The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as "mad, bad and dangerous to know"[Frayling, Christopher – Mad, Bad and Dangerous?: The Scientist and the Cinema (Reaktion Books, 2005) ] or "insanity" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly ambitious, taboo or nature of their experiments. As a motif in fiction, the mad scientist may be ( evil genius) or antagonistic, benign, or neutral; may be psychosis, eccentric, or clumsy; and often works with fictional technology or fails to recognise or value common human objections to attempting to play God. Some may have benevolent intentions, even if their actions are dangerous or questionable, which can make them accidental .
History
Prototypes
The prototypical fictional mad scientist was Victor Frankenstein, creator of his eponymous monster,
who made his first appearance in 1818, in the novel
Frankenstein by
Mary Shelley. Though the novel's title character, Victor Frankenstein, is a sympathetic character, the critical element of conducting experiments that cross "boundaries that ought not to be crossed", heedless of the consequences, is present in Shelley's novel. Frankenstein was trained as both an
alchemist and a modern scientist, which makes him the bridge between two eras of an evolving archetype. The book is said to be a precursor of a new genre,
science fiction,
although as an example of
Gothic fiction it is connected with other antecedents as well.
The year 1896 saw the publication of H. G. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau, in which the titular doctor—a controversial —has isolated himself entirely from civilisation in order to continue his experiments in surgically reshaping animals into humanoid forms, heedless of the suffering he causes.
Cinema depictions
Fritz Lang's movie
Metropolis (1927) brought the
archetype mad scientist to the screen in the form of
Rotwang, the evil genius whose machines had originally given life to the
city of the title.
Rotwang's
laboratory influenced many subsequent movie sets with its electrical arcs, bubbling apparatus, and bizarrely complicated arrays of dials and controls. Portrayed by actor Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Rotwang himself is the prototypically conflicted mad scientist; though he is master of almost mystical scientific power, he remains a slave to his own desires for power and revenge. Rotwang's appearance was also influential—the character's shock of flyaway hair, wild-eyed demeanor, and his quasi-
fascist laboratory garb have all been adopted as shorthand for the mad scientist "look." Even his mechanical right hand has become a mark of twisted scientific power, echoed notably in
Stanley Kubrick's film
and in the novel
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) by Philip K. Dick.
A recent survey of 1,000 horror films distributed in the UK between the 1930s and 1980s reveals mad scientists or their creations have been the villains of 30 percent of the films; scientific research has produced 39 percent of the threats; and, by contrast, scientists have been the heroes of a mere 11 percent.[Christopher Frayling, New Scientist, 24 September 2005.] Boris Karloff played mad scientists in several of his 1930s and 1940s films.
Movie serials
The Mad scientist was a staple of the Republic/Universal/Columbia
Serial film of the 1930s and 40s. Examples include:
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"Dr. Zorka" ( The Phantom Creeps, 1939)
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"Dr. Fu Manchu" ( Drums of Fu Manchu, Republic, 1940)
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"Dr. Satan" ( Mysterious Doctor Satan, 1940)
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"Dr. Vulcan" ( King of the Rocket Men, 1949)
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"Atom Man/Lex Luthor" Atom Man vs. Superman, 1950)
Post–World War II depictions
Mad scientists were most conspicuous in
popular culture after World War II. The sadistic human experimentation conducted under the auspices of the
Nazism, especially those of
Josef Mengele, and the invention of the
atomic bomb, gave rise in this period to genuine fears that science and technology had gone out of control. That the scientific and technological build-up during the
Cold War brought about increasing threats of unparalleled destruction of the human species did not lessen the impression. Mad scientists frequently figure in
science fiction and
film from the period.
Animation
Mad scientists in animation include
Professor Frink from
The Simpsons, Professor Farnsworth from
Futurama,
Rick Sanchez from
Rick and Morty,
Rintaro Okabe from
Science Adventure, Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz from
Phineas and Ferb, and Dr. Lullah from
StuGo.
Walt Disney Pictures had Mickey Mouse trying to save his dog Pluto from The Mad Doctor (1933).
Depictions of mad scientists in Warner Brothers' Merrie Melodies/ Looney Tunes cartoons include Hair-Raising Hare (1946, based on Peter Lorre), Birth of a Notion (1947, again based on Lorre), Water, Water Every Hare (1952, based on Boris Karloff).
While both Tom and Jerry dabbled in mad science in some of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, an actual mad scientist did not appear until Switchin' Kitten (1961).
See also
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Absent-minded professor
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Boffin
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British scientists (meme)
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Creativity techniques
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Creativity and mental illness
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Edisonade, a similar trope about a brilliant inventor, but of positive attitudes
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Egghead
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Faust
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Fringe science
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Girl Genius
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List of mad scientists
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Mad scientists of Stanislaw Lem
Further reading
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Allen, Glen Scott (2009). Master Mechanics and Wicked Wizards: Images of the American Scientist from Colonial Times to the Present. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. .
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Garboden, Nick (2007). Mad Scientist or Angry Lab Tech: How to Spot Insanity. Portland: Doctored Papers. .
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Haynes, Roslynn Doris (1994). From Faust to Strangelove: Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. .
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Junge, Torsten; Doerthe Ohlhoff (2004). Wahnsinnig genial: Der Mad Scientist Reader. Aschaffenburg: Alibri. .
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Norton, Trevor (2010). Smoking Ears and Screaming Teeth. (A witty celebration of the great eccentrics...). Century. .
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Schlesinger, Judith (2012). The Insanity Hoax: Exposing the Myth of the Mad Genius. Ardsley-on-Hudson, N.Y. Shrinktunes Media .
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Schneider, Reto U. (2008). The Mad Science Book. 100 Amazing Experiments from the History of Science. London: Quercus. .
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Tudor, Andrew (1989). Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie. Oxford: Blackwell. .
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Weart, Spencer R. (1988). Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
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Levi, Pfaff J. (1956). Wahnsinnig genial: Der Mad Scientist Reader. Aschaffenburg: Alibri. .
External links
