David A. Kirby

The future is now: Diegetic prototypes and the role of popular films in generating real-world technological development

Scholarship in the history and sociology of technology has convincingly demonstrated that technological development is not inevitable, pre-destined or linear. In this paper I show how the creators of popular films including science consultants construct cinematic representations of technological possibilities as a means by which to overcome these obstacles and stimulate a desire in audiences to see potential technologies become realities. This paper focuses specifically on the production process in order to show how entertainment producers construct cinematic scenarios with an eye towards generating real-world funding opportunities and the ability to construct real-life prototypes. I introduce the term ‘diegetic prototypes’ to account for the ways in which cinematic depictions of future technologies demonstrate to large public audiences a technology’s need, viability and benevolence. Entertainment producers create diegetic prototypes by influencing dialogue, plot rationalizations, character interactions and narrative structure. These technologies only exist in the fictional world — what film scholars call the diegesis — but they exist as fully functioning objects in that world. The essay builds upon previous work on the notion of prototypes as ‘performative artefacts’. The performative aspects of prototypes are especially evident in diegetic prototypes because a film’s narrative structure contextualizes technologies within the social sphere. Technological objects in cinema are at once both completely artificial — all aspects of their depiction are controlled in production — and normalized within the text as practical objects that function properly and which people actually use as everyday objects.

Science Consultants, Fictional Films and Scientific Practice

When scientists act as consultants during the production of a fictional film, it becomes an act of communication that plays a role in the process of science. Fictional film provides a space for scientists to visually model their conceptions of nature. Film impacts scientific practice as science consultants utilize film as a virtual witnessing technology to gather allies among specialists and non-specialists. Film not only has the ability to act as a virtual witnessing technology, but also forces consensus on the public version of scientific debates by presenting a single vision of nature in a perceptually realistic structure. This paper shows films to be successful communicative devices within the scientific community by showing that, and how, other scientists respond to the depictions in the films. It also demonstrates that science consultants use fictional films as promotional devices for their research fields.

Scientists on the Set: Science Consultants and the Communication of Science in Visual Fiction

By exploring the relationship between the scientific community and the entertainment industry in the construction of fictional films, this paper investigates the impact that fictional representations, created with the assistance of scientists, have on the construction of scientific knowledge and the public understanding of science. I discuss the nature of science consulting on fictional films, including compensation, consultants’ role in the filmmaking process, and the scientific elements consultants can impact in the films. By questioning the nature of fictional “accuracy, ” I demonstrate that the scientific community’s focus on “scientific accuracy” in fiction is flawed. Fictional film naturalizes both “accurate” and “inaccurate” science by presenting both as “natural” via a perceptually realistic framework.

The Devil in Our DNA: A Brief History of Eugenics in Science Fiction Films

The persistence of eugenic themes in cinema over the last 100 years reflects fundamental societal beliefs about hereditys role as the source of social problems. From its earliest days science fiction cinemas critiques of eugenics were not aimed at the movements underlying assumptions that humanitys fundamental nature lies within its genome and its relationship to social problems. Most science fiction films either implicitly accept these assumptions or incorporate them into their narratives and visuals. At the same time, however, these films criticize anyone who would change human heredity. By accepting the proposition that the essence of humanity, both the good and the bad, is deeply rooted within our genome, science fiction films take a conservative stance by critiquing any attempts to change the elements that make us human.

Hollywood Knowledge: Communication Between Scientific and Entertainment Cultures

There is a longstanding perception among scientists and members of the entertainment industry that they represent two distinct cultures. In this social context, science communication is not merely communication from an expert community to a lay community but is more akin to intercultural communication. This perception has led to the development of a new category of science consultant within Hollywood: ‘boundary spanners’. Boundary spanners take on the identity of a scientific expert in the scientific community and that of a filmmaking expert in the entertainment industry. At the same time, their authority within those communities also rests upon their own unique social identity as a boundary spanner. The boundary spanner’s process involves the synthesis of information from the culture of science, the translation of that information into the culture of entertainment, and finally the transformation of the information into a finished cultural product. For boundary spanners, success is achieved when the transformed product on the screen bears enough resemblance to scientific authenticity to satisfy both the scientific and the entertainment communities.

Forensic fictions: Science, television production, and modern storytelling

This essay uses interviews with television creators, writers, and producers to examine how media practitioners utilise, negotiate and transform forensic science in the production of televisual stories including the creation of unique visuals, character exploration, narrative progression, plot complication, thematic development, and adding a sense of authenticity. Television as a medium has its own structures and conventions, including adherence to a shows franchise, which put constraints on how stories are told. I demonstrate how television writers find forensic science to be an ideal tool in navigating televisions narrative constraints by using forensics to create conflicts, new obstacles, potential solutions, and final solutions in their stories. I show how television writers utilise forensic science to provide the scientific certainty their characters require to catch the criminal, but also how uncertainty is introduced in a story through the interpretation of the forensics by the shows characters. I also argue that televisual storytellers maintain a flexible notion of scientific realism based on the notion of possibility that puts them at odds with scientists who take a more demanding conception of scientific accuracy based on the concept of probability.

Genetic Coming of Age: Genomics, Enhancement, and Identity in Film

Midway through the 1996 film version of The Island of Dr. Moreau the muumuu-clad Dr. Moreau stumbles upon a ren egade band of genetically engineered Beast-People beating on the grand piano in his study. After Moreau delivers a short lecture on Schoenberg and Gershwin, the groups leader, Hyena-Swine, kneels next to his father and asks him, What am I? Moreaus answer, You are my children, is unsatisfactory. Hyena-Swine is confused about this answer, not just because he does not look like his father, but also because he is unable to live up to Moreaus expectations for his genetically modified children. Moreau believes that because he engineered their genomes in a specific way, the Beast-People should be able to conform to his laws of behavior. In fact, Hyena-Swines inability to live up to Moreaus expectations brings forth this confrontation. When a fellow Beast Person is killed for failing to live up to these expectations, Hyena-Swine questions why he, or any of the Beast-People, must live up to these expectations. Hyena-Swine struggles to find his authentic self, but the fact that another person has constructed his genome adds to his confusion during this search. Hyena-Swines sense of self is confused not only by the expectations imposed by his genomic construction, but also by the inherent inequal ity set up between Moreau and his children. Moreau assumes that his position as creator places him at a higher social status, while the Beast People are disadvantaged by their position as creations. Hyena-Swine questions this inequality: We call you Father, yet we are not like you. If they are all men, then why is it that Moreau chooses the laws and controls the distribution of pain? Is he below Moreau as his creation, or is he above Moreau because the scientist endowed him with a genome that Moreau himself selected as superior? Is he even a part of the same species as Moreau? Ultimately, Hyena-Swine determines that while Moreau is a man, Hyena-Swine is a god. Therefore, he kills Moreau to show that he, not Moreau, should determine what is the law.

Knowledge Production Between Popular Culture and Scientific Culture

The increasing fusion of science and entertainment has led to concerns amongst scientists and policy makers about how entertainment depictions might impact public perceptions of science and, thus, influence various arenas of society including science itself. Anxiety over Hollywood science has led many scientists and scientific organizations to become consultants for movie productions in order to influence how stories about science are told through this medium. In this chapter I explore how Hollywood filmmakers have utilized science consultants to examine scripts, participate in pre-production meetings and advise during production. I demonstrate how cinematic science does not merely focus on scientific facts but also incorporates the entirety of the “systems of science”, which includes the visual cultures of science. In addition, I elaborate upon how filmmakers’ growing use of science consultants is linked to an increased desire for cinematic realism over the last 20 years. But I also show how the concept of “accuracy” is not a stable category when applied to movie science because of issues related to fantastical science, scientific controversies, natural variability, and the constraints filmmakers face when attempting to incorporate science into their film texts. In the end I demonstrate how popular cultural images and narratives can have a significant impact on the public’s conceptions of science by provoking reactions from encouraging enthusiasm for the scientific endeavour to instilling fear about science and technology and often both.

Final Frontiers? Envisioning Utopia in the Era of Limits

The history of human space travel is a story about overcoming the limitations that confined us to planet Earth. This volume’s contributions bring to light how new limits to the goal of human spaceflight emerged in the 1970s as societies across the globe became increasingly concerned about environmental impacts, economic inequities and political instabilities. This epilogue shows how the grand expectations and celebrations of outer space accomplishments in the 1960s gave way to a growing awareness of the problems facing humanity on earth in the 1970s and the inability of space exploration to solve these problems. Ultimately, it argues that it is impossible for humanity to overcome its limitations by transcending island Earth, because we will always bring our earthly problems with us.