Mad scientist as cartoon villain

I am moved to comment on Dave Pieri’s review (Physics Today, November 2006, page 60 ) of the book Mad, Bad and Dangerous?: The Scientist and the Cinema by Christopher Frayling (Reaktion Books, 2005).

Pieri calls attention to and reinforces Frayling’s concern that movie portrayals of scientists often paint a very disturbing picture that may adversely affect public opinion about the value of science and scientists. I am at a disadvantage because I have not yet read the book, but all the movies cited in the review would have been viewed primarily by adults of mature intelligence well able to evaluate critically the relevance of the portrayals.

For a truly horrifying experience, I suggest spending a Saturday morning watching the animated cartoons presented on many TV channels for the amusement and edification of children from about 3 to 10 years of age. The plots are typically struggles between good and evil, with good always winning out. All too frequently the villains are “mad scientists” bent on misusing their knowledge to conquer and rule the world. The heroes are children or teens, to whom the target audience can strongly relate. Subordinate characters frequently include fuddy-duddy incompetent “crackpot inventors” whose Rube Goldberg contraptions are as likely to hinder as to help the heroes or villains, depending on which side the crackpot inventor takes. These portrayals leave on impressionable young minds an indelible image that may persist throughout a lifetime as distrust of science, technology, and their practitioners, and an avoidance of those fields as career choices.

If any formally recognized minorities were so insulted, their antidefamation societies would long ago have sounded the tocsins and mounted the barricades to demand political and legal action against the purveyors of this slanderous trash.

Incidentally, as one who spent his working career on the interface between science and technology, I can claim to have been vilified as both mad scientist and crackpot inventor.