Time For Some Dental Stereotypes
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- Published: Wednesday, 08 February 2023 08:00
- Written by Peter Ingle
- Hits: 1117
Scarcity may have encouraged the public to look more kindly upon dentists, but the stereotypical evil dentist, reliable material for an easy shudder, is back on screen, and on stage.
After a year when even MP’s have been defending the profession, the entertainment industry has returned to its well-worn range of villainous dentists. And just as the profession encourages an early start in life when it comes to dental health, David Walliams is doing his bit for an early start at stereotypes and dental terror. Possibly aided by some inspiration from The Little Shop of Horrors, his children’s story The Demon Dentist, has been adapted for the stage and after serving during the pantomime season at Bloomsbury Theatre in London is now touring the UK
Walliams has carved out a very successful career writing for children and many parents will have been torn between the repetitive and uninspiring subject matter, and the prospect of their children willingly reading a book. Coming after titles including, Mr Stink, Gangsta Granny, and RatBurger, his 2013 Demon Dentist was the 6th in his long list of books for children.
The plot revolves around a boy with bad teeth, who encounters the towns’ new dentist, Miss Root. She has hair like a soft serve ice cream, and gives out sweets and acidic toothpaste to children. Soon children putting their first teeth under the pillow are finding that they have been exchanged for frogs, dead slugs, and other horrible items. To quote one young reviewer of the book, “He realises he is in big trouble when she straps him to the dentist’s chair and starts pulling out all his teeth.” The review concludes, “It certainly made me less keen on going to the dentist.”
For film lovers, Bollywood star Kartik Aaryan who has an established reputation in comic and romantic roles has given what has been described as the performance of his career in his latest role. In Freddy, having prepared by gaining 14kg in weight, as well as observing in a dental practice, he plays a socially awkward dentist who, without spoiling things for Disney+Hotstar subscribers, does many of the things that crazed movie dentists tend to do.
Meanwhile for connoisseurs of old school horror, the 1996 movie Dentist and its imaginatively named sequel of 1998, Dentist 2, are enjoying their first ever digital release and can be enjoyed by a new generation. For those curious about the plotting of these movies this description of the intricacies of the plot in Dentist 2 may be illuminating, “The film follows him as he escapes from a “high security mental hospital” and hides out in a small town under an assumed name. He soon gets a job as the city’s dentist and starts a new bloody rampage.”
Of course all of these are works of fiction and our lovely patients will not be influenced by them. And if they do make a questionable remark about dentists lacking social skills, being cruel and sadistic, unable to maintain adult relationships, and just generally odd, we can always smile and ask them, “Is it safe?”
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