Tam i z powrotem do gwiazd: sprzężenie zwrotne pseudonauki i popkultury. Przypadek Dänikena

Erich von Däniken’s ideas looked until recently to have been exploited and partly forgotten. Meanwhile, the last few years have brought several super-productions referring directly to his theories. In Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Chloé Zhao’s Eternals, Dänikenian ideas have returned with full force. These were used as practical foundations, allowing the imagination to develop. On the other hand, the movies received an ambivalent reception from critics and audiences. The feedback loop between pseudoscience and pop culture seems typical of our times. While it is difficult to imagine contemporary pop culture without pseudoscientific and conspiracy narratives, it is also worth considering how much paranoid thinking and the popularity of conspiracy theories owe to their constant presence in pop culture.