On the evening of Thursday 23 September 2021 RSC Belgium members and friends were treated to an entertaining and informative talk from Dr. John O'Donoghue of Trinity College Dublin on 'Chemistry in the Movies'. The webinar was also the occasion for the announcement of the prize-winners in our 2021 Chemistry Challenge.
John's snappy talk took a scientific and filmographic look at how chemistry and chemists have been portrayed in the movies - the good, the bad and the ugly - using short clips and simplified graphics to talk about the subject in an engaging and light-hearted format. The movies chosen were based around a number of themes; problem solving, plot devices, chemical companies and people.
John noted that the 2021 Ig Noble Prize for Chemistry had just been awarded on 9 September to a group of scientists who had analysed the air inside movie theatres to test whether the odours produced by an audience reliably indicate the levels of violence, sex, antisocial behaviour, drug use, and bad language in the movie the audience was watching. Remarkably they did manage to correlate a number of chemicals with different scene types!
Breaking Bad effect
One interesting issue that John explored was whether the TV series Breaking Bad (2008 - 2013) [Netflix, Prime] had an effect on how chemistry is on portrayed on screen? He concluded that it did have a positive effect in terms of showing more chemistry on screen and improving the quality of scientific explanation generally, but it may have also contributed to a new cliché for how chemical scientists are depicted on screen.
Details about where and how to access the movies discussed was also be provided (Netflix, YouTube, Apple etc - see below) and John hoped his talk gave participants the inspiration to start their our own chemistry movie marathon!
The talk certainly inspired a good discussion with plenty of additional movie suggestions and we hear that some teachers will be looking to incorporate 'chemical movies' in to their lessons.
Movie list
The movies discussed in John's talk in various categories were:
Fictional bad (evil) pharmaceutical and chemical companies
- Better Living through Chemistry (2014) [Apple, YouTube]
- Formula51 (2001) [Apple, YouTube]
- Erin Brockovich (2000) [Prime, Netflix, YouTube]
- Dark Waters (2019) [Prime, Apple, YouTube]
- Duplicity (2009) [Prime, Apple, YouTube]
- The Fugitive (1993) [Apple, YouTube]
- Love and Other Drugs (2010) [Prime, Apple, YouTube]
- Mission Impossible 2 (2000) [Apple, YouTube]
Good chemistry for problem solving
- Apollo 13 (1995) [Netflix, Apple, YouTube]
- The Martian (2015) [Disney, Apple, YouTube]
Good chemists, bad chemistry… and Sean Connery
- Medicine man (1992) [Disney, Apple, YouTube]
- The Rock (1996) [Apple, YouTube]
Science teachers inspiring for Good
- Evolution (2001) [Apple, YouTube]
- October Sky (1999) [Prime, Apple, YouTube]
Superhero movies
Children’s movies
- Wall-E (2008) [Disney, Apple, YouTube]
- Zootropolis (2016) [Disney, YouTube]
About John
Dr John O’Donoghue is the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Education Coordinator for Ireland supports trainee and established science teachers through continuous professional development (CPD) and new resources. He is based at the School of Chemistry in Trinity College Dublin (TCD) where he teaches chemistry to non-science students and coordinates the unique chemistry education and public engagement (EPE) course for PhD students. He has over 15 years of experience in science communication and in recognition of his achievements, he was greeted by the President of Ireland at the 2017 St. Patricks Day Honours event and was awarded the 2018 Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) “Outstanding Contribution to STEM Communication” National Award.
We hope to welcome John over to Belgium during 2022 for a schools tour of his Spectroscopy in a Suitcase workshops.
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