Hollywood Demonstrates Why 80 Percent of Lightning Strike Victims Are Male

If you play baseball with The Almighty, you should probably be aware of one niggling little ground rule up front: it’s not three strikes and you’re out. It’s one strike. And that’s because the strikes are lightning. Cue a recent tweet from the National Weather Service, which shared the, ahem, striking claim that “more than 80 percent of lightning victims are male.”

Though no formal studies seem to exist explaining why this is the case, NPR’s Eyder Peralta was able to elicit the following theories from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spokeswoman, Susan Buchanan:

— First, men take more risks than women. “If you look at the percentage of men who take part in high risk sports, that might give you an idea,” says Buchanan.
— Men typically spend more time outside.
— Men, said Buchanan, don’t want to be seen as “wimps.” This theory, she said, was backed up by talking to the Boy Scouts, who said no one wants to be the one to say it’s time to go inside.
— More men have jobs that require them to work outside.

All very, uhh, illuminating, to be sure, but science must once again take a backseat to Hollywood in matters evidential, as the latter has been demonstrating for decades why men are more likely to be struck by lightning than their literal counter-parts. One of the earliest and most well-known examples of cinema’s enduring boys will be burnt meme occurs during the 1931 horror masterpiece:

In this scene, Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) is preparing to animate his still-lifeless creation by elevating it through an open skylight during a severe storm. One clap of thunder and a few bolts of lightning later, and Frankenstein is spurred to near orgasmic oration at the sight of his monster’s (Boris Karloff’s) twitching hand:

It may be alive, by I’m afraid Clive’s chances of winning Understated Performance of the Year were pretty much dead after the second act.

From mishaps Halloween to mishaps on the green, we fast forward nearly five decades to the breakout 1980 sports comedy that launched or cemented the big screen careers of Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, and Bill Murray. The (hole in) one, the only:

During one of the more random scenes in the movie (and that’s saying something), Bishop Fred Pickering (Henry Wilcoxon) is encouraged by his caddy, Carl Spackler (Bill Murray), to continue the best golf game of his life despite the steadily increasing rain. On the last hole of the round, the good Bishop misses his putt by a scant inch, causing him to raise his club in fury while shouting perhaps the least appreciated two-word interjection of all time:

Rat Farts! indeed, Your Excellency. And may you Rat Fart in Peace.

As luck (and lazy screenwriters) would have it, a mere five years would pass before the world of lady-free lightning larks was sizzling once again with not one but two 1985 sci-fi comedy classics, starting with:

Question: You’re stuck in 1955 with a busted time machine and no plutonium with which to power it. The only thing that can generate that kind of power is a bolt of lightning. Whaddaya do?

Answer: Duh. You remember the “Save the Clock Tower” flyer you received back in 1985, indicating that lightning will strike the courthouse clock tower the following Saturday at 10:04 pm and make humorously fated plans with Doc to direct said bodacious bolt into your flux capacitor at exactly that time!

To paraphrase one Shawn Carter: 1.21 JiggaWHATS!?!

Speaking of Jigga, our next two patrilineal protagonists would have undoubtedly felt an immediate kinship with his Hova-ness re: bitches not being among their four score and 19 problems. Yup, you guessed it. I’m about to hit you with some:

If you’re a male of a certain age, there’s a good chance you experienced your first conscious wet dream after watching this … erm, climactic scene in which Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) combine their mad ‘80s-era computer skillz with Mother Nature’s electric light orchestra to create a real-life barbie doll played by Kelly LeBrock.

What a LeBrock-tease, am I right?

Once your pants have resumed their normal orientation, feel free to ditch your leg warmers and smack on some slap bracelets as we jump another decade to 1995’s largely forgotten sci-fi drama:

In this movie’s … electrifying? dénouement [SPOILER ALERT! … as if you really give a crap about Powder, an emotionally devastated Powder rejoices in the arrival of a sudden thunderstorm — with unexpected consequences:

Welp, Mythbusters was right: powder is flammable.

You know what else is flammable? Old people! Cue:

If there’s one thing this movie’s good for, it’s teaching young screenwriters how to craft a poignant running gag. Observe:

While I don’t know if anyone could really survive being struck by lightning seven times, I do know that if this movie had starred Kelly LeBrock, they would have had to call it _The Curious Case of Benjamin _Unbuttoned! (The hits just keep on coming, don’t they folks?)

Finally, from the modern-day young-adult canon comes the 2010 fantasy-adventure film based on Rick Riordan’s novel of the same name:

Okay, full disclosure: I haven’t seen this movie, nor have I read the book. But cut me some ozone: it’s got the word “lightning” right in the title, there’s a ton of electric something-or-others flying around in the trailer, and according to Wikipedia, the entire plot hinges on Zeus’ lost lightning bolt, so somebody’s gotta get zapped at some point, right?

Though not depicted in the available teaser, Wes Anderson’s newest movie, Moonrise Kingdom (still in theaters), apparently features one of the kids in Edward Norton's character's charge fresh off a lightning strike at one point:

Maybe if Norton had stayed on as the Incredible Hulk, he could have actually done something to protect him. (Thor: God of Thunder FTW!)

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