South Park is the only piece of popular entertainment that comes to mind that actually has a skeptical bent in which the skeptics are proven correct. “Biggest douche in the universe”, for example, is probably the best skeptical TV episode that I can think of.
This came up in last night’s episode of Modern Family. The smart, nerdy, skeptical daughter goes to a psychic reading with her aunt (edit: actually grandma. step grandma? Hot grandma). The skeptical daughter is out to prove that the psychic is just cold reading - for example by asking her to tell her if her childhood pet bunny is happy in the afterlife, a pet that she never actually had. Or asking what might happen at a renaissance faire she was going to, that didn’t actually exist.
The psychic predicted things about these fictitious entities, suggesting to the audience that the psychic was merely being mislead in a cold read. Which of course is what actually would happen. But as always the skeptic gets her comeuppance and woo wins out.
The psychic had predicted (may be wrong on the details, I was only half watching, but I’ve seen things play out this way a hundred times so substitute your own show/movie) that at the ren faire she’d meet a boy, and that a horse was involved. We’re supposed to dismiss this as a standard cold reading fictitious prediction (after all, the ren faire was made up), but later in the episode, the girl goes to another event (not the ren faire) and meets a boy who has a picture of a horse on his shirt.
You see, the psychic was right all along, just a little mislead because the evil skeptic tricked her and threw off the details a bit.
This happens in pretty much every piece of fiction in popular culture. There’s a token skeptic who gives a reasonable sounding viewpoint, and they get their comeuppance when the woo turns out to be either correct or ambiguous and hinting that it’s right.
So I’m curious. Are there places in popular entertainment where a skeptic is actually proven correct?
Feel free if you also want to share particularly egregious examples of the woo winning out too.
The lead character in The Mentalist is an-ex faker who regularly points out on the show what asses so-called psychics are. (as a skeptic myself I really love it when Simon Baker calls out the con artists .)
I actually started watching The Mentalist exactly because I was hopeful it would take that tone, but it seemed to me that after the first 3 episodes, they pretty much backed away from the whole mentalism thing, and never specifically debunked frauds or fraudulent methods, and instead he just became a really observant crime solver like a million others.
It actually seems to me like the show was meant to be a skeptical show, but the focus groups said they really need to tone down that stuff, and then it just became standard police procedural.
There was an episode of Night Court where Bull thought he was hearing G-d tell him to do stuff, and it turned out to be Art the Handyman stuck in the air vents.
On the other hand, there have been countless episodes of Night Court where the “woo” clearly wins.
SenorBeef - on The Mentalist he doesn’t debunk someone every week, but it has happened numerous times on the seasons I watched the show. and the lead character often points out ways he fooled people when he was working as a “psychic”. I would like it if this were stronger too, but it has been there.
In the Canadian mystery “The Murdoch Mysteries” Murdoch is skeptical and right. Except for a few shows in the second season where he ran into a true psychic - but I think they must have kicked out that writer and gotten back to the straight and narrow after that.
There is a very funny one about 1890s UFOs, for example.
I think this is a good thing, sort of. We (almost) all know psychics are fake so it’s humorus when one or two of their predictions sort of come true. In the Modern Family episode I think they did a fine job of showing that the psychic was full of it. It would hardly be funny to then leave it at “yep, psychics are fake.” The episode also shows in a funny way how we can become convinced that a psychic prediction has come true. You really have to stretch your imagination to believe a “knight on a horse” equals a kid with a knight on his shirt. I was left with the feeling there was a pun in there somewhere that I missed.
I can’t agree with that. “We almost all know psychics are fake” is definitely not true. In this particular case, maybe it was a joke - but that same pattern, setting up a skeptic saying that some woo entity is fake, and ultimately proving the woo entity to be true or ambiguous leaning towards true is such a consistent trope across all fiction that I don’t think it’s done for humorous effect. I think it’s done because people love woo (possibly including the creators of the work), and they’re giving people what they want.
It’s pretty consistent in fiction that the skeptic is wrong.
I wonder about the implied attitude in this thread that seems to say, to me, “there’s enough woo out there; entertainment properties should not encourage it by even hinting that it’s real.” Seems like that would make for rather dull entertainment to me.
Only a very tiny minority of the general population are skeptics. Their lack of skepticisim hurts them and society, for example by the promotion of ineffective or harmful alternative medicines. Having our popular entertainment constantly remind us that “oh don’t worry, those skeptics are wrong, they’re just not open minded to the real truth like you are, you should still feel warm and fuzzy about your silly beliefs” only helps to reinforce societal credulity towards bullshit.
I just watched the “Vampire Weekend” episode of Castle. Pretty much everyone was a skeptic about the characters who purported to be “real” vampires. They were right.
There was a subtle moment at the end of the psychic reading on Modern Family. Alex accepts Gloria’s going to the psychic because Alex realizes that Gloria gets comfort from hearing how her dead loved ones are still around in spirit. Maybe this is the only acceptable response a skeptic can have on a prime time, family show.