Flubber | chemiscool.org

Category:

Film

Synopsis:

Professor Philip Brainard creates a new source of energy that he dubs ‘flubber’ in hopes of saving a struggling Medfield College. His love interest throughout the film, Sarah, is the president of the college. The film is a remake of the 1961 Disney classic “The Absent Minded Professor”.

Context for time depicted:

The movie is set in seemingly present day.

Context for time of production:

The movie was produced in 1997. That year was huge for the movie industry with some of the highest grossing and most popular films of all time being produced then. These films include blockbusters like, Good Will Hunting, Titanic, Jurassic Park, and Men in Black. Many significant scientific advances were also made in this year; the landing of the Mars Pathfinder and the cloning of a sheep.

Assessment:

This movie depicts Dr. Philip Brainard as an absent minded professor and gives him all the stereotypical characteristics described by Frayling, for instance, the messy hair, the white lab coat, the coke bottle glasses. Dr. Brainard is also completely cut off from the outside world. He even misses his own wedding multiple times because he is tinkering in his laboratory. When the movie shows him going to a college basketball game, Dr. Brainard seems like an alien in some foreign land. This movie projects the typical scientist conventions upon Dr. Brainard’s character. Interestingly enough, the antagonist of the film is named Hoenicker, perhaps alluding to Felix Hoenikker in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle.

References:

Frayling, Christopher. Mad, Bad and Dangerous?. London: Reaktion Books, 2005.

Katz, David. "Science and Science Fiction: With Emphasis on Chemistry and Science Fiction." 1999 11.04.2008 http://www.chymist.com/Science%20and%20Science%20Fiction.pdf.

Flubber. Dir. John Hughes. Perf. Robin Williams, Marcia Gay Harden. Disney, 1997

How would this be used?:

In the beginning of the course when students are becoming familiar with the characteristics typically associated with the scientist, this movie could be used to provide an example of how the media facilitates these stereotypes. Dr. Brainard is neither a mad nor a bad scientist. This movie provides a perfect example of a scientist who is steryotyped as the typical mad or bad scientist but does not display any of the moral characteristics. This film would provide a light and fun way to examine the way media portrays the scientist.