“Western Science” and its Influence in Representations on Popular Media

While one of the goals of the course is examining the question of what science really is, this week saw a focus on science as an organ of Western society, steeped in Eurocentrism. We especially focused on the origins of science as we know it through the lens of biology, and how early ideas of eugenics underpin much of biological thought; how perhaps well meaning social applications of evolutionary theory were appropriated and warped by those in power into a sickening tool of oppression, thinly alloyed with scientific credibility. We are asked to consider if (Western) science is the only science, or the only science that works. I’d like to explore these ideas in two recent pieces of entertainment media; S2E6 of Masterpiece’s Victoria, and the feature film Black Panther. This post will be free of plot spoilers, speaking only of the historical context of the former and the background of the fictional setting of the latter.

S2E6, titled “Faith, Hope and Charity” takes place in the opening stages of the Irish potato famine in the mid-1840s. In attempting to explain their position, opponents of English intervention explicitly invoke Malthus, using his ideas to justify allowing millions to starve. Several members of the faction state that the Irish need to learn to “live within their means,” and using other eugenic language. Their rhetoric is a smokescreen for the religious and racial persecution of the largely Catholic Irish population by the Protestant English, allowing them to couch their racism in scientific terms.

Black Panther is largely set in the fictional African country of Wakanda, which appears to the outside world to be one of many poor Central African countries. In reality, it was founded in and around the impact crater of a meteorite comprised largely of the fictional metal vibranium, the unique properties of which allowed them to found the most technologically advanced society on the planet. This research would have been done without the same cultural framework that Western science has, and would be fascinating to compare and contrast had the film gone into detail about research methodology and experiment construction.