CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A recent study published by several men who wear white lab coats has determined repeated viewing of science fiction, action and superhero movies causes “fundamentally unrealistic expectations and delusions of personal exceptionalism” in viewers, mirroring the alleged effect of excessive hardcore porn viewing found in similar studies.
The study, entitled “No, You CAN’T Leap Tall Buildings in a Single Bound,” appears in the May issue of The Journal of Boundless Academic Conjecture.
“After watching 2005’s Fantastic Four movie seven times in a single day, two subjects were observed doing things like trying to reach their arms all the way across the room rather than stand up and walk to the sink to fill a glass of water,” wrote lead researcher Dr. Lee Stanovski, head of the Near-Harvard Cambridge Center for Research Requiring Substantial Grants. “Far more alarming, another jumped out the window after yelling ‘Flame on!’ Fortunately, our research facility is located on the ground floor, so only minor injuries were sustained, primarily to the subject’s wrists, knees and personal dignity.”
In another experiment conducted for the study, participants were exposed to extended viewing of the “extras” from the DVD version of 2008’s Taken prior to being shown the film repeatedly, in order to emphasize the film’s fictional nature. Despite this “prophylactic measure,” as the authors of the study termed it, several subjects in the study “began speaking in a gravelly voice” after only two viewings, and “started saying ‘good luck’ as a response to nearly any question or comment” from the research team.
“One subject insisted he be allowed to borrow my car so he could immediately begin to effect the rescue of his daughter,” Stanovski observed. “The subject was an unmarried 23-year-old male who has no children, let alone a teenage daughter currently traveling in Europe.”
In an exclusive on-location interview with YNOT at the research team’s Cambridge facilities, Stanovski’s research associate, Dr. Stephen Strangelove, said the study “largely confirms what the speculative scientific community long ago discovered about other types of visual stimuli, including hardcore pornography, violent video games and graphically religious comic strips from Chick Publications.
“Whether it’s male viewers of pornography coming to believe all women love anal sex and the taste of semen, the presumed surge in violent car thefts by young people who grew up playing Grand Theft Auto, or otherwise mild-mannered Southern Baptists trying to burn down the Vatican after reading Are Roman Catholics Christians?, there’s no denying the clear causal relationship between consumption of visual media and all manner of socially unacceptable behavior,” Strangelove said.
While the focus of most research in this area tends to be on controversial genres like porn and action films, Strangelove said all his team’s data, clinical observations and LSD-inspired midnight brainstorming sessions suggest every manner of visual media input is potentially detrimental to the mental health of those who consume it.
“Even something that might seem innocuous, like the seventh-season episode of Touched by an Angel called ‘God Bless the Child,’ can result in significant, debilitating delusions,” Strangelove said. “For example, when angels don’t magically appear to deliver an anecdote-laden appeal for sobriety to a musically inclined viewer of the show who is considering using drugs, said viewer could reasonably view the lack of divine intervention as tacit approval from God of their prospective substance abuse. In fact, I’m pretty sure this is how Keith Richards first became a heroin junkie.”
Asked which of his team’s observations during the study was most troubling, Strangelove said he was “immensely disturbed” by the prospective impact of the latest movie release from the vehicular action movie subgenre, Fast 11: Seriously Fucking Fast, Utterly Fucking Furious.
“After merely viewing the trailer a few times, several subjects pulled out their mobile phones and tried to find somewhere to purchase massive parachutes that could be affixed to their vehicles,” Strangelove said. “One even shaved his head in the restroom during a lunch break, then proceeded to wander around muttering something about ‘living life one quarter mile at a time.’ It was truly chilling to observe, in no small part because the subject in question drives a 1985 Honda Civic with a top speed of approximately 47 miles per hour.”
Asked what can be done about fictional films’ crippling “monkey-see, monkey-try-to-do” effect on viewers, Strangelove said that while he does not condone censorship, “clearly the mindset of decision-makers in Hollywood needs to change.
“Instead of glorifying violence and packing their movies with gratuitous sex and stereotypical characters, filmmakers could do a great public service by focusing on more positive and instructive topics,” Strangelove said. “How about a movie about a ‘math hero’ to get kids more interested in the sciences, or a story about a chaste young woman who goes on a revealing and rewarding journey of non-sexual self-discovery — without ever leaving her kitchen?”
While the results of the study are compelling, the research is not without its critics.
“Sounds like a load of bullshit to me,” said Al Iacocca, the cab driver who drove me home from the airport upon my return from Massachusetts. “I mean, shit, I must have watched Taxi Driver at least 30 times when I was in high school — and yeah, these days I drive a cab for a living — but I haven’t become obsessed with an underage hooker or tried to kill a president, so what does that say about their little theory? OK, so I’m currently a little obsessed with a 35-year-old Denny’s waitress, and I guess I did once try to beat my condo association president to a bloody pulp with a baseball bat, but that’s not even close to the same thing.”
Stanovski and Strangelove, meanwhile, said they already have a grant in hand for their next study, which will investigate whether people who repeatedly watch old episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 subsequently have trouble remaining quiet while sitting in the front row of a movie theater.
Image: Cosplay enthusiast Tanya Tate as Game of Thrones‘ Cersei Lannister.
