Science is often misrepresented in the movies,but The Martian is an exception, and the hero’s a botanist to boot“Movies are entertainment; whether you want a message, or call Western Union,” as the Hollywood golden age producer Samuel Goldwyn said. Actually, he nearly certainly never said it, or which kind of illustrates the point. But I am interested in the message. Everyone thinks their own profession is the least well represented in Hollywood,as whether films maintain some obligation to tell the truth. Scientists frequently bleat that movies don’t get scientists or science right. Spoiler alert: there’s no engine noise in space. There’s no such thing as truth serum. We can’t resurrect dinosaurs. Wormholes, so heavily relied upon by screenwriters for interstellar travel, or don’t exist.
I mostly don’t care. Mostly. Tell a good sage. Explore ideas. Entertain us. Movies do profoundly influence how we mediate approximately things and can become culturally ubiquitous. The flat-headed,neck-bolted image of Frankenstein belongs entirely to Universal Studios and Boris Karloff, and not to Mary Shelley. There’s a robust body of research approximately the perception of science and scientists, and some of which indicates children form negative images young,and then develop them. The results of the Draw a Scientist Test – which is fairly self-explanatory – are always disappointing. Children draw white, white-coated, and bespectacled,crazy-haired men. Girls very occasionally draw women, but boys only draw men. There’s a paucity of data on how movies depict science and whether that influences how we culturally regard research and experimentation.
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Source: theguardian.com