[ SECRET POST #2449 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2449 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 041 secrets from Secret Submission Post #350.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: I ♥ Newt.

[(Anonymous)]

OP

That's an interesting way to look at it, comparing old and new conventions around science and scientists. I had taken it more as a theoretical vs. applied sciences kind of dichotomy, but I definitely agree that a social, chronological interpretation works well too.

(To be entirely fair, before this job came up, I had very little exposure to actualfax people as scientists; most of my crowd of people tended to be among the soldiering types. So the majority of my exposure, maybe wrongly, was through media portrayals, from movies to newscasts.)

I think probably the more inclusive, energized, creative image of Newt helped broaden my perception of "scientist". Where not everyone has to be like Hermann to be a scientist, or to have valuable contributions to a field.

Re: I ♥ Newt.

[nyxelestia]

Media portrayals are a powerful thing, in many aspects. (Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space, would never have come about if she hadn't grown up watching Nichelle Nichols play Lt. Uhura on Star Trek and providing an example of a black woman being something other than a maid).

And definitely, if you look at portrayals of scientists - especially the brilliant ones - prior to the last decades or two, they fall into two distinct categories: 1.) characters of the movie's genre in a labcoat (i.e. action star in a labcoat, comedy star in a labcoat, etc) or 2.) a lot like Herman - anti-social/under-socialized, disabled somehow, so smart they don't seem to function in the real world, typically old or at least acts old, etc. That, or so eccentric they are just flat out crazy (think Doc Brown from Back to the Future). The idea that a scientist can be like Newt - random/average citizen, cool, young, energetic, etc is a new thing, and still on the uptake.

Often times, even when you do get a "cool" scientist, it ends up not being being the focus of their characters (i.e. MCU scientsts Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, and Jane Foster fall into this new trope of being cool or energetic, but for all of them being a scientist isn't their defining role/characteristic in the story as it is for Newt, but merely a supplement to the main roles of superheroes and love interests). With the advent of people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs entering into public consciousness - nerds, drop-outs, etc who go on to be rich and successful - we are starting to see the sciences and nerd culture become dominant and mainstream, and the perception of being a scientist is slowly but steadily following suit.

/media ramble

Re: I ♥ Newt.

[(Anonymous)]

OP

Thank you for the ramble, it was very informative, an you fleshed out pretty much all of the inchoate ideas I had about media portrayals of scientists.

I especially like the point you made about the cool scientists whose focus isn't science; almost like a backlash against the earlier representation of scientists who are consumed by their work.

It was pretty amazing to have a guy in a popular movie that people could like and identify with, who loved his job, which happened to be science, and who had good points and bad points as a person.