Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
The overwhelming majority of chemists in movies are represented as
knowing the truth. This portrays scientists as authoritative, and thus cred-
ible, and therefore contributes to authenticity.
And yet, most films dealing with chemistry in one way or another are
meant to frighten their viewers. Roughly a quarter of all chemistry mov-
ies are horror movies (Table 1).
Table 1: Chemistry in movies by genre
Action (4.4%)
Animation (3.3%)
Crime (4.4%)
Family (4.4%)
Film-Noir (0%)
Musical (0%)
Romance (0%)
Satire (0%)
War (3.3%)
Adventure (3.3%)
Comedy (13.3%)
Drama (8.8%)
Fantasy (0%)
Horror (24.4%)
Mystery (2.2%)
Science Fiction (8.8%)
Thriller (13.3%)
Western (0%)
3.11
Preoccupation with the past - alchemy
There is no doubt that the legacy of alchemy had its impact on film
makers throughout the twentieth century as a selection of film titles re-
veals (Table 2), and probably will continue to do so in the twenty-first
century.
The continuity of the occurrence of alchemy raises the obvious ques-
tion of what if anything has changed in the representation of chemistry in
movies over the last century. Our material does not provide a definitive
answer to that question, not least because the disciplinary focus did not
guide the selection of films. Not surprisingly movies dealing with sci-
ence change the appearance of characters and the decorum of their re-
search laboratories following the fads and fashions of the different gen-
res. The creation of life by means of a cumbersome fictitious assortment
of steaming and glowing chemicals that dominated the movies until as
late as the 1990's is slowly being replaced by the clean microscopic
techniques of molecular biology. Cloning has entered the movie scene
rather late, with the exception of very few films like
Boys from Brazil
(1978). But the basic stereotypes, the fears associated with the creation
