Stereotypes In Media Essay, Research Paper

In Dorothy Nelkin s article The Mystique of Science in the Press she only touches the image of scientist s in the newspaper. Nelkin explains that scientists are described as a combination of wonder-worker and nerd. Today scientists are portrayed through newspapers, movies, television, and books. They are stereotyped by having glasses, being nerdy, geeky, boring, disconnected from life, and super intelligent. Some people might say scientists are wacko. This just means they are very into their work, and seem to look and act stranger then everyone else.

Why are scientist described like this in entertainment? Why are they described at all? Not all scientists fall under each stereotype, but in almost all aspects of entertainment and life a scientist will have atleast one of these qualities.

In movies scientists are portrayed in many different ways. They are described as being evil, a teacher, crazy, or just very intelligent. They have these stereotypes to put people into classes. Scientists are put into these categories because it is easier for people on the outside to understand them.

Anyone described as a scientist can be put into one or more of these stereotypes. For instance Albert Einstein can be described as a scientist because he was super intelligent, a teacher type and a wacko. On the other hand Robert Oppenheimer was considered a brilliant man that was antisocial and very disconnected from the world he lived in.

In today s society we describe scientist because we are afraid of what they know. It is almost normal to classify something or someone we don t understand. Imagine what scientist could do to the world if they really wanted to. In movies, the evil scientists have the capability to destroy countries if not the entire world. What would stop a scientist to do that in real life? Scientists have so much power and people don t realize what or how much power they have.

If everyone knew what each and every scientist was studying would they be called scientist? I think people would consider scientist and their careers normal. People would have no fear of them, so movies would not know how to portray scientist in films. It would be very hard to describe a person or stereotype that type of person as scary as they are described now because they would be considered normal.