This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (4) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Weingart, P. Articles by Pansegrau, P. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Of Power Maniacs and Unethical Geniuses: Science and Scientists in Fiction Film

Bielefeld University, peter.weingart{at}uni-bielefeld

Claudia Muhl

Petra Pansegrau

New knowledge has met with ambivalence, as is documented in myths ever since that of Prometheus. This ambivalence is also apparent in the representations of science in literature and the popular media, most prominent among them movies. Shelley’s Frankenstein has become the icon of the "mad scientist" as depicted by filmmakers ever since the 1930s. To trace such patterns of ambivalence and stereotypes of scientists and science in fiction film, 222 movies were analyzed. It is apparent that modification of, and intervention into, the human body, the violation of human nature, and threats to human health by means of science are depicted as the most alarming aspects of scientific inquiry. The threat is dramatized by being associated with the image of the scientist as pursuing the quest for new knowledge in secrecy, outside the controls of academic institutions and peers. Scientific research as perceived by fiction film is seldom a venture across the boundaries of the permissible.

Public Understanding of Science, Vol. 12, No. 3, 279-287 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0963662503123006


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				N. Russell The New Men: Scientists at Work in Popular British Fiction Between the Early 1930s and the Late 1960s Science Communication, September 1, 2009; 31(1): 29 - 56. [Abstract] [PDF]

				S. G. Terzian and A. L. Grunzke Scrambled eggheads: ambivalent representations of scientists in six Hollywood film comedies from 1961 to 1965 Public Understanding of Science, October 1, 2007; 16(4): 407 - 419. [Abstract] [PDF]