Fallacies in Pest-Centered Films – Part 3

Fallacies in Pest-Centered Films – Part 3

Hollywood has its fair share of movies centered around arthropods. However, many of these films are also plagued with some misinformation regarding their pest-protagonists (or antagonists). In this blog we explore films that highlight arguably the creepiest pests: spiders.

Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

This film centers around the horrifying concept that spiders could be massive in size. This may make for a terrifying plot in a horror movie, but it’s not very scientifically accurate. In the past, giant insects and arachnids did exist, however they are unsustainable in today’s climate. In the late Paleozoic Era, when several giant insects are known to have existed, the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere was at least 32% oxygen. This allowed the unique respiratory systems of insects and arachnids to support larger bodies. Today however, the percentage of oxygen in our atmosphere is roughly 21%, which entomologist Dr. Jon Harrison of Arizona State University states is the limiting factor in the size of insects today. So, if spiders even were exposed to a substance that made them grow, their growth would be unsustainable.

Arachnophobia (1990)

While we covered an entomological flaw in this film in our last blog, we simply couldn’t leave Arachnophobia out of this spider-centric blog… besides, there was another very surprising fallacy in this film. While there were more than plenty of spiders to make your skin crawl, one spider in particular stood out from the rest. Named “Big Bob” after famed director Robert Zemeckis, this Amazonian bird-eating tarantula played an integral part of the film as the largest and scariest of all of the spiders. However, the filmmakers decided that, even at roughly a foot in diameter, Big Bob still wasn’t big enough or scary enough. So, filmmakers outfitted Big Bob with an attachable prosthetic abdomen that was larger than his own and outfitted with a pair of added purple stripes. Clearly, spider prosthetics are far from scientifically accurate, making this another arachnid film-fallacy.

Charlotte’s Web (2006)

The author of the book that this film is based on, E.B. White, was shockingly scientifically accurate when it came to portraying his famed spider, Charlotte A. Cavatica. The way she lays her eggs, the way her children spread all spread out after hatching, and even her name is based in scientific fact as it relates to the scientific term for barn spiders, Araneus cavaticus. In both the book and the film there is, of course, the glaring fictional aspect of a spider writing words in her web… but, overlooking this plot device in the beloved children’s story, there is another inaccuracy that shows up in the latest film adaptation of the novel. This has to do with Charlotte’s anatomical design. The animators managed to create a very realistic spider, but Charlotte’s face has a major flaw: the eyes. Her two primary eyes are shaped like almonds and have eyelids to blink and show expressions. In reality, barn spiders’ eyes are very circular in shape, lack eyelids, and are unable to display expressions.

Spider-Man

There are a myriad of different films highlighting this comic book superhero and, they all have a variety of inaccuracies due to the subject being a fictional superhero. However, there is one scientific inaccuracy that is present in every Spider-Man film to date and has less to do with the fictionality of a human-spider hybrid and more to do with the basic physics of spiders altogether. In every spiderman film, and even in his famed comics, the friendly neighborhood superhero uses his unique abilities to scale walls and even move upside down on ceilings. While we do see this ability in spiders, it is managed in a very particular way. Spiders, as well as a variety of other creatures, have something called “adhesive padding.” Contrary to what its name suggests, it is not a pad, but rather a collection of very tiny bristles and hairs clustered on the ends of the limbs. These bristles act as little individual footholds, allowing spiders to traverse a variety of seemingly smooth surfaces utilizing the miniscule cracks, notches, and bumps that are on the surface. For spiders, less than one percent of their bodies are covered in these adhesive paddings, but their mass and weight allow for this small percentage to support their bodies. In contrast, the larger a being is, a far greater proportion of their surface area would need to be covered in these paddings in order to support their mass. So, according to physics, roughly 80% of the average human body would need the padding in order to successfully adhere oneself onto a surface. But, based on what that would look like as opposed to what we see in the Spider-Man films, we can truly respect the fictional choice the writers made.

Citations

Arachnophobia: Trivia (no date) IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099052/trivia (Accessed: February 22, 2021). Everything Scientifically WRONG With Spider-Man: Homecoming! (2017) Youtube. SciQ. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz2zld0ZN98 (Accessed: 2021). McCarthy, E. (2015) 18 Creepy Facts about Arachnophobia, Mental Floss. Available at: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/66197/18-creepy-facts-about-arachnophobia (Accessed: February 24, 2021). Why Aren’t There Giant Insects? (2012) SciShow. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=179FuGuk1qE&list=PLB3FCEEAC84884760&index=50 (Accessed: May 2020).