FEAR OF SCIENCE AND FEAR OF NAZISM IN THE AMERICAN GENRE FILM
Keywords:
anthropology, fear, film, science, NazismAbstract
Fear of science features frequently as a motive of genre films. This kind of fear is most visible in science fiction and horror movies. It is culturally constructed and mediated, as well as based on the fact that certain scientific knowledge or technological innovations could be used not for the benefit of mankind, but in quite the opposite way. The characters practicing science for the disadvantage of humanity are usually individuals fitting the description of the cultural notion of a “crazy scientist”. There is no “crazy scientist” more dangerous than the practitioner of Nazi science. In films where such scientists possess advanced knowledge and produce results superior to the actual state of art in real-life science, fear of science is associated with the fear of Nazism as a political, and a social movement which is seen as a threat to Western civilization and to the human world in general. The fear of science appears, then, as a fear of Nazi science and we discuss it as presented in “Boys from Brazil” (1978) and “Nazis at the Center of the Earth”(2012).
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