Black Widow — Pheromones Can’t Be Used For Mind Control (Because We Don’t Even Know if They Exist)
Obviously we don’t enjoy the Marvel Cinematic Universe for its abject realism; it has purple aliens, flying nanotechnology armor, and multiple scenes in Endgame in which not a single Avenger makes fun of Hawkeye’s “divorced dad’s new Instagram account” look.
Still, one moment in the recent Black Widow was especially debunkable. In the big finale, Natasha Romanoff tries to kill the villainous General Dreykov — but she can’t do it. Even with a knife just inches from Dreykov, Black Widow can’t hurt him. It turns out that the guy who trained/abused her in the Red Room also programmed her with a “pheramonal lock” — meaning that she can’t do him harm while in smelling range, which is … pretty gross.
Not only is relying on your perspiration and farts a wildly impractical form of personal security, it’s basically impossible. Why? While we’ve often heard about human pheromones and how they get more people laid than a bear skin rug shaped like an Al Green record, but in reality “experts are divided about whether human pheromones even exist.”
In the past, people have marketed “love potions” purporting to utilize pheromones, but even then they “often use pig pheromones.” So, pretty much useless to everyone outside of the Muppet-verse. While chemical smells have been shown to influence the behavior of male moths, studies have illustrated that, with humans, smells can “only influence, not control.” So in reality, Dreykov’s scent-based brainwashing scheme would have just resulted in an immediate bullet to the head.
Tenet — Um, Backwards Fire Wouldn’t Turn to Ice
Christopher Nolan’s movies are famous for playing fast and loose with science — like how the end of The Dark Knight involves Batman turning every cell phone microphone in Gotham into a sophisticated network of sonar mapping when most of us have trouble even hearing the Domino’s guy on the other end of the same device. But Nolan’s recent blockbuster Tenet was very much about the physics of what it would be like to move backwards through time, like Doctor Strange or Florida. Once “inverted” people observe everything in reverse order, and thus are able to decipher all the Satanic messages on rock albums and Teletubbies episodes.