Dark Matter is a movie.
It is about a brilliant young physics grad student, life at university, and the interaction between a student, his advisor and the academic hierarchy.
Should we be "concerned"?
The movie stars Meryl Streep, directed by Chen Shi-Zheng. It is based on an article written by
The trailer is interesting, it makes me want to see the movie. Even though I know the ending.
Trailer at ComingSoon.
It does not have a happy ending.
It also won the won the Sloan foundation science-in-film prize for best depiction of a scientist in a movie when it debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival (astrology?! - we have a long way to go...).
Thing is, the movie is based on a true story, the University of Iowa shootings, where a graduate student killed five people, his advisor, department head, VP for academic affairs, assistant professor and a fellow graduate student; and he critically injured a student employee.
The movie goes on limited release in mid-April this year, going to selected cities - Berkeley, Madison, Austin... I gather it is then going on general release.
The movie's release was originally delayed because of the Virginia Tech shootings last year, but is now being released just before the anniversary of the shootings.
NYT Review - which cites our very own SciBlogger, Janet!
What surprised me, is the angst I am hearing within academia.
A "what should we do about it" level murmuring - is it a "teaching opportunity"?
Are concerns that it could precipitate new shootings well founded?
Graduate students are not children, most are over 21, adults by any reasonable definition. I would like to think they would not be so affected by a movie, even a well made one.
I, personally, am inclined to think is is a non-issue. Not that the original incident was not serious, I remember it well. But the movie is fictionalized, the incident was some time ago, there have been a number of other university killings since, none really similar as such, the most similar incidents would be the Streleski murder at Stanford, but that was earlier, the Hansen killing at Florida in 1989, and Davidson at SDSU in 1992; and the Fabrikant killings over tenure at Concordia, a year later.
Hm, rough few years back then.
- Log in to post comments
Wow! That trailer was amazing! Not that it looks like a great film (how did they manage to get a glaring science error into a short trailer?) but such a topical film. No wonder people are talking about it! These kind of stories used to be about lawyers and writers and real estate agents ... you know, the sort of people your mother wanted you to be. When did nerds become trendy?
Of course, it wasn't lacking in the usual ditsy blonde and other stereotyping.
Those college killings are typically US phenomena. You don't find those elsewhere, even in violent cities, at least not as systematically. Something to think about. In US people can purchase weapons very easily. I don't know why people with severe mental problems in the US go so much unnoticed and end up having, at a certain point, the impulse of killing many others (and then kill themselves afterwards), specially in schools, etc. I can tell from my country, Brazil. Here you will find violent cities and people with mental problems the same way. But you will not find systematic killings in schools, etc, like in the US. I recall one incident here where a mad man entered a movie theater and shooted several people. But it was an isolated case.
It is more likely that the U.S. has a culture that is isolating rather than supporting and competitive rather than collaborative. People who feel powerless may feel a need to take control, even when they know it is not going to have a favorable outcome.
I'll trade the "99%" for the classic cosmetology joke.
And, if you bend over backwards to give them benefit of doubt, then 99% dark matter is not a crazy statement to make in 1991, if you think the universe is flat and discount the preliminary cluster data.
On the other hand the graphics are strictly 2009, so maybe they should have the WMAP3 data at least. But then "99%" is much more dramatic then "about a 1/4"...
I wish it were an exclusive US thing but it isn't.
There have been a shootings in Germany, one in Finland in November last year -- and even one in Denmark in 1994.
There were probably others, too, in the EU.