Astrology - According to TV, Movies and Radio
by Jessica Adams
Wherever you look in the world of entertainment, past and present, astrology is mocked or misrepresented (usually). Stoically, we remind ourselves of the guilty shows and their astro low blows…
Does astrology feature much in films? Or on television and radio? More than you might think. Beyond the usual suspects, such as Prof. Brian Cox (who called astrology “rubbish” in one of his BBC2 Wonders of the Universe astronomy shows and insists on calling us “astrologists”) and Prof. Richard Dawkins (who allegedly “debunked” astrology in his Enemies of Reason TV documentary) you can find it in the likes of The Simpsons and countless other entertainments. As Homer Simpson would say, in reply to both Cox and Dawkins, “DOH!”
It’s really worth paying attention to the way we are represented on the small and big screen; it’s a comment not only on the work we do, but also the ignorance and prejudice out there.
Please, don’t call me an astrologist
Beyond the misnomer of calling us “astrologists” (which must surely make scientists, “scienters”) – old school newspaper sub-editors being one of the worst culprits – we find scriptwriters, presenters and pundits alike making common errors when it comes to the world of the horoscope.
It’s so interesting that it was a children’s writer, Richard Carpenter, who seems to have delved more deeply into history than Dawkins, when it comes to the twelve signs of the zodiac.
I was lucky enough to meet Richard Carpenter as a child, thanks to my membership of The Puffin Club, publisher Kaye Webb’s wonderful vision of a global club for children who loved books.
He appeared in a puff of smoke (genuinely) at a Puffin
Club Exhibition in 1972, in Kensington. While the staff were
enthusiastically setting off smoke bombs in a cardboard cauldron
“for effect” he was signing books. He signed my copy of
Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac – and if you missed it, the
television series can still be viewed on YouTube. (For the most fun,
though, buy the boxset and binge-watch with Catweazle’s
favourite food and drink – crisps and pop).
Carpenter gave Catweazle brilliant dialogue. The catchphrase “Nothing works” – pronounced in a broad Northern accent as “Noothing wurrrks” – should be familiar to all. Just like William Lilly.
In one episode of the series, Catweazle searches for the thirteenth sign of the zodiac. Years later, Cosmopolitan magazine in Britain was to find it, apparently, and land NASA in a global internet flap over its false claim that astrologers had missed out constellation Ophiuchus as the “thirteenth sign” of the zodiac. NASA didn’t seem to realise that Ophiuchus has no place in the standard zodiac and that constellations are not star signs. It hadn’t done its homework.
You have to wonder: if Dawkins had “debunked” astrology, why did so many people still care? Perhaps it’s just a matter of belief after all…
Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently and astrology
Douglas Adams, a Pisces Sun man like Brian Cox, had a
strange flirtation with both astrology and feng shui in his bestselling
books and their adaptations for radio and television.
Dirk Gently, the “holistic” detective, played brilliantly by Stephen Mangan in the television series of the same name, came across a most interesting mystery when he was confronted by a male client with a troubled marriage who insisted his horoscope was (gasp) “coming true…”.
One line stands out from this episode of Dirk Gently:
...His horoscope had been pretty misleading as well. It had mentioned an unusual amount of planetary activity in his sign and had urged him to differentiate between what he thought he wanted and what he actually needed, and suggested that he should tackle emotional or work problems with determination and complete honesty, but had inexplicably failed to mention that he would be dead before the day was out.
Adams tried to explain astrology away in his books, but as always with Sun-Pisces people, there is a suspicion that part of them believes in…belief. And that’s likely at the heart of astrology.
Television memes: Rachel from Friends
Jennifer Aniston (Sun Aquarius, who appropriately shot to fame in a television series all about a group of…friends) stars in the Friends’ sixth-season episode entitled ‘The One Where Ross Meets Elizabeth’s Dad’ and is found reading Chandler’s horoscope out loud, with a suitably cynical expression, from InStyle magazine.
This plot device can be found in many other series, stretching right back to The Liver Birds. Scriptwriter Carla Lane found plenty of inspiration in the episode, ‘Birds and Bottom Drawers’, as her recently liberated female flatmates shared a copy of the made-up magazine ‘Young & Lovely’ over toast and tea, in nylon dressing-gowns and nighties.
You can see the meme repeated in the TV comedy series
Absolutely Fabulous, that beautifully written and edited classic
from Jennifer Saunders (Sun Cancer) and Ruby Wax (Sun Aries). It takes a
solid Sun Taurus actress like Joanna Lumley, playing Patsy, to keep a
straight face as she tells her friend Edina “Eddie” Monsoon
(Saunders) that her sign is “Aqua Libra” as the two share a
newspaper horoscope in their London taxi. Or to quote directly from the
script:
Eddie: What's your star sign sweetie?
Patsy: Aqua libra.
Eddie: Uranus is in a good position this month.
Patsy: I'll be the judge of that!
Lumping it all in together
The cultural dim-wittery of lumping astrology in with ghosts,
crystals, aromatherapy, reiki, the Tarot, I-Ching, Ouija boards,
palm-reading and foot-reading is a common occurrence in television and
film. For example, take the kids’ series of the 1970s, The
Ghosts of Motley Hall, shown on Granada.
This lends itself to the popular 20th- and 21st-century idea that
astrology is just another part of the same problem for sensible people:
the stuff and nonsense, poppycock and balderdash, charlatanism
(Dawkins’ term for astrology) that horoscopes represent. Associated
with fairground attractions (talking heads in boxes with turbans that
spit out cardboard predictions), astrologers are some kind of atom inside
a larger whole of rubbish.
Many TV performers freely pour vitriol on astrology, even unscripted. One good example is the former Doctor Who Time Lord, David Tennant, an actor from Scotland with a verified birth time – and an aggressive Aries Sun, like Dawkins. Tennant really hates astrology as he revealed on BBC Radio 4’s Just A Minute celebrity panel game a few years back. The show requires each guest to speak on an assigned subject for one minute “without hesitation, repetition or deviation” or lose. Tennant was given the topic of “It’s in the stars” and this is what the supposed know-all said:
One of the tropes of modern life that infuriates me more than many others is the false science of astrology. ‘It’s in the stars!’ some caftan-wearing lunatic will proclaim in newspaper columns or premium-rate phone lines. ‘It’s in the stars!’ No, it’s not, it’s in your head. ‘I’m a Capricorn, I must like cheese!’ ‘Sagittarius – hats are my thing!’ The notion that the hour of your birth should predetermine who you are and what you may be prone to like is so fallacious as to make my skin crawl.
If, though, the ex-Time Lord really wants to lord it over time and cover his tracks, we’d better not mention that Doctor Who makes use of such exotic and acausal things as “telepathic circuits”, regeneration (reincarnation?), weeping angels and magic sonic screwdrivers (wands?) – and let’s pass over that annoying multiverse theory. That’s just showbiz!
Stephen Fry and astrology
The withering contempt Stephen Fry produces whenever any
of the floating “lump” (from Native Indian dreamcatchers to
horoscopes) is mentioned is almost a meme by itself. Early on in his
career (coupled with Hugh Laurie) he attacked the media astrologer
Jonathan Cainer for his career and beliefs.
AA president Roy Gillett recalls of this lively TV encounter: “It was in 1990 that I first met Jonathan Cainer. We were at the ITV studios, participating in the recording of a James Randi programme to “examine the validity of astrology”. Jonathan had agreed to do the chart of a ‘mystery guest’, who turned out to be Hugh Laurie, accompanied by Stephen Fry. I thought he did a pretty good job, although both men seemed determined to disagree!”
At another time, on BBC2’s panel game QI, host Fry turned in an episode which just confirmed his great dislike for all that we do as astrologers. In great detail. With recourse to a large vocabulary. Not that he has Sun in Virgo, or anything! He said to camera:
If you are watching QI now, and you believe in astrology, you are banned from watching in future. You are not allowed; you must turn it over now. Thank you.
Twitter suggests
People on Twitter who are interested in astrology, or practise it professionally, were quick to respond when I asked for nominations of worthwhile television series and films referencing astrology.
@TriciaWonders: “Dynasty Series Eight.”
@HemishaSky: “Grey’s Anatomy. Full House. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Six Feet Under. Angels Among Us. Everyone Loves Lucy.”
@serennu: “Wallander (Swedish version) – Episode Two, The Village Idiot (all about astrology, and accurate too).
@kir0210: “I don’t know if this is 100% accurate, but Netflix has a show ‘Explained’ and I believe that Susan Miller did an interview for it? Does that count?”
Susan Miller is a Sun Pisces. Perhaps that explains it.
Sun Gemini man Victor Olliver edits The Astrological
Journal, and I’m partisan, as is he, but how can we let his
tweet go? He posted:
Something I noticed in the Bette Davis/Joan Crawford movie ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?’ – at the start, Davis squawks ‘Gemini’ – after looking at her horoscope in the kitchen. The word was dubbed in after filming because her lips didn’t move. Gemini = psychos! I should know, as one.
Well, exactly.
Sceptical television scriptwriters and scienters
I’ve already mentioned sceptical television scriptwriters and presenters, and the virtually religious ‘scienters’. Thus, we turn to US sitcom The Big Bang Theory (they were not kind, as my Twitter friend Shanna McKay points out). Here’s a few lines of script from an episode:
Penny: Okay – I'm a Sagittarius, which probably tells
you way more than you need to know.
Sheldon: Yes – it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural
delusion that the Sun’s apparent position relative to arbitrarily
defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your
personality.
Penny: Participate-in-the-what?
Was that canned laughter I heard?
For every physics undergraduate, though, there is a Brooklyn resident who not only “gets it”, she is semi-professional.
Thus, Jessa (Jemima Kirke) in Lena Dunham’s HBO hit, Girls, waxes lyrical about her lovers having compatible rising signs - yes, rising signs - with her own. You can read more about this, and American television astrology culture, at the website www.astrolass.com run by Coeli Carr.
Funny when it’s not trying to be funny
Perhaps all 1970s’ television is unconsciously funny, but the
well-known and short-lived Zodiac TV series of 1974, suggested
by Stephanie Johnson (co-director of Esoteric Technologies Pty Ltd, the
creators and international publishers of the Solar Fire suite of
astrology software. Author of the Solar Fire and Solar Writer Astrology
Reports) is a very good example of astrology of a certain age, managing
to be funny when it’s actually supposed to be drama.
The most famous example of this phenomenon, twice removed, is in This Is Spinal Tap, a mockumentary movie about a fictional English heavy metal band. I am sure you have seen the film. One of the most hilarious scenes involves the lead singer’s girlfriend, the thick-as-a-plank Jeanine Pettibone, offering zodiac-themed illustrations to the band, as a possible backdrop for their next tour.
Stupid horoscopes for stupid people can make some rather dated dramas automatically amusing. In the hands of The Simpsons’ writers, in the episode ‘Stupid Horoscope’, Homer reads his astrology prediction (as a Taurus he is forecast to die, which is “unusually specific for a horoscope”, as his daughter drily notes) and then proceeds to survive a series of outlandish near-misses while barking “stupid horoscope” after each escape, including a car crash.
This bring us back to the question of belief. So, did you ever watch the episode of the BBC One cult quiz show, Would I Lie to You? (with host Rob Brydon), where arch-cynic David Mitchell pulls this card? “I once wrote horoscopes for a women’s magazine,” he told the disbelieving panel. “So well, though, that some of them actually believed.” He doesn’t. Canned laughter?
But that’s all part of the entertainment when you type “horoscope” or “astrology” into YouTube and watch decades of popular culture emerge. Rightly or wrongly, and perhaps more than ever, we’re still embedded in the imaginations of a vast audience.
Image sources:
Catweazle: Screenshot amazon.co.uk - Penguin edition 1974,
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Catweazle-Magic-Zodiac-Richard-Carpenter/dp/B002CNSP8C/ref=sr_1_10?keywords=catweazle&qid=1572511554&sr=8-10
Douglas Adams: Michael Hughes (CC BY-SA 2.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0))
Jennifer Saunders: Diggies99 (CC BY-SA 3.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0))
Stephen Fry: US Embassy London (Public domain)
Baby Jane: Trailer screenshot, from the film Category: Whatever
Happened to Baby Jane? (film) from Warner Home Video DVD. (Public
domain)
Zodiac series: Screenshot from
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zodiac-Complete-DVD-Anton-Rodgers/dp/B0035HQ99G/ref=sr_1_6?crid=3FABI5P4SPDFC&keywords=zodiac+dvd&qid=1572512349&sprefix=zodiac%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-6
Published by: The Astrological Journal, Nov/Dec 2019
Author:
Jessica
Adams is the astrologer for Family Circle USA and
Glamour magazine in Britain, and The Daily Telegraph in
Australia. Visit jessicaadams.com
© Jessica Adams 2019
