Hello!
Welcome to the eugenics podcast. I'm Patrick
Merricks. I'm Marius Turda.
Good morning, Marius. How are you doing?
Good morning, Patrick.
Very well. Yourself? Wonderful, thank you.
Today we've got a slightly different
episode we're talking about: the use
of eugenic
themes in the movies so
let's begin with a more recent example.
What's Idiocracy?
It's one of the the funniest movies
ever made, I suppose, but
of course the attempt is to deal with a
very important issue:
which is what could happen if a
eugenic program
goes horribly wrong and so we have
a comedic take on
eugenics, portrayed under the guise
of
film. So that suggests how much eugenic still remains
embedded
in our popular culture and how films are
the best way to deal with some very
sensitive issues, to raise awareness
about eugenics.
So as soon as cinema was sort of
available as a
as a medium, those eugenic ideas were
featured. So what's the
the Black Stork?
From the beginning of
the
20th century eugenics permeated popular
culture, as we've seen last time when we
talked about photography,
but with the development of cinema
and with the development of motion
pictures
eugenics gets a new lease on life, as it
were, because it becomes
possible for film producers and
organizations to distribute eugenic
ideas and popularize eugenics through
to the medium of films. So you have some
enthusiasts
such as the one portrayed here in the
Black Stork
that argues for the elimination of
defectives and embraces heredity
full-heartedly and argues for the termination of those who are
'defective'. This of course happens
at the same time with people who
criticized and
ridiculed eugenic aims and eugenic
pretentions of certain people.
So there were many critics
even in the interwar
years. So two examples are in
film with Tomorrow's Children and College
Holiday. So what were these
about? Hollywood embraced
the possibility of discussing certain
eugenic themes early on
in the 20s and 30s, but of course it
wasn't always
easy because of the topics and
some of the films were banned or
censored so they couldn't be released.
So when something got released such as
Tomorrow's Children or College Holiday
they tried in a way to engage and
discuss
serious eugenic issues such as, in
Tomorrow's Children, sterilization
and about how a
program problematic - as the entire
program of eugenic engineering is -
or through the medium of comedy to undermine eugenic
claims to build a superior race, as is done in College Holiday, which is a
musical
and aims to really
depict the ideas of eugenics in a
farcical way.
Both of them are
are meant to be for entertainment but ultimately
they too push forward the eugenic agenda,
they do
take eugenics seriously, if it is
science of
human betterment that actually has
credibility.
But despite the the critics,
eugenicists themselves were aiming for
scientific sort of credibility and
respectability, and here's an example
from the British Eugenics Society in
Julian Huxley.
Yes,
it is important to remember that
eugenic societies themselves commissioned
films
and they had their own propaganda
campaigns to educate people on various
eugenic issues,
from contraception to birth control and
more or less issues of heredity broadly
defined.
So you have um a very good example here
the film from 1937 that features
biologist Julian Huxley,
entitled Heredity in Man, commissioned by
the Eugenics Society
in Britain and Huxley is doing a very
good job at
teaching and educating the public
in issues of heredity but ultimately
still
working within the same narrative about
some people are worthy, some people are
not; some people
represent 'bad' heredity, others represent
'good' heredity.
So even in this particular case which is
in a way the epitome of respectability
and
objectivity, and an attempt to make eugenics
look scientific you still have
the same parameters
that work with 'separating' people,
creating hierarchical systems
and ultimately using heredity as a means
to control
certain people who are 'desired' and
control other people or other people's reproduction who are 'undesired'.
So as well as entertainment and
science we also
had politics as an influence
on these films. So what would you like
to say about
Salamander?
Yes while a film like the one we just
discussed, featuring Julian Huxley
purported not to have any ideological
underpinnings:
it was done simply in the name of
science and for education purposes,
in other contexts we see films
propagating and distributing eugenic
messages across ideological lines.
So one of them is produced in 1928 in
the Soviet Union
and it builds on the real case of
the Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer
but then it takes that example
and builds an ideological conflict
between the new realities
under socialism
in the Soviet Union and the new
scientific worldview based on
Lamarckism
and the inheritance of the acquired
characteristics and opposed to that
is, of course, the oppressive the fascist
the western capitalist genetics
represented by the western
world.
So it immediately becomes a very powerful
way
to instrumentalize political and
ideological conflicts
and to pass on ideological messages. So
the Soviets
and the Soviet regime was very good
at doing that
and this is one example from 1928.
And now with the Nazi racial racial
hygiene we see
politics influencing eugenics but in a
different way.
Yes it wasn't only the Soviets who
understood early on the power
of cinema and the need to use films to
put forward their vision of a 'new
society', of a 'new man' and 'a new woman'.
The Nazis too understood it clearly.
The importance of propaganda in the
Nazi regime is well documented. Within
that
of course you have a number of films
produced to convince the general public
of the importance of Nazi racial hygiene
program.
On the one hand you have a big
discussion about sterilization of
'mentally defectives' and of the legitimacy
of
the sterilization law introduced in 1933,
and this is discussed in the movie
produced in 1936.
On the other hand, of course, you have a
more even more sinister
take on eugenic themes which happens
with euthanasia and
the T4 program, and this is a movie from
1941 that actually
argues for the the morality
of the termination of life.
So they were done with the purpose of
educating the general public; at the same
time
but allowing the public to make up their
own mind.
They were very subtly done in terms
of how can we
pass on the message, at the same time
underpinning the ideological
arguments of the regime towards a new
racial future, a new racial utopia,
a new society based on eugenic
principles.
It's really this uh this legacy, the
Nazi legacy of eugenics which we see in more modern examples of eugenics
in sort of film and TV, often with this
dystopian
sort of future portrayed.
Yes it's that possibility that
with the help of science, eugenics
will return and if it does return, it will
lead
to totalitarian regimes
and they will lead to dysfunctional
societies.
So whether we're talking about genetic
engineering
and we're talking about cloning
or we're talking about regimes in the
future
that use women for
reproductive purposes in a way
that is based on
eugenic
principles, it is ultimately that
fear
that science may and eugenics through
science
may actually return and if it does
return
what options do we have? and how can we
fight
that ? So it is interesting to see across
a number of films produced today
that all of these themes that appear
from the beginning of the 20th century:
the fear of a genetically engineered
society, the fear of building a 'superior
race',
the fear of the multitude of people who
are not
very 'intelligent' or 'educated' -
all of these things that you could see
developing across,
ultimately converge into what would
happen
if if a regime is able to implement that
and then carry out the program -
as it happened in the past -
that could have absolutely devastating
consequences for human liberties and
for individual rights. So we're still
seeing that developing and I think it's extremely important to
look at films
to understand how eugenics survives
in the popular culture and how much
eugenic
ideas are being discussed and
transmitted and then assimilated by the
general public in this way.
Well, thanks Marius for another very
engaging discussion, a really
really fun one today as well, looking
at cinema.
So thanks for everyone for viewing and
once again
thank you Marius and see you next time.
Thank you, Patrick. Until next time.
