From Desk Set to The Net: Women and Computing Technology in Hollywood Films

© Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue canadienne d’études américaines 31, no. 2, 2001 From Desk Set to The Net: Women and Computing Technology in Hollywood Films Carol Colatrella Like a number of Hollywood producers who have received grants from the Sloan Foundation “to encourage more thoughtful treatment of science,” I am interested in looking closely at representations of scientists and scientific discovery (Pollack). As the National Science Foundation documents, science and technology hold important places in our lives, but public understanding of science continues to lag (Hill; Olson; National Science Foundation [NSF], “Overview”). Politicians and educators frequently argue that US students need to improve their standing in world rankings of student understanding of math and science. One economic reason to educate children and the general public is clear: the transformation from a cold war culture that contributed money to the scientific infrastructure via defence research to a world power eager to expand trade in world markets via electronic means and premier medical research. In the 1990s, defence research shrank while health and telecommunications research received increased support in the federal budget. Television and film viewers can recognize a concomitant shift from defence to health care; consider that the most highly paid television actors appear on NBC’s ER, a show that frequently showcases female practitioners and patients. Other recent documentary and fiction films and TV shows offer numerous representations of women who work as professional scientists, usually as medical caregivers and researchers—many are forensic pathologists playing minor roles in larger ER-like ensemble dramas such as Chicago Hope and films like Men in Black. Fictional female scientists offer a “different” (often personal, emotional, intuitive, or even supernatural) perspective that proves to be a useful method to resolve scientific problems. We might think here of Jodie Foster’s performance as astronomer Ellie Arroway in Contact; Ellie’s intuitive sense that there must be intelligent extraterrestrial life impels her to continue listening for signs of activity on her radio telescope, a somewhat outmoded technology. While Carl Sagan’s novel connected Ellie’s problem in finding respect for her research to her gender, recog- Canadian Review of American Studies 31 (2001) 2 nizing the difficulty of being a woman in the male-dominated and hostile field of physics, the film takes an easier way out by imaging Ellie as the sole female member of a rather flaky team of scientists marginalized for their interest in “little green men.” Science is not often represented in popular cultural narratives, and even more rarely do such narratives describe the hostile environment of scientific institutions for women and people of colour. Recent studies document the problems of access, retention, and promotion that have given rise to the terms “chilly classroom” and “hostile workplace” for the scientific and technical environments for women who study, teach, and practise science, mathematics, and engineering. The three films I consider in this essay (Desk Set, Disclosure, and The Net) represent different gendered perspectives on women and information technology, but they share a common concern in delineating antagonistic attitudes directed toward women in computing. First, let us consider the real world that girls and women confront in scientific and technical fields. Recent statistics from the National Science Foundation [NSF] note gains made during the period 1982–2000, indicating that more girls in the US are studying science and making significant increases in secondary school achievement scores but that the number of women choosing to major in science, mathematics, and engineering in university grew only slightly over that period (NSF, Women). Particular disciplinary differences are also apparent: more girls study biology and chemistry than computer science and physics in high school and in universities.1 In terms of retention, women students drop out of science, mathematics, and engineering (SME) majors at a slightly higher rate than men. NSF reports that grades in core university math and science courses are the most reliable predictor of which American students will remain in technical fields; not surprisingly, students who have taken more high school courses in these fields tend to have higher achievement test scores and better grades in university courses, as well as better rates of retention in university. NSF notes the decreasing...