Gentle Reader, help me out here: Did I accidentally write Tuesday's post in crazy moon-language? The response to that coordinated swarm of movie reviews - from people who are affiliated with Sizzle, as well as people like Chris Mooney, who just plain liked it - appears to be that those of us who hated the movie are just powerpoint-obsessed scientists who don't understand. It makes me wonder if anyone actually read my review. The Sizzle team sent out an email:
The bottom line is that we see two groups of viewers. One group who are interested in the facts and accuracy, and they want to know what is real in a movie and what isn't. The other group really isn't that concerned about the fact/fiction divide and mostly just want to enjoy a fun story, AND prefer there not be too much information (these people love Marion because he interrupts the scientists interviews and stops the flow of information).
I am accustomed to people thinking that I carry around some kind of political correctness billy-club in an uncomfortable locale, and that the only reason I don't laugh at their stilted caricatures is that I have sublimated my natural sense of humor into a twisted joy in gratuitously taking offense. I was expecting that one; I'm actually surprised it got so little play. The idea that I've got a stick up my butt about wanting to see movies that more closely resemble scientific conference presentations, though, is delightfully novel. Of course, now that I think about it, a secret desire for bland facial expressions and uninflected speech might just explain why I ever bother to see stuff starring Keanu Reeves...
And I definitely don't want to see AGU attendees adopt conventional cinematic storytelling techniques. I mean, really, what would happen?
- 90% of talks would focus on a controversial, exotic geohazard that immediately threatens at minimum a major city, and preferably the entire planet. Talks on bread-and-butter basic research would not be accepted.
- The standard answer to weird or pointed questions wouldn't be "that's interesting, let's discuss it after the session" - it would be "goddammit, there's no time for that!"
- If I were there at all, then after my talk - which would be less than 10 seconds long including scene transitions - I would shake my hair out of its bun, undo a couple of buttons, and transform into a sexy love interest for the movie's main character.
- After giving my talk, I would not discuss my own work ever again, except insofar as it can be used to back up whatever the male hero of the conference has to say. I would especially not talk about my work with other women.
- That male hero would probably be a "maverick" - I would be stuck fawning over a pseudoscientific crank.
- At the Fall Meeting in San Francisco, earthquakes would occur near the conclusion of every important talk. Other, regionally appropriate interruptions (terrorists or congressional staffers with urgent business in D.C.? Mounties who wander in just to say "eh?" and "aboot" in Toronto?) would occur during the spring Joint Assembly.
- Instead of sensible jargon, we would all speak in technobabble, failing to notice that terms like "antiseismicator", "Richter scale readout", and "lava crater" are wholly non-cromulent.
... Nah. It just sounds like a bad idea, and I don't want my career to have that many explosions.
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"The bottom line is that we see two groups of viewers. One group who are interested in the facts and accuracy, and they want to know what is real in a movie and what isn't. The other group really isn't that concerned about the fact/fiction divide and mostly just want to enjoy a fun story..."
Not concerned about the fact/fiction divide? WTF does that mean?!
I haven't seen the movie, but read some of the reviews from bloggers here at Sb ... I don't think I'm going to bother seeing it.
If factual science is so unentertaining that they need to disregard the "fact/fiction divide" then we have big problems. Ugh.
I somehow suspect it isn't your butt that is embracing the stick.
By the way, I enjoy your blog here. Thanks.
Then again, maybe "goddammit, there's no time for that!" would be a good thing if the questioner were known for long-winded exposition about how much better their work is than what was just presented.
I would wholeheartedly vote to introduce abrupt and precisely targeted meteorite impacts into sessions where the speaker runs way over their time and the moderators are too polite/lazy/ineffectual to point it out.
On a more serious note, I'd say that the people who are whining about how scientists are too concerned with fact vs. fiction when critiquing movies need to stop and realize that scientists are tired of putting up with a public that learns most of its science from these movies. And usually does it so badly that scientists waste a good chunk of their lives trying to correct misconceptions and defend their work.
I do, however, want my career to involve explosions, but that's probably a symptom of wanting to be a volcanologist. :)
My friends used to get extremely angry at me every time the Star Trek NG opener came on and I shouted "There's no sound in a vacuum, there's no sound in a vacuum!" At least they got the red-shifting and blue-shifting of the ship as it sped towards/away from the viewer correct.
I think the Sizzle people's methodology is to have the internet generate a wide selection of poorly constrained content, from which they can cherrypick the bits that they want.
In that way it is quite similar to the GW denialist tactics.
But c'mon now, let us be positive here. How about a listing of content, in any medium, which addresses the issue of global warming but is actually funny?
In response to Chuck's comment: I thought The Day After Tomorrow was hilarious. Especially when the wolves were chasing Jake Gyllenhaal through NYC. But then I laughed all the way through Dante's Peak, too.
I'm with Tuff Cookie on the usefulness of "goddamit, there's no time for that!" during conference presentations.
I wholeheartedly agree with Tuff Cookie--I've long felt that Americans have learned physics from Road Runner and Bugs Bunny cartoons (If you run off a cliff, you do not begin to fall until you look down) as well as from movies such as Godzilla. The irrational thinking and fears they have come away with have serious consequences on political actions taken (or not taken) with regard to education, global warming, etc.
At the Fall Meeting in San Francisco, earthquakes would occur near the conclusion of every important talk.
And of course this is when we would discover that the Moscone Center isn't exactly earthquake safe. You wouldn't have to undo your bun or unbutton your dress--dodging the falling steel beam (or being pushed out of its path by the hero) would do the trick.
Historical irony: The first two AGU Fall Meetings I went to were in Brooks Hall at the Civic Center. The reason AGU moved to the Moscone Center was because Brooks Hall had to close for a seismic retrofit--it wasn't up to local earthquake codes.
So who would the villain be?
(Or are we supposed to pick him from the ominous music that accompanies his power point presentation?)
You could tell the villains by their foreign accents. Wait, that would make half the people at AGU villains.