No, it's not Hedley. That'd be from Blazing Saddles, the excellent Mel Brooks film. No, this is more to do with the film Algiers. Heck, this has more to do with the films Argo and Ratatouille than it does Blazing Saddles. Follow along ...
Hedy Lamarr was a glamorous actress who appeared in the 1938 film Algiers, among others. She also happened to be an inventor who invented a code for radio signals to change frequencies. It worked very well and was the forerunner of the frequency-hopping technology we use today in secure digital communication systems. Here's the thing: she offered her invention to the U.S. Navy during World War II, and they turned her down. She was familiar with the manufacture of Nazi torpedoes, she had this invention which would have prevented the Nazis from jamming U.S. signals to their own weaponry, and the Navy turned her down.
Why?
Fast forward to a couple of months ago. I'm on Twitter (it happens), and someone makes a joke about Dennis Rodman. Obvious in the joke was this person's disdain for Dennis Rodman's intelligence, and the implication that there was no way Dennis Rodman could bring about any kind of resolution in the North Korea/U.S. standoff over nuclear weapons when none of other parties involved --learned, lifetime diplomats, etc. --could do it. I mean, this guy's called "The Worm", right?
Why?
We have these ideas in our heads that only certain types of people can do certain types of work, and that that work has to follow a particular script. Before dismissing people out of hand because how could a movie actress invent groundbreaking code, how could a flamboyant former basketball player bring peace, how could a film crew evacuate hostages, how could a rat create exceptional food, we need to ask ourselves this ...
Why not?
"Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere." Ratatouille
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