Vents MagaZine Music and Entertainment Magazine
Related Articles
Recently, a movie came out called Shot in the Arm, directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy and Executive Produced by Astrophysicist, author, and popular scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson. We wanted to learn more about how Shot in the Arm explores the anti-vaccine movement. Also, we learn what their favorite horror movies are!
[NOTE: This interview article is edited for the sake of grammar and general clarity.]Interview with ‘Shot in the Arm’ Director Scott Hamilton Kennedy and EP Neil deGrasse Tyson
VENTS: Alright, so my first question is what inspired you to create Shot in the Arm? And what was it like to have your focus shifted from the measles epidemic to the COVID-19 pandemic?
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: Excellent. So, yeah, what inspired me was a question of, if measles was almost declared eliminated in 2000, why are we seeing record-breaking measles outbreaks in 2019, a state of emergency in New York City, a State Emergency in Washington State, measles outbreaks all across Europe? And the question was answered when I contacted Dr. Paul Offit, and he said, ‘Well, it’s quite simple and heartbreaking that there are people out there spreading misinformation and disinformation….about vaccines, specifically, the MMR vaccine that caused these outbreaks.
It’s it’s convinced parents to be scared and stop vaccinating their children. I thought, well, that’s a heartbreaking, terrifying story. Let’s dig in on this and see where it goes. So I introduced myself to Dr. Fauci and he introduced me to Dr. Peter Hotez. And so I was following the public health line of it and…wonderful nurses, like, building the markets in the Orthodox Jewish community, but also wanted friendships of great people…[the] nurses in the trenches.
…But we wouldn’t have a story if we didn’t tell the other side of it, not the “other side of it “in the false equivalency way. The other side of it [is] the people who are fomenting this fear and disinformation. And for our film that was some of the icons in the anti-Vax movement; Andrew Wakefield, Del Bigtree, and now, Robert Kennedy Jr. So we thought we had a pretty interesting film, fascinating film… tragic film in in 2019. And then COVID happened. And it just got more interesting and more fascinating.
And we were forced to play the card of “what do we do from lockdown.” And we tried to turn that into lemonade and wanted to include my family just a little bit as a little bit of the like, all of us that are in this and the other people I was interviewing remotely getting snippets of their family. Blima [Marcus] was sick and her kid’s toys are strewn all over the place. And her being humble enough to share that or Karen Ernst trying to do a Zoom for her podcast and her internet’s breaking down because her son’s playing video games at the same time, [and] her yelling at him and saying “put your pants on…” just like these moments of what we all live through my daughter hitting, you know, whipped cream directly into her mouth. So that was that was part of the pivot but it was still the same… But the pivot, that was part of the pivot to this larger story that became a really a personal story.
Shot in the Arm and the Evolution of Vaccine Hesitancy
VENTS: So the film explores vaccine hesitancy. Could you share your thoughts on how this hesitancy has evolved over time? And what factors contribute to it in today’s society?
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: Oh, solid question. I’m going to do the difference between skeptical and cynical. So the beginning of the week, we can go way, way back in terms of vaccine hesitancy and distrust in science. But let’s start just with Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent study in 1998, that he tried to make a connection between the MMR vaccine, so he successfully scared people but there wasn’t a scientifically valid reason to point between the MMR vaccine and autism.
But it took nine years for the study to be retracted and really see what a fraud he was being hired by a law firm to use this “evidence” to then have the lawyers [file] lawsuits against vaccine makers. But in that time, the study traveled the world. This fraudulent study traveled the world and it scared lots and lots of families.
So a skeptical family that worried that “why is my child autistic?” — I have a nephew who is autistic and thankfully, my big sister never took any of the bait of disinformation around this. [Scott then references how Jenny McCarthy spread disinformation that has harmed the Autistic community]–
…That parent went from being skeptical and saying, “Oh, could this have caused harm to my child?” to becoming more cynical when they’re presented with the fact that it didn’t cause that harm [and they] continue to believe in it. That’s a much more cynical place. And now to jump all the way to where we are with disinformation, and two sides of this in 2020, let’s call it 2022-23, going into 2024. [It’s] become a poison of, “Don’t tell me what I want to believe isn’t true.”
The Political Evolution of the Anti-Vaccine Movement
VENTS: But [the anti-vaccine movement] is more of a political movement than it was in the past.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: By weights. It is political. And it’s also part it’s personal, that if your tribe is political, or your tribe is this political, or your tribe is, I believe vaccines caused my child to become autistic. It’s also a personal decision that you’re saying, I don’t want to listen to the overwhelming evidence.
I want to make a decision, I want to make my own decisions…as the sign in the back of the car that we see in the film, “Your health is not as important as my freedom,” which is just an awful way of looking at this situation. Freedom is important, and public health as well. Why can’t we have a more respectful, nuanced, and verifiable truth-based conversation around [the issue]?
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Wade, there’s an interesting evolution of this where the anti-vaccine movement started in Liberal centers. If you looked at the measles map, where the outbreaks were, they were in bastions of liberal thinking, where there was a distrust and medicines…more broadly in Big Pharma, and the anti-vaccine movement coming through COVID morphed into…[It’s] a new variant, a new variant of anti-vaccine thinking that manifested in the conservative community where people were saying, “You can’t — to Scott’s point with that bumper sticker or the scroll on the window– “It’s America and I’m free, and you can’t make me take a vaccine.” That’s a different anti-Vax argument from I’m worried this vaccine is going to make me sick or and so you had conservative right and liberal left people meeting on the same side of the fence, where previously they would…have otherwise had nothing in common.
VENTS: And I’m still waiting to get my magnetic powers like so many people were talking about.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: [Laughter] After the vaccine. Yes, yes.
VENTS: I could thwart the X-men then. [Shifting gears] Can you discuss the role of misinformation in driving vaccine hesitancy a little bit more? Or disinformation? I guess the two are separate things.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: Yeah. No, thank you for distinguishing because it is important to misinformation is someone spreading information that is false, but they might not be doing it on purpose. Disinformation is when somebody is spreading false information. And they’re doing it with intent. And sadly, this film is probably more about disinformation, than it is about misinformation, people that are spreading misinformation to cause harm and to benefit themselves and things like that…
Neil deGrasse Tyson: I disagree with Scott on that…
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: We can cut this [part] out, Wade….[Here Scott was merely kidding.]
Neil deGrasse Tyson: No, I believe that the anti-Vax leaders are so embedded, that psychologically they completely believe what they’re saying. And maybe I’m only saying that because I don’t want to believe the alternative. Because the alternative is they don’t believe what they’re saying. But that would make them just abject models of evil. And I don’t really want to think that about them.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: There’s nuance there, too. They’re too evil or selfish, self-serving, right?
Shot in the Arm and RFK, Jr.’s Tangled Web
VENTS: So one of the weird things I noticed in the movie is RFK Jr. often kind of walking back, you know, the idea that he’s anti-Vax, even though he has spent so much time giving anti-Vax talking points. What are your thoughts on that?
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: Well, I’ve got it. If you ever get to interview with him, Wade, he loves to say “I’m not anti-vax. I’m not anti-vaxxer. If they’re saying that they want to corner me or make me look crazy. I’m just for safe vaccines.” So the follow-up question to that way and I didn’t ask him in the film,…If you’re not anti-vax, tell us the vaccines you believe in. Yeah. And he goes like this [does “zero” hand sign impersonating RFK, Jr.]. So you’re anti-vax…I can’t believe how [so] few journalists have…tried to get him to really answer that question, because he’s…obviously an extremely skilled and manipulative communicator.
VENTS: So what are some of the most common misconceptions you’ve encountered during your research for the documentary?
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: Just around vaccines?
VENTS: Yeah. Or I suppose anything that really seems relevant.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: Great. So once we said we’ve talked about already, obviously, there’s a misconception by some that the MMR vaccine kit could cause your child to become autistic. And there’s absolutely no evidence of that. There’s been hundreds of studies to show that it isn’t true.
But I would say that the more shocking thing that has surprised me is how easy it is to get caught up in our own biases, tribally and onward. And how hard it is to check ourselves sometimes. And I say “us”, by all of us…[we] have to think about the need to check ourselves. So I think that’s been one of the most shocking and sad, but also necessary parts of this story.
Enlightening Moments from Shot in the Arm
VENTS: The film has both public officials, health officials being interviewed, and anti-vax activists. What were some of the most surprising or enlightening perspectives you encountered during those interviews?
Neil deGrasse Tyson: I’d like to slip in there that I was impressed. Just like I said, I’m a script consultant here. So my role was not to offer medical advice, but to offer advice on how to communicate the science methods and tools and principles to the audience, folded into the story arcs that Scott put in… So what I wouldn’t say I was surprised, I was delighted by the level of accessibility and compassion expressed by the medical professionals that Scott obtained for this film.
It would have been easy to have gotten doctors who said “These people are just idiots”…They could have gotten doctors like that. But this collection of doctors, and especially the nurses had such compassion for those who were duped…Should I say that surprised me? I guess it did. It surprised me how consistent that posture was. We’re having back and forth. And among the doctors and nurses.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: It’s easier. It’s easier to be consistent when you’re telling the truth. That’s what we see in Robert Kennedy, Jr. You see him, you see him saying, “Oh, my God, I keep telling myself that I didn’t lie in that situation”…But you can see him just like suffering from how hard it is to…you know, what’s, what’s the term?…oh, what a tangled web we weave if our intent is to deceive…
Is “Shot in the Arm” Part of a Zeitgeist?
VENTS: So as we still grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, how is the cultural zeitgeist around vaccines shifted? And what lessons can we learn from previous epidemics and vaccine campaigns?
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: Ooh, big questions.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Yeah, that’s a big question. Man.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: I would say I’m gonna go to the zeitgeist of it. We’re been very honored to see the film be seen as a Zeitgeist. Now, there’s some people that want to say, ‘Oh, it’s a COVID movie.’ On its surface, they see the trailer like what’s going to be a COVID movie. They read a little bit of that it’s been COVID.
And then it’s bigger than a than a COVID movie, that this is what people have been telling us by their response to it, that it’s a movie it is a movie about our site, guys. It’s a movie about the dangers of disinformation, selfishness, tribalism, to the foundations of our country, and even our planet that [could destroy] democracy, can destroy our social contract, and decency.
And [it has] a corrosive quality. But now let’s flip that and go to the upside of that, that there are more people that do trust in science that have the humility of the nurses that Neil is referencing that can check themselves and be humble enough to say I’m not perfect hurts. I’m doing the best that I can. And there’s I hope we’re living through a bump in our trust and respect for verifiable truth, the social contract and decency…
Neil deGrasse Tyson: A bump in the road. A bumpy road.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: Yeah, we’re gonna come to the other side of this. And that’s what I hope and my hope is based on that there are more people that are decent than they are that are awful.
Favorite Horror Movies?
VENTS: Well, I’ll throw a curveball your way once it’s Halloween coming up. Do you have any favorite horror movies?
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: …Neil will probably have more…One of my favorites has always been, as always, An American Werewolf in London…because it mixes the genres so beautifully, right? That it starts off as a knucklehead in the buddy movie, and then goes full horror and can go back and forth between those two so successfully that clearly — I’m gonna forget her name, the woman who did Cocaine Bear [Elizabeth Banks]…but clearly seem to be inspired by that getting that mix. I love films that succeed in mixing genres. Neil, your favorite?
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Well, I have two of them. I didn’t even see it in its entirety. But the thought of it never left in my mind. Was the title of it called Wolfen?
VENTS: Oh, probably. I’ve actually never seen that one.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: It was a lower-budget film, as so many of these are. I think I don’t remember where it took place…So Wolfen, it was about a species of intelligent wolves that ate homeless people to survive, but only if you were homeless, so no one would actually miss them. That was the state of the world at the time, and maybe even today. So and then the city council wanted to get rid of them because this is their menace. And one of the wolves, like, went into the city council.
And just that there was it was a very, it was surreal, because it was like you didn’t know what the wolves would do next. But at the end, you kind of sided with the wolves. They’re just trying to live like anybody else was trying to live. So I don’t know that it’s a horror movie genre. But just the idea that these were highly intelligent. I don’t mean intelligent in the way we speak of other species that are not human. They were more intelligent than humans. Okay. And so it was how did we interact with this species? That’s right.
But my number one scariest movie, which neither of you could possibly agree with, was Get Out. Oh, but the reason why you can’t agree with it…
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: It’s an excellent film…
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Because all I can say is everything portrayed in that film happened to me.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: Okay.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Okay. Yeah, I’ve had white people come up to me touch my muscles and say, “Gee, I wish I had muscles just like your muscles. But gee, I wish I could do that.”
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: Just like, “Oh, you’re so ripped, yeah, you’re so jacked.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson: And these are scenes played out. Yeah. In that film. ‘Oh, I see. You could run fast. I always wanted to run fast.’ And then all these black people are brought in, and their bodies are swapped out with their brains. And to me, that was completely horrifying.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: You’re pointing out the subtext of why it’s so horrifying. Yes. Brilliant, brilliant film.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Precisely.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: Well,…that is overlapping about what we like…he brilliantly mixed genres and mixed subtext. And they see social commentary with horror…Social commentary. Absolutely. Brilliant.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Yeah. Wolfen had tons of social commentary…
VENTS: I’ll have to watch that.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: I’m going to have to watch it again, too.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: [Directed to the interviewer] What is one of your favorites?
VENTS: Oh, I’ve always liked Nightmare on Elm Street 3….
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: How did you like the movie (referring to “Shot in the Arm”]?
VENTS: Well, of course, I liked it. It was good. I’m sure I’ll watch it again.
Scott Hamilton Kennedy: You know, it’s scary in its own way.
We’d like to thank Scott Hamilton Kennedy and Neil deGrasse Tyson for answering our questions. Obviously, feel free to check out Shot in the Arm!
