“You’ve come a long way, baby….”
Personally, I hate that expression. I suspect that if anyone used it in my hearing, I’d lock them in the basement with the remnants of my failed experiments, and let “nature” take its course. That, or sick my secret army of remote-controlled, flesh-eating zombies on them.
Still, I understand why people use it. It’s snappy. It rolls off the tongue the way a less demeaning phrase wouldn’t.
“You’ve come a long way, human being with both intellectual and emotional capacities who fully deserves to be treated with respect and judged upon her merits and not her appearance alone….”
Ah, but have we? Certainly, in most walks of life women have made enormous advances over the past century. Like the song says, we got doctors, lawyers, politicians, too. Tragically, however, there is one discipline where antiquated notions still prevail, where discriminatory practices are a way of life – and that discipline is mad science….
Think about it: when someone uses the expression “mad scientist”, what picture springs to mind? A man in a white coat, right? A man in a white coat….
But in mad science, as in all other realms, a few brave female pioneers have begun to blaze a trail. And we of the B-Masters’ Cabal have decided to pay tribute to those courageous souls – the women who wanted to be first; who boldly went where no woman had gone before; who dabbled in things that woman was meant to leave alone; and who tampered in God’s domain (and really ticked Her off).
And so, with no more ado:
Site | Reviewer | Title | Quote |
And You Call Yourself A Scientist! | Liz Kingsley | Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter | “After all, you all know the old saying: hell hath no fury like a mad scientist scorned; so remember, guys, if you are thinking of giving a woman the brush, first make sure that she doesn’t have a way with artificial brains and Rastafarian Bicycle Helmets.” |
Apostic’s B-Notes | The Enigmatic Apostic | The Sorcerers | “Estelle stands up, exhausted and exhilarated. Dr. Monserrat is horrified. His wife tells him they’ve just learned one thing for sure; her will is stronger than his. He tried to stop her but couldn’t. He says she can’t always win. He’ll get the boy back to the lab and deprocess him while she’s asleep. She laughs. Then she kicks the walking stick out from under her husband. He falls. While he’s on the ground, she takes his stick to the lab and demolishes the equipment with maniacal glee.” |
The Bad Movie Report | Dr Freex (aka Saint Freex) | Lady Frankenstein | “Allusions are made to the Baron’s disgrace in the medical profession, due to his work with “animal transplants” twenty years before (sometimes thirty – the time frame gets rather elastic in this movie), and reflects that Tania probably had a tough time in medical school due to the fact that she was a Frankenstein. Tania replies that yes, she did, but she got much more flack for simply being a woman, probably the most truthful moment in the entire picture.” |
Badmovies.org | Andrew Borntreger | Devil Girl From Mars | “The ultimate battle of the sexes will be fought on British soil, in a pub mostly, and by a group of alcoholics. Not only all that, but the antagonist will be a militant feminist from another world who enjoys flaunting her technological superiority. Grand!” |
Cold Fusion Video Reviews | Nathan Shumate | Carnosaur | “Eventually, with all of this going on, Doc makes his way into Dr. Tiptree’s lab and spends a good forty-five minutes of the movie simply talking to her (cementing her Mad Scientist status, as if there were any doubt, with the line: “Young man, I doubt you could possibly understand”).” |
Jabootu’s Bad Movie Dimension | Ken Begg | Teenage Zombies | “Proud of her work, as all Mad Scientists regardless of gender tend to be, Myra resents Reg referring to the facility as a “creep joint.” It is instead, she replies, “A place of research, and discovery! A place where Science is free from the interference of stupid politicians!” If I’m not mistaken, she’s reading directly from the Little Mad Scientist’s Handbook.” |
Opposable Thumb Films | Joe Bannerman | Flesh Feast | “Veronica Lake plays Dr. Elaine Frederick: A scientist who invents a revolutionary youth rejuvenation procedure; the key ingredient: maggots. She’s also romantically-entangled with Karl Shuman, and (cue ominous trumpet fanfare) harbors a dark secret!“ |
Stomp Tokyo | Chris Holland | The Last Man On Planet Earth (with bonus short!) | “For some reason this veritable paradise isn’t good enough for one female scientist with the name of Hope Chase. =Hope Chase?= They might as well have named her Anita Mann! Hope takes the teachings of her older scientist mentor, Esther Gray (Get it? GET IT?), and the cloning technology used to propagate the female race to create an outlawed male baby. Hope then takes the baby in her beat-up 1997 Volkswagen Beetle (it’s the future, don’t you know) and drives to her secluded cabin in the woods. We assume she got lost several times along the way, but at least she lives in a world without fear of asking for directions.” |