Engineering in Pop Culture

           Engineering is such a diverse field that portrayal of this field is seen in many different ways in popular culture. Lots of short films, movies, video games, and other mediums show this. Engineers appear to be an important aspect in everything that’s going on. They tend to be either the ones solving the problem in a given scenario, the evil creators of terrifying and destructive machines, or the ones creating devices to combat these machines. They are essential to most of the scenarios we see.

In comics, there’s the famous nemesis of Superman, Lex Luthor. His character is portrayed as an evil scientist and engineer whose objective is to defeat Superman. Lex Luthor’s character is also portrayed in other spin-offs and films in the same manor. Sometimes in more evil ways than others.

In movies, engineering and science are a common portrayal. One of the main characters in the Back to the Future series, Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown, is one who develops an engineering feat. The movie surrounds his idea, development, and consequences of his engineering feat. Time travel via the Flux Capacitor requiring only 1.21 gigawatts of power, a power source of plutonium, and a car that goes at least 88 MPH. Dr. Brown and the other main character Marty McFly have several adventures using his feat. In another movie, 2012 directed by Roland Emmerich, engineers are seen throughout the movie. The end of the world is near so of course engineers are brought in to help find a solution. Engineers and scientists are seen working on geothermal surveys, doing research, and working on the Arks at the end of the film. Engineering is portrayed in both good and evil ways in films. They are also used in real life to develop these films and release them.

Video games is where we seem to see engineering in its most diverse form. They appear in games like Starcraft as spawns that you can train and develop to build new things for a fictional place. They appear in games like Borderlands, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Battlefield and Call of Duty where you play as an engineer and are given engineer like roles. These engineering rolls are usually hacking terminals, repairing equipment in gameplay, or arming weapons used against the enemy or for the enemy. Other video games give you the privilege to be an engineer. You design and engineer an entire city in SimCity. You design and engineer a virtual world in the game Minecraft. All over the spectrum of gaming, we constantly run into engineering. In the real world, it takes engineers to create these games and deploy these games as well.

Music is a field that is not as popular on portraying engineers. Not a lot of music these days sings about engineering or has the listener immersed with words like ‘adsorbtion’, ‘greenfield’, or ‘photovoltaics.’ Justin Timberlake would rather sing about mirrors instead of innovation. However, engineers are used in real life to manufacture music. Back beats, balancing audio, and mixing are usually done by audio engineers.

We see engineering portrayed everywhere. It is a massive part of day-to-day life and has its influence spread everywhere. It is a key part of video gaming and is mostly the central plot for films. Engineering is vital to our existence and popular culture demonstrates this through various mediums.