Academia in the movies

[jon cocktoe]

I've lately become more aware of how the academic world is portrayed in movies. Perhaps it's just because I'm in the middle of the app process, but I find it interesting nonetheless. I also wonder how accurate some of these portrayals are because a general audience has no way of knowing, and in some cases I would imagine that the filmmakers don't have a lot of experience in the academic world either (of course I could be wrong). Here are a few that I've seen recently:

1. I've Loved you so Long. French drama about a woman who was recently released from prison and goes to live with her sister's family. The sister is a professor of literature at what looks to be a large university. Sis laments about how she hasn't had time to go to conferences and publish since she adopted two kids, teaches both lecture and seminar classes, is periodically harassed about minor department issues, but otherwise seems pretty close with most of her colleagues. It seems like a reasonable image to me, and being an academic in France seems like a sweet deal.

2. Away We Go. A young couple travels around the country looking for a place to call home before they have their baby. In the search, they visit a cousin in Madison named L.N. who is a professor of gender studies. I thought this was a particularly cruel portrayal of academics as overly opinionated, liberal to a fault, judgmental, and at times vacuous ("I have a great quote about that by Simone de Beauvoir... somewhere!"). On the other hand, L.N. has an absolutely beautiful office, and Madison looks like a story book university setting (the caveat is that I heard most of the movie was filmed in CT).

3. The Squid and The Whale. A family with two boys going through a divorce. The father is an English professor whose academic pretension and opinions rub off on his teenage son. His life is generally a mess, and in the scenes where he is shown in class, he seems less than inspired with the exception of his attractive female students.

That's all I can think of for now. Feel free to list any movies you've seen that portray any aspect of academic life.

[watersnake]

"Wonder Boys" is so good!

"Smart People"

[watersnake]

Oh, and "P.S."- great little movie with Laura Linney. Topher Grace plays an MFA applicant who has an affair with a woman in Columbia's admissions office. Gabriel Byrne plays a sex addicted professor. Good stuff.

[zilch]

Good Will Hunting

Flubber

The Nutty Professor

[JerryLandis]

The Squid and the Whale is great. I think the most common one would be Indiana Jones, as far as memorable, idealized portrayals of academia are concerned.

A pet peeve of mine is when movie characters are made to be perfect students, despite never seeming to spend any time working. It's like being a perfect student is on some invisible checklist of characteristics of the perfect female, right alongside perfect hair, nice clothes and unrealistically expensive apartment. Although I consider myself to be not far from a great student, and I try to make myself look nice, frankly I look like shit when I'm in the academic zone (pjs, wet unbrushed hair, eyebrows in need of some plucking, etc.), and I sure as hell don't have time to sit around in coffee shops all day with my friends. When I initially wrote this down I was thinking specifically of Ashley Olsen's movie characters, but I think Ross from friends is also quite appropriate, as well as Marshall and Ted from How I Met Your Mother. Ross: How does a successful, obsessed paleontologist manage to rack up so many hours just hanging out? Marshall: I know law students tend to spend a lot of hours drinking, but I can't imagine a successful student at Columbia Law School would have enough time in the day to go on impromptu roadtrips halfway across the country for a slice of pizza, craft elaborate props and costumes for every social occasion, spend mealtimes languishing at the pub gossiping with friends, etc. And lastly Ted: I don't really believe that in just a couple of months, someone could singlehandedly design an entire skyscraper in their spare time. Also, I was not aware that simply being an architect for a couple years would qualify someone to walk into a job as a professor at Columbia University. When I watched those episodes, I felt sorry for professors of architecture out there in the world whose hard earned careers were trivialized by that story line!

Okay, my rant is over. Sorry, no films, sadly I'm not intellectual enough for that!

[socialpsych]

A Beautiful Mind?

I haven't actually seen it myself, but it's the first thing that came to mind.

[peppermint.beatnik]

I second "Wonder Boys" Definitely captures the grad school atmosphere.

[tskinner]

Proof: based on the Pulitzer Prize winning play, Proof.

[pea-jay]

Kevin Spacey as the professor in "21" which is about a team of MIT students that Spacey mentors to count cards in Black Jack which they used to rip off vegas casinos. Kinda based on a true story.

[NorthernStar]

A Single Man: it's a MUST SEE little gem, starring Colin Firth about a gay professor in an American university in the early 1960s (same temporal framework as Mad Men, set designed by the same people, John Hamm in a voice cameo).

Le Declin de l'empire americain & les invasions barabres: two fantastic French-Canadian films about a bunch of academics and their petty little lives. Wholeheartedly recommended. (the latter is a sequal of the former)

[NorthernStar]

speaking of romanticized audio-visual representations of academia, have you guys seen the last season of Californication?

[joro]

American Pie?

[tskinner]

American Pie?

My, my!

[JerryLandis]

A Serious Man

[unclelurker]

Van Wilder

Animal House

PCU

Legally Blonde

Rules of Attraction

The Serpent and the Rainbow

Any movie with an academic character, supporting or otherwise, or even an academic or research setting (Jurassic Park) works for this thread.

[unclelurker]

The best for last.

Filmed on UCLA campus, with UCLA crew team members as extras... And highly predictive of a world ten years beyond its premise.

How High.

[expressionista]

Duke:

St. Elmo's Fire

St. Elmo's Fire is actually set around Georgetown. I love that movie!

[unclelurker]

The Saint. Yea for cold fusion!

Ghostbusters. I AND II.

(all of the above are on Hulu. not to shamelessly plug more time frittering, but the thread does ask for it.)

X men - sort of academic. I mean, he is The Professor.

The Human Stain.

The best evil scientist 2009 has got to be in The Doctor/Cobra Commander in GI JOE, retitled 'laser tag'. That character is also based on real life. I forgot what this thread was about. Characters in academia in movies, or the reality of the portrayal? Because the Informant shows how research in private industry can go awry, just like Cobra Commander's efforts to rule the world.

[naptown]

Someone mentioned Indiana Jones... How about those godawful, campy, made-for-tv "The Librarian" movies?

"Flynn Carsen (Noah Wyle) was a quiet bookworm whose 12 bachelor's degrees, six master's degrees, and four Ph.D.'s weren't earned by risking his life at the far corners of the globe. But now school is over, and the only way to uncover some of history's most exciting secrets is to travel into the field and set out on the adventure of a lifetime."

My mother-in-law likes this show and I was subjected to it during the holiday break. It makes the nuclear refrigerator and aliens in "Kingdom Skull" seem sensible and well thought out.

[kent shakespeare]

I've worked in a number of professions over the years, and fin that most people have little grasp on any profession they themselves don't do. Moreover, many are quick to make assumptions about other professions with only a caricature-level understanding. Movies/TV both reflect and perpetuate this.

[kdilks]

$/pi$.

[ebaronov]

$/pi$.

I think you mean $\pi$

I don't understand why the guy in the movie keeps trying to find a pattern in pi. Doesn't he know that pi is irrational? And why would someone believe that pi contains information about the stock market?

[kdilks]

I think you mean $\pi$

I don't understand why the guy in the movie keeps trying to find a pattern in pi. Doesn't he know that pi is irrational? And why would someone believe that pi contains information about the stock market?

Haven't actually had to use Tex in a while...

Just because pi isn't rational (or even algebraic) doesn't mean it couldn't have patterns in it. Something like $\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}10^{-n!}$ is irrational (maybe even transcendental, can't remember), but still has an obvious pattern.

I don't think the implication of a direct connection between pi and the stock market is meant to be taken seriously. I think it's just more of a device to show how the endeavors of math, man, and God are at their core about trying to find order underneath the chaos, and suggesting that perhaps it's indicative of an underlying universality.

[American in Beijing]

I can't believe no one's mentioned the TV show Bones yet! Dr. Temperance Brennan basically catches criminals with the knowledge she gained while doing a PhD in forensic anthropology (and then presents papers on them at conferences . . . there's literally one scene where she jumps up and down for joy with her lab assistant about presenting her findings in a prestigious journal).

Basically Dr. Brennan is your stereotypical academic: slightly cold, rational, distanced from popular culture, uses big words on a regular basis, wealthy, etc. Still, because of this show part of me wants to change specialties . . . then the fact that I fail at all the sciences gives me a reality check.

[jeanne]

I can't believe no one's mentioned the TV show Bones yet! Dr. Temperance Brennan basically catches criminals with the knowledge she gained while doing a PhD in forensic anthropology (and then presents papers on them at conferences . . . there's literally one scene where she jumps up and down for joy with her lab assistant about presenting her findings in a prestigious journal).

Basically Dr. Brennan is your stereotypical academic: slightly cold, rational, distanced from popular culture, uses big words on a regular basis, wealthy, etc. Still, because of this show part of me wants to change specialties . . . then the fact that I fail at all the sciences gives me a reality check.

The character of Dr. Temperance Brennan (on TV) is based off a character in Kathy Reichs' books, which is based off her own life as a forensic anthropologist. Although there is a HUGE difference between the books and shows, it was actually written by an academic. As a funny aside, in the show Dr. Brennan is also a famous author and her "fictional" character is called Kathy Reichs. Sorry - I watch way too much Bones. I went through the whole series this winter.