a dose of scientific veracity not just to the actors’ lines but to the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 8 4 basic plot and premise. They also have a demonstrably positive effect on the characterizations of scientists in those productions— literally turning evil characters into good (or at least neutral) ones, as with the National Geological Survey supervisor in Dante’s Peak and the staff of the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Twister. It seems that significant credit for aspects of the media’s current portrayal of scientists can be lain at the consultants’ feet. Given the evidence of press releases, media reviews, and people working in the entertainment industry, it is clear that one of the hallmarks of the post-Jurassic Park science blockbuster is the presence of scientists as major characters and the portrayal of the science at least semi-realistically. This being the case, the science consultant is an important part of what makes these movies and TV programs happen. As the studios explicitly seek to blend fiction to fact in the public imagination, the fact that gets mixed in comes from these consultants. Whether that is good or bad, the contributions of the consultants assist filmmakers in their presentation of dramatic truth— which arguably means they contribute to the Industry’s ability to confuse the public as to what is real and what is not. The consultants do this by conferring a patina of scientific pretense over a foundation of fantastical ideas and events. None of this is done with a malign intent, of course, and it could be argued that the scientific contributions of the consultants may well be the most exposure some people have to the scientific topics presented in the films and television shows. For the vast majority of the public, the only paleontologist they’ve seen is Sam Neill of Jurassic Park, and the only volcanologist Pierce Brosnan of Dante’s Peak. What they have really seen, of course, are the characters the screenwriters have created, with the knowledge of (in these cases) Jack Homer and Jack Lockwood. While that may cause some to tremble for the republic, the consultants often had a more optimistic outlook. Some even saw the power of the movies and television to motivate children in particular to consider careers Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 8 5 in science, as did the professor who noted “You know, there were a lot of students in my intro bio class who said their interest in science came from watching The X-Files!” A former NASA employee echoed her sentiment: “I really think the movies, in the last ten years, say, have really done a lot to spur the interest in science, because of its ability to show it [science] in a visual way...there’s just no media that can match it.”2 0 1 What this means is not exactly clear. Did a physicist look at it and say “Cool!” or was there a genuine scientific review of the deck plans and technology of the starship? The latter is certainly what the article implies (and is meant to imply), while the former seems more likely. 2 It should be noted that Mead was not a consultant per se. she did not comment, on the actual content of the film. During the interview the staffers merely asked her about evolution and the possibilities of intelligent alien life. 3 Aside from The Vikings (1958), other historical dramas that used technical consultants include The Last Supper (1976), A Bridge Too Far (1977), The Return of Martin Guerre (1982), and more recently, The Patriot (2000) and Gladiator (2000). 4 Apparently, footage of interviews by Kubrick’s associate Roger Caras of an introductory sequence he filmed for "2001" in 1965, contained interviews with prominent scientists, including B.F. Skinner and Mead. The sequence was shown only once, at the film's initial screening (http://www.admin.uiuc.edu/NB/97.02/07cyberfilm.html). 5 These numbers do not exactly match up (fourteen consultants, twenty projects, and four documentary/educational programs versus five people who worked on them), because some consultants worked on multiple projects, and three people worked on a single educational program. In fact, three of the consultants had worked on three projects, turning their consulting into a fairly serious sideline. 6 As Joel Black notes, “Ever more talent and resources are devoted to making artifice seem natural, the nonvisible appear visible, and the realm of the imaginary come across as convincing or credible” (10). That said, this is not an indictment of either of the big volcano movies (Dante’s Peak or Volcano]. Though Volcano is clearly not particularly concerned with scientific veracity, the Fox studio research librarians put in a tremendous amount of time researching factual material for it. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 8 6 7 By “major Hollywood productions” I mean either feature films or network television programs; so this number excludes both made-for-television movies and cable television programs. The differences can best be measured in terms of budgets (major productions have much higher ones, and can afford more of the bells and whistles— like consultants) and viewership (major productions have audiences that are an order of magnitude larger). 8 Unfortunately, the dearth of television sci-fi programs, especially those that employ consultants, prevented a sample size significant enough to reach any serious conclusions in this regard. 9 Hilariously, the producer also attempted to assure me that he would include a “real” scientist (or archaeologist”) to provide an “objective counterpoint” to the suggestion the production was making, that the the KGB had uncovered evidence in Egypt of ancient visits to Earth by extraterrestrials. Obviously, any true objective counterpoint would be saying the producer was completely nuts. 1 0 And, it would seem, the funding, since in the end the program never made it on the air. 1 1 From page 33 of Twister: The original Screenplay (Crichton and Martin), describing the evildoer’s vehicles: The four vans come right up to us, and then pull over at an angle onto the opposite side of the road, one after another, matching angles exactly. Then, in a group, they all back up, swinging around in a 180 degree so they face outward, ready to go again. The silver vehicles are sleek. Stenciled on the side of each vehicle is NSSL ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH TEAM. The script seems quite confused as to who the bad guys actually work for. While his vans say NSSL (a federal agency), the evil Dr. Miller introduces himself as head of the Atmospheric Science Lab at Oklahoma Polytechnic University (pp.34). So is Miller a government employee or a university professor? Further muddying the waters, three pages later protagonist Jo Hardin comments on Miller’s greedy “corporate sponsors” (pp.37). 1 2 “More honest’ in this case meaning that the films show scientists less as one dimensional evil maniacs, than as relatively powerless, more modest, human beings basically just doing a job. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 8 7 1 3 Interestingly, this shows the consultants themselves are quite aware of the fallibility of scientific knowledge and, though they might not recognize it as such, the constructed nature of scientific beliefs. 1 4 The cover of Feynman’s The Pleasure of Finding Things Out boldly proclaims “NATIONAL BESTSELLER!” 1 5 He played bongo drums and had a reputation as a man with “a robust appetite for jokes and ordinary human pleasures,” as Freeman Dyson wrote in the introduction to The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman (Feyman 1999). 1 6 As Gregory and Miller succinctly put it, “Popularization does seem to magnify career successes and failures” (83). 1 7 The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a NASA facility operated by the California Institute of Technology. 1 8 A member of the production staff of one science fiction television program said that the staff was charged with locating relevant consultants for each week’s episode. The staff would be told what the week’s plot was, and they were to go out and locate a one- shot consultant. Though the show has a permanent science consultant, they have called in freelance consultants fields ranging from oncology to anthropology. 1 9 Actually, perhaps it is more technically correct to say that they have generally changed. In addition to the unnamed consultant mentioned earlier who was embarrassed by his participation in a space-travel film, problems occasionally arise on other movies. Responding to criticisms stemming from her involvement with Gladiator (2000), historian Kathleen Coleman shot a defensive e-mail off to a professional listserv (“CLASSICS-L”). It read, in part: A consultant for a film has no control over the use that is made of his or her advice. A clause in my contract was supposed to protect me from being named on the screen if I could not stand over the final product and put my imprimatur to it, though when that clause was drafted I had no idea quite how great the chasm would be between my input and the resulting artefact. When I was invited to a preview and saw the film that had evolved out of the last version of the script that I had seen, I made it plain that I did not wish to receive a credit; but my name does appear in a list of persons thanked for their contribution. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 8 8 2 0 And this, of course, is one of the reason why the Alfred Sloan Foundation gives money to aspiring filmmakers who are willing to portray science and scientists in a positive light. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 8 9 Chapter 10: The Big Finish It is hoped that the reader will gain from this dissertation a better understanding of the relationship between the belief system of science and the meaning-producing aspects of the entertainment industry. The stated intent of this research was to figure out how, and in what direction, the mass entertainment media influences people’s beliefs about science and scientists. What ended up occuring instead was an investigation into the interactions between science and the mass media— how scientists and social factors have contributed to the expressions of science and scientific knowledge presented, and how the media of television and film impact what types of science can be shown. Kevin Kelleher wrote, “The encoding of media artifacts is deeply influenced by systems of production, so that the study of these texts of television, film, or popular music, for instance, is enhanced by studying the way that media artifacts are actually produced” (“Frankfurt School” 12). To this end, Chapters 6, 7, and 8-content analysis, looking at production documents, interviewing consultants— have been concerned eith discerning what images of science and scientists the media portrays and illuminating the web of social relations and outside forces that are involved with producing those portrayals. Unfortunately, while its fairly simple to record what those portrayals are, it is more difficult to figure out how these images affect people’s reactions to science. The original thesis was that this occurred in the following way: l.)Cultural narratives support the legitimation of institutions and belief systems, including science. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 9 0 2.)Generally speaking, scientists and the public at large often conceive of the pursuit, purposes, and object of science in different ways. These can be summarized by examining these contrasting views in light of different models though which people understand science. Each model emphasizes different narratives. 3.)Much of what people know, or think they know, is learned from the mass media. 4.)The media can and does emphasize some messages or models over others. Because of this, it is important to understand how that media is produced, and with what motivations, messages, and intentions. 5.)For a number of reasons, but primarily because of the intentional conflation of science fact and fictional science, people’s experiences with the media image can become stronger than their experience with real science, and then replace it. (this is referred to as the creation of a hyperreality) 6.)Thus, whatever scientific veracity is present in media products, and the presentation of these images as closely tied to that veracity, is important. Hopefully the data presented in the preceding pages has made the case that all of these statements are true, though the evidence presented in this dissertation focuses primarily on points 4 and 6. Along the way, the research and analysis conducted for this dissertation also uncovered something interesting: the way that the entertainment industry systematically commodifies science, and the reasons why it does so. Because of the complexity of the arguments and that of the social system in which these processes are carried out, no single piece of evidence or set of data is sufficient to convey the breadth of understanding necessary to fully consider the research question. The anecdotal and literary evidence indicating the multiple models of science, the voice of the science consultants who relate their experience in the Dream Factory, the materials in the studio libraries, and the content analysis of the movies and television Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 291 shows themselves are all important parts of the bigger picture. However, within the larger context, a couple of theoretical concepts have run continuously throughout the dissertation. Perhaps the two most important ones to consider here in closing are the multiple models of science and the concept of The Real. The Two Models and the Basis of Hyperreality The prospect of multiple understandings of science returns to us as we contemplate how the media contributes to a hyperreal view of modem science. “Tourney’s Observation” (as he himself calls it) is that various models for believing in and understanding science exist, and that the continued separation of these models-- with the public believing one and scientists believing the other— has lasting effects on both the practice of science and the ability of hucksters to “conjure science.” This is what occurs when the dissociation of signifier from signified is used to sell pseudoscience or nonscience to the public with the authority of “true” science. Though Tourney suggested three models, two of them seem particularly important to the investigation of the role the mass media plays in the public understanding of science. The “Philosophy of Useful Knowledge” model allegedly embraced by the public focuses on identifying science with engineering and technology, and utilizing scientific understanding as a way to confront the natural world and overcome obstacles and problems. The “European Scientific Research Ethos” is based on more traditional Enlightenment ideals of rational thinking, continual experimentation, and most distinctively, the idea of knowledge for its own sake. The evidence gathered here indicates support for the generalities of these models. Both sociological data (NSF sponsored studies, Public Understanding of Science research) as well as literary analysis (Marcel LaFollette’s Making Science Our Own, for example, and other media Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 9 2 content analysis) show that public beliefs about science— both what it is and what it should be about— are largely congruent with Tourney’s Useful Knowledge model. Similarly, interviews with scientists suggest that many subscribe to the core beliefs of the European Research model— particularly the idea of curiosity instead of utility as the legitimate primary motivation of science. But these models are not hard and fast— plenty of scientists pursue their research with commercial or practical goals in mind, and certain members of the public clearly believe in the abstract idea of “pure science.” Nonetheless, they are valuable guidelines for understanding the multiple, and sometimes conflicting, perspectives on science that exist in our society. They can also help explain the seemingly wide and growing rift between scientists and the public at large, each of which often views the other with suspicion or, at worst, disdain. The mass media— specifically the movies and television programs examined here-clearly have a slant towards portraying the Useful Knowledge model. There are a number of reasons for this. One is that as products of human hands and minds, films and television shows inevitably reflect the biases and beliefs of those who produce them, and since the members of the public are more familiar with science in the Useful Knowledge style, that is what we see. However, just as important is the fact that the very structure of the media itself and the nature of narrative entertainment (“spectacle” and “narrative”) constrain how science gets shown and scientists act on the big and small screens. The fact that these are primarily visual media means that the screen must always be filled, generally with concrete images. Abstractions are notoriously difficult to capture with a camera; how do you show pure love, or a sense of wonder? Film and television always require a tangible object or scene to portray, and the difficulty in showing abstract science is no exception. The result is that science that does not “look” like anything— pure Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 9 3 research-does not make good television. Visually exciting, concrete objects and situations related to science like volcanoes, space travel, and dinosaurs, however, do. Furthermore, the requirements of narrative constrain the pattern of these images, generally in the mode of a linear, sequential story with the classical literary conventions of protagonist, conflict, denouement, etc. Pure research— knowledge for knowledge’s sake, as in the European Research model, does not fit these conventions very well, while Useful Knowledge science, where scientists use erudition to overcome erupting volcanoes or mnaway mutant monsters, does. It is fairly easy to show a scientist as a hero if he or she delivers the world from cometary annihilation, or defy tornadoes to save the lives of lovingly depicted Midwestern families, but fairly difficult when they are researching the origins of quarks or bosons.1 Additionally, the continual exposure to these types of portrayals slowly replaces most people’s experience with and knowledge of “real” science. In other words, the media image of science becomes a simulacra, a vision of science that is believed to be representative of the original, but is actually subtly different; in a sense its own original. That is, it is believed the copy is a faithful one, but it is not— since people fill in gaps in their own knowledge with what they glean from the media, they tend to believe the media portrayals are true-to-life, and even if they are not, since most people do not have a benchmark for knowing what is true-to-life, these portrayals serve that purpose instead. Compare the number of people who have actually experienced spaceflight with those who “know” what it looks like because they have seen it in a movie. As Shanahan and Morgan point out, audiences tend to view background material as real as long as it matches basic expectations of veracity (22). When the simulacra becomes more real to people than the original-more immediate, more in resonance with how they think science is, or simply more familiar-when this image replaces the original, a hyperreality is bom. This confusion is enhanced when the films and television Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 9 4 programs intentionally conflate real and fictional scientific knowledge, and when, through the magic of capitalism and cross-marketing, these mass media products bleed into other aspects of life. For example, the American Museum of Natural History ran a special exhibit coinciding with The Lost World: Jurassic Park It. Museum visitors viewed short lectures on dinosaurs narrated on video by Jeff Goldblum, who had played a scientist in the film, while real scientists debated fiction versus reality in the movie’s portrayal of dinosaurs (Heartney Cl). Given the tremendous crossover between the “authentic” scientific authority of the museum and the conjured authority of the film, its certainly understandable if visitors got confused which was which.2 So what if these mass-marketed portrayals contribute to an image of science that may seem misleading to those (particularly scientists) who may view it through the European Research model? What is the big deal about a hyperreality anyway? In this context, the prolonged separation of these multiple ways of understanding science has a number of important effects, most of which are unfortunately negative for the practice of science. The most speculative is the main one Tourney is driving at: a situation where people respect the power of science to answer questions and solve difficult problems but have little understanding of how it “truly” operates (in the sense of the European Research model). When this occurs, they can become distracted by the symbols, trappings, and jargon of science, and thus be misled by those using the symbols to make nonscientific or pseudoscientific claims. In an extreme scenario, everyone from perpetual-motion advocates to creation scientists can lay claim to scientific authority, a situation which indeed currently exists.3 These altered perceptions have other effects on the way the public interact with the scientific community. One informant, a NASA employee, expressed the concern that people have unrealistic expectations of space travel because of what they have seen in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 9 5 movies, that spaceflight is “not like on the Internet where you search for something and BING! it pops up on the screen— it’s not instant gratification. It’s five years of planning, then you launch the thing, then it goes and does it; it takes a number of years to do it— I don’t think people understand that part.” In other words, the legitimacy of the scientific endeavor comes into question, and the public may loose patience with those who express a desire for pure research. Furthermore, the more the public’s understanding of how science operates becomes divorced from reality, the more unreasonable their expectations of it may become. The common refrain “They can land a man on the moon but can’t cure the common cold” seems to refer to large-scale questions many people have about scientific research. Due to public knowledge of massive science and engineering undertakings like the Manhattan and Apollo projects, there is an idea that to solve a given problem (the goal of science to believers in the Useful Knowledge model), all that is required is a huge number of scientists and a drive to overcome it. This faulty impression of the power of superbig science can be seen in continual calls for “the AIDS Manhattan Project” and other like endeavors. All of this leads to perhaps the most concrete, immediate effect of the rift between scientists and the public at large. As LaFollette noted, in a democratic society like the United States, what people want from science eventually decides whether they pay for it or not. Funding allocations are a notorious and continuing problem in research communities, and government (and private) grant money has often been assigned less upon a rationale of what is needed and far more frequently on what is either popular or politically expedient As Sandra Harding quite persuasively argued, scientific research cannot be completely divorced from the social needs and desires of a society (SOIF 236). Early AIDS research, and more recently stem cell research are excellent examples of this. Even with so many layers of politicians and government bureaucracy between them and the scientists, public sentiment has a clear effect on research Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 9 6 priorities and funding. If the public has a distorted view of what science is about— or more accurately, a different view from that of most scientists— then it affects the funding of certain areas of scientific research This laundry list of woe is a suggestion of the possibilities of a prolonged separation between these multiple models of science. Keeping in mind that these are, of course, only models— not hard-and-fast guides of absolute belief systems for the populations under discussion. Is there a solution? Probably not, if Tourney’s theory on the causes and content of the models is correct. After all, the professionalization of science is one of the foundations of the European Research Ethos model. It is not possible (and maybe not even desirable) for everyone to become a professional scientist. Furthermore, the cultural inertia of these models— the force of history behind them and the motivations linked to their emergence-will be difficult to overcome. On the other hand, the emerging field of the Public Understanding of Science (PUS) offers theories, and slowly, concrete programs aimed at bringing together the scientific community and the public. These may or may not end up as effective as the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s programs based on Mead and Metreaux’s research in the 1950s. In their excellent survey on the current state of PUS studies and activities, Gregory and Miller offer a “Protocol for Science Communication for the Public Understanding of Science” that includes “Acknowledging the place of popularization,” “Being clear about motives,” and— this may be the most difficult for both parties— “Respecting the audience” (242). Time will tell if these remedies are effective, and what role the media of television and movies will play in this grand crusade. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 9 7 Reality, The Real, and the Commodification of Scientific Authority The other major trope illuminated in the course of this project has been the concept of The Real, and how reality is treated, understood, included, and commodified in Hollywood. John Hartley writes that We haven’t come very far since 1959.4 Here’s how far we haven’t come: exactly thirty years later, there was still no public recognition of perhaps the most fundamental tenet of cultural studies— that of the constructed nature of the real. Reality’s status as a product simply hasn’t gotten through, and the material effect of public allegiance to authenticity is measurable, at least if you happen to be the lead singers of pop band Milli Vanilli (20). Or, one might add, the studios pushing the “reality” of films like A Beautiful Mind or Pearl Harbor. In fact, to a certain degree, perhaps this dissertation is best viewed as the story of the commodification of the property of “realness.” Often the first question that springs to mind about science in movies and on TV is “How real is it?” Tie-in books related to the movies and television shows are given names like The Real Science Behind the X-Files or Titan A.E.: The Real Science Behind the Science Fiction. The same mantra is repeated over and over in press kits— that directors and producers are just mad for reality; it is almost as if they are reality addicts, which is ironic considering that they are choosing to make films for entertainment, not documentaries. This is where the commodification of science, scientists, and scientific knowledge by the studios comes into play. If we consider science to be the “reality” under discussion here as was suggested in Chapter 4, then to a certain extent, the entire complex of the studio libraries, science consultants, and press kits— are all dedicated to taking “reality” and somehow linking it to fantasy; they are ways of reducing the idea of reality to a property that can be applied at will, and deployed for a specific purpose. If there is a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 9 8 holy grail of the entertainment industry (other than the profitable “sure thing”), it is perhaps the ideal “believable fiction;” a completely realistic fantasy. The goal is always to entertain with these fictional works, but since individual identification with characters and situations is considered fundamentally imporant, the concept of reality is viewed as a vital portion of a film or program’s success— it has to be in order for the production to resonate with the viewing audience. With reality being such an important commodity, its no surprise that The Industry has created ways to find a reliable, consistent way to gain access to it, and then to incorporate this mediated reality into their products. In fact, perhaps the best metaphor for the property of realness is to compare it to the Melanesian concept of mana. The specifics of mana vary from culture to culture, but generally, it can be described as a mystical power inherent in some people, places, and objects, a supernatural force that makes these people, places, or things more powerful, successful, or efficacious than ordinary people, places, or things. Mana can be fluid, and transferred from one person to another, or into an object: a war club, canoe, or necklace. Reality (scientific, veritable truth) is often viewed this way in Hollywood— a mystical substance that some people have (scientists, research librarians) and other people want (directors, production designers, the public). In a strange way, the more complete the comparison, the more “reality” seems like mana to the entertainment industry. In fact, like mana. some people have more “realness” (scientific authority) than others, and the more they have, the better it is to get them for your production. If a studio could, they would have as many Nobel-prize winners on board as possible— or people like Carl Sagan.5 Ron Howard did not get some schmoe from NASA for Apollo 13. he got Gerry Griffin, former director of Mission Control. When Spielberg was filming Jurassic Park, he did not recruit the closest paleontologist he could find from USC or UCLA, but Jack Homer, a well-known (if sometimes Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 9 9 controversial) curator at the Museum of the Rockies. Bourdieu touched on this when he wrote that the symbolic capital of a scientist (as measured in their attributed amount of scientific authority) is greater or lesser depending upon their publications, the distinctive recognized value of their contributions, and the attributed consecration of their peers (“Specificty of the Scientific Field” 34). In fact, the view of reality as mana makes even more sense when viewed as Raymond Firth described it, as a power source used for increasing efficacy and success (191). This is precisely the power it is imagined to possess by Hollywood, where the mystical success and audience appreciation it allegedly can breed are highly sought after commodities. At the same time that Hollywood appropriates scientific truth, science gets something back, too. In the strange world of hyperreality, where people’s media-driven image of science replaces their actual experiences with it, the films and television shows cranked out by the entertainment industry end up having concrete, real-world effects on actual science. One obvious area is funding: Universal Studios, distributors of the Jurassic Park franchise, donates money to the Museum of the Rockies for palentological digs. When Paramount Pictures was promoting Star Trek: Generations. they helped launch the SETI [Search For Extra-Terrestrial Life] At Home mass computing project. SETI also got an unsurprising boost from the release of Contact. Studios do not even have to directly support research: astronomers in Australia used the comet collision movie Deep Impact to argue for more funding to devote to asteroid tracking. As one of the head astronomers said, “The film has already raised public awareness far more than we’ve been able to do in five years” (Woods). Consultants agreed that, if nothing else, the films and television programs raised public visibility of and interest in science; Jurassic Park for paleontology, Dante’s Peak for volcanology and geology, and Twister for meteorology. One claimed that after the release of Twister, enrollments at the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 0 0 dramatically increased,6 and the number of letters sent by the public to the NSSL rose from 200-300 a year to over 700. Less direct impacts on science can be found in the number of people who are influenced by films and TV shows to consider science as a career, the children who approach the stars (and consultants) of Jurassic Park and say “I want to be like that!” A member of the Star Trek: Voyager production staff said that hanging in the office was a photo of the entire flight crew of a space shuttle mission standing on the show’s set, signed by each member, with a number of astronauts writing “Star Trek is why I became an astronaut!” Reality is conjured into these mass entertainment media products, and then it is taken by scientists and members of the public and conjured right back, as when scientists seeking to clone extinct mammoths pointed to Jurassic Park, or Ted Koppel used clips from Star Trek: Voyager and Gattaca during a program on genetic engineering. Some in the entertainment industry even speculate directly that their work contributes to the discourses of science. One producer suggested We present theories, so to speak. And we’d like those theories to be grounded in something credible. But we’re willing to push the enveolpe a little bit, maybe further than a scientist might, because of ridicule or whatever. We’re willing to push it, if it fits the narrative. And then, down the road, it may come back that by pushing the idea a little bit further, it posed a whole new series of questions, and out of that actually came some results that furthered science! These people might, surprisingly, have a point. In perhaps the strangest story of art imitating life, one of the consultants for Twister related the following story: Funny thing about that is about a year after the movie came out we got a call from a guy at an Air Force base in Florida that said “You know that Twister movie thing, I just saw that the other day, and can you guys actually do that with the little balls and the communications?” And we said “No, it’s beyond our technical capability because each one of those balls would have to have a very lightweight chip in it that we don’t Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 301 have the technology to develop and would have to be able to communicate simultaneously on a different frequency its information content in real time.” We said they can’t do that. They said “Well, we can.” And now that a lot of the defense Cold War-type activity’s starting to become made public [sic], they said that they could now talk to us about doing this. The concept of reality, the property of realness, and The Real are slippery descriptive terms, but are in such incredibly common daily use— both in the entertainment industry and society at large— that they deserve a closer look. What do we mean by “real?” When filmmakers claim they are using real science and say things like “This is the most real depiction of dinosaurs ever,” what properties do they mean? Interestingly enough, the best answer seems to be that scientific veracity itself is the basis for filmic reahty-the closer to current scientific knowledge, the more the mystical property of reality (its mana) can be enlisted when creating and describing a work of mass media. Science, it turns out, is the ultimate Real in Hollywood; a surprising situation that a confirmed believer in scientism might find comforting, while disturbing those who, like Richard Dawkins, criticize as “unpardonable” the exhibition of pseudoscience in shows like The X-Files. Issues Raised, and Further Research A couple of the issues raised during the course of this research could not be adequately answered by it. The first, of course, is the giant black box that is The Public. As discussed in earlier chapters, there were a number of good reasons that public beliefs about science were not a larger part of this dissertation. But there is also no doubt that without them, speculation on the true effects of the mass media on public beliefs is incomplete. The NSF has done a very good job of collecting data on public reactions to science and technology, but their “Indicators” report is not a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 302 comprehensive substitute for a study oriented specifically towards gauging media influences. There is also an unavoidable bias towards the portrayal of science and scientists in film over that in television. This is a result of the simple fact that there are not a whole lot of scientists on TV. For reasons explored earlier, scientist characters, and sci-fi in general, seem to be both more common and more popular on the big screen than the small one. The few conversations with television consultants and production personnel indicated that there were differences in the process of production in the two mediums, and thus in the methods through which science was incorporated into each. Briefly, science consultants in television tend to give more topically-broad advice, there appears to be a more superficial use of consultants on television than in film, and a greater emphasis on scientific fact in films in general. This is not always the case, and the spectrum ranges from movies that completely ignore science to television programs that embrace it, but generally speaking, the more rapid production schedule and smaller budgets of television tend to conspire towards a greater integration of science into movies than TV shows. Unfortunately, the lack of science-oriented television programs meant a corresponding lack of informants, making it difficult to further draw reliable conclusions on these differences. There are also places where the data is sketchier than is ideal. This is largely due to problems of access in the closed community of Hollywood. More information on studio libraries would have been nice, for example, but most of them are off-limits to those not in the employ of the particular host studio. Similarly, there is an obvious hole in the data from producers, directors, and other high-level production staff. Despite repeated attempts, they were unavailable for interviews, and most of the time, did not even respond with regrets to the requests. A single producer was kind enough to grant Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 0 3 an interview, but other than that, the voices of upper-level production staff come though only in quotes from press kits and newspaper articles. A number of avenues of future research present themselves. Perhaps the most obvious is a broader ethnographic investigation into the reactions of both the public and scientists to images in the mass media. The most complete study cited here, the one by Gerbner, Gross, Morgan and Signorielli, is decades old; unfortunately, any decent examination of public attitudes involves a large-scale research effort, one that few scholars seem willing or able to pursue at this time. Another ethnographic research project that might be difficult but valuable would be an on-site(s) observation of the production of a Science Blockbuster, from start to finish. In the early stages of this project, the reactions of scientists who were not consultants were also solicited, before the focus turned more towards the production aspects of the research question. Their responses suggested that further research could be fascinating; while stereotypes of scientists of course imply a certain “type” who become interested in science, in truth, they are a heterogeneous group, with disparate views on media, pseudoscience, and the responsibilities of their profession. However, they all seemed willing and eager to let their opinions— especially about movies and television— be known. Speaking of more research with the public and scientists, additional projects that support (or deny) Tourney’s theories of multiple models would be beneficial to enhancing our understanding of how society and science are intertwined. These could take the form of historical research, ethnographic investigation into attitudes and beliefs, or literature and other media analyses like Haynes’ or Ribalow’s on the image of scientists in literature and sci-fi movies. This dissertation has touched the tip of the iceberg, indicating the validity of the multiple models theory; but there is much more to be done, determining not just the existence of these models but their content, evolution, and the permeability of their boundaries. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 0 4 This analysis tackled two particular forms of popular, mass media: television and film. In fact, it focused only on the entertainment-oriented products of these media. The logical continuation of this work is to focus on nonfictional aspects of these visual art/communication forms-news, documentaries, and additional forms of popular fiction entertainment like novels, comic books, and magazines. Mad scientists show up everywhere, from Mr. Goodwrench commercials to children’s cartoons. The Anchorage (Alaska! Press even has a beer reviewer with a mad scientist gimmick— “Dr. Fermento.” Studies of these media would be valuable in supporting (or refuting) the findings of this research. Final Thoughts If an anthropologist studying modern society is like a detective, then perhaps it is fitting to consider what happens at the end of a detective story. In Raymond Chandler’s Farewell. My Lovely, the closing paragraph reads “I rode down to the street floor and went out on the steps of City Hall. It was a cool day, and very clear. You could see a long way-but not as far as Velma had gone” (202). With that, Philip Marlowe steps onto the street, a little older, a little wiser, a little more tired, and a little bit more familiar with the working underbelly of Los Angeles. Sometimes the cast of informants for this project felt like characters from a noir detective novel— brilliant professors, obfuscating secretaries, a lot of people in The Industry who worked their fingers to the bone, and a few caricatured entertainment biz yes-men. There were dusty rooms filled with yellowed newspapers, interviews over delicious steak dinners, and numerous encounters with members of the human subspecies Homo Sapiens Archivus (“Archivist Man”). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 0 5 This dissertation is an account of the workings of modem Hollywood, and the complex relationship between our institutions of mass media, science, and public opinion. The cocktail party summation should go like this: “Scientists and the public often look at science differently. Continual exposure to movies and television programs informs the public with certain images of science and scientists. Those images are created with the help of a diverse group of hardworking people, including directors, production designers, and science consultants. Reality is viewed as an important element in these portrayals, and Hollywood goes to great lengths to employ it. This makes the images even more seductive to the public.” Before setting out on one of his polar expeditions, Admiral Byrd said “Jules Veme leads me” (Bradbury 91). The power of mass media to inspire and entertain remains so strong that explorers today say much the same thing— but with reference to Star Trek instead of 20.000 Leagues Under the Sea. Powdermaker closed the original Dream Factory with a plea for Hollywood to engage in more democratic and progressive practices; I close with a question: what does it mean to say “If I understood it, it wouldn’t be science”? And what part does the mass media play in the creation of that understanding of what science is? This dissertation is about belief systems— in this case, science, and why people believe what they believe. It is a tough question, and a complex one. Hopefully, this project has at least begun to answer a small part of it. 1 In other cases, pure research simply is not considered a strong enough motivation to carry a film. In A Beautiful Mind, the focus of the movie is on Nash’s schizophrenia, and the power of a love relationship to eventually redeem the mathematician and his sanity, not on the mathematics themselves. In the 2002 remake of The Time Machine. the machine is created after its inventor sees his fiancee killed in a robbery. The inventor decides he must go back in time and save her. In the original (book and 1960s film), there is no such forced motivation; the inventor simply thinks it is cool to make a time machine. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 0 6 2 In fact, the hyperreal power of fictional dinosaurs in our imaginations may be enhanced by the fact that none of us has ever been able to see a “real” one alive and kicking. 3 For examples of this, see Robert Park’s Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud (perpetual motion devices) and Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things (for creation scientists). 4 Hartley is marking from the appearence of Cultural Studies patriarch Stuart Hall’s article “Absolute Beginnings” in Universities and Left Review (1954). 5 Though Sagan was often criticized during his lifetime by the scientific community, his massive and enduring public popularity showed that he possessed great mana. 6 A conversation with the director of the School of Meteorology indicated that enrollments had indeed shot up, from 100 to 175 over a period of four years. However, he suggested that Twister, while of clear importance, was only partially responsible. The other factors he theorized were also based on media exposure, however— such as the increasing numbers of documentaries on the Weather Channel, PBS, and the Discovery Channel, for example. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Bibliography 3 0 7 Adorno, Theodor. "Television and the Patterns of Mass Culture." Mass Culture. Eds. Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White. New York: Free Press, 1957. 474-487. Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. Affron, Charles and Mirella Jona Affron. Sets in Motion. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1995. Allied States Association of Motion Picture Exhibitors. What the Public Wants to See. Washington, DC: Allied States Association of Motion Picture Exhibitors, 1949. 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Alain Silver and James Ursini. New York: Limelight Editions, 1999. 223-241. Volcano Press Kit. 20th Century Fox, 1997. In collection of the University of Southern California Cinema Library, Volcano clipping file. Wallace, Amy. “A Collection Gets Shelved.” Los Angeles Times 5 Mar. 2000, Sunday Calendar section: 6+. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 2 7 Weart, Spencer. “The Physicist as Mad Scientist.” Physics Today (June 1988): 28- 37. Weiss, Tara. “In ‘X-Files,’ Scientific Truth Can Be as Strange as the Plots.” Los Angeles Times 20 Nov. 1999: F12. Williams, Sarah, with Frederick Klemmer. “Ethnographic Fetishism or Cyborg Anthropology: Human Scientists, Rebellious Rats, and Their Mazes at El Delirio and in the Land of the Long White Cloud.” Cyborgs and Citadels: Anthropological Interventions in Emerging Sciences and Technologies. Eds. Gary Lee Downey and Joseph Dumit. Santa Fe: SAR Press, 1997. 165-192. Winner, Langdon. “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” The Whale and the Reactor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. 19-39. Wolpert, Lewis. “In Praise of Science.” Science Today: Problem or Crisis? Levinsion, Ralph and Jeff Thomas, eds. London: Routledge, 1997. pp.9-21. Woods, Mark. “Deep Impact on Aussies” Variety 22 June 1998: 71. Woolgar, Steve. “The Turn to Technology in the Social Studies of Science.” Science. Technology, and Human Values. 16 (1991): 20-50. Yam, Philip. “Making a Deep Impact: Hollywood Tackles the Threat of Near-Earth Objects,” Scientific American. May, 1998. <http://www.sciam.com/1998/0598issue/0598scicitl.html>. Zuboff, Shoshana. In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1988. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Appendix: Film and Television List 3 2 8 Following is a list of motion pictures and television programs that are referenced in this thesis. It is not a complete list by any means, and is biased in favor of more recent mass media products, especially those that came after the birth of the science blockbuster in 1993. The inclusion criteria was that all of them have scientists as main characters or primary scientific themes. Many of these fall into broader categories, and have either a.)been significant milestones in the treatment of science or appearence of scientists (i.e. Metropolis), b.)can be considered “typical” of the genre in which they appear, (i.e Them!), or c.)have some other quality that makes them stand out (i.e. Young Einstein for pure strangeness; Atlantis: The Lost Empire, a rare motion- picture animated scientist). The Andromeda Strain (1971, Robert Wise) Apollo 13 (1995, Ron Howard) Armageddon (1998, Michael Bay) Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001, Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise) Back to the Future (1985, Robert Zemeckis) Batman & Robin (1997, Joel Schumacher) Beginning or the End (1947, Norman Taurog) Contact (1997, Robert Zemeckis) Dante’ s Peak (1997, Roger Donaldson) The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951, Robert Wise) Deep Impact (1998, Mimi Leder) Dr. No (1962, Terence Young) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 2 9 Dr. Strangelove (1964, Stanley Kubrick) E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982, Steven Spielberg) Frankenstein (1931, James Whale) Godzilla (1998, Roland Emmerich) Hollow Man (2000, Paul Verhoeven) Independence Day (1996, Roland Emmerich) It Conquered the World (1956, Roger Corman) Jurassic Park (1993, Steven Speilberg) Metropolis (1926, Fritz Lang) Mimic (1997, Guillermo del Toro) Mission to Mars (2000, Brian de Palma) Moonraker (1979, Lewis Gilbert) Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959, Ed Wood) Red Planet (2000, Antony Hoffman) Relic (1997, Peter Hyams) The Saint (1997, Philip Noyce) Species (1995, Roger Donaldson) Sphere (1998, Barry Levinson) Stargate (1994, Roland Emmerich) Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979, Robert Wise) Star Trek II: Thw Wrath of Khan (1982, Nicholas Meyer) Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984, Leonard Nimoy) Star Trek TV: The Voyage Home (Leonard Nimoy) Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989, William Shatner) Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991, Nicholas Meyer) Star Trek: Generations (1994, David Carson) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 3 0 Star Trek: First Contact (1996, Jonathan Frakes) Star Trek: Insurrection (1998, Jonathan Frakes) Outbreak (1995, Wolfgang Peterson) Them! (1954, Gordon Douglas) The Thing [From Another World] (1951, Christin Nyby, Howard Hawks) Things to Come (1936, William Cameron Menzies) Twister (1996, Jan du Bont) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick) Volcano (1997, Mick Jackson) Voyage dans la Lune (1902, George Melies) War of the Worlds (1953, Byron Haskins, George Pal) When WorldsCollide (1951, Philip Mate) X-Men (2000, Bryan Singer) Young Einstein (1988, Yahoo Serious) Television Programs Because most programs have many different directors over the course of their runs, the names listed are those of the series creators, or executive producers if the series creator is not credited sperately. As with the films, all contain scientist characters or strong scientific themes. The network on which the program appeared is also listed. Babylon 5 (1994-1998, J. Michael Straczynski; syndicated) The Bionic Woman (1976-1978, Kenneth Johnson; ABC) C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation (2000-, Jerry Bruckheimer, Ann Donahue, Carol Mendelsohn; CBS) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 3 1 Dark Angel (2000-, James Cameron, Charles Eglee; Fox) Earth: Final Conflict (1997-2002, Gene Roddenberry; syndicated) Enterprise (2001-, Rick Berman, Brannon Braga; UPN) Farscape (1999-, Robert Halmi Jr., Brian Henson, David Kemper, Kris Noble, Rockne S. O’Bannnon; Sci-Fi Channel) Friends (1994-, Kevin Bright, David Crane, Marta Kauffman; NBC) The Invisible Man (2000-2002, Jonathan Glassner, Matt Greenburg, David Levinson; Sci-Fi Channel) Lost in Space (1965-1968, Irwin Allen) MacGuyver (1985-1992, Lee David Zlotoff; ABC) Misfits of Science (1985-1986, James Parriott [producer]; NBC) Nova (1974-, PBS) Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal (1996-, James Nadler; syndicated) SeaQuest DSV (1993-1995, Rockne S. O’Bannon, Steven Spielberg, Tommy Thompson; NBC) Seven Days (1998-2001, Christopher Crowe; UPN) The Six-Million Dollar Man (1974-1978, Harve Bennett, Fred Freiberger, Kenneth Johnson [producers]; ABC) Stargate SG-1 (1997-, Jonathan Glassner, Richard Dean Anderson, Brad Wright; syndicated) Star Trek (1967-69, Gene Roddenberry; NBC) Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-94, Gene Roddenberry; syndicated) Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (1993-1999, Rick Berman Michael Piller; syndicated) Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001, Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor; UPN) 3rd Rock From the Sun (1996-2001, Bonnie Turner, Terry Turner; NBC) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Twilight Zone (1959-1965, Rod Serling; NBC) The X-Files (1993-2002, Chris Carter; Fox) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3093762 UMI UMI Microform 3093762 Copyright 2003 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Frank, Scott David (author)

Core Title Lab coats in the dream factory: science and scientists in Hollywood

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Anthropology

Degree Conferral Date 2002-12

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag American studies,anthropology, cultural,cinema,communication and the arts,history of science,mass communication,OAI-PMH Harvest,social sciences

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-248772

Unique identifier UC11339378

Identifier 579432 (dmrecord),https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c30-203037 (doi),3093762.pdf (filename),DP23578.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-248772 (legacy record id),usctheses-c30-203037 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3093762.pdf

Dmrecord 248772

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Frank, Scott David

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA