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Scrambled eggheads: ambivalent representations of scientists in six Hollywood
film comedies from 1961 to 1965
Sevan G. Terzian and Andrew L. Grunzke
Public Understanding of Science 2007 16: 407
DOI: 10.1177/0963662506067908
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SAGE PUBLICATIONS (www.sagepublications.com)
PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF SCIENCE
Public Understand. Sci. 16 (2007) 407–419
Scrambled eggheads: ambivalent representations
of scientists in six Hollywood film comedies
from 1961 to 1965
Sevan G. Terzian and Andrew L. Grunzke
The American public’s longstanding preference for intelligence over intellect
informed ambivalent portrayals of American scientists in the postwar era. This
essay considers how six popular Hollywood films from a largely neglected
genre—comedy—projected ambivalent images of scientists from 1961 to 1965.
It argues that scientists were often respected for their intelligence, but were
mocked or even feared for their intellect. In the comedic subgenres of the
family film and slapstick, scientists who were safely contained at institutions
of higher education committed merely social transgressions and became
objects of mockery. In the political satire of Dr. Strangelove, however, the
direct threat of nuclear annihilation cast the scientist as an object of fear and a
real threat to the security of the nation. This discussion of popular comedies
thus accounts for an under-studied cultural barometer and powerful medium in
the popularization of science.
1. Introduction
Western societies have historically viewed intellectuals with a degree of ambivalence.1 In 1962,
Richard Hofstadter delineated what he believed to have been a pervasive legacy of “antiintellectualism” in the United States. Distinguishing “intellect” from “intelligence,” Hofstadter
proposed that intellect constituted “the critical, creative, and contemplative side of mind.
Whereas intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, adjust, intellect examines, ponders,
wonders, theorizes, criticizes, imagines.” According to Hofstadter, an array of evangelical, political, economic and educational trends had established a popular preference for intelligence over
intellect (Hofstadter, 1962: 26). Other scholars have similarly cited a prevailing climate of “antiintellectualism” in which “intelligence” (quantifiable, individualistic, and instrumental) is prized
over “intellect” (contemplative understandings involving cultural interplay) (Howley et al., 1995;
Jacoby, 1987; Curti, 1955). Collectively, these accounts identify a historically prominent suspicion
of intellectual inclinations and pursuits in American culture, and a popular desire to harness and
mold such qualities into tangible and practical applications.2
In the postwar era, when Hofstadter wrote his Pulitzer Prize winning work, many
Americans prized intelligence over intellect for particular reasons. After a decade and a half
© SAGE Publications
ISSN 0963-6625 DOI: 11.1077/0963662506067908
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408 Public Understanding of Science 16 (4)
of economic depression and war, many Americans sought security and material prosperity in
a bewildering atomic age. Fears stemming from the Cold War led to an investment in the
nuclear family: “isolated, sexually charged, cushioned by abundance, and protected against
impending doom by the wonders of modern technology” (May, 1989: 153). The unprecedented economic boom from the 1940s to the 1960s, meanwhile, allowed and encouraged
more Americans to seek comfort in material amenities and to believe that limitless growth
was possible without sacrifice (Cohen, 2003; Brinkley, 2001; Whitfield, 1991; Diggins, 1988).
Because of these fears and aspirations, people looked to experts—and particularly scientists—
to apply their intellects to intelligent ends: to enhance the security of the nation, shield the
nuclear family, and elevate the standard of living (Boyer, 1994; May, 1988). As architects of
the atomic bomb, scientists were no longer viewed as merely eccentric but as powerful contributors to the prosperity and security of the nation. The unprecedented rise of federal sponsorship of scientific research in the late 1940s and 1950s, moreover, tied scientists more
closely to national goals and heightened their prestige (Jones, 1975). At the same time, popular anxieties about the perils of the atomic age and accusations of political subversion led
some to doubt that scientists could be trusted with matters that affected national security
(Wang, 1999). In addition, most American youth appeared to dismiss scientists as social misfits whose singular drive for discovery removed them from worldly matters and led them to
neglect their families (Mead and Metraux, 1957). It seemed that the nation valued scientists
for their technological applications (intelligence) but not for their creativity or moral and
political ideas (intellect).
Bruce Lewenstein has shown that because most Americans in the postwar era did not
possess first-hand knowledge about scientists or scientific inquiry, constituent groups such as
commercial publishers, professional scientists, science writers, and government agencies
assumed the task of popularization (Lewenstein, 1992). This essay accounts for an additional
source that projected particular images of science and scientists—Hollywood films—at a time
when their status was both heightened and scrutinized (Jones, 1997, 2001; Goldman, 1989).
The postwar era is a ripe period for investigation, because it was a time of both popular anxiety and quests for stability, a resurgence of anti-intellectualism, and a widespread ambivalence toward scientists (Vieth, 2001; Jones, 1997). Although it is likely that popular films
played a role in shaping the public’s attitudes toward science and scientists (Weingart et al.,
2003), this essay does not aim to determine how that took place. Rather, as studios were
attuned to popular cultural currents in hopes of gaining wide appeal, their representations of
science and scientists were probably informed by their perceptions of such popular views—
a point Marcel LaFollette argues about mass magazines in her interpretation of representations of science and scientists (LaFollette, 1990). While this study accounts for the contexts
of production and some indices of reception (O’Connor, 1990), it focuses primarily on how
some popular Hollywood films in the later years of the postwar era projected fictional scientists to a wide audience.
This essay considers comedies, because as Vivian Sobchack and others have noted,
scholars have devoted considerably little attention to the role of comedic genres in the popularization of science (Sobchack, 2004; Schatz, 2003; Weingart et al., 2003; Jones, 2001). It
examines the following six popular films from 1961 to 1965: the Disney family films, The
Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and its sequel Son of Flubber (1963), as well as The
Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1964) and its sequel The Monkey’s Uncle (1965); the
slapstick comedy of Jerry Lewis’s The Nutty Professor (1963); and the political satire,
Dr. Strangelove (1964).3 These films depict scientists with a kind of ambivalence that
reflected popular perceptions of science and scientists in the postwar era.4 Although projected
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Terzian and Grunzke: Scientists in Hollywood comedies 409
as respected figures for their expertise and roles as protectors of the republic, scientists are
frequently lampooned as impractical and socially awkward misfits who betray the nuclear
family. In one film, Dr. Strangelove, the scientist is also posed as a menacing figure, whose
political authority and unbounded creativity threaten the security of the nation and future of
humanity. The representations of scientists in these popular films exemplify Hofstadter’s
delineation of American ambivalence toward intellectuals in the postwar era.
2. Qualities of film comedies
According to Harry Schein, aspects of a film become humorous when the audience is freed
from dramatic tension through laughter and can assume a kind of dominance over a character that becomes an object of humor. Rather than pity the source of humor, the audience
laughs at its expense, because the situation is too far removed from the realm of possibility or
societal convention to be true (Schein, 1956). Similarly, Raymond Durgnat distinguishes
comedy from drama in that the former can involve a sort of “detachment” and “feelings of
superiority … Comfortably seated in our cinema seats, we laugh with harsh complacency at
the mishaps befalling the unfortunate comedians on the silver screen” (Durgnat, 1970: 20–1).
Calling comedy “a dislocation of drama,” Durgnat proposes that a filmmaker employs a
number of cues to let the audience know that it should not treat the film dramatically or seriously (Durgnat, 1970: 24). Gerald Mast echoes this point in suggesting that features such as
the title, characters and actors, subject matter and plot, dialogue, artistic self-consciousness,
and directorial codes can allow the audience to identify a film as a comedy (Mast, 1979).
On the basis of these considerations, the six films in our sample belong to the genre of comedy in overlapping and distinct ways. The Absent-Minded Professor’s title suggests an eccentric
character, and its plot places fantastic scientific discoveries in an otherwise placid college community. The codes used in the film—such as a flying car or a levitating mass of junk—also convey humor. Son of Flubber’s title includes an absurd sounding word; it, too, combines fantastic
inventions with conventional social situations in a small college setting. The Misadventures of
Merlin Jones’s title not only connotes funny mishaps, but the very name of the title character
juxtaposes an eccentric wizard with a common American surname. The Monkey’s Uncle’s title
suggests that the protagonist (the erudite Merlin) is closely related to a primate. As in the first
two films, the subject matter in The Misadventures of Merlin Jones and The Monkey’s Uncle
conveys humor by placing revolutionary scientific innovations, such as hypnotic learning and
manpowered flight, in a small college setting. The title of The Nutty Professor suggests an
eccentric protagonist; the film’s director, writer, and lead actor, Jerry Lewis, was also one of the
most well-known comics of the early 1960s. Its artistically self-conscious use of other tropes—
a Jekyll and Hyde story as well as allusions to Lewis’s comic peer, Dean Martin—also places
the film in the genre of (slapstick) comedy. Finally, Dr. Strangelove stands apart from the first
five films, because its title does not necessarily connote comedy, and the subject matter is starkly
serious. Nonetheless, its title character’s absurd appearance and mannerisms, as well as the use
of ironic dialogue, place this film in the realm of comedy, albeit political satire.
As Brooks Landon and Cyndy Hendershot have argued respectively, there is an inherent
ambivalence in science fiction film that does not always make clear whether a scientist is a
boon or a threat to society. Technological developments can abet human existence but also
threaten human survival (Hendershot, 1997; Landon, 1992). As each of the comedic films in
our sample can also be classified as science fiction, the scientists are depicted with a degree
of ambivalence: respected for their intelligence but mocked or feared for their intellect.
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410 Public Understanding of Science 16 (4)
3. The scientist as socially awkward, but politically contained
From 1961 to 1965, the Walt Disney Studio released four very well-received family films: The
Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, and The
Monkey’s Uncle. All were directed by Robert Stevenson and cast the American scientist as
lovable and well meaning, but socially awkward and an object of humor. Stevenson was
responsible for directing Disney’s most commercially successful films; he had also been nominated for a Best Director Academy award for Mary Poppins (Nolan, 1969). The impressive
box office receipts for The Absent-Minded Professor (it was the fourth highest grossing film
of 1961) led Stevenson to direct Disney’s first sequel: Son of Flubber (see Table 1 for the box
office figures of each of the films). The same pattern occurred after Stevenson directed the
very successful first Merlin Jones film (Hollis and Sibley, 1988; Variety, 1964, 1965). A director who embraced the parameters of the studio system at a time when directorial “auteurship”
was in ascendance (Variety, 1986), Stevenson made films that he felt audiences wanted to see
and appeared less concerned with artistry or fame: “‘When I’m directing a picture, what I
have in mind is a happy audience, enjoying it in a movie house’” (quoted in Thomas, 1997:
958). Under the umbrella of the powerful Disney Studio and with a director like Stevenson
who sought to appeal to as many people as possible, these four films enjoyed wide exposure
and were unlikely to have offended their audiences. They were more likely to have reflected
mainstream values about science and scientists.
Table 1. Film sample and box office figures
Film
Year released
Annual gross
Annual rank
The Absent-Minded Professor
Son of Flubber
The Nutty Professor
Dr. Strangelove
The Misadventures of
Merlin Jones
The Monkey’s Uncle
1961
1963
1963
1964
1964
$9 million
$7.1 million
[no data available]
$4.4 million
$4.1 million
(projected)
$4 million
#4 (#18 all-time as of 1965)
#9 (#55 all-time as of 1963)
[no data available]
#14
#16
1965
#18
Note: Variety (6 January 1965, p. 39; 6 January 1963, p. 61; 5 January, 1966, p. 6); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
1963_in_film (accessed 23 February 2006); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_in_film (accessed 23 February 2006).
In The Absent-Minded Professor, Ned Brainerd, accompanied by his dog, Charlie, experiments with a new anti-gravitational type of matter (“flubber”) within the confines of his
garage laboratory, as his housekeeper, Mrs. Chatsworth, enters the room:
Professor Brainerd: Just as I thought. Just as I thought, Charlie! Weight makes
absolutely no difference. Just shoot up a few extra gamma rays. Isn’t
that wonderful, Charlie?
Mrs. Chatsworth: Professor!
Brainerd: Are you still here, Mrs. Chatsworth?
Mrs. Chatsworth: What are you doing? What about the wedding?
Brainerd: Oh, I can still make it, Mrs. Chatsworth. It’s 4 or 5 minutes to eight.
Mrs. Chatsworth: Yes, 5 minutes to eight—in the morning! [she opens his shade to
reveal light streaming through]
Brainerd: In the morning! [flubber crashes to the ground] No! No, I didn’t do
it again! I, I’ve got to go and see Betsy. Tell her what happened. I
know what you’re thinking Mrs. Chatsworth, but don’t you worry.
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Terzian and Grunzke: Scientists in Hollywood comedies 411
Mrs. Chatsworth:
Everything’s going to be all right. When I tell Betsy what I’ve got,
she’s going to be the happiest girl in the world. Mrs. Chatsworth—
don’t you tell a soul that I’ve discovered flubber!
That poor, poor girl!
Amid the excitement of his discovery, the absent-minded professor forgets to attend his own
wedding—for the third time. The depiction of Professor Brainerd—as erudite, committed to
his work, yet socially isolated and awkward—constitutes one prominent representation of the
American scientist during the postwar era. In this case, Brainerd’s curiosity and creativity (his
intellect) numb his awareness of practical matters like the time of day and social obligations
(his intelligence).
In both The Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber, Brainerd is a professor at
Medfield College who is caught between his intellectual passion for scientific inquiry and his
intelligent wish to follow social conventions. Although he is determined not to forget his wedding that evening, the professor’s excitement at having discovered flubber nonetheless keeps
him in the garage laboratory all night. Brainerd’s housekeeper, meanwhile, represents the practical intelligence of societal convention. Indeed, Chatsworth’s very name suggests that her
words hold value, unlike the professor who represents what his name implies: a brainy nerd.
When Chatsworth finds the professor in his laboratory the next morning, she stands behind
Brainerd as he reverently gazes at the rising mass of junk fueled by flubber. This shot depicts
the scientist as suspended between his uncontrollable curiosity about the laws governing natural phenomena (represented by flubber) and the rules of social institutions (represented by his
housekeeper). Chatsworth’s complete indifference to the professor’s scientific discovery places
her in opposition to the lure of Brainerd’s intellectual curiosity. As she pulls open the shade to
reveal that morning had arrived, Chatsworth abruptly draws the intellectual’s attention back to
the practical rules of society like the time of day and wedding dates. It is Chatsworth, moreover, who prompts Brainerd to redeem himself socially by attending the college dance so that
he might win back Betsy, his former fiancée. We therefore see Brainerd as one who struggles
to reconcile his conflicting qualities of intellect and intelligence.
In a similar manner, Betsy’s quest to create a secure and comfortable home stands in contrast to Brainerd’s desire to abet human progress through science. In Son of Flubber, when
Brainerd tries to share his excitement about his discovery of “flubber fallout” (an oblique and
benign metaphor for the dangers of nuclear technology), Betsy remains unimpressed and
replies in a condescending tone: “That’s very nice, dear.” In this scene, Brainerd’s impassioned rhetoric about the glories of scientific discovery and the betterment of humanity is
accompanied by march-like and uplifting background music, which evokes the idea that
science will lead in the path to progress. This music does not accompany Betsy’s sanguine
responses, because scientific discovery for her means little without intelligent applications
that could help pay the bills: “I could use a little machine like that right now!” she exclaims
in exasperation. Unlike Brainerd, whose intellect leads him to consider his achievements in
the broadest possible terms, Betsy remains focused on the household.
There are instances when Brainerd’s total absorption by his scientific experiments renders him oblivious to the most obvious developments. For example, we see the absent-minded
professor in the opening scene of the first film giving a lecture on acoustic energy. Brainerd
brandishes his trumpet and lets out a high-pitched blast that breaks all the glass in the room
except the crystal he targets. Remaining fixed on his trumpet, the professor does not seem to
notice that a student’s eyeglass shatters as does a flask that releases a cloud of smoke. In Son
of Flubber, Brainerd appears to defy all convention when he forgets where his weather
machine is pointed and it begins to rain inside his laboratory. He simply wipes the rain off his
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412 Public Understanding of Science 16 (4)
glasses, opens an umbrella inside, and continues to record notes. Only once his notes start to
run does Brainerd realize his accidental creation. As the audience can readily view and recognize what lies beyond the perception of the scientist in these instances, he becomes an affable object of mockery.
Nonetheless, the absent-minded professor has good intentions. Brainerd often seeks
intelligent applications for his scientific discoveries, as he exclaims in the first film: “If flubber’s going to be of use to anyone, we’ve got to control it.” He offers to save his college from
debt and imminent bankruptcy via profits he might garner as the result of his invention. The
professor also assembles super-powered basketball shoes so the Medfield College team can
defeat its mighty rival, Rutland. Affirming capitalist ideals in exclaiming that his discovery
could be worth millions, he ultimately eschews private profit (to the consternation of his wife)
by offering his invention to the US military to serve the nation. Using flubber to allow his old
Model T to fly, he explains to the military officers that his application is meant to be inconspicuous as a “security measure.” As a loyal supporter of his college and the security of the
nation, this academic scientist is no political extremist and translates his creative intellect into
tangible intelligence.
Brainerd also attempts to apply his inventions to another prized institution in the postwar
era: the American family. Although he repeatedly forgets his wedding date and sacrifices private profits, Brainerd devotes considerable effort to rectify his social misdoings. For example,
the professor employs flubber in a pair of dancing shoes in the hopes of regaining his former
fiancée’s affection so that they will marry. In Son of Flubber, Brainerd antagonizes his rival
for Betsy’s love, Professor Ashton, by using flubber gas to make it rain in Ashton’s car. In the
final two scenes of The Absent-Minded Professor, moreover, Brainerd manages to reconcile
his scientific curiosity with his relationship with Betsy. Attending a press conference after
having met with the US president, a reporter asks Brainerd: “Professor, with this great breakthrough in science, do you feel you still have other ‘worlds to conquer’?” Brainerd replies,
“I do” and the scene cuts immediately to his wedding vows. This abrupt editing sequence
suggests that this intellectual exhibits a degree of intelligence by attending to his family.
Whether winning or keeping Betsy’s affection, the absent-minded professor sometimes seeks
to apply his scientific discoveries to promote the stability of his family. Brainerd’s embodiment of the scientist was likely to have resonated with audiences, because he tried to follow
social convention while strengthening the nation and its prized institutions (Hollis and Sibley,
1988; Variety, 1961, 1963a; Crowther, 1963). Although socially awkward because of his intellect, Brainerd proves to be a worthy guardian of the American republic and fulfills the role of
an intelligent scientist who employs his inventions on behalf of higher education, the nation’s
government, and the nuclear family.
Two additional Disney family films—The Misadventures of Merlin Jones and its sequel
The Monkey’s Uncle—uplift the practical ends of science and portray the scientist as socially
awkward. The audience is asked to look at Jones as an affable social misfit. The opening theme
song of the first film introduces Merlin Jones, a scientifically gifted student at Midvale College,
as a “scrambled egghead” and the “campus kook” (Diggins, 1988).5 Merlin also invents a contraption and exclaims: “It works! I wonder what it’s for?” This portrayal pokes fun at the scientist’s apparently unintelligent inability to apply his discovery to useful ends. Although he is
the hero in both films, the young scientist’s awkward appearance also renders him an object of
mockery. As Merlin dons a converted bicycle helmet protruding with springs and electronics in
the laboratory, even his own professor ridicules Merlin in his private thoughts.
In The Monkey’s Uncle, Merlin’s girlfriend, Jennifer, expresses her frustration that the
young scientist appears more absorbed by his scientific inquiries than with their personal relationship or social status within the college community. After finally succeeding to get Merlin
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Terzian and Grunzke: Scientists in Hollywood comedies 413
to notice her new dress, Jennifer becomes frustrated when her boyfriend remarks awkwardly:
“Well, it looks very comfortable.” Like Betsy in The Absent-Minded Professor and Son of
Flubber, Jennifer places much more value on social conventions than on Merlin’s scientific
discoveries. As Merlin attempts to find a way to realize manpowered flight, for instance,
Jennifer urges him to “hurry up and invent that plane so you can take me to the movie.” Upon
learning that Merlin refused to help the football players in the “Mu Mu” fraternity cheat on
their exams, Jennifer laments the lost opportunities for social status: “A girl likes to go to a
dance once in a while instead of spending every night of her life watching scientific experiments.” In contrast to Merlin’s unbounded enthusiasm about his experiments in sleep learning
with his adopted chimpanzee, Stanley, Jennifer remarks in a dry tone, “Isn’t it wonderful,
Stanley?” to suggest that the only one who really cares about the experiment is Merlin. In these
ways, Jennifer’s relative lack of excitement and interest for Merlin’s scientific projects cast the
young scientist as self-absorbed and socially awkward. Merlin even challenges the sanctity of
the nuclear family by attempting to adopt legally the chimpanzee and call him “son.”
Both Merlin Jones films also diminish the importance of intellect in symbolically linking scientific inquiry with hypnosis. Merlin’s accident in The Misadventures of Merlin Jones
makes him a mind reader, and there is a motif in both films about tapping the power of the
subconscious to allow people to accomplish tasks efficiently, unconsciously, and above all,
effortlessly. It renders the ability to perform complex actions without contemplating their
meaning or implications. In the first film, Judge Holmsby commissions Merlin to conduct
hypnotic experiments to help him research a crime novel. In The Monkey’s Uncle, the judge
enlists the young scientist to help members of the football team to pass their classes via an
experimental process known as “sleep learning.” Merlin’s subsequent efforts to help the judge
secure a large endowment for Midvale College by engineering manpowered flight also
depend in part on convincing the participant through sleep learning that he can indeed fly.
Although Merlin enjoys a measure of success in applying his scientific skills to these ends,
the prizing of effortless learning in these films further devalues the scientist’s intellectual
curiosity for discovery while it champions intelligent applications and outcomes. As Merlin
advises one of the football players about to sleep with electrodes connecting his head to an
instructional phonograph, the message is to “Just empty your mind.”
Jerry Lewis wrote, directed, and acted in The Nutty Professor in 1963. He played the role
of the physically grotesque Professor Julius Kelp and his ill-mannered, lounge-singing alter
ego. Lewis’s role as an “auteur” belonged to a growing movement in this period in which
some screenwriters and directors began to enjoy more creative freedom from studios (Cook,
1978–9). Lewis operated almost entirely on his own, with far less studio input than Robert
Stevenson had likely received from Disney (Selig, 1990). As a result, Lewis’s artistic vision
in The Nutty Professor and his depiction and dramatization of the scientist may not necessarily have been as congruent with public perceptions and preferences as in the four Disney
films. There is no indication that it enjoyed the same degree of financial success (see Table 1),
but Lewis’s status as one of the nation’s “kings of comedy” made it likely that the film did
not toil in obscurity (it was remade in 1996).6
As in the four family comedies, the scientist in this slapstick comedy is depicted as
socially deficient. In the film’s first scene, Kelp conducts ill-conceived chemical demonstrations to his science class, which end up destroying his classroom. The camera shot does not
reveal the scientist’s face, and smoke emanates from the tubes and beakers in the experiments.
After the experiment goes awry and results in an explosion, the school’s administrators immediately suspect that it was the nutty professor who caused the disruption. The opening scene
in The Absent-Minded Professor also incorporates smoke in a similar way. As it envelops
Brainerd, this special effect suggests that his scientific inquiries render him oblivious to those
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414 Public Understanding of Science 16 (4)
around him: lost in the fog of his own intellectual curiosity. Given Lewis’s tendency to borrow from established Hollywood subgenres, he may have in fact been importing this trope
from The Absent-Minded Professor (Selig, 1990). In some respects, Kelp is an animated version of Ned Brainerd, or as one film reviewer suggested, “the professor played by Lewis is a
kind of live-action version of the near-sighted Mr. Magoo who suffers from typically cartoonlike mishaps” (Variety, 1963b).
The nutty professor also lacks the social and physical fortitude to earn the respect of his
students, peers, and family. One film reviewer referred to Kelp’s physical unattractiveness and
personal impotence in describing him as “a shy gargoyle of a college chemist” (New York Times,
1963). Kelp’s student, Stella Purdy, does find him attractive, but the film highlights the ineptitude of the scientist in social and sexual matters. Unable to exercise physically (with the scientific research to show that certain individuals are incapable of physical fitness), the professor
turns to science to invent an elixir that will render him sexually appealing, but ultimately boorish. Kelp even endures the ridicule of his own father who interrupts the professor’s science class
in the film’s final scene: “If it isn’t the square bookworm we laughingly refer to as our son.”
Kelp’s father represents the successful American entrepreneur, who smokes a cigar and urges
his awkward son to do the same: “Here you are square bookworm, have a cigar.” Physically
weak and socially timid, Kelp does nothing to thwart his father’s disruption and ridicule.
Moreover, in offering to sell extracts of Kelp’s elixir for virility, the nutty professor’s father
draws the students’ attention away from the lesson’s scientific principle and toward a commercial product of science. Having transformed the professor’s scientific discovery into a profitable
commodity, the businessman, although crass and distasteful, exemplifies the practical intelligence that eludes the physically unappealing and socially maladjusted scientist.
In each of these five comedic films, the scientist is portrayed as more awkward and lucky
than skilled, creative, or critical. Brainerd’s, Jones’s, and Kelp’s scientific discoveries result
more from accident than careful method. A haphazard explosion in Brainerd’s laboratory yields
his major invention, the anti-gravitational green ooze of flubber. In Son of Flubber, Brainerd discovers that he switched positive and negative signs in one equation, which had prevented him
from using flubber gas to control the weather. An unintended consequence of his weather control machine (“flubber fallout”) breaks all the glass in an area and causes crops to grow to gargantuan sizes. Similarly, in The Nutty Professor, Kelp’s development of the elixir that makes the
unattractive attractive results from identifying the correct formula and appears more fortuitous
than based on scientific theory. Merlin Jones’s electrical accident gives him the power to read
other people’s thoughts, although he does not know why. Creative thought and logic are reduced
to luck, a tendency documented by Peter Weingart, Claudia Muhl, and Petra Pansegrau’s analysis of science and scientists in popular film (Weingart et al., 2003). These examples also cast the
scientist’s work in the laboratory as mysterious and wizard-like (Weart, 1988).7
As historian John C. Burnham has found, moreover, popular portrayals of science
emphasized tangible results and diminished the methods of investigation (Burnham, 1987).
Each of these films places greater emphasis on the practical products of science than the
processes of intellectual inquiry. Even Brainerd’s wife scrutinizes his weather machine in
Son of Flubber: “Why does everything you do have to be earth-shattering? Couldn’t you
work on something to help me around the house? … [like making] trash can lids that actually fit the tops of trash cans?” The perplexed professor responds: “Trash can lids?” Most
Americans in the postwar era preferred scientists who would happily apply their knowledge
to create new and useful commodities. Most did not realize that one must first establish the
supporting theory upon which the engineering of the products depends (Jones, 1975).8
Furthermore, Hollywood encountered obvious challenges in presenting esoteric achievements (say, in quantum and nuclear theory) in a form fit for the medium of film and mass
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Terzian and Grunzke: Scientists in Hollywood comedies 415
entertainment. The result in these films was a simplified portrait of the American scientist:
attempting occasionally to be intelligently practical, but hindered by his creativity and consuming intellectual curiosity.
None of these scientists—Brainerd, Jones, nor Kelp—is cast as a threat to American
society. Each possesses good intentions and is housed at an institution of higher education. In
those contexts, his awkwardness is both comical and endearing. Taken together, they represent the popular preference for scientists in the postwar US: erudite experts who would harness their intellects to yield tangible applications like flying cars, hypnotic learning, and
enhanced virility. These “benign” intellectuals were thus easy to tease. As the next section
will discuss, however, a more dangerous variant of the awkward scientific intellectual is one
whose allegiance to the United States in the Cold War is less certain. In the comedic subgenre
of political satire, the scientist possesses significant political power and is more an object of
anxiety rather than mockery.
4. A dangerous variant: the scientist as a liability in the nuclear age
In this section, we consider a destructive figure in the ambivalent portrayal of the non-academic
scientist in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, a political satire that speaks directly to the
threat of nuclear war. Widely viewed in its first year of release (see Table 1), Kubrick’s work
was generally free of studio oversight. Columbia Pictures, which paid for the film’s production and distribution, did not hold script approval rights.9 This arrangement allowed the director
to create a film that confronted audiences with an exceptionally controversial theme: a story
of nuclear annihilation presented in the comic mode (Kirshner, 2001; Gessner, 1964–5).10
Kubrick himself had researched extensively the topic of nuclear war, and he wanted to present his audience with a plausible and disturbing scenario (Maland, 1979). In this respect, Dr.
Strangelove differs from the other films discussed in this essay, which rarely address the
threat of atomic weaponry and do so only metaphorically—in the form of “flubber fallout,”
for instance. In his analysis of comedy, Harry Schein has argued that “there is a boundary
delimiting matters that do not permit of laughter.” For a character to be funny, “the threatening danger is going to strike not us but somebody else” (Schein, 1956: 25, 27). Given the overt
threat of nuclear destruction in the film, and with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 still fresh
in the minds of many Americans, the audience’s response to this political satire was likely to
have vacillated between laughter and horror.
Dr. Strangelove portrays the scientist as unpredictable and potentially destructive. Some
of his transgressions are social. As with most of the other scientists discussed in this essay,
the scientist violates the importance of the nuclear family. In the film’s penultimate scene,
after the first atomic bomb has exploded and before the Doomsday device has destroyed the
world, Strangelove proposes a way to save humanity. A limited number of people will retreat
to a deep mineshaft with supplies until the Earth’s surface becomes inhabitable again. Much
to the delight of General Buck Turgidson, Strangelove’s plan involves taking ten times as
many women as men into the mineshaft to facilitate repopulation. In effect, on the eve of the
nuclear destruction of the planet, the scientist advocates the demise of the nuclear family: the
very institution that had represented the psychological buffer from the threat of nuclear
annihilation (May, 1988). However logical the recommendation may be, it indicates that
Strangelove feels that the power of his scientific ideas supersedes the cultural and moral priorities of American society. Here, the scientist’s intellect (a creative and critical impulse)
threatens American societal norms and distorts his practical intelligence (namely, the idea to
save the lives of Americans).
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416 Public Understanding of Science 16 (4)
Strangelove’s hands can also be seen as representing his failing struggle to achieve a desirable balance between intellect and intelligence. The scientist slips into fascist salutes with his
black, gloved hand that he has difficulty controlling. Strangelove even chokes himself with that
hand at one point. In some respects, his gloved hand represents the uncontrollable and unpredictable characteristics of intellect, which in conjunction with his political authority, is dangerous to the public. By contrast, Strangelove can control his bare hand with which he
calculates practical figures in estimating the number of years required to remain in the mineshaft before ascending. This other hand can be seen as representing the scientist’s intelligence.
The futility of the scientist’s plans for human survival, however, suggests his artificial hand’s
dominance and the destructive power of his unpredictable and impractical intellect.
Detached from human emotions, the scientist’s cold logic and intellectual capabilities
solidify him as an object of fear (Maland, 1979). When President Merkin Muffley expresses
his moral reservations about having to decide who should be chosen to enter the mineshaft,
Strangelove responds that the selection could be determined clinically: by a computer based
on particular criteria. His scheme evokes the Nazis’ designs to breed a pure race. It is also
important to note that Strangelove does not speak about saving “humanity,” but instead “to
preserve a nucleus of human specimen.” His choice of words is sterile and void of feeling.
Again, when the president voices a concern that the human survivors would be despondent or
guilt-ridden, the scientist proclaims confidently that they will instead possess “a bold curiosity for the adventure ahead.” Denying that the survivors would be traumatized, Strangelove
asserts that the “prevailing notion would be one of nostalgia for those left behind.” Like his
counterpart in the family films, this depiction of the scientist is comedic. Strangelove appears
and behaves so far beyond accepted social practice that he is ludicrous. However, the overt
theme of imminent nuclear destruction in this political satire renders the scientist both awkward and dangerous. Like the scientists in the family film, Strangelove is funny; unlike them,
he is neither sympathetic nor endearing.
Because he commands the attention of those in power, Strangelove represents a dangerous intellectual. The ways in which Kubrick presents Strangelove in the penultimate scene
accent the scientist’s authority. Strangelove rolls into the light from the dark, and as he outlines his plan for human survival, the scientist is circled by dark figures listening attentively.
In addition, the camera points to Strangelove from below, which suggests that people look up
to him as an authority figure. By contrast, shots of the president and General Turgidson in that
scene are at eye level. Kubrick also cuts to a close-up of Strangelove’s face half in shadow.
Vivian Sobchack has suggested that Kubrick’s filming and lighting tactic derives from
German Expressionism and monster movies, which casts the scientist as a menacing figure
(Sobchack, 2004). We are emphasizing here that Strangelove is also powerful, because the
director’s techniques portray this scientist as a character who commands the attention of
politicians and military officials. Despite his privileged position as an advisor to the president,
Strangelove exhibits little allegiance to the United States. His occasional references to the
president as “mein Führer” expose his Nazi sympathies and refer to the presence of German
scientists who had moved to the US after the war. In this film, that development comes at a
great cost, as Strangelove’s fascist leanings prove to be a catastrophic liability.
5. Conclusions
These six Hollywood comedies from 1961 to 1965 project multiple images of the American
scientist as an intellectual who is precariously stationed on the margins of acceptable cultural
parameters, often socially inadequate and not practically intelligent. The scientists possess
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Terzian and Grunzke: Scientists in Hollywood comedies 417
varying degrees of control over natural phenomena or even other people, but all are depicted
as awkward. The recognition and esteem of the scientist are mitigated by either his buffoonish behavior or his threat to the nation and humanity. The androgynous Dr. Strangelove’s fascist convulsions embody political extremism. He betrays the nuclear family and contributes
to the destruction of the nation and possibly all of humanity. More benign versions of the
American scientist appear in the affable, but socially maladjusted, characters of Ned Brainerd,
Merlin Jones, and Julius Kelp. Generally confined to institutions of higher education, they
possess far less political power than Strangelove and are not menacing. As director Robert
Stevenson sought to create “‘a happy audience,’” (Thomas, 1997), Brainerd and Jones appear
as intellectuals whose major transgressions are social, not political. The absent-minded professor has to work hard to prove his worth to skeptical military leaders. Mrs. Chatsworth and
corporate salesmen posit the possible applications of Brainerd’s discovery of flubber in
domestic terms that would bolster the nuclear family: to transform the home from a “bear
trap” into a “love nest.” Similarly, Merlin’s scientific prowess is harnessed in both films by
Judge Holmsby and directed to useful ends—like publishing best-selling crime novels and
fielding winning football teams. In Jerry Lewis’s The Nutty Professor, even Kelp’s father
hawks his potion to students as a desirable scientific commodity. As nuclear bombs and communists yield to flying cars, hypnotic learning, and scientifically induced virility, with prodding from other characters these scientists occasionally yield intelligent applications to help
shield and comfort Americans in an atomic age.
Errol Vieth has observed in his study of science fiction films of the 1950s that it is the
practical engineer who often serves as a foil to the misdirected and misunderstood scientist
(Vieth, 2001). All four of the fictional scientists discussed in this essay possess stronger intellects than intelligence. They are objects of mockery or fear depending on whether they possess the power to threaten the safety of the nation or the nuclear family. These scientists are
esteemed when they surmise practical applications to their creative ideas and discoveries.
Richard Hofstadter’s lament in 1962 about the widespread preference for intelligence over
intellect thus applies to some popular portrayals of American scientists. This ambivalent characterization appeared when various interest groups including professional scientists, commercial publishers, science writers, and government officials tried to arouse public interest in
science by depicting it as beneficial and a vehicle of progress (Lewenstein, 1992).
Hollywood’s images of scientists were not so flattering. They did not derive from advocates,
but reflected much of the American public’s ambivalence about the simultaneous dangers and
promises of science and scientists in an era of hope and anxiety.
Notes
1 The Oxford English Dictionary (1978: 368–70) defines an “intellectual” as one who has “superior powers” as
well as “a high degree of understanding.” At the same time, its definition of “intellectualism”—“devotion to
merely intellectual pursuits”—implies that such an orientation is narrow, intangible, and not as important as
material endeavors. Those who possess such qualities are somehow “cold” and too busy contemplating problems
to be able to take action.
2 Jacoby (1987: 72) describes intellectuals as “critical writers and thinkers,” distinguishes them from “hired
experts and technicians,” and hints that they have historically been critical of the state and other established
forms of power (pp. 106–8).
3 Robert Stevenson (director), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961); Robert Stevenson (director), Son of Flubber
(1963); Robert Stevenson (director), The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1964); Robert Stevenson (director),
The Monkey’s Uncle (1965); Jerry Lewis (director), The Nutty Professor (1963); Stanley Kubrick (director),
Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb (1964).
4 Weingart, Muhl, and Pansegrau (2003) have analyzed ambivalent features of the portrayal of scientists in popular films. In our essay, we identify additional elements of ambivalence: the scientist as an object of humor and
mockery.
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418 Public Understanding of Science 16 (4)
5 “Egghead” was a term coined to deride 1952 and 1956 presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson, as too intellectual.
6 We were unable to locate comparable issues of Variety that listed box office figures for The Nutty Professor, so direct
comparisons to the four Disney films are not possible. Unlike The Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber
which appeared on all-time grossing lists in the mid-1960s, The Nutty Professor did not appear on such lists, but Jerry
Lewis’s popularity as one of the nation’s leading comics probably led to a wide distribution of this film.
7 To be sure, the “scientific method”—as promoted by scientists, science educators, and science journalists—has
tended to oversimplify the processes of scientific inquiry and many scientific discoveries have resulted from
accidents or unintended consequences. The point here is that these filmic images of science stand in contrast to
many of the popular images of science depicted by science journalists and educators in the postwar era.
8 Most Americans, for instance, were under the false impression that the technology of the atomic bomb was hidden in a secret formula that could be protected at all costs. They did not realize that American scientists working on the Manhattan project could not have succeeded without recourse to theoretical (and seemingly
impractical) research from the 1920s and 1930s. As a result, most could not understand why some atomic scientists advocated international control of atomic technology.
9 The film’s sensitive subject matter led Kubrick to film it not in the US, but in England. Originally scheduled for
release in the late fall of 1963, moreover, it was delayed a few months because of the nation’s shock over the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Durgnat, 1970: 199, 220).
10 Kirshner (2001) argues persuasively that Dr. Strangelove transcended the politics of the Cold War and mocked
humanity in general for risking complete annihilation. We contend that the character of Dr. Strangelove is presented
as an object of ridicule for playing a part in nuclear proliferation, as well as for violating social conventions.
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Authors
Sevan G. Terzian, Ph.D., is currently Associate Professor in social foundations of education
and coordinator of the graduate programs in social foundations of education at the University
of Florida. He has written articles about the history of science education in the postwar United
States. Correspondence: School of Teaching and Learning, University of Florida, PO Box
117048, Gainesville, FL 32611-7048, USA; e-mail: [email protected]
Andrew L. Grunzke, M.A.T., is currently a doctoral candidate in the social foundations of
education program at the University of Florida. His scholarly interests include the roles of
popular media in American culture. He is currently researching the history of utopian literature in the education of American youth.
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