{"id":12003,"date":"2015-08-31T16:38:59","date_gmt":"2015-08-31T15:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/?p=12003"},"modified":"2017-01-09T20:38:57","modified_gmt":"2017-01-09T20:38:57","slug":"how-can-hollywood-help-sciamlearning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/2015\/08\/31\/how-can-hollywood-help-sciamlearning","title":{"rendered":"How Can Hollywood Help? #sciamlearning"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared on Digital Science’s Event Blog:\u00a0https:\/\/www.digital-science.com\/blog\/events\/how-can-hollywood-help-sciamlearning\/<\/em><\/p>\n

By Laura Wheeler<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On August 4th, I was honored to be invited to the\u00a03rd annual STEM Summit<\/a>, co-sponsored by\u00a0Scientific American<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Macmillan Education<\/a>\u00a0in New York. It proved to be an inspiring day discussing issues around women in STEM and today\u2019s educational landscape.<\/p>\n

If you want to see what was discussed during the event, I urge you to check out the active social media hashtag\u00a0<\/span>#sciamlearning<\/a>,\u00a0or to read Laura Wind\u2019s summary of the Summit\u00a0<\/span>here<\/a>. The hosts, Mariette DiChristina and Susan Winslow, did a phenomenal job at creating an interactive and thought-provoking day with real outputs.<\/span><\/p>\n

I could pick out many\u00a0highlights from the discussions, but for the purpose of this blog, I am going to concentrate on just one subject that was touched upon during the day- the role of Hollywood in portraying science:<\/p>\n

Should scientists have a role in helping Hollywood portray science and the image of scientists?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

We were fortunate enough to hear from two inspirational scientists,\u00a0Dr. Jon Sotos\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0Dr.\u00a0Donna J. Nelson<\/a>, the scientific advisors for the hit TV\u00a0shows\u00a0House<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Breaking Bad.<\/em><\/a>\u00a0Their session was titled,\u00a0\u201cChanging The Idea Of Who Is STEM<\/em>\u201d and focused on how Hollywood can help.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Jon and Donna<\/em><\/p>\n

Popular media does have an impact on society and\u00a0behaviors, but\u00a0not all examples prove to be accurate. For instance, we were told during the Summit that applications for library cards went up by 500% after \u201cThe Fonz\u201d said he was going to the library to pick up girls in the 1970s hit TV show \u201cHappy Days<\/em>.\u201d It seems that this\u00a0is actually a\u00a0popular myth<\/a>.\u00a0Nevertheless, the sentiment remains and it\u2019s certainly unsurprising to think that a TV show\u00a0might\u00a0have such an impact.<\/p>\n

It would be encouraging if the impact of TV could be\u00a0more\u00a0positive. In contrast to the\u00a0Happy Days\u2019<\/em>\u00a0story,\u00a0an\u00a0article in The Telegraph<\/a>\u00a0featuring\u00a0Professor Ellis Cashmore<\/a>, an author on celebrity and media culture, claims\u00a0the global success of\u00a0Breaking Bad\u00a0<\/em>could be to blame for the\u00a0surge\u00a0in crystal meth suggesting that the hit show\u00a0instantly makes people \u201ccurious\u201d about crystal meth. The inevitable question is: to what extent should the popular media be expected to balance its intended creativity and entertainment with its responsibility to society in general?<\/p>\n

One recent controversial example is the film \u201cGravity<\/a><\/em>\u201d which received acclaim for raising the profile of certain areas of science while at the same time enduring criticism for its lack of scientific accuracy. In order to achieve its main aim of providing an exciting and original piece of entertainment, it seems that certain realities had to be sacrificed. In defence of it, Kevin Grazier, the science adviser for the film,\u00a0reminded its critics<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0\u201cNo one said it was a documentary.<\/em>\u201d Is this an acceptable excuse? Does the plus side of engaging an audience\u2019s interest in a science themed area\u00a0make up for the many inaccuracies in the facts?<\/p>\n

In contrast, the film\u00a0Interstellar<\/a>\u00a0<\/i>won praise for its\u00a0attention to detail in the physics of the piece<\/a>. It has been heralded as inspirational to young people who can gain real insight into topics such as black holes and wormholes without losing any pleasure in the drama of the story. The director of\u00a0Interstellar,<\/i>\u00a0Christopher Nolan, feels that there is no excuse for getting the science wrong in a dramatic presentation, believing that the facts of science can only add to the audience\u2019s fascination with the vast possibilities of the universe.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear Hollywood has a responsibility not only to portray science accurately and alongside that, to support the images of women in STEM. We need to have positive images of scientists in popular media and move away from the perpetuating stereotypes. The session concluded that what we need to do is reveal real scientists and women in STEM, while making sure we don\u2019t romanticise and fictionalise them in the process.<\/p>\n

One comforting fact, however, is that real scientists are being used to advise the scripts of hit Hollywood shows. Although advice can easily be ignored, explained Donna playfully; pure meth would certainly not be blue \u2013 perhaps advice the\u00a0Breaking Bad<\/em>\u00a0directors overlooked? But of course,\u00a0Walt<\/a>\u00a0needed a trademark \u2013 now that\u2019s Hollywood!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared on Digital Science\u2019s Event Blog:\u00a0https:\/\/www.digital-science.com\/blog\/events\/how-can-hollywood-help-sciamlearning\/  … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":12007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,17,175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-communication-and-outreach","category-science-education","category-scientific-american-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}