MIT in Popular Culture - Movies and Television

Movies and Television

Frequently, when a character in Hollywood cinema is required to have a science or engineering background, or in general possess an extremely high level of intelligence, the film establishes that he or she is an MIT graduate or associate. (MIT can also be a comparative or a metaphor for intellect in general: "Would they think of that at MIT?"). Numerous films and television series indulge in this technique, including:

• The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
• Desk Set (1957)
• The Phantom Planet (1961)
• Help! (1965)
• Operation Crossbow (1965)
• Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
• WarGames (1983)
• Ghostbusters (1984)
• Hackers (1995)
• Independence Day (1996)
• Conceiving Ada (1997)
• Contact (1997)
• Orgazmo (1997)
• Good Will Hunting 1997
• Armageddon (1998)
• Sphere (1998)
• The West Wing (1999-2006 TV series) - in Season 3 Episode 0
• Space Cowboys (2000)
• The Fast and the Furious (2001)
• Undergrads (2001)
• xXx (2002)
• Arrested Development (2003-2006 TV series)
• Las Vegas (TV series) (2003-2008 TV series)
• NCIS (TV series) (2003-continuing TV series)
• The Recruit (2003)
• National Treasure (2004)
• Numb3rs (2005-2010 TV series)
• The Fantastic Four (2005)
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)
• Rent (2005)
• E-Ring (2005)
• 21 (2008)
• Seven Pounds (2008)
• Death Race 3000 (2008)
• Iron Man (2008)
• Knowing (2009)
• Edge of Darkness (2010)
• Iron Man 2 (2010)
• Take Me Home Tonight (2011)
• No Strings Attached (film) (2011)
• The Big Bang Theory (2007-continuing TV series)
• Lie to Me (2009-2011-canceled TV series)

In Iron Man, several close-ups of Terrence Howard clearly show his character ("Jim Rhodes") to be wearing a brass rat; Robert Downey, Jr.'s character ("Tony Stark") appears to wear one as well in the movie.

The Star Trek episode "Bread and Circuses" uses a shot of the Great Dome to depict a generic building on a planet dominated by ancient Roman culture.

James Burke's television series The Day the Universe Changed (1985) employs the same technique for a more academic purpose. In the episode "Point of View," which describes the discovery of perspective geometry and its ramifications, Burke spends a little time in the Italian city of Padua. This city, which hosted the second-oldest Italian university after Bologna, boasted a large concentration of intellectuals. In Burke's phrase, Padua was "the MIT of the fifteenth century." An episode of his later series Connections 2 (1994) uses a similar shorthand to characterize the seventeenth-century Royal Society.

The TV show Numb3rs has several different connections to MIT. The pilot was shot in Boston. Co-creator and Executive Producer Cheryl Heuton says, "We originally tried to choose MIT for the show. We originally set the show in Boston, and Charlie was going to be a professor at MIT. We contacted MIT, and their answer was they're not in the film and TV business..." Multiple episodes of the show mention that Charlie studied at MIT. Dylan Bruno, the actor who plays Colby Granger, has a degree from MIT.

Films set at MIT are less common than those that use the MIT name as metaphor. Nevertheless, MIT has been part of movie settings, in such films as Blown Away (1994), Good Will Hunting (1997), A Beautiful Mind (2001), 21(2008), and Knowing (which also features exteriors of the Haystack Observatory). Most of the scenes for these movies, especially indoor scenes, are in fact filmed elsewhere due to MIT's reluctance to give permission to film on campus. Although portions of Blown Away were shot on the Institute campus, the film still makes several geographical errors about MIT and Boston in general. An incidental scene in The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) was shot on location outside of MIT Baker House. A scene in A Small Circle of Friends (1980) was shot in Walker Memorial, an MIT cafeteria. The movie setting portrays Harvard University, but Harvard declined to allow the filming on their campus.

Some cinematic references to MIT betray a mild anti-intellectualism, or at least a lack of respect for "book learning." For example, Space Cowboys features the seasoned hero (Clint Eastwood) trying to explain a piece of antiquated spacecraft technology to a rather whippersnapping youngster. When the young astronaut fails to comprehend Eastwood's explanation, he snaps that "I have two master's degrees from MIT," to which Eastwood replies, "Maybe you should get your money back." Similarly, Gus Van Sant's introduction to the published Good Will Hunting screenplay suggests that the lead character's animosity towards official MIT academia reflects a class struggle with ethnic undertones, in particular Will Hunting's Irish background versus the "English aristocracy" of the MIT faculty. Help!, the Beatles' second film, ties MIT to the mad scientist stereotype when Professor Foot (Victor Spinetti) declares, "MIT was after me, you know. Wanted me to rule the world for them!"

HBO's television miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998) contains segments set at MIT, most notably in the episode covering Apollo 14. The series portrays the Institute's denizens as very slightly eccentric engineers who do their part to keep the Apollo program running successfully.

"Inside" MIT references also appear in film without attribution. In Stir Crazy (1980), the opening close-up shot of Grossberger, played by Erland Van Lidth De Jeude (MIT Class of 1976, SB in Computer Science & Engineering), clearly reveals his actual "Brass Rat" class ring. In The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000), a background image of Whassamatta U. is recognizable as a main MIT building.

MIT is even referenced in some Japanese anime: the sci-fi series Neon Genesis Evangelion mentions MIT as the location of one of the replica MAGI supercomputers; the comedy series Pani Poni Dash! revolves around an 11-year old student who graduated from MIT and travels to Japan to become a high school teacher. The CIA character "Ed Hoffman" in the film Body of Lies (film) can be seen wearing an MIT shirt in multiple shots.

In the TV series Las Vegas (2003), Mike Cannon (played by James Lesure), one of the main characters, is a highly intelligent, and technically very gifted engineer and MIT graduate.

Individual characters in single episodes of TV shows are often announced as MIT graduates. For example, in the 1992 episode "The Corporate Veil" of the TV series Law & Order, both mother and son protagonists are said to be electrical engineering graduates of MIT. MIT was also mentioned in the pilot episode of 'Gilmore Girls'.

Randal Pinkett, the winner of season 4 of The Apprentice, is an MIT alum, with an SM in Electrical Engineering (1998), an MBA from Sloan School of Management (1998), and a PhD in Media Arts & Sciences from the Media Lab (2001).