Last night I watched the 2011 film Contagion on DVD (directed by Steven Soderbergh) and thought what an excellent example it makes of a text that, at the same time, seems to debate public trust and constructs scientists as trustworthy, ethical and even heroic. The film is clearly based on the real life scenario of the 2003 Sars epidemic outbreak but pushes this story to extremes. The idea of scientific knowledge as progress prevalent in the film narrative is further promoted by Dr Ian Lipkin, the medical/scientific adviser of the film, in his interview to the Science section of the Guardian/Observer :
“We need to be prepared. We need better bio-surveillance, with better detection and better ability to develop vaccines. However, our public health system is underfunded and overwhelmed, and we need more scientists.”
The other two science experts involved in the making of the movie were Laurie Garrett (senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations) and Larry Brilliant (President of the Skoll Global Threats Fund). For Larry Brilliant the purpose of blockbuster films like Contagion is to educate people – but it is clearly also a political commentary, at a time when the public health sector was under threat in the US.
I find it very interesting how blogs and the internet more generally are being framed in the film. Public fears, controversy and scepticism about vaccines (and the process of producing them) are represented mainly in the character played by Jude Law; he is an opportunitic freelancer who chases spin and acts as an opinion leader with a huge following. His postings result to panic, public unrest and loot. The character functions not only to re-instate the government/military as protectors of the public, but also to construct the established scientific community and its traditional communicative practices (peer-reviewed articles, press releases) as the prefered ways of public engagement. In this sense, the film supports the slightly old-fashioned model of science communication, known as the “deficit” approach, which more or less accepts that there is a gap between experts and laypersons and advocates for scientific literacy. By framing the blogosphere as largely untrustworthy, irrational, prone to conspiracy theories (bio-terrorism) and pseudo-science (homeopathy has long been considered as such by the biomedical establishment), the film legitimises a one-way information: from the scientific expert to the layperson.
The gender aspects of the film are also of interest – especially in relation to caring and altruism.